Doubling Down

Today I saw a dirty pickup truck with a huge TRUMP: Make America Great Again flag flying in the truckbed.  I laughed, and my first thought was that this was a guy who doubling down on stupidity.  I know that there are some honest Trump supporters out there, who genuinely believe he is standing up for America or bringing back some kind of greatness, who voted for him with a real hope that things would change (or more likely, return to what they imagined the past to be). 

But what happens when you continue to believe in something, long after it's been shown to be a lie?  There's something within our human nature that even as the evidence comes out, some people won't believe it.  The old joke about how Trump could kill somebody on 5th Avenue and his supporters would still back him is becoming more and more true.  We tend to confirm what it is that we believe, even when it is certainly not true. 

Many years ago I served on a jury in which a man was charged with aggravated assault.  It became clear early on in the trial that the prosecution had nothing;. The story was basically denied by the initial accuser, the prosecutor didn't really press things, and most of us went into the jury room convinced that there was nothing there.  But one juror, a woman, was absolutely convinced he was guilty.  Maybe it was because the defendant was black and the jury was all white, but she wanted him guilty.  It took us awhile, but finally she changed her vote, if not her mind.  What was obvious to the rest of us was almost impossible to convince her of. 

I remember seeing that Nixon still had a 25% approval rating even as he was resigning.  There are some diehards who could walk on the moon and think that the moon landing was a fake.  And some will believe that 'no, really, h'e's a good person, I know it!' even as a guy is going back to jail for the 9th time.  We double down on our delusions more than our stupidity, I guess.  Hopefully it won't destroy us in the end. 

Being Right

Today an old college friend of mine posted onto Facebook one of those White Conservative Male whine articles about how unfair everything is against Trump and his cronies.  I have no sympathy for any of these people, but that's not what this is about. 

Instead, it's a confession that I simply can't shut my own mouth when I need to stay silent.  At the end of the day, the foolishness of this article is likely apparent to anybody not delusional, and those who are delusional and will lap it up won't be convinced by anything I say. 

Yet I still had to say something.  I justified having to give somebody a piece of my mind.  I had to convince them of how Right I think that I am.  This is pure arrogance, but my failure as a Christian is sometimes still so shocking that it requires me to confess my failures. I don't know that I will really learn from this...but maybe being conscious of these things will help me in the future. 

Slow TV

One of my favorite TV shows is Norwegian, called 'Slow TV'.  It's a series of broadcasts that are now on Netflix in which basically nothing happens but the slow processes of time.  I've watched National Firewood Evening, in which wood is cut and then burned in a fireplace, a show in which a week-long cruise through the Norwegian Fjords is shown in real time (on Netflix sadly condensed down from almost 200 hours to just a few), and yesterday while trying to relax for half an hour or so I started the salmon fishing episode in which various cameras in a stream in Norway film fishermen (and women) trying to catch salmon (and, not surprisingly, rarely do). 

My favorite episode, however, is the original: a 7-hour train ride from Bergen (on the west coast) to Oslo.  Basically they put a GoPro on the front of a train and recorded every bit of the trip...from the stops at isolated outposts, the cabin announcements describing the snacks available in the dining car, the many tunnels (in which the screen would go black for however long the train was in it), but most of all the beautiful valleys and mountains of Norway.  I have had it on as background several times and have watched through the whole thing at least twice. 

There's something about Slow TV that speaks to me.  No plot, no conflict (except for the fish being caught), no rush to get through anything.  There are times I am way too over-committed, but letting the river valleys or the fjords or the fireplaces simply run their time gives me a sense of peace.  It's not something I want all the time, but I need that sense of calm in my life. 

Theology and Christian Doctrine

Years ago when I went to one of our Church of Christ universities I was informed that instead of taking a class in theology, ministry students would be taking courses in systematic doctrine.  For years, decades even, I didn't even think about it, thinking that this was just an argument over semantics. 

As I have gotten older, I have started to see how wrong I was.  The very name 'theology' tells us that one is studying about God...his nature, his attributes, his actions.  But my experience through the years is that systematic doctrine in Churches of Christ is a very different thing.  Rather than speak of God in terms of theology, most of that time is spent on ecclesiology, which is about the study of the church.  Thus rather than speak of the creator, we spend much of our time discussing the minutiae of the church...its organization, its leadership, its actions.  This, I have discovered, is a very different thing than speaking about God. 

