bierkergaard

Cheetos Heart

2012-02-17T18:02:00.000-05:00

The day before Valentines Day I was at the Hallmark store along with all the other poor sucker men looking through the cards. Valentines Day is a damned if you don't holiday for sure. Advice to the newly married or men in a relationship perhaps leading to marriage. Don't believe the woman when she says that Valentines Day is no big deal. It's a trap to see if you can have the wisdom to do the right thing despite the words. You had better learn that lesson sooner or later, and the sooner the better. Applicable to much more than Valentines.

My wife is not a particularly sentimental person and neither am I. So, 99% of the cards were not suitable. We love each other and all but sugary verse, especially with the awful rhymes, off-limits. I finally wound up buying a card in the snarky section with script that stated that I loved her more than I loved bacon. And, I love bacon. Dangerous to even equate a person to a thing, even if it is bacon.

Some women want roses, chocolates, a fancy dinner, diamonds. Not my wife. She absolutely cherishes Cheetos. Those snack baubles. She really doesn't eat them often...usually on road trips. So, I joked the day before Valentines that I was going to buy her Cheetos for Valentines and she did not put up much a resistance. She didn't take my query seriously, so the stage was set. Operation Cheetos was live.

It is practically a sacred ceremony watching her eat Cheetos...she is so deliberate and intentional, savoring each crunch. I went to the snack armory Turkey Hill Convenience Store and purchased a three dollars and change bag of Cheetos. I saw men lugging around flowers, chocolate, and all those common gifts, I knew that this orange bag would capture her heart. To personalize my lovely gift, I drew a heart on the bag itself (see my fine photo). She was overjoyed with my gift, noting that she was "happy as a clam"..not in sand probably, but that cheese dust.

I have always found gifts to be much more than mere dollars spent. We equate cost with value and it is ironic that a bag of Cheetos at three bucks, because of what it means to my wife, was better than gold.

The Devil of Addiction

2012-02-15T19:57:00.001-05:00

'There are demons she fought privately and publicly for many years... She's been on a downward spiral for a long time and when you have those people around you that enable the behaviour ... she couldn't shake those demons.'

That is the quote of a music insider about the life and death of Whitney Houston...I am pretty sure that the intention in the use of the word "demons" is generic with not the belief in the actual supernatural origin of demons tormenting her.

A couple of years ago I was in conversation with a parent about a situation regarding another person and he used "demons" in the same way, but I had to ask to make sure. For I believe that demons are fallen angels and the Bible is quite clear that they exist and are a malevolent presence in the world. I am no Medievalist. The world thinks anyone who actually believe in the demonic to be backwards and backwoods. So be it.

The battle between good and evil is cosmic in scope. Satan fell from heaven, and from the way Scripture tells it, he and his demonic minions are on earth, actively doing destruction. That is what they do. Hell is just home base. Although the conflict between God and Satan is across the universe, it is also is raging in the hearts of every person alive. Jesus said about the Devil in John 8:44

“You are from your father The Devil, and the desire of your father you are willing to do; from the beginning he has been murdering men and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him; whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from what is his, because he is of falsehood and is also its father.”

The primary lie Satan proffers is his non-existence. Or if that doesn't work, he tries to deceive humanity that he is actually a benevolent being, just trying to let men have fun in the face of a killjoy God. When the supernatural origin of addictions--what the Bible calls the sin nature, is discounted--it leaves people in a very unfair fight against evil that they are just not equipped for. And very much alone, over-matched. While God is Satan's superior, Satan in terms of power over unregenerate human nature is dominant.

I don't know what Whitney Houston believed about such things in the end. There are some tormented souls who know the Truth but who struggle greatly. All of us Christians live in Romans 7 somewhere-- and our consciences cry out against our depravity. We crawl sometimes to get to Romans 8:1 as a man in the desert to a wadi. There is ultimate victory in the Christian walk, but there are also battles lost.

None of us can shake those demons. They are like a snake fastened by its fangs to the human heart. The Cross crashes into the addiction cycle and says "Go no further. Release your captives evil one." But let us not pretty up what it cost Christ to intervene. His very life. When our addictions looks lovely let us remember of what awful consequence they were to Christ. Only then do they lose their allure. We rise with Christ with that realization. For it is Truth.

Be My Valentine

2012-02-14T17:24:00.001-05:00

Walking out of school today, I saw one of these Valentine heart-shaped balloons, floating alone in the sky.

By the time I got my iPhone out, zoomed, and focused, the balloon was no longer able to be seen in the photo. Was it cast loose in a cool dismissal of unreciprocated love? An illustration of the wayward winds of human affection? Or, the string lost grip of by trying to text too?

In fourth grade, I saw the distribution of Valentine cards in accordance to the popularity and prettiness of the girls. The cutest girl received the best cards--I still remember her name--Marissa, while the lower status and physically unattractive girls received the leftovers, and their names are long forgotten. Childhood can be sad...

I read this in Calvin's devotional this morning based on Psalm 27:1. It just seemed appropriate for Valentines Day. This is beyond the vagaries of human affection.

God, therefore, kindly allures us to himself....that it may ravish our hearts with admiration of himself.

Authority Salt

2012-02-12T13:58:00.000-05:00

Last evening, we had plans for dinner down at a Mexican fine dining establishment in Wayne, Pa. The event had been planned for a couple of months. Lina and I were having dinner with a man who mentored me as a young man. In fact, he still does, although I ain't so young anymore (Springsteen). He is fairly well known in Libertarian and Conservative circles. I will leave it at that. Our respective schedules tend to require a degree of planning.

My mentor earlier in the day wrote an email advising that we should cancel and reschedule because inclement weather was in the forecast with that deadly three letter word: ICE. Snow does not really rattle me. Ice on the other hand makes me get angina. Yet, I decided to take our chances. Lina and I were the ones driving and traveling down the Pa. Turnpike, so ultimately it was our call. I just didn't want to delay our dinner. Delays can turn into de facto denials. Don't presume upon tomorrow type of thing.

I did presume that Penn-DOTT would be on top of the conditions...that can be a scary presumption in itself.

We had an absolutely divine dinner. Although the food and drink were grande, it was the friendship that ultimately was the soul food. I heartily recommend this place Xilantro. Best. Enchiladas. Ever. The Guac, freshly made, was excellente. On the way back, the storm got a second wind, and a cold one at that. Soon after getting onto the Turnpike at King of Prussia to head home, we got stuck behind two Penn-DOT salt trucks traveling in tandem, side-by-side. It was like being blocked for, as a running back is, with two burly offensive lineman. Cars could not pass the trucks in the two lanes, so it looked like a long journey home.

In the back of my head, I thought, "Hmmm, maybe Penn-DOT knows something about the roads that I do not." I confess I did try a maneuver to pass the trucks by pulling into a Service Plaza lane, past the West Chester exit, and floored it. Another car in front of us got the same idea and almost spun out. The lane was sheer ice. Appropriately humbled and warned, I settled down to a slow parade up the Turnpike. 30 mph for the next 10 or so miles until the Morgantown exit, where the salt trucks pulled into their safe haven.

The salting reminded me of authority. As a driver, I didn't have the right to establish how I was going to drive last night. There was a lot of risk in the road and Penn-DOT did its job to minimize risk for all involved. I was chastened by my brief flirting at skirting the law by my antinomianism on ice. God appoints governmental authority to bear the sword, as well as the salt and the plow. Good government is as salt, creating a safer society for all.

G.O.A.L.

2012-02-10T17:42:00.000-05:00

As an educator, by far the most gratifying reward for the work is for a former student coming back and expressing thanks and appreciation for the role I played in their life. Don't get me wrong...I like getting a check every two weeks, however the best deposit and return on investment is the positive difference we have made in eternal accounts. Today was one of these days.

My former student is a truck driver. I don't try to steer everyone of my students to college. It is not where some of my students should be going. Instead, they are better advised to use the gifts that they have to drive the road they are equipped for. I know that I should not by driving trucks for a living based on my lack of depth perception. I prefer being in the seat of my desk. I would suck driving a tractor trailer, and dangerous at that.

All labor and work has value, if done with excellence. My former student mentioned a trucking maxim acronym. It is called: Get Out And Look (G.O.A.L.). This advice pertains to when a truck driver is in a tight spot and rather than assume that the steering of the truck is on track from the vantage point of the cab, get out of the truck and look at it from another angle and get the big picture. That informs the seat and the steering.

As Christians, it is exceedingly useful to get out of the cab of the pews and at least step back and try to examine the needs of people in our community and then figure out how we can steer into these issues with an informed biblical perspective. I know this sounds so obvious yet we seem to miss the need=service linkage. We are more often driving around without trailers, meeting in cabs, and going around in circles. No pull in the community, literally.

We cannot presume we know how God might use us to meet needs. But, we have to first find out what they are in real time and space. Evangelism is ultimately not a Billy Graham-like preaching crusade, instead it is typically more 1-1 interaction. Good works drives people to consider Jesus...the message is driven home by service.

Sexy Church?

2012-02-09T21:23:00.000-05:00

This is a new steel church built in the 'burbs. One designer called it "sexy." Man, I don't know what I think about this. I like cool architecture...too many churches look like McMansions that would blow down with a huff and a puff. But, I want to register a deeper complaint. The Church in the Bible is not a place; it is a people. Whenever we start thinking physical structures, we are already playing into the world system. Jesus said that "man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from God." Bread could be a substitute for building. Man does not live by the building alone. We fool ourselves when we think a building, music, or anything else but good lives is what is required for evangelization and discipleship to happen. How many churches (places) are stuck in a debt rut because they thought the place was the key to reaching the community only to find that you could build it and they still might not come. How about going to them?

Healing the Lot

2012-02-07T20:19:00.002-05:00

As I cleared the parking lot on Sunday in the A.M. of cigarette butts, I contemplated trash. Like who throws it, who picks it up. What the role of the Church should be in picking up the trash in society. And it is not just physical trash, but ideological trash. Worldviews that should best be discarded, and the wreckage that ensues because of false premises. I always get frustrated and even angry when mere men criticize the faith because of the trash pile of thought and action they sit on like a throne. Acting the king when quite the beggar. Throwing garbage.

The Parking Lot Movie/documentary is a thoughtful piece of work. Although the topic is not trash, it is about the dynamics of parking lots as a sociological phenomenon. Parking lots are a lot more complex than I gave them credit for...class warfare, labor, privilege, existential boredom, the mobile society. How many layers are in the lot like an onion?

While I was picking up the trash on Sunday, there was a church close by. Parishioners were heading in and out and several of them were using the parking lot I was cleaning. I know I looked the vagrant. I wondered what they though of me. I looked purposeful but why? Who picks up trash on Sundays in a parking lot? A wacko, that is who.

I justified my work in the lot on the Sabbath because in a sense I was healing the lot. Restoring order and cleanliness. I also treated finding the cigarette butts like finding Easter Eggs. If you want to make something less onerous, make a game out of it.

Play is another deep topic...how important it is that our work contain a play element. I heard a lecture one time on play and walked in with a somewhat dismissive attitude about the supposed profundity of play by a mentor of a friend of mine (who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania under the lecturer's tutelage). I walked out humbled. I got spanked intellectually by a man who knew far more about what makes life animated than I did.

That is another question the Church should be asking...can we not have fun and play while serving? Why is helping others perceived as such a serious endeavor...maybe even a downer? We know we need to do it but were are not exactly joyful about it. Just some thoughts.

Picking Up The Trash

2012-02-06T20:52:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I spent my Sunday morning--usually spent in church--picking up trash at a local Christian adoption agency's parking lot in the city of Lancaster. The church I have been attending has a monthly community service event in lieu of an actual church service. The parking lot wasn't quite as disgusting and dingy as the photo above. Mostly cigarette butts. No dead bodies, syringes, or used condoms. I did find an old AAA battery. That was about the most noteworthy item.

I typically avoid working on the Sabbath. I labor diligently on the other six days and need a day to recharge so I don't wind up drained like that battery. When I read the Bible cover to cover twice a few years back, I grasped the importance of the Sabbath rest. There was even a dude in the Old Testament who was stoned for picking up sticks on the Sabbath.

Taking Sundays completely off saved my sanity while working and going to school for my Ph.D. For ten years, Sundays were an oasis of rest in a parched and weary work week. Thus, it was with trepidation that I embraced this working on Sunday deal. However, I refused to paint a room inside the building and decided instead to enjoy the outdoors alone. Me and the cigarette butts.

The Perils of Perfectionism

2012-02-05T07:36:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I wrote about the difficulties of being a Demi-Goddess--defining our self-image by our actual physical image. As told in the unraveling story of Demi Moore's descent. May she rise anew and ascend with an all-around image more spiritually-grounded. God's image in us, marred by the Fall, still reflects the perfection of God. We all have Eden in our collective consciousness. An ideal world gone wrong through bad choices. It is now in our genes.

But, the perfection that was possible, and the perfection of God, haunts us like a specter. The shadow self knows that there is a sun shining, exposing our sin, illuminating our flaws. A zit on the forehead of our souls. Do we pick at it, avoid thinking about it? Trapped.

Perfectionism is an outcome of the Fall. We strive to be perfect, thinking anything less is a failure. Now, this just applies to higher achievers who actually want to get "A's" in life. There are far too many slackers and sluggards who revel in their mediocrity. "D" lifers, dumb and dumber. So, if you are that type, this discussion does not pertain to you. Yet. For to care has a hard cost.

But those who do struggle with perfectionism, tend to think like this: "Total success or total failure." The middle ground obliterated by all or nothing thinking. Rock star or ruin. This attribute is actually an attempt to be like God in the wrong way, much like Satan's seductive suggestion to Eve in the Garden to be like God. We are not God, never were and never will be. Even without the Fall, we were still finite. With the Fall, we are both fallen and deeply flawed.

Salvation and sanctification have an "already but not yet" quality. This "already not yet" term is typically applied to Eschatology. Jesus has come, is reigning, but the battle with the flesh and devil and the world is still in progress. That is also played out in our individual lives. We are not what we were but neither are we what we will be. God shall complete His work in us. Strive to be a better soul for that is the road to becoming the best that God made you to be. Don't permit perfectionism to obstruct your progress.

The Difficulties of Being a Demi-Goddess

2012-02-04T06:53:00.000-05:00

We get a complimentary copy of People magazine weekly. It is a holdover from my wife's former position as a marketer. People figured out the simple principle of "you advertise with us, we send you a free mag." Kind of reinforces the relationship. We used to get the New Yorker too. But, they discontinued the free issues once Lina switched into a new position. The New Yorker was terribly fascinating for a wordsmith like me, but it became the equivalent of reading War and Peace sans the Russian names weekly. Ponderous. The New Yorker's issues used to pile up like the dishes, and then I would have to spend all day reading them. I couldn't just toss them. I now stay away from the New Yorker like an addicted gambler does to the slots. I can't go back. So, I am happy that the free subscription ended. Still get some New Yorker cartoons on Facebook.

People is celebrity gossip, fashionista, Pop mart, human inspiration stories, and trashiness. Oh, yeah, and ads. An odd mirror to the American psyche. You know you have made it when the paparazzi snaps a picture of you walking out of Starbucks with a latte. Pretty ridiculous. Now, that is breaking news. Star drinks coffee with milk! The most recent issue profiled Demi Moore's recent meltdown. How awful it must be to have your demons take center stage and start dancing for the world to see. The dark side of celebrity. Demi Moore apparently is distraught over her inevitable loss of youth. Every wrinkle is a reminder that she is no longer 17. We live in a youth-obsessed culture. Because we are not mindful of eternal matters, we all want to be young again and forever.

As a Christian, it is easy for me to poke holes in the world's tapestry. What is so beautiful and alluring today will be in the garage sale bin of tomorrow. Demi is a lost soul and I need to have a compassionate heart for her, she who is looking for hope in all the wrong places--her physical attributes. When she looks in the mirror, she sees herself, broken and bearing the heavy idol of image.

The purpose of a created being is to reflect the glory of the Creator. Our physical attributes can do this in a minor way but what the Bible is really getting at is for us to reflect the moral purity of God. To love. May Demi realize that she is indeed a god but one who derives meaning from the Lord and not the capricious affections of humanity perusing and then tossing away a People magazine.

John 10:34

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods?

Welcome to the Nuthouse

2012-02-02T00:03:00.000-05:00

At one point in the recent past, we has cashews, pistachios, almonds, walnuts, and peanuts in the house. OK, smarty pants out there. I know, peanuts are technically a legume. Plus, we had Costco trail mix, which was a combination of several of the aforementioned nuts and M & Ms. I have grasped something about trail mixes: They are intentionally a high calorie snack, for the trail. Not the couch, where if one is sedentary, all the snack does is add to the gut. Hence the problem with the nuts in general. Too much, too many. There is a reason it is not called Couch Mix.

BTW, if you would like to order this lovely tray for a coming holiday event like Presidents Day, click the link. Given the state of politics, nuts would be appropriate. I thought I could handle my nuts, portion them out in a reasonable quantity, and enjoy in moderation. But, that turned out to be self-deception. I placed the listing of the nuts at the start of the blog in the order of most liked to least. I find cashews absolutely addictive, followed closely by pistachios. At least pistachios make you work some by cracking the shell. I have learned some pistachios shells just are not worth trying to crack, which has an application conceptually to some things in life in general.

Peanuts become the nut snack if everything has run down or I am conscious of how much my nuts are costing me. Peanut purgatory. I am moderate with walnuts for some reason, even though I like them more than peanuts. An anomaly. And, I really don't care for pecans. At all. Those and Brazil Nuts, which look like giant Amazonian bugs with the head and feet knocked off.

I once ran into a devout Catholic guy down on Temple University's campus (How devout? He wore an icon of the Mother Mary on his shirt). I got to know him a bit. Me, the former Catholic; He: Trying to bring me back into the flock. He found me to be a tough nut for sure, an educated and theologically knowledgeable evangelical (a Pistachio Protestant?) who does not have a particular fondness for Catholic tradition transubstantiated into dogma without biblical merit. He said he thought that the forbidden fruit might have been a nut. At least he was not asserting that it had to be a nut which would not be justified by the Hebrew word used in Genesis. Ultimately, I disagreed with him about this relatively minor difference and a whole host of other more weighty issues.

I do find nuts tempting. They are not sinful in and of themselves. But, eating them can become sin if I lose self-control and become a hog, and eat without discipline and discretion. God's blessing become burdens if we do not appreciate them properly and with proper measure.

Racism Reversal

2012-01-31T01:34:00.003-05:00

York city Pastor Aaron Anderson posted this article on Facebook. Essentially, the dude above had the audacity to loudly confront a black mom on the trolley in Philly about her beating her kids in public. She, in thanks, spat in his face. There is a very good chance, no certainty, that the woman was also beat as a child. She has learned that when you are a kid, adults have the authority to beat you for infractions both great and small. Now, it is what she knows and what she does with her own.

It sounds like all of the other passengers on the trolley either looked the other way or tried to stare the woman down into compliance but it did not have its intended effect. She beat on. It also seems to be the case that he was the only white passenger. Sure, he could have intervened perhaps in a way that did not diss' the mom in public. In city culture, stepping into a situation not your own and weighing in can create a perspective of shame and anger. But, situations like this are all our own, the human family is inevitably connected. We have a duty to speak or we will answer to God for our silence. Defending the helpless is a biblical imperative and the four year old boy today is the gang-banger of tomorrow who see his life and others as cheap. The baby girl now is the pregnant thirteen year old a decade or so later.

We can try and quantify the costs of such abuse but they cascade out of individual lives into the stream of the community, the river of the city, and the ocean of humanity. So, I ask the question, is it more racist to not say something? To expect this black mom to treat her children abusively because, "Hey, she is black, what do you expect?" I work with the rural poor, almost all of whom are white, and incidents like these are not unusual in the community I work in. So, it is not only a black vs white thing, but there are excuses we all make for behavior for those we deem unable intrinsically to act better, to be better. The race card of low expectations is particularly, but not exclusively, lethal.

I don't play the game that there are different standards for different people. Children in the trailer parks are just as much a treasure as the beloved child of an upper middle class family. To consign the poor to a different category, like the Indian caste system, creates a circle of cultural karma that cannot be broken. Our society will be a lot better if we stop assigning destiny by demography.

Rowing and Sowing

2012-01-29T05:55:00.000-05:00

My friend Tom Becker invited me last night to speak about college transition and emerging adulthood at the Row House lecture series/event. I spent a good deal of the day fretting about how the talk would go. I decided to chill and go with it. I drew out a quick sketch of some major themes and trusted that God would make it all work. Preparation is important in making a presentation, yet it is also wise to leave some room for the Spirit to move. Too much structure can be stifling. I also fight the tendency to say too much. I am learning to be more economical with words. To say less but mean more. I attempt to apply this principle to these blog entries, although my most read blogs of all times are not pop songs but long albums where I riffed on and on. Ranted even.

The Row House, where nothing is not sacred, takes on an eclectic range of topics. Most of the speakers are from the local area who have developed a niche interest in a topic and the speaker gives a talk on it with a faith perspective. Information and inspiration. Geared to both skeptics outside of the church and those inside the walls who want to go beyond the walls of the church. My talk centered on the critical idea of calling.

The talk appear to have gone well. We had a nice turn-out of young emerging adults to older adults with kids who are approaching the transition. Afterwards, Tom and I went out for a beer and we chatted about all of the people he knew at the drinking establishment who were former church kids who he has gotten to know in his social meanderings in the city who have left the faith. The bar was packed, Saturday night parishioners in the church of the club scene. It can be frustrating to know that what many emerging adults are looking for in the party scene is connection, a place to meet others, have some fun, and enjoy a night on the town. Yet, many leave the night empty as the glass they drank from, still thirsty, in a dessert of spiritual dehydration and hunger, crawling next Saturday to another mirage of meaning.

For many, the Church feels more like a fridge where the goal is to keep everyone on the shelf, chilly, and in good order. Why cannot the Church be more like an oven, with the aroma of grace spilling out into the streets drawing the hungry in? Becker is like a baker trying to do this and I have to applaud his vocation.

T.S. Eliot in his poem "Choruses from the Rock" wrote:

The lot of man is ceaseless labor,

Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,

Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.

I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know

That it is hard to be really useful, resigning

The things that men count for happiness, seeking

The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting

With equal face those that bring ignominy,

The applause of all or the love of none.

All men are ready to invest their money

But most expect dividends.

I say to you: Make perfect your will.

I say: take no thought of the harvest,

But only of proper sowing.

The world turns and the world changes,

But one thing does not change.

In all of my years, one thing does not change,

However you disguise it, this thing does not change:

The perpetual struggle of Good and Evil.

Forgetful, you neglect your shrines and churches;

The men you are in these times deride

What has been done of good, you find explanations

To satisfy the rational and enlightened mind.

Second, you neglect and belittle the desert.

The desert is not remote in southern tropics

The desert is not only around the corner,

The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,

The desert is in the heart of your brother.

The good man is the builder, if he build what is good.

I will show you the things that are not being done,

And some of the things that were long ago done,

That you may take heart, Make perfect your will.

Let me show you the work of the humble. Listen.

Keep rowing Tom...

Think I Am Going to Lose My Mind

2012-01-28T06:14:00.001-05:00

I've got a bad taste in my mouth. Could it be cause I trusted myself?

I got a bad feeling in my bones. Could it be cause I went it alone?

I think I'm gonna lose my mind. I think I'm gonna lose it.

Is there is a light bulb between my ears. Could it be cause I had an idea?

It haunts me in my sleep, and it comes back when I'm awake.

I think I'm gonna lose my mind. I think I'm gonna lose it.

I've got a bad taste in my mouth, a taste that I just can't get out.

I've got a bad feeling in my bones. Could it be cause I went it alone?

I think I'm gonna lose my mind. I think I'm gonna lose it.

I have always appreciated Christian bands that strip the candy coated sugary goop off of Contemporary Christian Music. I am all for praise music, however when evangelical artists act as if they are on a sugar high, and the world is crashing, it can come across as superficial and even dishonest. How about some reality, heart-break, pain, and weeping? If all is going groovy for me in my little world, but the mass of humanity is lost, should this not inform our sensibilities? And, we need to doubly make sure that our projection of beaming optimism is not a charade of fiction, while our own souls break. Cheerleaders for Christ. Some of the saddest kids I have known in schools are cheerleaders. Their sunniness on stage can be a cloak for deep and clouded pain when the game is over.

This song from Starflyer 59 "Think I Am Going to Lose My Mind" strikes me like lightening. It is haunting and even holy, because anything that diminishes faith in myself--my cognitive capacity--is a gift. We need to be humble in our admission that what God is doing in our world is beyond our comprehension sometimes. John the Baptist said that he was to decrease and Christ was to increase in their respective ministries. He lost his head but his soul was saved. May we utter that decrease/increase. Less of me, more of Christ. Truly a changing of the guard.

Political Seance

2012-01-26T00:17:00.001-05:00

I watched and listened to the State of the Union address last night and the Republican rebuttal. Republicans are quite good at rebuttals. Good critics of others, not so towards themselves. In fact, it seems that the drive of politics these days is to pin the troubles on the other Party as a diversionary tactic, not unlike magicians with the "sleight of hand" stuff. Distract us from your derelictions by focusing on the sins of others. Democrats do the same.

Both parties pander to the people, telling us lies about ourselves, our intrinsic goodness, "Yay America" type of tripe. There is much admirable about the American character and much that is not so exemplary. When politicians act as if ordinary people have not created at least some of the mess they wallow in--instead it is the fault of the "other"--I get suspicious that this ploy is a vote getting strategy. It seems to me to be a tactical trade of "I won't call you on your own guilt and in exchange for this exoneration, vote for me." The victim vote to victory.

The housing fiasco is case in point. Obama was strongly in the corner of those who bought houses who could not afford them, that they were victimized by unscrupulous lenders as a child would be by a pervert offering candy. Republicans, "the party of responsibility," tend to blame the individual for not exercising the common sense virtue of don't bite off more than you can chew of that McMansion--while giving the banks and Wall Streeters the blank check that they cravenly stuffed their own piggy banks with.

Is it not possible in politics to admit publicly that both parties are guilty? Or, do we have to polarize to one extreme or the other, leaving one party guilty and the other free. Is it really that simple? Jesus said a "House divided cannot stand" and Lincoln used this is his Civil War speeches. We are in a new Civil War where neither side has the integrity to own up for its own sins because to do so might mean that your admission of guilt could be perceived by the other side as validation that they are right and not equally wrong. Political hocus-pocus, make my guilt disappear with a wave of the wand. Statecraft as witchcraft.

God help us...

Endless Fire

2012-01-22T05:51:00.000-05:00

Several years ago, I bought a cord of wood. I really had no idea how much a cord of would was volume- wise until I saw the dude dump the pile in my backyard and then had to move the pile three times piece-by-stinking piece for different reasons (aesthetic, structural). The wood has found its permanent home in the shed out back and seems to be quite content. I am keeping an eye out for termite squatters.

Since we received our first substantial snow of the season yesterday, the snow in October does not count because it was a freak out-of-season anomaly, I fired up the fireplace. I was in a festive mood having finished the most recent draft of my book. I poured a few shots of Jack Daniels in a glass with ice and set about to start a fire. Soon, I would be basking in warmth from both the flame and Jack. Following pilfered knowledge from the Boy Scout manual about how to start a fire, visions of relaxing on the couch permeated my mind.

I had forgotten that our old school brick fireplace eats wood like a ravenous beast. It is insatiable, like those tourists who pour into local Lancaster food establishment buffets. Lina was making stew on the stove and I was feeding the fire. Periodically, we would have to stop the final movie in the Harry Potter series for her to stir the pot and for me to throw more wood into the abyss. I must have burned 40 or so logs last night. All that is left are ashes.

All this work made me reflect on the Old Testament sacrificial system. For centuries, the priest in the Temple, offered up burnt offerings. The fires were daily because sin was daily. The Lord created the provision for sin while all the time declaring that He desired obedience and not sacrifice. Sin always requires a costly sacrifice. So the fires burned, the cycle of sin and sacrifice--a true catch 22. When Jesus offered Himself up on the Cross, the fires of the sacrificial substitutionary system for sin was finally quenched. God's own holiness became the offering. It was the only way for the earthly altar to cool because Christ--and the merit of He the the mediator's offering--still burns in Heaven, once and for all.

Are you throwing the wood of your good works on the fire, trying to appease God? The false warmth is only temporary. You will run out of wood soon enough, for this life is but a moment. You have no offering but Christ. Drop your pile of rot and flee to Him.

Smart Builder

2012-01-20T18:05:00.000-05:00

A week or so before Christmas, there was a package on my front porch. I noticed that it had been sent from Germany. My first thought was something like, "Hmm, is there a Unabomber-like dude in Germany who doesn't like me for some reason?" I really couldn't figure out who would be sending me a package from the Fatherland. Plus, my wife's name was misspelled.

I dismissed my paranoia and opened the package. I was blessed to see it was a book written by Dr. Stephen Beck. He and his wife serve as workers for the Gospel in Europe (the least evangelized continent in the world). We support their ministry through Greater European Mission.

The book Smart Builder (Chrome translates the page into English) has been a strong consolation throughout the Cold War I have been fighting with this crafty virus. No coughing, lost my voice, blowing snot out the nose like toothpaste. A weird illness. And tired like hell. Finally starting to feel better after about a ten day war of attrition. Worried that my Lyme's Disease might be a silent partner with the cold virus.

Dr. Beck constructs his book like building a house. The foundation of Christ's resurrection on up. It is a very wise book full of pastoral sensitivity, theological depth, and practical steps. Very reminiscent of John Calvin. While the book is about building, it does by implication demolish all faiths that are not based on Christ. He does it in a kind and not condemnatory manner but we should never question the inevitable conclusion that when Christ is presented as the sole hope of humanity, the only house that will stand the onslaughts of the storms of life, all other construction is shown to be not worthy of habitation. So, the book is a bomb of sorts. A love bomb the destroys and then builds brick-by-brick a home for humanity.

This book is strong candidate for my Book Hall of Fame. Get your hands on it if you can. It is a well-crafted tool helping both the believer and the skeptic think through the ultimate reality of God without candy-coating hard questions and challenging conclusions.

Stop

2012-01-16T07:21:00.000-05:00

I decided to stop on Sunday. Really stop. Like not move more than ten feet from my couch if I could help it. I did watch football and read sections of John Calvin's Commentaries on James.

If you have been perusing the blog this week, you know it has been the "Cold Chronicles" detailing my successes and failures in beating back a cold like a wild dog. Throughout last week, I didn't take a day off of work. I had too much to do and could not afford to miss a day. We are in a semester change (year is half-over) and the transition is a challenging traverse with schedule changes, new students registering, and the various other sundry duties of a school counselor. So I had to let the cold dog gnaw at my leg all week. A sick day would have caused me to be so far behind that all I would have done was sat at home worrying about all that I needed to do. So, I toughed it out. I didn't feel bad but didn't feel great either. That gray area of some sickness, but mostly just feeling drained as a battery.

On Saturday, we had a 40th birthday to go to for a dear friend and I didn't want to miss it. This was a must-go--for such milestones, once passed, are gone forever. On Sunday, the Church I attend had its monthly community outreach--to serve breakfast to Occupy Lancaster. I really wanted to go and had even bought a dozen eggs prior to make a cheesy dish. I decided to bail-out, sensing that if I didn't stop my cold would become one of those chronic one's, hanging around like a drug dealer on the corner of my life, dispensing misery and mayhem. I wanted it arrested.

Today, I feel as if perhaps the worst of the cold is behind me. I just needed a day to stop. I say perhaps because I don't want to taunt it, causing it to reassert itself anew.

It is easy when we are down, stressed, ill, and weary to just keep at it and that is often our undoing. We need to recognize our limitations and frailty. There are two types of Sabbaths conveyed in the Bible. One is a literal day of resting, the other---apparently it is a very rare Greek word here in this verse below--conveys a rest spiritually given by God, the forgiveness of sins, the restoration of peace to a soul. It is possible for someone to rest physically for a day but still be in tumult because they are oppressed by evil from both the inside and the outside. That lack of rest is tortuous.

Hebrews 4:9

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

Random Thoughts

2012-01-15T08:33:00.000-05:00

Random thoughts can be like pieces of paper strewn about. Here is my attempt to straighten them up:

Just made some coffee. When it comes to the end of the brewing process, the coffee maker lets out a final giant sigh of sorts. It means that some fine java will soon be in my cup piping hot. Aren't sighs kind of like when the grounds of our lives are exhausted and we are not exactly exasperated but perhaps sad about something?

When in Asheville, NC. for Christmas vacation, we ate at a tapas place. Is tapas the Spanish word for "still hungry?" While I love tapas menus, there always seems to be not enough food. I am thinking women are more pro-tapas than men. We males want a lot of food...i.e. a big old pizza with everything including the kitchen sink on it. Reminds me of a Food and Wine festival Lina and I went to in Aspen a few years ago when she was working on a gourmet brand of chocolate. We had to wait sometimes for 30 minutes in a line for something gross like a tripe sandwich. I finally found a steak booth with Sam Adams nearby. The surrounding audience was a high percentage of men. Men and women are just different, no matter what the moderns say.

I would rather be a dolphin that a shark. Besides eating people at times, sharks seem joyless and executionary. Dolphins just seem to be having a lot of fun. I think our society is comprised of both dolphins (the creatives) and the sharks (the driven). They are natural enemies. There are a lot of other types of fish in the sea but I think we would be better off if more of us were dolphins. They seem industrious while having a good time. The shark is just looking to devour dinner and is grim, focused, and souless.

Desert of Adversity

2012-01-14T06:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, after about 5 days of beating down the jackals of the cold, my voice went.

It was odd. I didn't feel very sick, just on the tired side, but my voice was akin to a male bullfrog going through puberty. It made for some interesting sounding intercom building-wide announcements, asking students to come down to see me in Guidance. By the end of the day, I was either whispering or croaking, all the while telling my co-workers that I didn't feel very sick. I must of sounded as an alcoholic does when telling others he doesn't have a drinking problem after wracking up several DUI's. Denial.

Sickness is definitely a spanker of the flesh. In my more spiritual moments, I praise God for times of illness. It weans me off of the world in a way that nothing else can. Only when I feel the pains of sickness do I see the world clearly as a wasteland too and not just a wonderworld. It is really both. Adversity and Amusement. Crying and Laughing are both necessities.

My iGoogle page has a "Bible Verse of Day" along with a linked Bible Study of that verse. Sometimes the related study just seems off but today's was piercing. It was titled, How Does Man Live? and it was based on Deuteronomy 8:3:

Man Doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord (Jehovah) doth man live.

The study writes:

"The context tells us that the manna was given in the wilderness in order that Israel might learn the lesson above. The lesson is that man by himself is nothing, that all his religion and his works, that all his wisdom and inventions, can go no farther than the grave. So the man who eats bread and never takes thought of his Creator does not continue to live. Length of days cannot be his hope. He returns to the dust from which he came....Not only all people, but everything that comes from Adam ends in death. The wisdom of this world, the inventions of this world, the desires of this world, the pride of this world, and anything you can name that comes from Adam must find its end in death. This is final, this is the end. Natural religion cannot help it one bit. There is no philosophy that can get around it. And man's natural condition is such that there is no argument whatsoever in its favor. In the flesh dwells no good thing. The best righteousness that man can produce is filthy rags in the sight of God. And no man who knows God will for a moment try to reason otherwise. He knows himself. And we can add that it is impossible for a man to know himself till he knows God. And when he knows God, then with Job he will abhor himself, realize that he is vile, and begin looking around him for sackcloth and ashes in which to repent."

Commentator Adam Clarke states in reference to this verse in Deuteronomy, "God never permits any tribulation to befall his followers, which he does not design to turn to their advantage. When he permits us to hunger, it is that his mercy may be the more observable in providing us with the necessaries of life. Privations, in the way of providence, are the forerunners of mercy and goodness abundant."

Cold 911

2012-01-11T20:54:00.000-05:00

The other night, the telltale soreness was in my sinuses. A cold virus was partying. Colds start there and multiply like some type of virus flash mob. Well, I called in the men in blue uniform and night sticks...or more contemporary, tasers. Raw garlic, eaten and driven into the nasal cavity. If the progression of the cold is not halted there, it travels down into the throat and lungs. No Occupy Eric.

It is incredibly harsh. Raw garlic is not to be trifled with...it burns like napalm, scorching those cold viruses in their tracks. It hurts like hell. Yet, this treatment is far from a placebo sugar pill. I know that it is effective. Typically I will still get a lite version of a cold, but one that lets me continue to go to work, taste my food, and not want to die. I believe garlic pills are useless...the very ingredients that confront the cold are the elements that get denatured by processing. No, the garlic has to be harsh, it is what makes the crucial difference.