I guess I should not be surprised.  Far too often in Churches of Christ we have spent our time navel-gazing and criticizing other groups not so much for what they believe about God (since, in many ways, we didn't know about the nature of God ourselves), but rather about what the church does.  I understand that theology (and christology and pneumatology) can become matters of speculation that really lead us nowhere.  But the more that I study Scripture, the more I realize that unless God is considered (and glorified and honored), all the rest doesn't matter. 

Reading the 10 commandments, one doesn't begin with 'thou shalts'.  Rather, it begins with "I am the Lord your God...".  Christian faith, likewise, is not so much about an ethic as it is about a relationship with God and a discipleship with Jesus as our Lord.  To overlook this and consider it as a given, and run instead towards what we do in the church, is to miss much of the point of what it is that we believe.  Faith is not about our own actions; it is rather faith in the Creator, Redeemer, and Advocate. 

Lord, forgive us for forgetting about YOU. 

Downsizing My Childhood

I called my dad yesterday to wish him a happy birthday, and after talking for a bit he told me that they had some news...they are selling their house and have already bought a new house.  Downsizing, they call it.  It's time, I suppose, as two and a half acres it too much for him to keep up with now; the new house has a tiny yard.  The house isn't that much smaller than their current house, but it's probably more compactly laid out and it's not so much out on the edge of town.  It's also not far from the college campus that my dad attended so many years ago, so he's probably happy about that. 

And I'm happy for them...I thought they would probably go to a residential community next, but they don't think they are ready for that and this is a good thing.  They have talked about this for awhile, and while I am shocked that it has happened so quickly, especially since they are not exactly change lovers, this is not the first house they had looked at and hopefully they can have a few happy years there. 

I'm still a bit reeling, however.  We moved to that house the summer before I started first grade, when I was not even six years old; they have lived there now almost 43 years.  I don't remember much of any house before that, and this is where I played and lived and called home for almost two decades.  It's where I was playing nerf basketball and landed on the sharp handle of my closet and cut my butt open.  It's where I hit golfballs out in the lot off of the big metal barn.  It's where my friends would gather so we could play some hoops out in the driveway.  And it's where I was loved by parents and siblings and had many happy days.  Even my son, who's a bit sentimental like me, is a bit sad..."Where are we gonna place flashlight tag with our cousins?" So yeah, it's gonna take time getting used to a new place when we go down and see them. 

Rationally, a house is just a thing, a piece of land with some construction and some decorations.  For most of my adulthood I have tried working hard at the concept of not storing up earthly treasures at the expense of what is more important. But when those earthly treasures finally go away, some of them still hold a large place in our hearts. 

Saturday

Traditionally Saturday has been seen by Jews as 'the Sabbath', a sign of God's deliverance from Egypt and the new rest that they would know because of his own work.  Why do we not work, and why do we not put work into the lives of the people around us who take care of us?  Because in thinking of what God has done, we see something of what we ought to be. 

The principle of 'God has done ___, thus we do ____ is a principle that is underrated when it comes to Scripture.  Why do we take care of the poorest and the most vulnerable?  This is what God does.  Why do we rebuke evil and seek to bring about righteousness?  This is what God does.  Why do we need rest?  Even God rested on the Sabbath. 

Maybe the reason we don't carry out this command well is that simply we have a hard time thinking about an all-powerful being needing to rest.  I can understand, at least in theory, that I need to rest.  But God?  Isn't he always working?  Isn't he always active?  Does he really need rest? 

To rest is a sacrifice, I think.  In resting even God looked at opportunity and said no.  There are many opportunities to stay busy today, but for some of them I must say NO. 

And so, today is a day of rest for me.  Thank you, Lord. 

7th grade B-level basketball

My daughter is playing middle school basketball this year, and she made the B team, which is about right.  She's tall and has a good instinct on defense and passes the ball really well, but her ball handling is suspect, her shooting is shaky, and her rebounding is not mean enough.  But fortunately she is on a team in which her intangibles keep her playing...the team just seems to play better when she is on the floor.  Before last night they were 6-0 and only one game had been competitive. 