Now, I know that it is a stretch to compare garlic to God, but they do share a quality of severity. In an age that wants to treat God as a Therapist in the Sky, the Scripture reveals a God who can be harsh in the execution of judgement upon sin. Wrath. We cannot divorce the qualities of severity from mercy, for one without the other causes both to become meaningless. Human nature is perverse, if God didn't deliver justice we would disrespect Him because He was weak. But, He is Holy and does not tolerate rebellion against His rule. He takes people out or He takes them in. Decide which side of God you wish to engage.

Romans 11:22

Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

The Grind

2012-01-10T21:19:00.001-05:00

I am pleased to report that I am now grinding my teeth at night. I noticed several weeks ago that my teeth were hurting and I thought my new espresso maker was stripping the enamel of my teeth. Maybe it is...and maybe the espresso is making me tense. I have relegated the espresso to the weekend. Half-caf, half-decaf, 12 oz of drip coffee during the week. Over Christmas vacation, though, every day espresso. Too much. In times of inordinate stress during the past, I have had a TMJ of sorts where I cannot even chew. But it has been years since I experienced this.

My dentist noticed the enamel wearing away during the last check-up right before Christmas. He recommended that I buy some $ 300 mouthpiece through his office while calling products like GrindGuard above "useless." I really questioned his assessment. The principal of keeping teeth from grinding teeth (like iron sharpening iron) seems pretty elementary. I distrust doctors and dentists recommendations that are costly unless they can effectively explain why the 30X more costly mouthpiece works and the GrindGuard won't. To be fair, I didn't ask, already not buying his assessment. A lot of our medical expenses these days are an unhealthy symbiosis between medical professionals who are looking to get more green and patients who are looking for a new pill or process to cure their ill.

I read this last night and it was a comfort to me. I wondered if David ground his teeth when Saul was hunting him down? Oh yeah, and I bought the GrindGuard.

Psalm 57 (written when David fled from Saul in the cave)

Be merciful unto me, O God. be merciful unto me for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.

Card Carrying Librarian

2012-01-08T10:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Lina asked me to pick up a book for her at the local library because she was engaged in an almost all day affair of cleaning out her closet. She does all of her reservation of books online and then is notified when the books become available and picks them up. More typically I return books for her because she is out of town on a frequent basis. Not unusually, there is often a fine of some increment of a nickel because typically it is after the fact. I have to face the shame and the scowl of the librarian on duty because of my wife's delinquency. My wife has many exemplary qualities, returning library books on time is not necessarily one of them. I am overstating the problem for tale-spinning enhancement. Yet, it has happened more than once.

But, yesterday I was picking up a book. I sensed it wouldn't be as easy as going into a Turkey Hill (convenience store) and buying a gallon of milk. So, I called ahead of time to learn of the protocol. I was correct that it was not so cut-and-dry. I have worked in schools my whole life and know librarians well. I respect their rule orientation, many rules which have reason behind them. Some of the rules seem antiquated and no longer necessary.

The librarian on duty on the phone said that I needed a letter from Lina stating that I was authorized to pick up books for her and that this note would only be temporary until she completed the official form. I also confirmed that she needed to put her library card number on the note and that I needed to bring my library card. Probably some provision of the Patriot Act for all I know.

So, my wife incredulously penned the note, commenting on what she perceived as overkill, and I went on my way. I entered the library and the librarian on duty confirmed that I was the guy who had just called. She then asked for my library card as well as Lina's, which I had not . Heck, it was starting to feel like a TSA airport checkpoint. Do you want me to remove my shoes? Although, I could see why the book in question, Thomas Harding's Far From The Madding Crowd, aroused suspicion. Quite the twisted tale, stories with a woman named Bathsheba in them as the major character tend to get messy.

On the counsel of the librarian, who said that Lina needed to replace her lost card, I obtained a new library card for Lina for a buck, which I found out later removed her from all of her wait lists because the new card had a new number. It essentially turned into a mess that pitted a traditional librarian--rule and process-bound--against my wife, a woman who has modern sensibilities and asks why an actual card is required, thinking that the number should be enough with an I.D. or a note and my I.D.. And maybe it generally was and is, unless I am in her role by proxy. Poor me, caught in the middle as a well-meaning oaf.

This situation kind of aptly illustrated the conflict between rules and reason. Some are all too willing to jettison rules, not really considering why they came about in the first place. Others hold onto rules like a worn-out shoe that no longer fits. The rule for rules sake seems to be the only reason and that is not reasonable.

Jesus was the master of breaking rules that were anti-human and not based on reason. Yet, he affirmed the Law. Really not sure how He would have handled this library book deal, though.

Drinking Down Simple Pleasures

2012-01-06T18:27:00.002-05:00

Back when I was 18, life was pretty rough. Sometimes I wanted to go up to the nearest tree, get a rope, and hang myself. Two convictions kept me from it....1) first, boy that would really hurt, (2) I had a philosophical conviction that suicide was intrinsically wrong.

One of the few things I would look forward to after another depressing day at school was a quart of chocolate milk and reading the newspaper. Despite all of the misery I was wallowing in, chocolate milk lifted my spirits.

Maybe the Theobromine functioned as a natural mood-elevating Prozac. I don't know. My quart of daily chocolate milk drinking ceased when my mom complained about the amount of milk I was drinking. To be fair, I didn't explain to her the therapeutic benefits of the chocolate milk. But, she knew that I liked it so it wasn't entirely a mystery that it was something I appreciated. I felt kind of like, "Man, can't a kid even drink milk a little extra milk around here?" Seriously.

I have a strange attraction to beverages in general. I am a Drinkie rather than a Foodie. Specifically, beer, coffee, and chocolate milk. It is the whole experience of consumption, not just one element or another. I heartily endorse moderation, as one sure way not to appreciate something one loves is to go overboard. The more becomes less in some paradoxical formula.

When David longed for the water from the wells of Bethlehem and his men, unknowingly to David, risked their lives to get some-- and then David poured it out because he wanted his men to realize that they were more important to him than water--it must have caused a tinge of sadness. I am sure that when he was king he had some of those waters brought to him. It reminded him of being a shepherd boy and drinking deeply from the wells of his hometown after a long day of shepherding sheep. Or slaying a giant who defied the living God.

There is a need to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. Often in the pursuit of the ecstatic, we take for granted the everyday which is only ordinary because God has graced us with so many good gifts that we take them as a given and we receive them like robots rather than counting them anew individually.

As I write, I finish a quart of chocolate milk. It reminds me of God's faithfulness.

What Now, What Next?

2012-01-05T18:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I wrote about why we should not jettison the past, for there is much wisdom that has come before us and our preoccupation with the new can obscure the fact that new does not necessarily mean better. However, there is a backward gaze that is profoundly unhealthy and modern Psychology has made a mint off of it: Looking back as a defense for current behavior that is unwise.

For instance, because I was _____ when a kid, this is why I do this _______ now (fill in the words). When Jesus told the man in the Bible that the "dead should bury their own dead" it is hard to entirely figure out what he was speaking about. Yet, it is clear that there was something or someone that held him back from following Christ in the present. For many, it is the past. The past is dug up and the bones of prior experiences are examined forensically in great detail. Some introspection about the past is not bad but dedicating a good deal of the present to the past is really not productive. Rest In Peace. Visit the tombstone of the past on occasion but let the bones rest.

The real issue is this: What now and and what next? The only two pieces in play are the present and the future. The past has helped create the current position on the board but as the old saying states, "Play the hand that you are dealt. " The past as a piece is out of the game now and you must carry on and do the best you can with what you got.

New Years, Old Years

2012-01-04T21:27:00.000-05:00

On New Years Eve, I found a comfy place on the couch and tried to stay put, except to make forays to the food and drink. For music, a buddy--who has a retro vibe in his musical tastes--spun the vinyl on the turntable. It was old school, with some of the pops and hisses. He searches for collections of old records like a cat might search for a mouse.

In our age, with the rapid advancement of technology, we start to discard the past like a bad habit. We assume that newer is better on all fronts and that idol deserves to be hacked down like an Asherah Pole. Even our language tends to suggest a negative view on the past, as in "He has a past."

The music on New Years Eve reminded me that there are buried gems in the hills of the past and we need to search and uncover them. We shall understand ourselves better by knowing those who have come before us and recognize that there is really nothing new under the sun regarding the things that matter most. Our toys and tools get more advanced, yet the human heart has not changed.

Merry Christwas?

2012-01-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

About 40 years ago, I recall sitting in my elementary school music class on the first day back from Christmas vacation. The teacher asked if there were any songs we wanted to sing. One girl said, "Silent Night." The teacher commented something to the effect that such a song in the beginning of January was not really in appropriate. I always wondered what made the girl want to sing that song. Was it because she had a sad Christmas and decided some peppy singing in the school after the fact with her classmates would cheer her sad heart? I remember kind of being offended by her request. I was like, "What?" If it had been a boy, we might have given him a wedgie at recess.

I had O.D.'d on the holiday and needed some detox...

There is a lot of hysterical cries to keep "Christ in Christmas." But is not the message of the Gospel to keep Christ central 24-7 365 days a year? Don't we act like secularists when we identify only certain times and places where Christ should be preeminent? Is our holiday pushiness for the holy our own attempts to compensate for a lack of devotion outside of the manger?

The Cruelty of Comfort Zones

2012-01-02T09:01:00.002-05:00

Yesterday morning, Lina and I went for a hike down at Kelly's Run. It is a fairly rigorous 4 mile hike taking experienced hikers about two hours. The creek was high, the rocks slippery, and the trail had a hint of danger at points. Before leaving, we had considered skipping the hike and going down to a local trail that circles Lake Grubb. A fine little hike but one that has minimal challenge or scenery that is new. The day had started late and our buddy Rob called off due to a cold, so the conditions for cancellation of Kelly were set. We decided against it.

I am embarrassed to confess that I missed several turn offs along the way down to Kelly's Run. I thought I knew the directions better than I did. I really have no excuse. I pondered then how it would have just been much easier for us to go to Grubb. Safe, simple, no reminders of how poor a sense of direction I have. I typically map out everything ahead of time if I have a doubt. Where I erred was thinking that I knew the way there better than I did. Whenever such things happen, I hate myself.

However, we arrived at Kelly's Run no worse for wear. I did know enough of the route there to know when I was off track, so it could have been worse. The hike itself was phenomenal. It was a bright sunny day in South Central Pennsylvania, unusually balmy. Thus, we were sweaty quite profusely as our dress was more geared for colder temps. Along the hike itself, I reflected out loud how we would have missed all of the delights of the hike if we had opted for the much less demanding Lake Grubb hike. Like the kiddie coaster at the amusement park rather than the kick-ass killer coaster.

I vowed aloud that in 2012 we should take more risks and stop playing it so safe. The problem with taking risks is that it exposes us to a lack of control, reveals our weaknesses (often to others), and perhaps could even be dangerous. We crave the cruelty of the comfort zone because complacency kills us softy rather than quickly. The couch and TV act as the head and the tail of a technological boa constrictor which smothers us in smoothness until we cannot breathe and die with a whimper. Chips in hand. Less redemption, more reruns.

When Judgement Day comes, I think that there may be a spread sheet of sorts that compares the time we had versus what we did with the time. It will be pretty horrifying to see how much time was wasted with entertainment just because we were bored. The miracle of life beaten down into the mundane, meaningless, and mendacious.

May it not be so in 2012. Live out loud. Make your dust dance.

Psalm 103:14

For he knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.

New Year Reformations

2012-01-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

I am skeptical about resolutions. Seems to me that resolutions dissolve like Alka-Seltzer. Some fizz and maybe we feel better for a bit with changes in attitude and behavior. But then the acid test of the everyday kicks back in. Same problems, same issues, same me.

However, I have great hope in God changing us. If the Gospel were to be reduced to a series of maxims, one would be: God can change people. It is Good News. If the Gospel only kept us where we are, that would hardly be something to call good. It would be the Bad News.

Often when we clamor for God to change something, it is is either a circumstance or someone else. I know I pray this way, when I bother to pray that is. Yet, God has only made me responsible for myself. Even though I am responsible for me, I can't change me, for I am the problem. So, here is how it works:

I confess that I need to change but can't. God concurs with that assessment and then changes me through His grace. A gift given and gratefully received.

"For God has shut up all men in unbelief," not that he may destroy all or suffer all to perish, but "that he may have mercy upon all" [ Romans 11:32]. This means that, dismissing the stupid opinion of their own strength, they come to realize that they stand and are upheld by God's hand alone; that, naked and empty-handed, they flee to his mercy, repose entirely in it, hide deep within it, and seize upon it alone for righteousness and merit. For God's mercy is revealed in Christ to all who seek and wait upon it with true faith. In the precepts of the law, God is but the rewarder of perfect righteousness, which all of us lack, and conversely, the severe judge of evil deeds. But in Christ his face shines, full of grace and gentleness, even upon us poor and unworthy sinners. - John Calvin

Counting Down the New Year with Joy

2011-12-31T06:22:00.000-05:00

James 1:2

Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds.

My wife is a big fan of the USA television series Burn Notice. The lead character Michael Westen (above) is a former spy who was burned (booted from his position in espionage for unknown reasons). So, now he is a sub-contractor of sorts doing jobs that cross legal lines in order to punish the bad dudes. He is also trying to find out who "burned" him so that they can chat...

Mr. Westen has a disturbing pattern of smiling when facing unpleasant events. Like when someone has a gun up in his face. I told Lina it looks like that smile that Napoleon Dynamite had...a disconnect from reality. In the spy game, I suppose it is wise to not let the enemy know that he is getting to you with the repeated kicks to the groin, so perhaps smiling is occupational necessity like being tall is for basketball.

James seems to be advocating the same approach to trials.Smile in the face of suffering. Yet, joy is a deeper quality than just putting on a happy face in a world that very often should cause us to frown. This joy is based on the reality that God can even use negative antecedents to bring about positive consequences.

Sin in Asheville

2011-12-29T09:53:00.001-05:00

This morning I was reviewing the local newspaper web ledger of "Top Stories" to see if the accident that we saw yesterday--where an SUV of a Florida family wiping out on an icy road up in the mountains--was detailed. Everyone was fine physically but the the husband was getting a tongue-lashing by the wife who apparently was saying "I am through with you" or something to that effect while we were trying to assist getting the car unstuck. All the while, the kids are looking on like kids do when they are caught in a mortifying familial mess not of their doing. Humiliated, wanting to hide under the car seats.

I was going to blog about how we often truly don't know about dangers until we experience them. Florida drivers on icy roads...we can talk until we are blue in the face about the risk and it probably won't be grasped until your car is in a ditch and your wife is ragging at you. We Pennsylvanians are wiser, having wiped out many times before.

Here in bucolic Asheville, I thought the car accident might be news. Nothing doing...it is more than just Aunt Bessie's cow getting loose. We are talking some serious sin in A-Ville. At our loft in downtown, sirens have been an omnipresent sound throughout the week. Seven out of the Top Stories above are profiles in the wickedness of mans' heart. Now, I know the news tends to be negative, because "If it bleeds, it leads." Much of what is here in Asheville is quite beautiful and wonderful. But why is it that good is often perceived as boring and uninteresting? Our empty hearts crave pathology as readers...we like crime, and that shows us to be sinful, as well as the criminals. We lick at licentiousness and grovel in gore.

It is a sad world--from car accidents, marital conflict, sex offenders, Chief's of Police suspended, murder, and mayhem. But how much sadder if we had all of the sin but no Savior? Joy to the World, the Lord has come. "No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow, Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse is found."

Amen, from Asheville.

What Makes You Feel Most Alive?

2011-12-28T09:50:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we walked through downtown Asheville. There is a Himalayan shop of products from that part of the world...rugs, music, statues (idols really, because of the association with Hinduism and Buddhism) on a side street. I leafed through a book about the gods...so many gods, so little time. It would really stress me out to try and appease them all...

Asheville being in the mountains, elevates my thoughts to a higher plane. Geography can be spiritual to a degree and the mountains for me convey peace, majesty, and a retreat from the day-to-day life in the horizontal world. There was a panoramic poster for sale of the Mt. Everest region topography that I had seen the previous night in a Nepalese restaurant that intrigued and captivated me.

We speak of mountain top experiences and I was reflecting several days ago about activities that make me feel most alive. Here is what came up in that range:

- Reading Great Books, the Bible inclusive. I am drawn to transcendence by words. Whereas some may feel most worshipful in song and in an assembly, my soul sings when I encounter verses of depth and beauty in solitary reflection. Make each line blaze. Words as wood in the fireplace of imagination. Books were my friends when I was quite friendless. They made no demands, offered their wisdom freely, and provided consolation and connection when very little else did. A society that does not read great literature dies as a tree with no water.

- Pushing myself physically to the limit when running and lifting weights. God made me a good athlete and when I encountered serious knee problems in my late teens, I went through years of wondering why God would grant a gift and then impair it. My knee is still far from restored but God has granted a degree of functionality that allows me to push myself in exercise. "I sang the blues because I had no shoes, until I met a man on the street who had no feet." I can do something but not everything yet that is far better than nothing athletically. Perfectionism ruins many a day. It is as if saying, the sun only shines in a cloudless sky.

- Not a lot of friends, but good friends, maybe few in number. I am not an extrovert by nature. I have a public persona in my work as a school counselor...the very public in the public school, creates opportunities for me to interact with a host of others in very interesting and enriching ways. Yet, when the clock winds down on the day, I look to depart and connect elsewhere, authentically and openly. I can't reveal entirely who I am in my vocation as I need a life invested outside of my career. I am quite concerned that the Christian manifest these days seems to be in retreating from engagement with non-Christians. We don't even know how simply to be friends with non-Christians and serving without making a big production out of it. People need friends, who will be there in good times and bad. That we in the Church have lost this capacity makes me think that we just don't want to be hassled by the mess of the world. Our self-focus is really unhealthy.

How about you? What makes you feel most alive? How in 2012 can you make such things more prominent?

Harry Potter Superstar

2011-12-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

I bought Lina the Blu-Ray set box for the Harry Potter series. We have been watching the movies each night while on vacation. Actually, I have been pretty much dozing through large segments while Lina and the other couple have watched the films into the wee hours. I am an early riser and just can't create a sleeping schedule that varies. I wish my sleeping could be like the iPhone alarm clock where I could set a differing sleep agenda daily.

The first rationale for the gift was that I needed to find something for Lina. Pure necessity. She is a movie person. Her last preoccupation with Lord of the Rings was running thin after about a decade of infatuation, topped off by her visit to New Zealand last Fall. Pixar's offering of Cars 2 just wasn't worthy. Thus, Harry Potter became the obvious choice. I have staved off gift-giving legions for another year.

Over a decade ago, my students at school began to talk about Harry Potter. Since then, I have been pretty much on the periphery with both the books and the films. I have listened to a few talks about Harry Potter, read some cultural pieces about its significance. But, I have not partaken as a rule. More snacking than a full-blown dinner.In my tasting thus far of what I have eaten, I recognize the incredibly imaginative elements of the series. What makes Harry Potter great is what makes all such works great: Characters, friendship, trials, suffering, good versus evil, suspense, etc. Cool special effects too.

The debate within Christian circles about the pros and cons of Harry Potter have created a cinematic equivalent of Blue States versus Red States political divisions. On the con side, witchcraft and divination are expressly forbidden in the Bible. There is no hemming-and-hawing that can shake this concern. It sticks like sword. I get concerned that more Liberal believers act as if this is not relevant. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, Saul's divination detour, the burning of magic books in Ephesus. etc., etc, etc.

H.P. is a world where Jesus is not relevant and that is quite problematic. Showing evil is essential. Yet, more essential is to present evil's only remedy. Harry Potter did not die for you...

On the pro side, Harry Potter does not use his magical gifts for self-aggrandizement from what I have seen thus far. A few piggish characters have gotten what they had coming and then some through supernatural ass-whupping by Harry, but this can be argued as just desserts for the craven souls in question. Otherwise, the wizardry is confined in confronting real evil. Fighting fire with fire.

Harry Potter takes evil seriously. Although, Harry Potter so far (through the first two films) himself seems to not fight against using his gifts for his own wicked ends as an experiential possibility 24-7--and that makes the series weaker in its premises than either Narnia or Lord of the Rings, where evil's deceptive allure is always creeping at the door of the main characters' hearts. Harry seems to be more pure than could be expected, but the murder of his parents by Lord Voldemort makes him perhaps much more wary about the ends of evil than most. And, I don't know if evil will become more seductive to him as he matures and the series continues. Jesus didn't face His first major temptations until He was around 30 at the commencement of His ministry.

I would not have bought the series if I thought it was not redemptive. I wasn't that desperate for a gift as to cross the line of conscience for convenience sake in my Christmas shopping. The universe that Rowling created expresses deep truths about existence and if she had not had a full sway of literary tools, her work would not be so compelling. Wonder is as water for thirsty souls and Harry Potter has slaked the thirst of a generation. If we are going to be critical of Harry Potter, we had better present a more compelling and cross-centered narrative through our actual lives. This is where all stories ultimately become real...

Christmas Cup

2011-12-26T08:21:00.000-05:00

At the truly stellar loft where we are presently residing in Asheville, North Carolina, this morning was looking like an Easter Egg Hunt of used glasses. The glasses, many of them fine glassware, needed to be hand-washed. I counted at least 20 after tracking them down and cleansing them. This is on top of the glasses already presently clean in the run dishwasher. For four people, that is an impressive amount of glasses used for less than 36 hours since our arrival, with 24 hours of this time being Christmas Day.

The other couple gave me this Unibroue gift glass for Christmas.

All four of us enjoy beer, wine, and additional spirits (And H2O, lest one think that is all). And, it is quite accurate to state that these spirits are not Bud Light or some other weakened brethren in bottles. It is quality drink, deserving of enhanced glassware. All of these glasses made me reflect on the cup of suffering Christ came to drink to the full.

From the day he was born onward, His whole life was destined to cross paths with the cup of God's wrath in His hand. Only he could drink it, and only would He drink it. May we not downplay the horror of Jesus asking for this cup to pass from Him. He anticipated the agony. His Christmas Cup, the reason for His coming, was the sin of the world. We who deserved the drink, able to pass it to Him.

The Commentator Clarke notes:

"This cup - The word cup is frequently used in the Sacred Writings to point out sorrow, anguish, terror, death. It seems to be an allusion to a very ancient method of punishing criminals. A cup of poison was put into their hands, and they were obliged to drink it. Socrates was killed thus, being obliged by the magistrates of Athens to drink a cup of the juice of hemlock. To death, by the poisoned cup, there seems an allusion in Hebrews 2:9, Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, Tasted death for every man. The whole world are here represented as standing guilty and condemned before the tribunal of God; into every man's hand the deadly cup is put, and he is required to drink off the poison - Jesus enters, takes every man's cup out of his hand, and drinks off the poison, and thus tastes or suffers the death which every man otherwise must have undergone."

Matthew 26:39

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Part-Time Jehovah

2011-12-23T21:20:00.000-05:00

Last night in New York City, as Lina walked our usual 2,000 steps (traversing Manhattan is somewhat more interesting than Lancaster), we passed this J.W. house of worship.

It was in lock-down. It looked like a bunker. Since it wasn't Saturday, I suppose it made sense that it was shuttered. But, what does it say about a house of worship that isn't open in a world class city that never sleeps? Theologically, such non-accessibility communicates a reality that we serve an inaccessible part-time God. J.W. have some serious errant teaching. So, the locks and gates convey a God who may be involved or disengaged.

Yet, plenty of Christian churches are practically deserted during the week also. I just don't get why we invest so much money in a property that lays dormant for 95% of the calendar. It really seems like an unwise fiduciary principal. Sort of like having a pick-up truck so that one can haul something once a month. Otherwise, it is impractical. Rent! Don't even get me started about S.U.V.'s that more often than not are driven by entitled road princesses whose egos need the extra space.

Better and wiser to own or lease a location for the time of the official "worship." Otherwise, have a small office with a conference room. Better yet, meet in houses and save the money. Not to store bricks. Instead serve people. Can I get a witness?

Forgiveness Candles

2011-12-22T05:38:00.000-05:00

This quote is attributed to Mother Theresa. A host of burning candles seems to be a powerful image for forgiveness. Candles are very vulnerable to wind, rain, a lack of oxygen, and its own finite resources. Yet, when lit, candles emanate a powerful luminosity that exceeds their limitations. Properly nurtured, a candle is mighty in light and in dispelling the darkness. Forgiveness also appears weak. Returning darkness for darkness seems to be the just way. Yet, how does more darkness see us through? Forgiveness is costly, it burns. We move on.

Advent in the Christian tradition is typically celebrated with the lighting of candles. It symbolizes the coming of Jesus into the dark world. I would imagine that their were candles or lamps in the Manger on the night when Jesus was born. The Light of the World....a small flame, yet drawing on the infinite power of the Almighty.

Philippians 2:8

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Truth Sword

2011-12-21T16:12:00.002-05:00

I was in a difficult and protracted situation recently about something I supposedly did over five years ago. The operating presumption of several people was that I indeed was the individual responsible. It wasn't a super serious situation but serious enough that it had to be addressed. I could have accepted the guilt and probably been no worse for wear, brushed myself off, and moved on. But, something did not sit right. So, I would not let the issue fade away. I was insistent, in a civil manner, that we get to the bottom of it.

It could turn out that I was indeed the responsible party. The certainty of guilt could be increased or lessened by my willingness to engage the issue until resolution. I was willing to step up and make amends if I was guilty or be absolved. Either way the truth would come out and I had to be certain that I would be OK with either option. Further investigation would must certainly reveal my guilt. Others did not seem inclined to pursue the process of fact-finding. But, I didn't want to let it rest. Guilt can be assumed in the presence of silence. I was not cool with that if I was indeed innocent.

Turns out that it does appear that I was innocent. A much more reasonable explanation was developed that fits the points of the case much more accurately than if I was the guilty party. There is still an outside chance that I am guilty, but in the eyes of the people who matter who are involved, I think the alternative explanation has been deemed much more plausible. If it turns out that we are mistaken, then I need to own up and I will.

When Jesus said that "the Truth will set you free" this statement demonstrates that Truth either may reveal our guilt and then we are to confess, repent, and make an apology or restitution. Or, the Truth might exonerate us from the presumption of guilt. Either way, the Truth has indeed set us free from either false guilt or real guilt. It cuts both ways. That is a double-edged sword I can live with.

Love is...Cleaning the Chopsticks

2011-12-18T05:23:00.000-05:00

For those of my readers who don't know, my wife Lina is first-generation American. Her parents are from Taiwan. As such, she is maestro with the chopsticks. She does a pulling apart move of food with the chopsticks that one must be of Asian ancestry to pull off. I knew that I was getting the hang of using chopsticks when I was out in California at her parents place and I picked up a peanut. With her dad looking on, I felt like the Karate Kid, getting accepted into the Asian food martial arts academy. I don't think I will ever get to the black belt of pulling food apart with the chopsticks. But as for picking up the food and stuffing my mouth, I do OK. If I had to use chopsticks as a matter of life or death, I could feed myself sufficiently to survive. It is rather second nature by now. I impress my Caucasoid friends at Chinese restaurants with my prowess. There was some initiation I passed when I learned to use the sticks, some acceptance into the Yang clan where I would still be on the outside looking in if I was still forking it. I actually prefer chopsticks to eat Asian food. It just seems right and true.

Now, onto another matter of chopsticks, the after the eating part. Lina has some issue with washing chopsticks. It is not rational. She leaves them on the counter dirty like some neighbors dog dropping doots in my backyard. I don't get it. So, I decided to conduct a little test. The problem was that I told her it was a test and that skewed the results. I opted not to wash her used chopsticks about a week ago. Instead, I just left them on the counter festering away like some sores. OK, it wasn't that gross. I am taking some artistic license. As of yesterday, the chopsticks still had not been washed by her. Worse yet, another pair had appeared. Please curb your sticks, madam. In a test of wills between Lina and I, I will typically lose. Although I can be stubborn as a mule, Lina can elevate something like this to be akin to a hunger strike. She won't give in. Those sticks would rot on the counter, particularly since I informed her of my little empirical study. So, I started to think, how am I going to get out of this mess? She is not going to give in...this now has become a stalemate at best, or a conflict where I will lose badly by my continuous refrain of "You used them, you wash them."

This morning at 5:00 am, I quietly and without fanfare, washed the chopsticks. It wasn't a defeat. Instead, it was a victory. For you see, washing the chopsticks is something more in her eyes. I am not sure what. But to me, it is just a simple act of washing chopsticks. I invest no psychological burden on myself when washing them. The whole study was more for fun anyway. I got some mileage out of teasing her about "Day # of the Unwashed Chopstick Strike." As such, I got some jollies.

What today can you think of that means little to you as a simple act but might have a world of meaning to someone else? Some act that is imbued with love that lets someone know that you care about them?

Spiritual Body Building

2011-12-17T05:41:00.001-05:00

I have a true love/hate relationship with lifting weights. On the love side, it is good exercise, will probably increase or maintain my mobility and strength as I age, and it allows me--along with running--to more fully enjoy food and drink. I am one of those people who works out so that he can drink and eat more. I am never going to be one of those bodybuilders that eats tuna or chicken breast every day. I don't want to be a Spartan on 'roids.

On the hate side, boy do I dislike trudging down to the basement when the couch and books are beckoning, to heave weight around for 40 minutes three days a week. I am never happy to do it, only joyful when I have finished.

When our tenant broke the lease, I spent 5 weeks painting and rehabbing the place so it would look presentable to new prospective tenants. I was putting in 10-12 hours or more each successive Saturdays and rationalized that I needed both time to recover and time to prepare for these Saturdays so I jettisoned the lifting of weights. Now, we have had a new tenant for close to a month. The weights have still remained untouched. Feeling flabby and tight around the waist, I entered the dungeon for the first time in about two months and hit the weights yesterday.

Knowing that this lifting day would come (like a spawning salmon, I always return), the other day I downloaded a free book on my Kindle Fire about Bodybuilding hoping for hundreds of pages of insight and tricks for muscle growth. What I got instead was three pages of this: Lift hard to the maximum that you can handle for about 8-10 reps done 3X, don't work the same muscles everyday along with some actual lift routines listed, a brief note that I should eat good proteins and good carbs, drink a lot of water, and rest/sleep. That was it. I felt ripped off...even though the ebook was free. What entitlement.

Lifting weights is actually a test of will more than anything. Technique, nutrition, supplements, and the like all play a role. But, ultimately is about me and the weights having a go at it. Pain is part of the process.

How does this parallel our spiritual lives? We all want something for nothing. Even though God's grace is free like the bodybuilding book, the work comes in after the download of salvation. Not to be saved, but to grow.

Here are some of the major principles:

- Hard lifting is good. We should take on difficult challenges and should not expect to be working out with those stupid Richard Simmons bands and expect anything but a Richard Simmons skinny man and puny body. Thin like a piece of spaghetti. No, load up the bar and get to it man. It should hurt. If it was easy, it would do no good. Don't be reckless either.

- Take in spiritual food daily. We waste a lot of time frittering away the day and night. I seriously spend time debating for hours whether I should lift or not. Or think, I will do it in an hour, but then eventually drop it b/c, "Hey it is late or I wonder what is happening on Facebook." Listen to sermons, read the Bible, pray. Put reminders close to where the laziness occurs, like uplifting books on the same table as the TV remote or a post-it on the lap top with the simple statement "Pray."

- The Holy Spirit only streams when we cultivate our spirituality. If we are pushing ourselves and taking in spiritual food, the Holy Spirit knows that we are seeking Him. Our thirst being filled with His goodness is a consequence of exercise and eating right. Don't expect to be filled if you are already satiated with distraction, amusement, or downright sin. Junk food that the world offers up that causes your hunger to escalate, eating but never satisfied.

- One of the ironic things about hard work (mental and physical) is that it creates the ability to rest. If we just goof around, we are probably avoiding tasks that we need to do. Then, stress starts to manifest itself which is a sign that we need to reprioritize, get stuff done, then RELAX. Don't look to relax first, otherwise you will be spending a lot of nights rolling around in bed sleepless.

In the end, all of our lifting in this world will cease. Although physical fitness plays a role in making our lives healthier and longer, ultimately it is much more necessary to build up the inner man.

2 Cor 4:16

Because of this, it is not tiresome to us, for even if our external person is being destroyed, on the other hand, that which is from within is renewed day by day.

Athenian Idol

2011-12-15T17:09:00.000-05:00

Acts 17

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

"The one positive statement that Socrates seems to have made is a definition of virtue (areté): "virtue is knowledge." If one knows the good, one will always do the good. It follows, then, that anyone who does anything wrong doesn't really know what the good is." (Richard Hooker)

If there is a philosophical idol today that parallels the philosophical idol of ancient Athens, it is this: With the acquisition of knowledge, humanity can be good. That is, our evil is a result of ignorance. What a contrast to Paul's statement in Romans 7 that although he knows the good, he does not do it. Like all philosophical musings, there are pragmatic consequences to what we believe. What starts out in the Ivory Tower doesn't stay there...the Ivory Tower--the human mind--is an idol factory...John Calvin wrote, “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols." Ancient Greece, a city of thousands of idols, had three of particular prominence: "Lust, Fame, and Shame." How true is it that the pursuit of the first two often leads to the third.

JFK stated, "Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."

As a pragmatist, I agree that if one makes a mess, it is imperative that this person cleans it up. It is a good way to not to want make messes again. This is called a negative feedback loop. Or, as modern psychology has lifted biblical ideas, removed God, and offered insight, the Scriptural lesson is "God is not mocked, whatever a man sows, so shall he reap."

Yet, there are messes too big to clean up. Our capacity to do good cannot compensate for our ability to do evil. There is a story about a man who said something untrue about another man which sullied the innocent man's reputation. The guilty man went to his priest to confess his sin. The priest counseled him, as an act of penance, to cut open a pillow full of feathers and release the feathers into the wind. Easy enough eh? Until the second part of the penance was revealed: He was to go and collect the feathers.

Amazon: It Is A Jungle Out There

2011-12-11T07:09:00.004-05:00

A friend who is a bookseller/bookstore owner posted a copy of this article on FB of how Amazon is practicing a form of legal espionage by proxy in having consumers use a smart-phone app to scan prices at retail stores, then the consumer goes to Amazon and buys the product, be it a book or another good, at a lesser price. If the consumer has Amazon Prime, then there is free shipping. Often, there is no sales tax on the purchase. If I understand Bezos correctly, Amazon is not against sales tax per se but wants the federal government to establish some protocols and processes which makes sense because it is essentially is interstate commerce.

Amazon is mining such data for its price points. Because the profit margins for Amazon are so low, Amazon makes up the difference by selling a lot of stuff.

He, like many retailers, especially bookstore owners, are rightfully concerned about Amazon's leverage and sway over the book-selling business. Simply, there is no way that a hard copy bookseller can beat Amazon on price unless it is used books and even that is questionable. Of particular worry is the ebook where the costs of "production" (if that is the right word) are virtually nil after the formatting is complete. For example, I downloaded all of the Commentaries that John Calvin wrote in his lifetime--which would weigh perhaps a 100 lbs in traditional hardcover and cost over $ 100--for $ 2.99 yesterday on my Kindle Fire.

Books hold a special place in my heart and in rethinking my post a couple of days ago about the eclipsing of newspapers and hard copy books by digital media, I basically inaccurately ascertained that my affection for hard copies of books was mere sentimentality. It is more than this. Bookstores for me are meccas of knowledge, a playground of the mind in the world of ideas. Where virtual online worlds can disappear with the loss of power, the bookstore is a real object. Maybe analogous to online images of women where fantasy is all that is proffered versus a real flesh and blood woman. I also subscribe to supporting local businesses rather than stockholders who have capital to join entities like Amazon where the game then becomes so lopsided that it essentially becomes a beating in commerce.

Yet, I have also been in discussion with traditional publishers in seeing if there was interest in the book I am writing and I basically have received, like a lot of first time authors, some pretty discouraging feedback as to the prospects of going the traditional publishing route. As if my Ph. D. in Educational Psychology and 25 years of working with young people on college transition issues, and being quoted by USA Today and Wall Street Journal online about such issues, offer scant evidence of the likelihood of me being able to compose a culturally-valuable work. I am just one more schmuck in the vanity press market. The condescension has been disturbing and it has basically made me decide to go with Kindle as the exclusive publisher of my content. All I can say is that I explored the monopoly of the traditional publishing house and traditional booksellers and they have been found wanting.

So, it essentially becomes which monopoly do I want to tangle with...well, the answer is pretty obvious. The one that gives me the most opportunity and allows me to retain the rights to my work and yes the profits . I say that sadly but I don't have the time to send out hundreds of queries to literary agents and publishers just to get a pile of rejection letters. I trust that if I do good work that an audience will find me. The need is there. It hopefully will start small and Kindle into a Fire.

8 Miles High

2011-12-09T17:10:00.003-05:00

I snapped this photo from Hershey's Corporate jet at 40,000 feet on the way back from Chicago.

We hitched a ride as the jet was in the Windy City and we were stuck with no certain plan of escape. Didn't know that smaller jets are at the top of the flying altitude path-wise. Commercial flight is lower. Also, no security lines with TSA.