Last night, though, we played a team that frankly was not as good as at least a couple of the teams we had beaten, but we had practiced only once in the past week due to holidays and weather conditions.  And for the first half we looked like we hadn't touched a ball for weeks.  We took bad shots, made bad passes, and looked out of sorts on defense.  So at halftime we were down 10-2.  Second half we came alive and things started to click again...the other team couldn't hardly get the ball up the court, we were passing well, we were getting rebounds.  But for all the effort they put in, they simply could not score.  Easy shots rimmed out.  Shots that looked good would take three or four bounces on the rim before coming out.  Nothing would fall, and eventually the final was that we lost 13-11.  I would guess that we missed somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 shots in the second half; Lizzy missed at least 4-5 that normally she would make, and the girls were bummed out. 

But somewhere there is a lesson in failure.  Nobody wants to lose the game, but down the road it will probably be a good thing.  At times the girls were getting a little bit overconfident, if not cocky.  I have seen this in teams I have coached in the past, and in teams I have coached against...too much success makes you sloppy.  You stop thinking that you need to get better, that you need to put in the work.  The girls had a practice scheduled at 6am this morning to finish out the week, and I'm sure that there were some tired bodies and tired minds when they got there...but hopefully 10 minutes in they were back to working hard.  They've got three weeks left of games, and maybe this will be the beginning of them really taking off. 

They Airbrushed My Face

So I came across this story today about how the White House has been airbrushing pictures of the president to make him look younger and more fit.  I know that some people are going to have a field day with this...but if you looked like that, wouldn't you do the same thing? 

As one who came of age musically in the 80s and 90s this was the first thing that came to mind, the centerfold of an REM album liner notes. 


When I first came across that picture all those years ago I marvelled at the possibilities of something like that being possible.  Wow, I can now look younger, more fit, more attractive? 

Of course, today we live in a time in which we have great suspicion about any photo or image.  Whether it's dudes flexing phantom muscles or politically motivated shots of politicians appearing somewhere they aren't or hamburgers that look much, much better than they do in reality, we never know what really to believe anymore...so we choose to stop believing. 

Maybe this will be the death of sites like Instagram, with all of its beautifully filtered photos of people and places.  People will get tired of the delusion.  Or maybe we will just learn to no longer accept anything at face value anymore.  Part of the worldview of any future generation will be a general agnosticism about almost anything, even as they enjoy the cropped and airbrushed pictures.  Even as lines between virtual reality and real reality begin to fade, will we no longer believe even what we can touch, see for ourselves, or hear? 

And what will this do to matters of real importance, like faith in Christ?  Will more people hold to a form of Christianity even as they casually dismiss the idea of resurrection or spiritual power to be unreal or impossible?  Will future generations no more believe the Scriptures and rather read the many deconstructions about how it came together as simply a human book? 

It's a scary world out there when you can't even tell that our president looks like the fat orange guy that he is.  But it reminds me, that he's the perfect president for our fake world. 

Alexander Hamilton

I finished reading the Alexander Hamilton biography today, 800+ pages by Ron Chernow.  I had loved listening to the soundtrack of the recent musical for some time, but this book was really well written and described how Hamilton really helped build what the United States was going to become.  Hamilton was perhaps the most realistic in his assessment of what the new fledgling country needed to be, not just an agricultural collection of states looking only for their own self-interest, but a nation held together by laws and institutions. 

What really stood out to me, however, was the context of political intrigue in which Hamilton did all these things in such a very short time.  Hamilton was in his early 40s (younger than I am now) when he started to fade from American life; before that he was a boy wonder whose touch was golden in almost everything he did.  All the while the Jeffersonian Republicans of his day fought him, spread whispers that he was a traitor, and did everything they could to undermine his policies, even though after they finally took power in 1801 basically left much of what he did undisturbed because it had been so well-done. 