My wife and I have different work worlds. I spend my days with mostly blue collar kids, with a tinge of a white border. She is in the rarefied corporate jet stream quite literally. White collar with gold trim. Yellow school bus vs. a Lear Jet. I think we have the earth and sky covered.

When looking at a picture such as this I was struck by the pure beauty of the sight. May we never lose our sense of wonder. Every sunset is unique, it is once and done. God starts every day new as an artist with a palette. The scientist can explain how light refracts and reflects creating color and hue. Yet, why we should perceive it aesthetically points to more than mere utilitarian considerations. Explaining away can lead to draining away. Better to just ponder and wonder.

Psalm 19:1

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

OK To Be Uncertain

2011-12-08T18:54:00.003-05:00

Been considering recently that an aspect of humility is the willingness to admit that we don't have a lot of answers to perplexing and difficult issues. I had a button in my early 20's attached to my jacket that read, "Onward through the fog." I should still be wearing it if I knew where it was...

It is a type of intellectual humility to bow down before the unknown and confess that we have many more questions than answers. Three children from one family killed in a car wreck recently in our area. What can be known why a tragedy strikes like this--but spares the rest of us to live another day.

We all see through a glass darkly as Paul writes. A man like Paul, who was the recipient of divine revelation, admitting his own ignorance, is refreshing. There are doctrines we must be sure of, yet much certainty in things not able to really be known is foolhardy and even dangerous. I like to have answers but am learning (even at 48 years of age) that I have much to learn and it is wise to admit it.

Better to be OK with saying, I don't know. I may never know. And that is honest. And OK.

Yesterdays' Newspaper

2011-12-07T16:37:00.004-05:00

Snapped this picture in downtown Chicago on the iPhone last week. Thought it was an interesting irony. The shadow overtaking the Trib building, photo captured by the technology that is eclipsing it.

I am not a traditionalist in the sense that I am wedded to paper. I say go digital for newspapers. The news tends to not be something worth rereading. Save the trees. I am sentimental for printed hardcover books but that is what it is....sentimentality.

It makes little sense to collect hard cover books. They take up storage space, are hard to move, and decay over time. I recently downloaded 25 classic books to my Kindle Fire. That would be 25 more books that would crowd an already stocked shelves in the house or the approximate 1 ton of books in the basement. At least it felt that heavy in total when I moved them from the townhouse. The Kindle got no bigger and weighs no more. It just is a matter of time that the printed book goes the way of the horse and the buggy. So be it.

I am, however, passionate for Words. I fear this generation of young people are not developing their imaginations through independent reading. The entertainment generation has it all brought to them, where their minds are more recipients of images rather than cultivators of thought. That very much concerns me. A vending machine versus a garden. Our souls feed off words, which only stands to reason as the universe was created through the Word of God. Even the term uni-verse conveys this deep meaning.

Jesus promises that His Word will not pass away. Good to know this, even if it is digital.

Mark 13:31

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Starbucks So-So

2011-12-06T19:45:00.005-05:00

It could have been a whole lot worse. A flight cancelled out of Chicago last week. A 24 hour layover. I had a Comp Day at work. A trade for a night and day in Chicago...I will take that deal Monte Hall!

We took a trot to Intelligentsia Coffee. I approached the counter in trepidation and confessed to the staff, as if they were priests, that I was a complete novice and had never entered these hallowed grounds before.

It was a good thing I got that confession out pronto because it spared me the embarrassment of approaching the dude at the cash register rather than the barista. So, 7-11ish I am sure that they thought. Sorry no Slurpees, you yahoo.

Several of the baristas at Intelligentsia are world champions. "I am not worthy, have mercy on me, a dude from Central Pa." Starbucks trash...

I used to get a thrill going to Starbucks with its Italian terms for coffee sizes (does anyone else freeze sometime trying to recall the sizes???...I just start throwing out Italian like Mama-Mia and hope something sticks), the cool music in the background, and the strong cafe that could wake the dead. But, now that I have been to Intelligentsia, Starbucks seems so passe. I mean at Intelligentsia each cup is crafted and tailored like a fine suit by quirky attired hipsters hovering over the brewing cups like sorcerers. Liquid revelation...

Once we get used to the novel it becomes the usual and it is not too long before we become priggish. How gauche, Starbucks...I drink Intelligentsia. Only Jesus, the infinite God, continues to satisfy...only He can fill our cups of want.

The Dude Abides II

2011-12-03T21:30:00.005-05:00

One of the dangers of blogging is writing about same topic twice with nothing new to offer. Let it be noted that my previous post about the ""Dude Abides" was about the word "Dude." Not that you would recall anyway. I barely did.

This fittingly is about the abide part. The Big Lebowski is a great film and one that my wife and watch every New Years Day. An odd tradition but one that works for us. If I have to explain more about how this all connects, get with it man.

On Tuesday, I was in Chicago. This t-shirt was on sale outside a store on Michigan Ave. That street is the capitalist crust for goods made in China in Chicagoland. Political patronage seems to still be thriving there too. Such a nice place and people with terribly nefarious politicians.

I have no beef with Chicago...it is a great city. As far as I know, Deep Dish is still indigenous to Chicago. Sometimes it seems like all that is going to be left in the U.S. as products are Pizza. Delivery time from Asia doesn't lend itself well to your door of fresh and hot pizza.

So, what are we to do in America? I am a patriot of our country yet my ultimate allegiance is to God. I am all for apple pie, the flag, and Chevy's. But such allegiance is not final. Only the Lord remains after this world winds down, including China.

We abide in Christ.

John 15:4

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

Going to Pot

2011-12-02T17:30:00.009-05:00

Walking to Starbucks in Laguna Niguel, this empty canister caught my eye. It looked important. As I got closer and picked it up, I saw the label said "Medical Cannabis."

Hmmm....not exactly an empty aspirin bottle. I quickly chucked it into a trash can. Apparently the pot user is also a litterer, a minor crime that suggests a piggish and self-indulgent soul.

With California, a state that seemingly has so much wealth is completely broke, baffles me. It makes me wonder if opening the floodgates on the distribution of marijuana is a good idea for a state that already is not living in reality.

Medicine is something that should heal, not reinforce poor patterns of coping. As Pot is prescribed for psychosomatic issues (i.e. addictions), it will surely be the case that the cure shall be worse than the illness. The medical justification for marijuana is highly suspect in almost all instances. It just seems to be the back door to legalization under the auspices of prescription legitimacy.

The Gospel is strong medicine. Rather than creating an altered state, it instead grounds us in reality. Rather than getting us high, it first instead humbles us downward. Then, God exalts the broken-hearted and contrite.

My Redeemer Lives

2011-12-01T20:09:00.005-05:00

Strolling through the sun-soaked town of San Gabriel we came face-to-face with this skull and crossbones.

The building was the mission for the Catholic Church, harks from the 1700's in construction, and is the oldest structure in So. Cal.

The verses inscribed retell the refrain of the biblical character Job. A man who endured a series of subtractions of all that makes life worth living. The Adversity Gospel. How anyone can posit Health and Wealth have to go elsewhere than the Bible for proof texts.

In the end, all Job could say was, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." It is all he had. And, know this, it was more than enough.

Thankful For....

2011-11-23T20:22:00.002-05:00

I was talking recently with someone who lived as a child through the Depression.

He made a comment that he was allocated four sheets of toilet paper per sitting. Times were tough. Money was tight. Four sheets for you.

He seemed to relish the freedom of having a whole roll at his disposal.

Then, he waxed eloquent how easy we have it in comparison these days. We expect more because we have more, not realizing that a century ago, even the poorest among us would be considered kings. That is not to say that the adversity index is not on the upswing and everyone is on easy street. Yet, it is important to count our blessings, one sheet at a time.

The Laity of Stromboli

2011-11-22T20:01:00.003-05:00

Tonight my Pop brought two strombolis to my house for dinner. His homemade and Berwyn Pizzas. Left (BP) to right (Pop's). Or, as I like to call his shop...Georgios. His name is George.

Berwyn Pizza is my brother Steve's fave...he ate a plenitude of BP strom in his youth. Every time Steve bites into a BP emanation, I am sure his spirit travels back to those time of yore when youth reigned.

Pop's strom, was actually--in my estimation--better than BP's. He had delicately constructed a flavorful panoply of meat and cheese and veggies, all encased in a flaky dough.

Here is the delivery of message in all of this. Often, members of a church expect the religious professionals to do all of the cooking. We in the pews sit there and wait for the oven to open. Maybe the better plan is for us in the laity to learn how to cook those things that appear beyond our expertise. Study the technique, get the right ingredients, and get to work. It is not magic. Like most things it is not going to be perfect ever...the goal is progress.

Layers from the Cold

2011-11-20T12:37:00.004-05:00

Yesterday morning I went for a run. It was quite chilly. Around freezing. I had on three layers of shirts and as long as I kept moving, I was quite warm. The wool gloves and hat helped keep me toasty.

I contemplated how family and community are layers against the cold life. For some, family life is in rags. For others, it is well-knit. For most, it is in-between. The Church is ultimately God's protective layer. A mutual confession should create warmth but it is important that the church be on the move and not just sitting frozen in the pews. Action creates warmth. Inaction, despite good doctrine, does little to stay the chill.

Romans 12:11

Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

I Will Never Leave You Nor Forsake You

2011-11-17T16:32:00.003-05:00

I was driving home from work feeling, well, somewhat forsaken. No details needed.

On back roads I passed a sign that I see daily. It has been up for at least a couple of years. It is that verse from Hebrews "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

It reminded me that often I take God's promises for granted until I life bruises me up a bit. The thousand times I have passed that sign I said "That's nice." Today, I was like, "That's necessary." Really necessary.

The world fetches and forsakes in the same motion. One moment, it is "Come hither." Soon, it is like "Get lost." I am thankful that a brother or sister put up this sign in their front yard. It was a sign from God.

Wearing the Pants

2011-11-16T17:54:00.004-05:00

Today, I bid farewell to a pair of pants (why do we call it a pair? It is only one). They were getting frayed along the bottom which is apparently all the rage with blue jeans these days. Not so good when they are work Dockers.

I was hoping to keep wearing them for the rest of the year as they are part of the four pant rotation with one pair pulling double-duty per week. But, it became harder and harder to see them deteriorate and not act.

We spend a lot of time throwing things away. Toothpaste tubes, cartons of empty milk jugs, coffee grinds, newspapers, etc. This is a daily reminder that everything physical is passing away and we should not bind our hearts too much to such transitory material. Our hearts should not wind up in a trashcan or a recycling bin.

Matthew 6:20

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Church Walls

2011-11-15T16:39:00.003-05:00

I made a comment a couple of weeks ago to a friend that one way to break down the wall between the churched and non-churched is literally to have no walls. Walls essentially serve two functions. To keep someone or something out OR in.

The Communists tried to assert, for example, that the Berlin Wall was to keep the out the West. Instead, it was to imprison its own people.

I am very concerned that we in the Church has all resigned ourselves to Jefferson's dictum of the "Wall of Separation between Church and State." We make offensive forays into politics or take up defensive postures in the pews. Yet, we are losing the ability to interact with non-Christians in a back and forth fashion. It is either tending to attack or retreat, while jettisoning the whole middle ground of relationship, communication, and even simply getting to know one another. And not just long enough to spring the Gospel on them like some evangelizing Jack-in-the-Box.

When the New Testament writes of breaking down the walls, it is referring to the literal walls that separated Jews from Gentiles, first in the Temple and then everywhere else. Jesus busted down walls from the inside and broke free of the walls of gender, ethnicity, culture, and socio-economics. As those walls fall, the necessity for clear biblical truth becomes even more imperative. Too often we climb over these fallen bricks and leave the Bible behind. That is a tragic mistake. We must carry the Scriptures with us to the streets and creatively and imaginatively bring its truth to interact with those we meet.

Ephesians 2:14

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us

Love in Chinatown

2011-11-13T06:39:00.005-05:00

On Wednesday, a teacher and I took students to Philadelphia to visit colleges. It was a great day. When it came to dinner, I suggested a trip down to Chinatown. I loathed the idea of eating at a chain and consuming burgers and fries. I wanted my kids culinary and cultural horizons to be expanded a bit.

My wife and I always go to Chinatown when in Philly to stock up on good Chinese food like roasted duck and Szechuan. Lancaster County just doesn't cut it, although there is a place--Hong Kong Garden--that is an interim which is better than most until we can get back down to Philly again. Or, my wife goes to China like she did last week.

When the van parked on Arch Street I feverishly searched Yelp for an inexpensive Chinese place that was authentic but not overly so, like where the restaurant serves the heads to the bird and fish. When in Chinatown, eat where Asian people eat. If you see a joint stocked full of white people, don't enter. That is a bad sign. I located an eatery that had four out of five stars, one dollar sign for inexpensive, and best yet--when I checked Google Maps--was right around the corner. The meal went great and kids were game.

On the leaving of the restaurant, we saw the arch above. We had not seen it going into the restaurant because it was behind us. As we gazed upon its ornate beauty and magnificent colors, a soon to be married or just married couple was having wedding pictures taken with the arch as the back-drop. The groom in his tux, his bride in her lovely white dress. It was a fantastic moment and one that me and the students were blessed to witness. Young married love crossing the chasm of singleness to married life. In their eyes, I saw a thousands lights of hope and joy that moments like these create.

I prayed for the unknown couple the following morning that their love, as it matures, will always radiate the joy of that night. A Wednesday evening in Chinatown, with the arch of two lives coming together from different sides, joining to make something beautiful, shining in a dark world in need of illumination from the arrays of love.

Song of Solomon 2:16

My lover is mine and I am his

Delegation

2011-11-11T23:30:00.007-05:00

I have a difficult time handing tasks to others because I think to do so is a de facto admission that I can't do it all. Being that I am pretty much a moron with many things, you'd think by now I'd grasp that it pays dividends to let others who have stronger giftings where I am weak to take over. No, I am cheap. That is why I tend to try to keep it in house.

Ask my wife about the grass. For several years I fought a fruitless battle against the forces of barrenness in the yard until I calculated that hiring a lawn care company pretty much costed the same as doing it myself. The lawn care company price for the fertilizer was a whole lot cheaper than my expense. Adding the company's labor, it wound up being the same cost as me buying the fertilizer at retail prices. All of that pain and anguish for naught. Do it yourself punishment.

We have decided to hire a Property Manager to work with our new tenants. This time it seems we have found a credible company, not a Property Mismanager, to do this on behalf of us rather than my trying to reason with homeboy about the veracity of penalties from late charges. You decide who was probably right...my wife, CPA/MBA or a dude who probably flunked Algebra. And was menacing on top of it. I will let someone else be my insulation for idiocy. I let him rail on for fifteen minutes and now am exacting my pound of flesh by blogging about him. So there.

My wife has also decided to hire a cleaning service once a month to do battle with the legions of dust bunnies that pour out of our HVAC vents like Orcs. I located a "Green Cleaner" who uses non-toxic cleaners. Before this, we were caught in a stalemate of me not being particularly offended by the tasks of cleaning but not noticing the mess and her being irritated by the mess but hating to clean. It was a true problem now resolved.

I think I have a talent for writing and it is downright a waste of my talent to be doing lawn care, acting as a property manager, or being a house cleaner. Delegation is just another way of saying that we hand something off so that we can put our hands to something more in line with our zone of competence. I think I am learning this lesson...the Lord is teaching me that sometimes it is more blessed to give than receive also means that we hand things over to others who just do it better than we ever can.

Nittany Lion Weeps Tonight

2011-11-10T15:25:00.008-05:00

I spent the day at Penn State University York Campus for the Annual Counselors Day. It was obviously a day of somber reflection for the staff doing the presentations. The day highlighted the extraordinary university without diminishing the truly heinous abuse. PSU has helped thousands of young people make their dreams come true. And is now responsible for its share of nightmares too.

In light of the current scandal of epic and catastrophic proportions, Paterno's demise is starting to read like a Greek tragedy. Why he would not actively see to it that Sandusky would be held accountable and punished for his actions, is beyond me. It is not just inattentiveness, it was incompetence in the things that matter most. And, I am not talking football games, wins and losses, and the scoreboard. How Joe, how?

Anyone who doesn't think that the football program is directly guilty of creating the aura that blinded those in positions of authority to the deviant actions of Sandusky and his soiled Second Mile organization which helped foster the abuse of underprivileged children using the prestige of PSU football, are not being straight. I have had students in the Second Mile program. It makes me sick to think that one of them could have been raped because I recommended them to go.

I have no affiliation with PSU (being a Temple alumni) so I have to be careful not just to kick the lion when he is down. Yet, Sandusky deserves to be given a one way trip to the Big House. And the PSU administration, needs some serious jail time. Graham Spanier's "Unconditional Support" of his two administrators makes his dismissal deserved. Talk about being morally obtuse. That he could not stand for the children rather than his employees was unconscionable. This is not one of those innocent til proven guilty matters. The Grand Jury has done its homework. The Board of Trustees at PSU is to be commended for its swift and decisive action. The university is at stake and they acted like it. Sandusky will have his day in court but only a fool would think he is innocent morally. We as a society have become paralyzed by legalese when we use words like alleged.

One wonders if this is not also a bigger commentary on our idolatrous affection with college sports. The money, the prestige, the power of college football, bringing inappropriate accolades to a university that should first be known for training young people to be ethical and educated members of our society. PSU is that on the whole but its top leadership failed to act when action mattered most. They fumbled around and ultimately buried the abuse of young boys at the hands of a pedophile, trampling on innocence in the pursuit of sexual and sadistic gratification. The Grad Assistant was brave to report the incident to Joe Paterno but a coward to not step up and doggedly pursue justice when it was clear that no one else would.

There are a lot of unanswered questions here. But, this much is true, the Nittany Lion weeps tonight. We can weep for it (the student, the professors, the staff, the community) but more for the victims.

Occupying Sunday

2011-11-08T20:43:00.004-05:00

The sun was shining right in my eyes almost to the point of pain. It was Sunday in downtown Lancaster and the "church" I have been attending was holding a Bible Study for Occupy Lancaster. This service came at the request of the leaders of Occupy Lancaster.

I put church in parentheses because this is faith community that seeks to break down the walls of Christian and Non-Christian by routinely getting out from behind our walls. Sometimes we forget how hard it is to go into a church building if we have not been there in a long time.

We make Prodigals clean and shower up and be reverent like Boy Scouts before they can enter in.

I put up a post on Facebook about how I was touched by the sincerity of those who we met at Occupy Lancaster. Almost everyone was employed and not a rabble-rousing free-loader mooching for a free meal. Leave it to Lancaster to have a respectful and kind group of protesters. Someone living in California replied pretty quickly about the nefarious and noxious Occupy Oakland movement as if the actions of that group would bear on my assessment of the local Lancaster folks. It really didn't. I try to judge people individually and not as aggregates. And even if the moral and ethical standards of the local movement in Lancaster were suspect, it leads to a greater question:

When did we start to believe that Jesus only came for good people? Like us? This is a very serious question and one that had better penetrate to the core of our souls and deflate our self-righteous puffery. I often fear that we do not take Jesus's warnings about self-justification seriously enough. It is as if we are blind to the contemporary playing out of first century Jesus interactions in our midst and we miss the moral of the stories by thinking that we are moral. Our morality blinds us to our destitution.

The pastor of the church preached on the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:33). Both had a blindness. The Goats were blind to how Jesus identified in his humanity from infancy in a barn to his crucifixion with criminals in his death with the most broken, and even the worst, of us. When we care for our fellow man and honor the Image of God in them even if they themselves don't, we are acting like Jesus. But, we may not very aware of it. Our graciousness like the sun just shines forth. We give because it is now in our redeemed nature to give. We are not calculating on the scales of salvation how much we need to give to be good enough to escape hellfire. That issue was settled once and for all on the Cross and we had better not forget it. The goats were/are blind to their evil (sins of omission) and the sheep are blind to their charity of commission. Most certainly better to be blind because of the second cause rather than the first.

For Those With Earbuds To Hear

2011-11-04T17:42:00.007-04:00

In the equipping of the my soon to be Kindle Fire, I bought some higher-end earbuds. Could be a highly premature purchase if the Kindle Fire doesn't materialize for awhile. I am on a wait list. At least Amazon did not send the leather case for the ebook (and then some) reader before I actually have it in my possession. That would be like having a mug with no beer.

To break in the earbuds I was instructed to go to manufacturer website and connect to a page that essentially was a cacophony all-over-the-aural spectrum sounds. It sounded like a Mt. Dewed R2D2 was broadcasting through the earbuds. 40 hours was the prescribed time to marinate the earbuds--seasoning them sufficiently through sound stretching, up and down and all-around. Like Yoga. It supposedly provides a richer sound post-hence if I employed the protocol. I gave up the intravenous sound infusion after 24 hours...last night I had some really weird dreams with the sounds as the score and wanted to get back to listening to Spotify with the earbuds through the sound jack on my lap top.

Got me thinking about the experiences God sends our way or permits to enter into our souls. A lot of it is adversity noise...weird discordant odd sound events, stressing and stretching me to the hilt. Sometimes I just feel like a damn-breaking...one more teaspoon of trouble and I am just going over the banks of balance. Then, God brings peace for a spell, and afterwards, more sounds come, ready or not.

The end goal of God: To make our souls expansive.

Monetize Me

2011-11-03T16:21:00.002-04:00

One of the most significant dangers of social media is the desire to monetize all interactions. Everything is now in the cage of cash. Dollars and market domination are often what the transaction is about on the structural side (providers of social media tools/programs).

Not human betterment, a more just society, a purer world. In a system like this, people and purchasing are one and the same. Choices are commodified and the exchange defines worth as capital gain.

People have intrinsic worth because they are made in the Image of God, not a dollar sign. Christ died for humanity. That tells us something truly wonderful about us. The cross was the great exchange that transcended all human systems of value. We have been redeemed at a price...not to be mere purchasers of things that are passing away.

Ephesians 1:7

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace

Social Media Fatigue

2011-10-27T17:25:00.003-04:00

OK, I have finally hit the wall in terms of social media.

Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging, are really feeling like a second job. I can't keep up. So, I am taking a major break from all three for a spell. I have to get off the gerbil wheel. I don't know how long it will last. It could be a day or a month or longer. Particularly with the blog. Although I enjoy writing bierkergaard, I need to finish my book now. My blog is just for fun. And if stops being fun, I need to stop, cease, desist....

Maybe I will just go back to email...ah simpler times.....

Heart-Broken Goose

2011-10-22T05:16:00.006-04:00

Lina and I were married five years ago. It was a beautiful October Fall day. Crisp, sunny, cooler but not cold. April may be the cruelest month:

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering	5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland But October is the most melancholic month. Halloween can be quite a spiritual observance about the cycles of life and death, growth and decay, and ultimately about letting go. We are not all in charge of the universe and the sooner we gain humility and gratefulness to God for every miraculous breath, our souls will worship more just than the stuff on the horizontal plane. When Lina were visiting location for our marriage ceremony and reception, we ran the gamut. From the low-budget firehouse to the mid-priced city building to the wondrous and pricey Lamont Farms overlooking the Susquehanna River, we spanned the economic spectrum. We ultimately selected Lamont Farms with no regrets and beautiful memories and the pictures to prove it. One of the locations we visited before making the final call was the Lancaster Country Winery. It was a misty and cool Saturday morning as we met with the proprietor. I think the deal-breaker was we had to serve its wines at our reception...no award-winning vino. As we chatted with the owner, a wail emanated from the post-harvest cornfield. I looked out across the dying corn and saw a solitary goose out in the field. The proprietor explained that the male goose had lost his life partner several moons before and was in a perpetual state of grief and loss. I got schooled that day by a lonesome and heart-broken goose about the beauties of lifelong commitment and the deep sorrows of profound loss. God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, but this goose had a golden heart, one that puts to shame of fickle affections and attachments we have towards each other and our Creator. Who is the fool...the goose or man? If you are on a hard road in your marriage, fight for it rather than against it. Again, fight for it not against it. May we be overcome by the melancholic beauty of the cries of the heart-broken goose.

Espresso Anger

2011-10-20T19:46:00.006-04:00

My dear wife Lina bought me an Alessi Espresso maker for my birthday. This model is included in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City....it is considered such a classic. I do believe that I will be having an Exhibition at the house Saturday morning before beginning the final leg of my painting trilogy. Should help with the pace, espresso rifling through my veins.

Last week I wrote of "Absorbing Evil" and I utilized the image of a sponge. I had a couple of thoughtful replies that essentially commented that as Christians we do not have to just take it all the time without dishing out the Truth with a capital T. I also wrote a blog, with little spiritual application, about poured coffee. So, I like coffee, that much is true.

Serving up anger in cool little cups. I concur...when I first became a Christian, I was quite shocked that Jesus was not exactly Mr. Rogers in his conflicts with his enemies. Calling an opponent a "Twice a Son of Hell" surely are fighting words. And Jesus spared no feelings in his prosecution of incessant evil.

So, the question is how do we express anger without exploding? Keeping it contained, measured, hot, and served promptly. Once served, let the pot cool. Anger is a tool, just as an espresso maker is a tool. It is to awake those drowsy to the dangers of dallying around with the Devil. I actually believe that one of the reasons kids walk away from the Church as early adults is because the Idol of Niceness (which often mutates into a smarmy self-righteousness) is not exactly the antidote for evil. The Church lacks a prophetic voice and the message is weak tea instead of strong coffee: lay low, don't sleep around and get drunk, and settle down to a comfortable and bland life in Suburbia just like your folks and do the same to your progeny.

Matthew 23:15

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."

The Eagles

2011-10-19T21:01:00.004-04:00

OK, I admit it publicly...I am an Eagles fan. Being from the Philly area, I vote a straight ticket on my pro sports teams. All Philly. Cheesesteaks, Rocky, hoagies, burnt pretzels in shopping carts, the whole shebang.

After a 2-4 start, the Eagles have certainly dug a pit for themselves to claw out of this year. They aren't that bad as the record would suggest, but they ain't that good either. At least not yet. The tide may turn. In fact, I am counting on it for today I bought an Eagles hat at K-Mart. I have been searching for a new hat with a Philly spin. The new Temple I hat I bought, the one size fits all, didn't fit my head.

I think the Eagles may have been lulled into complacency by reading all of the preseason predictions of how great they were supposed to be. Fumbles, interceptions, missed tackles, blown field goals--at very inopportune times--suggests a team that believed themselves to be anointed. Now it is more dis-anointed. Complacency is a dangerous condition. Every down matters just like every day matters as a Christian.

1 Peter 5:8

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Pour Over Coffee

2011-10-17T19:47:00.003-04:00

Sunday morning, after church. Square One coffee shop downtown beckoned like a bell. I drove trance like to the shop. Sunday mornings are nice in town...plenty of parking, the shop is more in chill mode. Not the weekday in-and-out I want my coffee now vibe.

I ordered the Ethiopian Pour Over coffee and then stood entranced by the deliberate and delicate steps of the process. The general approach is go slow, coaxing the coffee beans to give her heart by wooing rather than scorching the grounds into compliance. One can taste the fear of coffee brewed badly. I wouldn't have the heart to ask for a Pour Over on a crowded Monday morning.

Here is an essay in the New York Times about the Pour Over process. As I sat in the chair and slowly sipped the elixir down, I was reminded that going slower is so that we can rather go deeper.

Absorbing Evil

2011-10-15T22:13:00.002-04:00

I have been on the receiving end recently of several harsh confrontations...one where third parties who I totally respect told me that I got hammered undeservedly. They are the same people who tell me when I am in the wrong so it is a valid read.

I kept my cool and took it like a man. It didn't mean that I didn't answer the accusations, yet I tried to do it a spirit of understanding their perceptions, even though the facts hardly were on their side. It is not that I am not capable of attacking people...as a psychologist I often know how to get at people...I choose not to use these weapons even though I have them.

Don't doubt this...I am a student of people and pick up on things that most people don't perceive. It is part a gift and part my training. The reason of not going on the attack is practical. I try to think of the end game. What does it accomplish? There are a lot of situations that spiral into stupidity because neither party has the good sense to hit the brakes. The second reason is that if my being a Christ follower is for real, I had better be willing to let God be the judge. He will recompense in the end. And the end is going going to be something that cannot be avoided. Knowing that all accounts will be settled gives me the peace to wait until the Lord acts. I don't have to be the judge. I have to just absorb it.

I worry about being perceived a wus yet I trust that the Lord is pleased when I am willing to be abased. As He was...

God & N.P.R.

2011-10-13T22:18:00.006-04:00

For the last couple of years, I have been working on my own titles for programs on NPR. "All Things Considered" is "Some Things Considered." "Fresh Air" is "Stale Air." You get my drift. I make up these pet names because, although I really like the intellectual and cultural swath of NPR, it is decidedly Liberal if not out and out Leftist. Since most of the people who listen to NPR are of those ideological leanings, there is a general lack of understanding of conservatism, and particularly the Christian faith.

Which has finally lead me to create what I consider a good explanation of what N.P.R. stands for in my interpretive lexicon. Not Particularly Relevant. God is not particularly relevant. This piece on NPR about Lucretius is more par for the course in how NPR sees all things religious, particularly Christendom. According to NPR, we believers live in the backwaters of society, in the biblical bayou, where guns and Bibles run as high waters and intellectual development and cultural sophistication run at a low ebb. NPR typically does not launch a strident out-and-out attack on the faith, it is more of a pooh-poohing and silent dismissal, as if the belief in the Bible is for children and mentally-challenged individuals who lack the academic and intellectual chops to dialogue beyond a fifth grade level understanding of the world.

We Christians play into the hand of these stereotypes by being xenophobic and backing candidates like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Rick Perry. Seriously, if this is the best that we can forward to a watching and skeptical world, we deserve a good helping of scorn. When I became a Christian, I started reading the works of St. Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and C.S. Lewis. One might disagree with their theology but it was much harder to not grant that they were seriously engaged thinkers of monumental and towering intellects.

We believers have often taken the easy way out of engaging our minds seriously with the profoundly difficult issues of the day that are crying out for winsome and wise answers. We depend on this: Since God's truth is seen as foolish in the world's eyes, we often just adopt a fool's approach to anything requiring serious study. Yet, this is not what the Bible means when it says that God's ways appear foolish to man. The foolishness of God is that He loves sinners and has made a way for reconciliation and healing for wayward people in a broken world. Not that we revel in getting D's on life's report cards, somehow thinking that our ignorance is a proof of faithfulness.

Colossians 2:8

Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.

Wall Street

2011-10-12T22:48:00.005-04:00

As the protest on Wall Street and elsewhere continue, I wonder where all of this is going to wind up. Protests are not the answer. Productivity is.

Although I don't agree with all of the points of this manifesto from the protesters, this one is certainly a reality:

"They (corporations) have influenced the courts to have the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility."

Historically, the rise of the corporation did much to undergird the rise of Western countries prosperity. It divorced capital used to start and build businesses from personal assets and property. When individuals and groups were freed from that danger, the risks of enterprise, then the liabilities became more manageable. But, like anything else under the sun, there is always a dark shadow. The abuses of the legal impersonality status of corporations for personal gain, demonstrates that man is always going to be greedy if money is his god. The problem is not the structure, it is the human heart.

Yet as Walter Williams point out, "Capitalism is always evaluated against the non-existent utopias of socialism or communism. Any earthly system pales in comparison to utopias. But for the ordinary person, capitalism, with all of its warts, is superior to any system yet devised to deal with our everyday needs and desires."

1 Tim 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

I've Been Pain-ting

2011-10-10T18:46:00.005-04:00

I decided to spend Columbus Day painting the townhouse. I had delusions that I could get all or most of the job done today. Nope, it is going to be a Trilogy.

That is OK...when I got a painter's big for $ 2100 in labor for the job I decided to come out of retirement like Brett Favre. That means I saved $ 700 dollars for just today alone. That makes the pain in painting considerably less.

I purchased a painting stick at Lowe's that had good online reviews. It was supposed to make the job two to three times quicker. Yeah, right.

All I can say is the it made the job harder and messier and now it is retired. Such positive reviewers are just gadget happy. Since I have painted a lot, I know if a tool helps or hurts. The painting stick just didn't cut it.

Painting has been very good to me in that it helped me escape the endless monetary battles between my mom and dad, who were divorced, to see who was going to help pay what of my college tuition. I progressively got free of that trap by painting over the summers and Christmas vacation. Heck, I even painted when I ran out of money in grad school. I felt a lot more secure knowing that if worse came to worse, I could always paint for a living if I had to. Coming from my background, I had a lot of insecurities about money.

God has been very good to me in that he gave me opportunities to paint when I was ain't. I can never diss painting because it truly was the major strategy to get me to adulthood. Amen.

Saved By Faith and Not By Jobs

2011-10-07T18:27:00.004-04:00

I like millions and millions the world over mourn the death of Steve Jobs. Although I am a dedicated PC user for my lap top (it is what I am used to), I have a special place in my heart for my iPhone. Bill Gates reminds me of the brilliant know-it-all twerp in the class whereas Steve Jobs seemed like the quirky cool dude who just had high expectations.

I am enough of a right-brainer to appreciate the intuitiveness and the innovativeness of the Apple design and elan. His rise, his exile, and his return to restore the shine to Apple is almost mythical in it three acts.

I spent a good chunk of time last night reading the tributes to his life and genius. I watched this video animation of Jobs coming to the Pearly Gates where St. Peter swipes through his screens on his iPad and then comes to Jobs picture and ushers him in. Although I can acknowledge the sorrow people feel at the loss of Jobs, and the desire to seek comfort and solace, it is important and crucial to affirm what (or better who) gets people into heaven. It is not being a producer of cool tools, it is by the Cross (the what) and Jesus (the who).

It is comforting to know that we don't have to be as legendary as Steve Jobs to win God's favor. Heck, we don't even have to own an iPhone. We just have to call on the name of Jesus.

Ephesians 2:8-9

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.

Pump You Up

2011-10-06T19:08:00.004-04:00

After taking about three months off from lifting weights, I picked up the iron the other night.

Since then, I have had a difficult time picking up anything. Last night at Iron Hill Brewery I was holding and drinking a glass of water with two hands because I am so sore. Dressing in the morning, tying a tie, have been exercises in trauma. I don't think I actually injured anything seriously...it is just age and inactivity tag-teaming my frame. Pure muscle soreness.

I hope to be healed and stronger in a day or two. It has me thinking of when Aaron and Hur held up Moses' arms during the battle with the Amalekites. If we can lift up our hands during the battle in praise, the arms will tire and get sore. Yet, God comes and provides us renewed strength to praise Him with raised arms.

Take Time to Pet the Puppy

2011-10-04T17:54:00.004-04:00

The other afternoon, I was doing my jog around the neighborhood. One factor in the last two home purchases I have made has been whether the neighborhood was a good place to go for a run...circular, little traffic, no stray bullets. Stuff like that.

Since the circle in my neighborhood approximates a half a mile, 8 times around is 4 miles. That is my standard run and I very determinedly strive to do it in under 40 minutes. I was booking around one of the last bends and was well certain to be coming in under 40 minutes.

But, then I saw a puppy. Man, I had to stop and get some waggin' and slobberin' joy. Is there anything more fun than getting into a puppy's world and just having some pet time? By the time I was finished with the interlude, I was behind in my time to make it in under 40. I missed my goal by 20 seconds.

We all have heard the saying "to take time to smell the roses." One should also take time to pet the puppies. In the end of life, we will have lived through some big joys and some big sorrows. Most of the time, though, the joys and sorrows will have been small. Don't run by the small joys wagging right in front of you.

Vanity Fair

2011-10-02T11:40:00.009-04:00

The story of Katy Perry growing up in a strict Christian home and who is now distancing herself from the faith is only unusual in the degree that her fame illuminates the back-story which otherwise--like millions of other stories--would never be told in the pages of Vanity Fair.

From the shackles of parental punitiveness and religious restriction, she is well astride on the streets of Vanity Fair, that place that John Bunyan so imaginatively conceived as an allegory for the world in his novel Pilgrim's Progress. The world that amuses, attracts, fascinates, and ultimate exhausts the wandering soul from finding its home in God's City. From attraction to amusement to distraction and then ultimately to destruction.

Then I saw in my dream, that, when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair.

It is kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity, and also because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity; as is the saying of the Wise, "All that cometh is vanity" (Eccles. 1; 2:11, 17; Isa. 40:17).

With my perspective on eschatology (see prior post) I have to be quite clear that I am not of the belief that this world is a good place filled with essentially and entirely good people, where I hold a naive optimism about the future and a better world being ushered in by man-made and humanly generated utopian schemes that ultimate disintegrate into nightmares. Christ died for sinners...if the world had been ultimately good, He would have been placed on a pedestal and not a cross. God assuming His rightful throne in His incarnation/coronation.

Yet, I hold great faith that Jesus Christ can transform tragedy into triumph because of His resurrection. And such restoration of individuals will inevitable incarnate itself into institutions. This is not the Social Gospel...this is the Gospel period.