Reading this book with our current political situation, it would be easy to contrast his competence with the foolishness of the current administration.  Indeed, Hamilton recognized that as a nation we must be held together by certain American institutions, or we will fall apart.  I don't know that the current administration (which echoes American individualism expertly) understands this, so tied they are to the "Screw you guys, I'm going home..." mentality of Eric Cartman in which it is everyone for themselves.  Hamilton, I suspect, would be both fascinated by the development of American governmental institutions and appalled how they have been allowed to flounder. 

Yet it's a bit dangerous to read too much into the current situation.  We all want to think that 'our guy' is the only one that is really good, while everybody else is either incompetent, short-sighted, or corrupted.  If there was one flaw in this book, it's that the author held Hamilton in such high esteem that when Hamilton's flaws were exposed, it's almost as if he had to apologize for them.  Anybody who got in his way (Adams, Jefferson, Madison for starters) was a lesser being in the author's eyes.  But that's not real.  Everybody is flawed, and while you can see that some are better than others, that nobody ever gets it totally right.  That's why we need a Hamilton to go along with a Washington, and a Madison to go along with a Jefferson.  Competence and character is not a one-person show; it's something that happens when we work together. 

I really loved this book.  Not sure that I'll ever read it again (it took two hard weeks of reading to finish), and likely I won't be writing any hip-hop musicals as companion pieces.  But it may be one of the best insights to my country ever written. 

My Kids

I love my children.  One is a teenager, one is a tween.  One struggles in school, one is bored by it because it is so easy.  One is athletic, the other is not.  One has a way of getting along with almost everybody, the other often finds conflict.

How is it that two children can come from the same parents and be raised almost exactly the same way and yet be so very different?  The more I raise my children, the more that I realize that so much of who they are may not be determined by what their mother and I hope that they will be.  There is a lot of them is based on various part of our genetic makeup.  There is another large part of them that comes because of the various people they run across.  And there are other large parts of them that come from who knows where. 

Occasionally I will hear stories about parents who raised six perfectly happy and respectful and brilliant children.  Maybe those parents have some kind of spectacular gift when it comes to raising children.  And then other times there are parents who work just as hard and each of their children turn out to be fully messed up.  And we wonder, were those parents really bad and we just didn't know it? 

Scripture tells us that 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.'  The older I get the more I realize that while this is a proverbial statement that is true most of the time, it's not true all of the time.  Good parents usually train up good children, and bad parents train up bad children.  As Luke 6:43-45 tells us, good fruit comes from good trees and bad fruit from bad trees.  But again, this is a proverbial truth, not an absolute one. 

I'd love it if there was a perfect formula for raising perfect children.  Maybe there is...that's why some people believe that genetically planning your children is what is best.  But sometimes kids are just kids.  Like the butterfly effect, some flapping wings on the other side of the planet may well cause a child to be a great athlete, or a drug dealer, or the scientist who cures cancer.  We just don't know...but we can love our children the best we can. 

Death to preachers

This morning I preached from the story in Luke 4:16-30 about how Jesus was almost lynched before his ministry got going.  Even though in his itinerant ministry most of the synagogues glorified Jesus for what he had done, his hometown synagogue took on the attitude of 'the kingdom of God is going to them?'  Matthew 13:58 likewise says that Jesus could not do miracles in Nazareth because of their unbelief.  They seemed to like the idea of the good news coming into the world as a sign of the Kingdom, but they felt compelled to hoard that kingdom rather than let it grow and bring God glory.   

It always fascinates me how territorial we are as people.  As Americans we can't seem to stomach that others might want part of the American dream, and so there is a large segment that looks at people that are the Other with suspicion.  People who move to a different country in which most people speak different languages and then continue to find work doing things most Americans don't want to do, all the while with the sword of expulsion hanging over them, shouldn't be demonized...they ought to be praised.  But we continue to look at only Us as worthy of favor. 

Same thing happens in the church.  In my little fellowship of Churches of Christ we have routinely acted as if we were the only people doing what is right.  Because we have 'rightly divided the word of truth', we believe most earnestly, anybody else who claims to be doing God's work is looked at with suspicion.  Sure, we read their commentaries and sing their hymns and take part in their charitable institutions...but their music or their initiation ceremonies or their organizational structure is wrong, so we deem it proper to throw them over the cliff in anger. 