Katy Perry has left the Church essentially, in my estimation, because she was never provided a positive vision for what her talents could do to make the world a better and more whole place. Instead, she is lost in Vanity Fair and has indeed become part of the show. She is now in a different prison...one without literal bars yet punishing all the more.

Don't Know Much About History

2011-10-01T06:09:00.015-04:00

Last Saturday night, Lina and I went to the COWIHN "Church of What Is Happening Now." Reader alert...this is a longer post. I have a lot to say. Bail now if you can't stomach it. I use the word stomach quite intentionally which will be clear why in the end.

First, as musical intro, watch the Sam Cooke's song vid. It will get you in the spirit of things. Ignorance as bliss type of deal, as long as you are in love.

COWIHN is my euphemistic name for "the" Church in Lancaster County where the sheep herd who are looking for greener pastures go to graze en masse. Over the years, the "IT" church has changed and many of the same people who were there are now here.

Lina and I too are searching for a better church fit. She is a 21st cosmopolitan corporate woman of Asian descent who is still quite traditional. Yet she does not connect with the mommy set whose perspective of the world is defined as a frame by their family. It is good in many ways that moms are internally-minded but it can leave other women who don't fit that parameter feeling isolated and alone. Rather than working outsiders in, the working woman, the message--often unspoken--is "buzz-off."

Add to that some good old fashioned clueless patriarchy "when men were men" 1960's vibe, and that combination here in Lancaster County can leave those who are not of the ultra-traditional roles feel like social lepers.

Conservative Churches are bringing up the rear so to speak culturally in a trillion ways, and not all of the resistive reaction is healthy and good. Instead, it is maintaining a traditional status quo that cannot be defended biblically. Such digging in is more indicative that we want our world to be neat, clean, and all sweet. I think Lina was hoping that the "IT" church would be more in sync with her modern woman wavelength.

And in some ways it is....the building and space looks like a megaplex movie theater, with the lights, camera, action deal. The folksy and friendly pastor is dressed somewhat grunge-like with the hipster skinny blue jeans and long sleeve shirt not tucked in. The music rivals quality-wise "secular" bands...the ensemble started out with REM's "It's The End of the World As We Know It" and they nailed it. I know the lead musician and he is a good guy and a fantastically talented artist.

Yet, once we get beyond the style of the service, this church is not much different than 99% of the evangelical subculture...it just does it better than almost anyone else and hits all the right buttons on cue. The current series is along the lines of trying to make sense of God's mission in a broken world. A very relevant topic.

The pastor essentially started out with some thoughts about the state of the world then went back to the Book of Revelation and tried to connect the two eons. I say eons because many in the evangelical movement pretty much rubber-stamp the prevailing interpretation that the Book of Revelation is primarily and exclusively about the future. The pastor did so too. Even without looking, I deduced that he must have gone to school at Dallas Theological Seminary, the leading purveyor of what is called in eschatology "Premilennial Dispensationalism." His Texan folksy accent was a clue but once he started to speak, I tracked the thinking to the strain almost immediately.

This "theology of end times" came to the forefront in the early 1970's and has maintained first mover advantage because it has given the impression quite convincingly that Revelation is relevant today in the sense that it speaks almost entirely of things to come. However, most Christians are quite blithely unaware that the interpretation of Revelation hardly fits so neatly into a box. There are four orthodox views of the Book of Revelation and they all have varying degrees of strengths and weaknesses. It is intellectually dishonest for any fair minded-pastor who is supposedly educated theologically to speak as if there is only one and ignore the other three.

I am an educated layman with some theological acumen. Basically, I buy books and read. I do have some research skills yet I don't rest on my Ph.D. to defend my positions. That is an appeal to authority which is logically suspect. I just read the Bible and the Commentaries from the viewpoint based on the logic of Occam's Razor. Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor)^[1] often expressed in Latin as the lex parsimoniae, translating to law of parsimony, law of economy or law of succinctness, is a principle that generally recommends, when faced with competing hypotheses that are equal in other respects, selecting the one that makes the fewest new assumptions (Wikipedia).

Futurist interpretations of the Bible typically avoid the fairly straightforward conclusion that the Book of Revelation, the teachings of Jesus about things that "must happen in this generation"--including the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the destruction of the city by the Roman Army in A.D. 70, were the literal fulfillment of much of the prophesy in Revelation and the other predictive teachings of Jesus and the apostles. That needs to be understood as a given first before we launch into fantastic speculations about what is to come ahead. Or, at least a critic of this view needs to assent that it is plausible.

There very well could be historical parallels to the Book of Revelation that may exist as a paradigm scheme for the future, yet we had better be mighty cautious about such conclusions without solid empirical evidence. Harold Camping is not the only man in Christendom who has done much harm by his unwise pronouncements about the future. He is just an extreme version of what happens when a person takes leave of his wits and begins to postulate in the air, wrenching Scripture from its context, and creating a supposed juggernaut of infallibility.

So, why is this relevant in the context of this post? Here is why. The Church has abandoned both its prophetic role of Truth-speakers and graceful mercy givers in a broken world because we have no faith that any earthly and subsequently eternal good will come from it. The best that we can hope for is to get those who are shipwrecked by sin into a lifeboat and shiver wet and cold until Jesus bails us out in a Rapture Copter. As far as the healing of the nations, the restoration of institutions such as in education, politics, financial systems, and so on, the mantra is "Don't Bother." Just love Jesus, be willfully uninformed, and be a useful idiot for the Republican Party and its benefactors. I know that this may sound harsh, but I really have to say it straight in order to at least state what is at stake. The role of 21st century women in the Church? Not an issue! Racism...Who Cares! Corporate malfeasance? What's that? Potluck Dinner Saturday Night! I am there! And, I will bring my fave cookies with sprinkles!

Christians cry a lot that we are not invited to the table of civil society where our views are not allowed to be expressed without some Leftist attorney from the ACLU taking our meal ticket and tearing it in half at the door and barring our entrance to the dinner. But we have to be honest, we have also dis-invited ourselves from the meal because we would rather be catered to and served rehashed leftovers at a separate spiritual retreat center (just think about what the word retreat conveys as an approach to culture-making) because we are too damn lazy too cook, serve the meal, do the dishes, and clean up the kitchen, in the service of a hungry world. To be servants rather than those served, feeders rather than those fed, givers rather than takers.

Too Tired to Sleep

2011-09-30T17:50:00.005-04:00

Hard week at school, good week at school. Hard week at school, good week at school. Hard week at school, good week at school. This week was full of drama.

Sorry I didn't blog this week...I try to do something daily but this week I had some good ideas for blogs but no time and little energy. Work just walloped me good.

I topped off the week with thirteen hours straight yesterday. My butt has a sitting sensor. Once I have been in the chair too long, my ass aches, making every minute in the chair hurt. But, I got a lot done. Sometimes I just have to pull a very long shift to not necessarily catch up, but to just not fall too far behind. So I have to sit on my behind not to fall behind. Some trade-off there. .

When I went to bed last night, I slept for two hours. Then, I was wide awake for about two. I wasn't worried, I just was wired. It was if the off switch on my body was stuck. I listened to a remarkable sermon about God's beauty in the mess while waiting for sleep to come back. Give it a listen. I have to stop blogging now...I need to get up. My ass hurts.

Where the Wild Things Were

2011-09-27T17:23:00.011-04:00

Maurice Sendak (Where The Wild Things Are, a book that gave me the creeps as a kid), was interviewed last week on Fresh Air. As I have grown older, my appreciation for the innovative and unconventional has grown.

Sendak, in his mid-80's, has penned a new book Bumble-ardy about an orphaned pig who vows to never turn ten after a birthday party goes awry and his aunt cracks the whip. The interview was both dear and distressing. SENDAK:

"I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more. ... What I dread is the isolation. ... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready." Towards the end of the interview, he said that he "is going weeping to the grave." It was so poignant and painful I sighed deeply.

As I stared out my car windshield out in front of a Starbucks on a beautiful beginning of Fall afternoon, I felt a deep and profound pathos for the lostness that Sendak feels because He has not a hope in the One who conquered death. I just love how the Apostle Paul taunts death back by asking it a rhetorical question....

1 Corinthians 15:55

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

Is There Anything Better Than Bacon?

2011-09-24T08:25:00.005-04:00

Continuing on yesterday's theme of bad food that feels good to eat, today's "Foods That Kill" is bacon. Maybe the Food Network would be interested in my doing a show?

When I eat bacon, I tend to go all out. I make and eat nearly the whole package all by myself. Oink, oink.

BTW, cooking tip, cook bacon in the oven on a deep tray and not a frying pan or a griddle on the stovetop; a friend of our used to work at Oscar Mayer and passed along this tip. No mess and spattering.

I save a couple of strips for Lina. The rest, I chomp down with the ferocity of a wolf. Then, it will be months until I do it again. I have to let the arteries clear and the heart bounce back. A bacon hangover of sorts. As I write, the remnants of bacon flavor is dissipating in my mouth, but it will live in my heart both physically and affectionately for quite some time.

One thing I plan to explore in eternity--I figure I'll have the time--is to research the dietary laws of the Old Testament, such as why pork was verboten, and then why God rescinded the rules and said "Take and eat" to the delight of humanity everywhere in the New Testament. He certainly did not proclaim eating the whole bacon package to be a good idea though. God is not capricious in what He does and why, so there has to be some deep logic in the hidden counsels of the Almighty as to why this went down the way it did. I posit that food is a spiritual metaphor for truth and what appears to be just a change of menu actually symbolizes an outworking of God's plan to the world.

So, eat your bacon and rejoice. Again I say, rejoice.

Acts 10:15

The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

Not So Good But Good Donut

2011-09-23T16:13:00.002-04:00

Today we had a new student breakfast at school consisting chiefly of donuts.

A newer student who came in last year after our new student breakfast in September 2010--and missed the donuts--happened to be walking by the cafeteria during the breakfast and made the case that we owed him a donut.

He looked so pleadingly that I gave in. Boy, he was happy as if he had never had a donut before but had always heard tales of their wondrous nature.

It is hard to conceive of a foodstuff worse health-wise than the typical donut. Simple carbs galore-- refined white flour, sugar, high fructose corn syrup--the very definition of empty calories. Pre-diabetes land-mines. Yet for all my healthy-eating, I fully acknowledge that sometimes the goodness of the donut transcends mere nutritional considerations. It makes us feel good, the ultimate comfort food. It has a psychological benefit that outweighs its terrible components. And sometimes, it is not merely tolerable to eat a donut, it is just downright good for your soul. Dr.'s orders.

The student who ate the donut today, as well as all of the new students, were welcomed into the circle of our school by these rounded treats. Would've a veggie tray conveyed the same? Hardly. Funny how something bad can be so good.

Matthew 7:9

"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?"

Emotional Crayons

2011-09-22T17:04:00.005-04:00

Jimi Hendrix penned these lyrics in his song "Bold as Love."

My red is so confident he flashes trophies of war And ribbons of euphoria. Orange is young, full of daring but very unsteady for the first go 'round. My yellow in this case is no so mellow. In fact I'm trying to say it's frightened like me. And all of these emotions of mine keep holding me From giving my life to a rainbow like you. But I'm a yeah, I'm bold as love

Feelings and emotions, like children, can sometimes be relegated to the kids fold-out table of life while adult facts and logic sit and dine at the main table. We as men are taught early to put our emotional crayons in their box as a rite of passage to adulthood. So, we need some encouragement to see feelings not as estrogen-like female traits. A booster shot from the Bible which aptly shows that God has kick-ass emotions such as anger as well as vulnerable feelings such as pity--the whole box--should sharpen up those crayon-like emotional colors.

Hebrews 4:15

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Please ReLease Me

2011-09-21T21:25:00.003-04:00

I had a rather unpleasant encounter with the couple who lease our townhouse this afternoon. The lease is until June 2012 and they want to break it.

They had the opportunity to assume a mortgage for a house of a relative who is going bankrupt and wanted to move out to move in there. So they took it. I warned them that they had better be careful and have the contract vetted by an attorney so that the house would not be sold from underneath them some time in the future. I don't know the ins-and-outs of bankruptcy but the scheme sounded fishy. I am happy they have a home...I am just hoping that they are not among the millions of the suckers who took the bait and now are going to get reeled in to a 30 year trap.

The couple seemingly expected that we would release them from their lease. The presumption bothers us...we are possibly talking about a lot of money until finding another tenant. This time of year, after school starts, it becomes harder and harder to rent a property. I have been through this rental process before in the Fall. The man of the house, in-between expletives of F-this and F-that, went on the offensive and began to impugn my landlordship. Then, he most definitely lied about a fan falling off of the ceiling and almost hitting his son. And he is only telling me now, months later? Yeah right. No need to lie, yo. Or maybe it is the best he could do since the facts are most definitely not on his/her side.

He also questioned my wife accuracy in accounting and assessing late charges. I was like, "Dude, my wife has her CPA and MBA. You are most definitely wrong on this one." It almost became embarrassing to hear his rants and ravings out in the yard. I kept my cool after being berated for 10-15 minutes. The thing is that they have no right to assume and presume that we were going to let them out of the lease. We could choose to do so but it is our choice. The more they tried to insinuate that somehow we were obligated to do so, the more I resisted calmly the assertion.

My attempts to be logical in explaining to him and her that a lease by its very definition implies a legal obligation on both parties was lost on them. He kept saying that there was no language in the lease prohibiting early termination by them. Arguments like that are idiotic when the terms are already stated. If I had not gone to get my Ph.D., I was going to go to law school...I have a mind for it.

I struggle with a proper biblical response. If we don't enforce the terms, are we allowing them to sin and teaching them that contracts don't matter? Are we then setting them up for a more massive financial meltdown in the future with another party less humane than us? Do we as Christians bear a responsibility when we step aside and let greater harm come to them in the future? Is that just not passive-aggressiveness and revenge by another name? Serious considerations...

The theological parallels here are many. People live like they want in this world and almost dare God to not forgive them as if it is their right to sin with impunity and then approach God with an attitude of entitlement. There is a radical deception of who is in the wrong and who better figure it out before their dying day. Grace is a gift...it is free. And the Lord gives it to He wants. But, we had better be mighty careful acting as if we deserve it.

Ephesians 2:8

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

South of the Borders

2011-09-20T21:38:00.003-04:00

After school and before Open House in the evening I headed down to the local Borders bookstore.

I pretty much surmised that it was shut down but I didn't want to stay at school for the four hours until when the evening program started and figured that I would give it a shot. I was hoping to pick the carcass if it was still open seeing if I could get a meaty book bargain or two. I thought it might still be in the process of closing down. When I called on my way, there was no answer. That was a pertinent piece of evidence in me concluding closure.

Nope, it was DOA. I headed to Starbucks and while I sat in my chair drinking a Tall Pikes Peak coffee, I saw that a friend had posted on Four Square that he had checked in Hearts and Minds Bookstore in Dallastown, one of those Indie Bookselllers, due south of where I was about 15-20 minutes away. They specialize in thoughtful Christian books and just thoughtful books in general, with CD's, and a minimum of Jesus knick-knacks. So, coffee in hand, I went on my way.

I really had no intention of buying any books. I just wanted to see if I could ambush my friend and chit-chat with the owner Byron Borger about various topics under the sun. Who was I fooling? Me not buy books? That is like my wife not buying shoes. I walked out with three tomes. Byron knows my interests and he slyly pointed me to the books, as a moth to flame I burned some cash.

Although I am hardly happy that York has lost its Borders, because the areas can use all the avenues for literacy it can get, I am happy that the loss in Borders was Borger's gain. Not a bad trade.

Ecclesiastes 12:12

Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.

Let's Talk About Me

2011-09-16T16:32:00.008-04:00

In my search of the "Vulture Culture" term yesterday, I was reminded that the phrase was the name of an Alan Parsons album back in the early 1980's.

Lina asked me who was playing on Spotify. I said Alan Parsons...she commented that it sounded very 1980'ish but that she liked the sound. She is actually more of a fan of the 1980's songs than I am. During the 1980's, I (D.O.B. 1963) was more attuned to 1960's songs. Some generational echo lag there. She (D.O.B. 1973) had never heard of A.P. before, though.

The stand-out song on the LP was a song called "Let's Talk About Me." The Alan Parsons Project band was one of my favorite bands back in the day. I thought their songs were lyrically intellectually interesting with a tuneful vibe. There were some bands in the 1980's who were current that I liked...U2, A.P., REM, The Call, and a few others.

The cover art pretty much illustrates visually the song and is what happens when we desire to talk about "me." We swallow and wallow in self. Seeking to become the focus, we consume and digest ourselves. As a psychologist, I have concluded one of the surest ways to be miserable is to contemplate the self from a thousand different angles. The best remedy for mental disturbance is to be attracted to an object outside of oneself as the gaze to center on. However, the danger then is that if we base ourselves on other people, we will discover that this is just a different type of appetite tyrant. The approval god, the popular god, the need to be needed god. A sure way to become broken-hearted.

Only God occupies center stage without becoming an idol. For He is holy and norms our attention and affections appropriately. He deserves worship...for He is worthy. Talk about Him and we find our appropriate place in the universe.

Vulture Culture

2011-09-15T19:38:00.003-04:00

Ewww...I was just out for a run a few minutes ago and encountered a vulture who was eating dinner at the Road Kill Cafe.

He was picking at his food--some indescribable mass of rotting animal flesh--and reluctantly abandoned his meal as I approached. He then took to flight and ominously sat on a telephone pole, waiting for me to pass.

I heard the term "Vulture Culture" from the People of the Second Chance website. Spiritually, it a condition where an individual, a group, or a society, derives a sense of satisfaction and glee in the failure and humiliation of others. There is a joyful feast in destruction and death, a sustenance of feeling better because we can make others feel worse.

The Pharisees in Jesus' time expected righteousness to be deposited in their accounts as a dividend from their judgement of the unrighteousness of others. Not so, said Jesus. For you all are bankrupt in soul.

We become more like Jesus when we take no joy in the misery of others. The bill for immorality will come due, both in this life and the life to come. It just had not better have our name on it as the sending address.

Getting Out of the Gutter

2011-09-14T16:53:00.006-04:00

There I was in the middle of the uber-storm last week here in Pennsylvania standing on a patio chair cleaning out a gutter. It was 12:30 in the morning.

Water was incrementally pouring into the garage. I peered out the glass pane back door and grasped that the cascading waterfall was in the wrong place. It should be at the end of the gutter and not the middle. Further it should be going out a downspout and not the gutter itself. Instead, it was spattering off the patio in gobs and some of it was sneaking under the door.