One of the things that I hope that I am becoming is more charitable to those in whom it seems objectively obvious that the work of the Spirit is going.  John 3:8 tells us that 'the Spirit goes where it pleases', and for years I have resisted this.  But the Spirit demands that I learn something of charity when it comes to others who aren't exactly like me. 

7th grade social studies fun

My daughter struggles somewhat in school, and so many nights we work on math, science, or whatever.   This weekend being a long holiday weekend most of her teachers decided that this would be a good time to dump a bunch of homework on them.  One of those subjects is social studies. 

Next week sometime she has a test over 'Europe', and today we were working on her study guide questions through three chapters of her book.  So as we were working on answers I was getting to read her book that was published in 2010.   When we got to the section on France, there was a little entry about French soccer superstar Thierry Henry.  He's now retired, but much of the section had been about how he was combatting racism in soccer.  What if he had turned out to be another terrible person, a murderer or a rapist?  How would they have handled that in social studies class? 

I also noticed at times how these texts easily sum up all the big issues facing these countries in about two sentences.   The history of Germany is summed up in about three sentences, and little is made of German militarism or the causes of that. The industrial revolution brought about overcrowding in cities, disease, and environmental problems, but 'generally the standard of living was increased.'  Well, thanks for that.  European economics, we are also told, have been greatly enhanced by free trade...but of course, in the last 9 years much of Europe has become more xenophobic and the EU may be in trouble as a result. 

I guess it has to be impossible to write a school textbook for a fluid a subject as this without it being updated every year and having a teacher who really keeps his eyes open at the news of the world.  I'm glad that the kids also have current events classes, though of course what outlet they get news from will also greatly affect their view of those events, as well as the teachers who might be left- or right-wing nutjobs. 

But maybe we also need to update textbooks more than every ten years.  But I'm guessing the schools don't have the money for that, though we are told flatly that 'European and North American countries value education greatly.'  OK, then. 

Route Four

My sister does plays.  She runs a working theater and is always on the lookout for new plays to produce.  Sometimes they do a series of one-act plays that likely nobody has ever heard of and probably won't ever hear about again, but they are still interesting enough that people want to come and watch. 

A few months ago I had this idea of writing a one-act play.  It's a play about a bus driver and a half-dozen or so students on his bus.  You have the stupid kid, the annoying 8-year-old girl with a whiny voice, the 8th grader who likely will be pregnant within two years, and a few other characters.  But the breakout star was modeled after a kid on my bus who I used to call 'Talkshow', because he likely will end up hosting a podcast that three people listen to, but he does it so that he has an outlet to talk about all the crazy stuff in his head.  90% of the time the kid was actually funny, but there were times he was so out there that he also qualifies as a future 'Most Likely To Get Beat Up Outside A Bar After Mouthing Off To The Wrong Dude' award winner. 

I never got all that far in writing; this is one reason I am writing this blog each day, so that I can get some of the creative juices flowing within me at least a little bit.  Writing is Hard Work.  I write several sermons and classes a week, but that's so much easier than letting the writing itself speak.  I can use the sermon notes and go from there...but to actually write out those sermons would be almost impossible. 

Maybe Route Four will one day get finished.  A few more days of stuff that I see, and it will eventually write itself, or so I keep telling my lazy self. 

Little Things, Big Emotions

I have recently come into contact recently with a woman in our community who will occasionally attend church here and who rabidly and vocally despises Mr. Trump.  Her Christmas letter (which I could not get all the way through) was basically a long rant about his evils, and I don't know that I have ever had a conversation that lasted more than 30 seconds where he or his evils were not quickly brought to the forefront. 

Now, I don't have any sympathies for Mr. Trump.  In starting to blog daily I have had to repeatedly resist writing my own long diatribe on here about how terrible he is on many levels (he's a con artist, a bully, a 12-year old child, an ignorant fool, likely an agent of the Russians, a symptom of distorted conservatism, and a figure who has deluded many people who for years were screaming that 'WE NEED A GODLY MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE' to think that he's the answer to all our prayers, etc.). He is truly a horrible president. 

But over lunch I dropped by the post office to pick up some mail and there she was...and sure enough, the second sentence out of her mouth dealt with some atrocity that his administration was committing.  I extricated myself from that conversation as quickly as I could; I just didn't want to go there today, though I am fearing that she may become one of those people that I cannot avoid forever. 