I surmised that the gutter was clogged with leaves and so it was. Soon, I had it free and flowing. The past can also seep steadily into our present. While not always a bad occurrence, more often I find myself thinking and being affected by some negative dead leave memories in the gutter of my mind. I am not sure how clean my mind...I wish it was as easy as climbing a patio chair and scooping. Yet, what we think about is a choice. We diminish the power of our actual thoughts and instead resort to tricks and formulas to restore the spiritual flow.

In commenting on Philippians 3:13

"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead"

The Commentator Barnes notes, "This does not mean that he (Paul) would not have regarded a proper contemplation of the past life as useful and profitable for a Christian (compare the notes at Ephesians 2:11), but that he would not allow any reference to the past to interfere with the one great effort to win the prize. It may be, and is, profitable for a Christian to look over the past mercies of God to his soul, in order to awaken emotions of gratitude in the heart, and to think of his shortcomings and errors, to produce penitence and humility. But none of these things should be allowed for one moment to divert the mind from the purpose to win the incorruptible crown. And it may be remarked in general, that a Christian will make more rapid advances in piety by looking forward than by looking backward. "

Being Taught by a Tree

2011-09-11T08:21:00.008-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, my neighbor got to work chainsawing a fallen tree from the storm into logs and then pulverizing the smaller branches in a mulcher that he bought in the morning at Lowe's.

Instead of paying the $ 500 deductible from his home insurance and then paying someone else to do the job, he just decided to do the work himself and use that same $ 500 to buy the mulcher. He's a self-reliant person and does not expect others to take care of his own problems, a characteristic in decline these days of victimization.

Hmm...there is a lesson here. Insurance should only exist for those devastating occurrences that ruin health and home. Catastrophic events that have life-altering consequences. Otherwise, pay your own way. It would put market discipline back into the system. Either we have a free market or we don't. A half-public, half-private system will never work over the long-term. Insurance companies don't want a free market either. Imagine the taking out all of the middle-men/women who do the investigation, processing and disbursement of relatively minor claims--a big piece of the insurance pie. More importantly, we take out the systemic profiteering of investors from a fundamentally flawed insurance industry out of control.

We have must cut out the third party all you can-eat dessert tray before our whole society goes into cardiac arrest. Hard choices need to be made and either we do it now or die. We have the answers, what we lack is the will.

Amid the Flood

2011-09-10T07:45:00.005-04:00

As I picked up the sticks and branches from the storm the other day, a distant church bell played "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."

I strained to hear the notes. At least that is what it sounded like to me. For the purposes of this blog post, let us conclude that it was and move on, for this writing would make no sense if not. Or even less sense than usual.

One of the stanzas: A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing

Luther had a robust theology that acknowledged that life in this world is full of the flood of mortal ills prevailing. Having Papist wanting to drown you alive or light you aflame on a stake can do that to a man.

These mortal ills prevail in the reality that they happen and are not prevented. God certainly could stay the flood and push the water back unto the skies, yet in His providence He does not. The greatest threat to a humanity's soul health is pride: The belief that we can command the waters of life to our ends. God lets us know that this is mere pompous illusion, for pride to be drowned it must encounter a greater power.

Psalm 46:3 & 4

Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.

As It Was In The Days of Noah

2011-09-09T08:51:00.003-04:00

Two Bison were lost at Hershey Park's Zoo America due to high waters. With the "two by two" species idea and the flooding, it is not hard to draw parallels to Noah.

When I arrived back from work on Wednesday through the harsh rains, I put on Facebook that I was in need of some pitch and gopherwood because I was fixing to build an Ark.

About an hour later, a friend on Facebook commented that he was already tired of Noah jokes. I wondered if my mine was before he had made that assessment, was causative of that condition, or after. The worst of course being "after"--that my Noah joke had missed getting on the boat--my comment drowned in a Deluge of disenchantment, for several others flooded his post with similar of "tired of Ark jokes" comments. I knew when I posted my comment that I was taking a chance of being trite.

I thought the pitch and gopherwood wording from the King James was sufficiently arcane to be amusing and would tow the rest of the joke into the dry land of Mt. Ararat wittiness. Perhaps I miscalculated. I considered deleting my comment but then decided to let it stand. Ah, the stresses of Social Media and one's cool standing. Judgment by ones peers.

The floods really have been no joking matter...the devastation is massive and widespread. I was kind of wondering when Pennsylvania's turn would come. We have been watching for years natural disasters happen elsewhere. Now our number came up. I thought God just loved us more.

In the posts to follow I will try and wade through what the Bible teachers about God's hand in natural disasters (and even man-made disasters like 9-11) and see if there is a connection between physical phenomenon and spiritual judgement. Not an easy topic and one where it is too easy to be simplistic, stern, and stupid.

Or, I might just drop the whole thing and move onto something else. One never knows here on bierkergaard where "theology collides with real life."

Matthew 24:37

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man

Rain on the Brain

2011-09-08T07:17:00.004-04:00

Oh yes, I have rain on the brain, rain in the drain. Dr. Seuss could go on but I am out of lines. That is why he was Dr. Seuss and I'm not.

I think the themes of the bierkergaard blog for the foreseeable future are going to be water-logged and logs about water.

Catching up on reading a couple of missed days of "365 Days with Calvin" devotional this morning. School was cancelled because of the flooding, so I have some time. If I miss a few days reading the daily entries, which I really should not do, I at least try to go a back and read what I missed. For God could speak through a devotional that I skipped.

On September 5, Calvin writes, "Children ought to be like their Father....Christ declares that unless we show kindness to the unworthy, we cannot be children of our Heavenly Father." Calvin is caricatured as being a stern man, unloving and unkind. Bent on preaching predestination and damnation. Yet, in reading his writings, truly he writes from the Scriptures and his thoughts are often tender, merciful, and entirely biblical. He is not one to theologically assume anything besides what the Word reveals. If he is hard, it is because hardness, like an anvil, was required--to shatter error, false preaching and doctrine.

Matthew 5:44 & 45

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Deep Calls to Deep

2011-09-07T18:09:00.006-04:00

Today I was high-tailing it out of work after we heard the announcement that the staff was to leave due to flooding.

I was pretty much ready to run. Like a sprinter in the blocks. Maybe a pool analogy would be more appropriate.

When water is in a glass, it is truly life-giving. When water overwhelms the banks, it is destructive. Odd how that works...the water is friend or foe.

This aptly demonstrates that great blessings can be worse curses when unrestrained and undisciplined (sex, food, spirits, and anything else in the created order).

Psalm 42:6

Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.

Banquet in Air

2011-09-06T20:46:00.005-04:00

According to Jonah Lehrer in his book "PROUST Was a Neuroscientist" 90% of taste is actually smell. And don't I know it!

For I was napping when Lina came home tonight and since I was racking like a baby out cold, she went downstairs to work-out and then make dinner for both us this evening and tomorrow night for her Girls Book Club. Us men, we just drink beer. No book or food needed to convene. And, cigars of course.

I awoke from my slumber to smell a lovely aroma in the air. Spicy dumplings in the far dish, spicy tofu in the closest bowl. Let me tell you, these dishes rocked the house. By filling the house flirtingly with the smells, my stomach soon followed.

I often have a hard time getting out of bed post-nap but tonight I staggered to life like a Mummy from the Crypt. And a hungry one at that.

I love that my very corporate and modern wife loves to cook and is great at it. Truth be told, she is pretty much great at whatever she puts her time to. It is more of a question of time rather than any other factor (talent, diligence, etc) that dictates what she does. This makes me a blessed man.

Proverbs 31:12

She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

Clean Hands

2011-09-05T09:19:00.003-04:00

Lina has been after me for several years to be more thorough in my hand-washing. After my most recent skirmish with a cold in August, I am practically now OCD about hand-washing. Enough is enough.

The world is a dirty place and it is good practice to routinely wash the mitts as a way of maintaining cleaner hands.

We can go too far the other way (literally, on one hand) and refuse to touch the dirt and there is mounting evidence that the avoidance of dirt and over-use of anti-bacterial soaps are making people less resistant to fighting off disease. Their immune systems turn weak because the presence of germs dictates a bodily response and that reaction builds strength through use. That has been my argument in times past to what I considered excessive washing. I have had to pull it back to the other hand because of getting b-slapped by illness.

So, now it is hot water and regular bar soap without the anti-bacterial component every couple of hours in addition to when using the loo.

Spiritually, we need to resist the evil around and in us (spiritual immunity) and routinely cleanse ourselves through confession and the washing of the Word. Rather than avoid the world, "don't touch", God calls us to convey health by our hands (actions) and heart (intentions).

Job 17:9

Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger.

Soul Scars

2011-09-04T08:20:00.007-04:00

I have scars on my face from a Job-like bout with cystic acne as an early adult. Finally shut down by the toxic but effective Accutane, the scars are daily reminders of many hard days and nights. I don't particularly like such jarring reminders but what can I do but accept them?

The outward scars are visual cues and evidence of my internal soul tumult of trying make sense of suffering in a world that is both beautiful and broken. All suffering is personal and not theoretical. Scarring is both a healing and a deadening of sensation and such a process certainly can lead to a lack of emotional resonance and empathy. Or, it can enhance such identification with the tragedy of others if the Spirit's balm emanates from the former wound.

I have been pondering the scars of Jesus, wounds from the crucifixion, that he appears to still have as evidenced from the biblical texts. What does the Bible reveal to us in this reality? God suffers with the world....not only from above but from within. Jesus could most certainly make the wounds from his pierced hands, side, and feet, disappear. I am entirely confident that the promise of the Resurrection delivers on total healing for the sick and physically broken. I am quite hoping that I don't see the scars on my face when I look into a mirror in heaven or that my left knee's aching pain finally is quelled on that day.

So, Jesus has willingly subjected Himself to the reminders of His suffering on earth. That provides hope to all those who are oppressed by the outworking of evil and the destruction wrought by the Fall that redemption is indeed a reality, for Christ in body yet in Glory still holds out His hands and side and invites the skeptical to touch his wounds anew.

John 20:27

Then said he to Thomas, Reach here your finger, and behold my hands; and reach here your hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

Where's the Beef? (Steak) Tomatoes

2011-09-03T05:37:00.002-04:00

This summer, I was strategic about what I planted in the garden. I made it, what I thought, groundhog- proof. Just tomatoes, red peppers, and jalapenos, all vegetables that these suitcase-sized vermin don't like to eat. Oh how they disgust me.

However, I see tell-tale proof that these mendacious mandibles on all fours have penetrated my two-fence defense perimeter and are eating the produce nonetheless. Teeth marks in the half-eaten tomatoes. At least finish what you have started. No dessert for you!

Besides a few stray pickings, Lina and I have only been able to get two rounds of copious tomatoes off the vines. Usually, by this time, we have a red tint to our skin from eating so much of the fruit. We are also thinking that the passive-aggressive neighbor out back who is retired is also helping himself. It is a satanic conspiracy between man and beast. An unholy alliance of pillagers.

Reminds me of that Wendy's commercial of yore, the "Where's the Beef" campaign. Not much good to have ten or so plants and no tomatoes. Next year, just jalapenos.

John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Grace Walks

2011-08-31T19:09:00.003-04:00

It is coming 20 years now since I first heard of the band LIVE. Lead singer Ed Kowalczyk is now doing his own thing but many of the elements that made LIVE a critical and commercial success have crossed over.

Since I have not been feeling well, I pulled some major hours sleeping. I felt better but then I couldn't sleep. Address one issue, create another. So it goes.

Last night, I decided to read a blog which then sent me to a website detailing an event down in Nashville where Ed K. performed last year and professed faith in Christ. I don't put a lot of hope in celebrity conversions. Dylan came and went but nonetheless, I do believe anyone who is a Truth-seeker has to come to Jesus who is the Truth.

Really loved this video "Grace." There is a line in the song that "Every saint used to be a sinner." That is not quite true...every saint is still a sinner. What Luther called, "simul iustus et peccator." As we walk in Grace, we leave sin progressively behind, yet on the streets of life we still stumble. We get up and keep moving. Grace walks.

A Cold in August

2011-08-30T16:53:00.003-04:00

Not sure how I accomplished this one.

I came down with a cold in August with it being 80 degrees outside. Maybe working three 12 hour days in a row last week at the start of school did me in.

I rarely call off work even when I am not feeling well but today I did. I suppose that I am finding trying to tough it out just prolongs the misery. Shut down and let the body and soul rest. I am hoping to be better by tomorrow.

It is good to feel weak...it is a sure medicine for the pride of self-sufficiency. If God has to increase the former to reduce the latter, it is a wise transaction. One ails the body, the other destroys the soul.

Mark 2:17

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Higher Ground

2011-08-28T08:20:00.007-04:00

With Hurricane Irene turning on the spigots in the skies, it makes me more at peace that we live in Mountville, high upon a hill. Higher ground in the best response to flooding for water obeys gravity even when it is acting up.

High places signify many realities in spirituality. They typically are places of worship. What is worshiped can vary, but worship happens. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, high places--what a culture believes to be ultimately the transcendent truths of life--are going to be occupied. One has to have a view of the world, a worldview, and ultimate truths are the apex.

There recently was an article published in the New Yorker about the Dominionist. The writer Lizzi (a literary Lizzie Borden for the ax job) essentially posited that Christians who think that the faith applies to more than Sunday morning are dangerous. Nancy Pearcey, one of the writers targeted in the article, defends her viewpoint better than I can.

There are two essential major stories involving mountains and the faith in the Bible. The Old Testament giving of the Law on Sinai (to Moses) and the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament (from Jesus). It is certainly true that any culture that violates the Ten Commandments persistently won't long be a civilization. It doesn't matter what the Supreme Court declares. The Supreme Being is the ultimate judge.

To the degree that a culture adheres to the Law of God, it prospers. And people can adhere behaviorally to precepts for a lot of reasons besides actually agreeing with them. However, when Christians use the political system to coerce adherence to the Law we have to acknowledge that this impulse can devolve into theocratic hegemony and a thousand of abuses. However, that sword of coercion also cuts the other way with other systems imposing its beliefs on religious people. The strategy of secularists is to extend the authority of government like a flood into every nook and cranny of life, and then wall off people of faith into isolated islands of enforced irrelevance and then drown them out. That is equally totalitarian.

Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, certainly expects his followers to assent and practice His teachings. Read this below and rank it on the Taliban tenor:

Matthew 5

¹And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

²And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

³Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

⁵Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

⁶Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

⁷Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

⁸Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

⁹Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

¹⁰Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Resenting the Ordinary

2011-08-26T17:33:00.003-04:00

It is Friday afternoon. The first three days of school are over. 177 to go. Not that I really count. I can't afford to. I take it one day at a time and trust that God will provide the sufficient grace required thereof.

And, it is not that I don't plan...I do. But, I try to avoid thinking overly about what is to come. If for no other reason than I am often wrong. So, it is a fool's errand.

Being that it is Friday, I have decided to have a couple of beers. Since I am a beer aficionado, I refuse to buy Bud, Miller, or Coors. My default is Yuengling Lager. It is a good, not great, beer. At $ 20 a case, I am drinking my brews for under a dollar apiece.

I am all for great beer. I have plenty of it in the Beer Fridge and downstairs in the basement. Some of this beer goes for around four dollars per 12 oz. That is an educated guess...I am really not up for doing the Math. I could barely muster up the brainpower at work to check my phone voicemail at 3:00 PM.

It is true that the good is the enemy of the best. But the converse is also true, the best is the enemy of the good. Good is often good enough.

Praise Stretch

2011-08-25T20:31:00.005-04:00

Lina, my wife, has been doing exercise/yoga-like routines from Netflix. We are doing a trial run before she goes all in and buys a DVD set. The DVD set is one of those "Three easy payments of $ 79.99." When one does the math and goes, "Yikes."

So, in the download pre-programmed work-out routine, the instructor says things like "Good!" as if she is praising her audience who are doing the routines well. Here is the strange part--there is no audience in real time. It is a general affirmational tone without any awareness of how the audience is actually doing.

For all she knows, her audience might be some dude with a gut who is eating chips and likes to see women stretch. Seriously. Does the instructor want to praise that? Our society tends to think that praising creates praiseworthy behavior. It is actually just the reverse. When we praise without something that deserves praise, it cheapens praise because it is so effusive and sloppy.

When I worked with juvenile delinquents, there were literally hundreds of aphorisms that had developed in years and years of that culture. One that has stuck with me in the 20 some years since is that is profoundly unwise to praise expected behavior. Or behavior that one has no ability to discern and assess.

What Me Worry?

2011-08-24T20:09:00.004-04:00

Damn straight I worry. Last night specifically around 12:05 am.

I was going through several complex schedule changes in my head. Visions of trying to work something out while the lines of students with incorrect schedules mounting outside my door like water on a New Orleans levee was causing me to be wakeful from worry.

For today was the first day of school.

I learned about two decades ago that if I could not sleep because I was worried about something I could address that moment, then I should get out of bed and stop my ceiling-gazing and solve the problem. This revelation came too me after many sleepless nights pondering what to do rather than actually doing it.

SO, early this morning, I hopped on my computer, accessed the Student Information System remotely, and did four schedules that were likely to be the most challenging in the morning. After about two hours of doing this and addressing a couple of other issues, I went back to bed. The remedy for worry? Work. Do something about it.

I was going to lose sleep no matter what I did. I selected to lose it in a way that would lead to gain.

Matthew 6:27

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

The 7 Stages

2011-08-22T21:17:00.003-04:00

I found this marvelous painting on the Seven Days of Creation.

Interesting how the 7th Day is accorded great value, teaching us that rest is not just the absence of work. A zero. As a day of Shalom, it stands not as negation but as regeneration. A re-Genesis.

Last night I read Genesis 1. I found it fascinating that God could have set the whole entire Creation in motion in an instant, like hitting the switch. Lights, camera, action. The Six Days into a once and done snap of the fingers where man hits the ground walking.

Instead, God is progressive. He doesn't need to be, but as the Grand Artist, Creation develops and unfolds like a painting on a canvas. After each major stroke God declares it good. Once the painting of Creation is finished, He calls it very good. The sum is greater than the parts. On the 7th Day, He reflects. Again, not because He needs to but because He wants to. Wanting is is often more poignant and powerful than needing.

So, what does this teach mortal man? Remember, great work takes time. Enjoy the stages, step back from the canvas and reflect. Do things artfully, not with a hot sense of drudgery and dark duty. Take joy in the painting, both the process and the product. Much joy is ground up in the matrix of efficiency, turning life to powder, easily blown to the four winds. Color is good, embrace the spectrum, be it food or from the palette. Much possibilities exist in the 7 colors of the rainbow and the seven note musical scale. Create. Have fun. Be seriously joyful.

Genesis 1:31

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.