Because here's the thing...I really can't do anything about Mr. Trump.  I can become educated about what he's doing, and I can prepare myself to figure out how to remove him by the ballot box as quickly as possible, and I can pray for him and hope that God will move his heart to do better.  Yet beyond that?  What good is an obsession over him going to do me?  Or anybody?  I don't want to think about someone that awful every hour and every minute.  I don't want to become the counterpart to the many people who for eight years had their heads explode every time they thought of Obama.  I don't want my conversations poisoned by him. 

Yet for all my frustrations about this, I find that far too often I find myself getting irritated by so many other things that are my own Trump.  I hate the layout of the parking lot at the post office.  I despise the metro newspaper tossing advertising sections into my driveway twice a week.  I am frustrated that many people I know keep on making the same mistakes but will do nothing to change their behaviors.  I get angry about little things that may matter somewhat, but in the end are things that I can't really do anything about...and so life becomes ruined. 

In truth I don't think that my petty little frustrations are nearly as bad as some people I know.  My happiness level is high, and I work hard to intentionally put things into m life that will bring joy rather than frustration.  Maybe I'm pointing out their specks while my eyes are filled with logs, but I do see people who live their lives who are almost happy to be worried and angry about all the little things, and they are emotionally shot.  I don't want that, because that's no way to live.  I have worried about Donald Trump, garbage in my driveways, and parking lot layouts enough.  Time to hear again what a much wiser man had to say: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."  (Phil. 4:8)  If he could say such things while wondering whether or not he would live or die in a jail cell, surely I can do this in the good life that I have. 

November Rain, annotated

In the early 90s my good friend Derek and I had a running joke that November Rain, by Guns 'n Roses, was 'the song of the 90s'.  Maybe it was the pretensions to be epic, or that we really liked it, or that grunge and hip hop were already starting to change the music scene and so we were being ironic...but whatever it was, this was another video that stamped something upon me.

0:07: Why is my innocent mind's first thought that he's snacking on tic-tacs?
0:21: Weird Al?
0:59: I don't know which special effect was better, the sudden move from church to desert or Michael Jackson's Black or White
1:02:  OK, here's the biggest problem with this song...the continual drum beat of 2 beats, three quick beats, and one final beat.  Everytime they don't know what to do they keep doing this.  Again, again, again.
1:11:  So, is this all a dream?  Flashback?  Nightmare?
1:26:  Couldn't be a hair band song without a hot blonde playing a flute.
2:11:  Smoking ordinance violation.
2:31:  Seriously, I'm getting lung cancer just watching this video.
2:51:  Swaaaaayyyy...swaaaaaayyyyyyy
3:04:  DOH!  It's the 'missing ring' trick!  Makes even the priest happy.
3:22:  But do you really need rings when you've got a spectacular pinky ring/letter opener combo?
3:33:  Tongue.  Yech.
3:38:  "Slash?  Slash?  Hey, can you go get us a gatorade?  We've been on this set all day and we are SOOO thirsty.  Thanks, man.  You're the best."
3:58:  "Oh man...I was in this giant cathedral...and now I'm walking out of a tiny chapel in the desert while trying to get my friend a gatorade.  I gotta lay off the tic-tacs, man."
4:14: Wind machine's gotta get back to the rental place in two hours, so they rushed through this shot.
4:34: All joking aside, that's a great moving shot, especially in the days before drones.
4:59: Slash leans back in this scene so much I wonder whether his back needs chiropractic work a quarter-century later.
5:10:  Probably not a good sign for the future that as they are leaving their wedding the lyrics keep speaking of needing some time on your own?  Maybe?
5:37:  GUNS.
5:56:  Has anybody else wondered whether or not that glass is going to leave a stain ring on that piano?  Or am I just getting old and uptight?
6:23:  The wedding party looks like it belongs in a Guns 'n Roses video.  The rest of the guests look like they just stumbled out of a Christmas party at the country club.
6:41: Ominous stare into the sky by the priest.
6:48: Do sudden downpours happen in SoCal?  Or did they do this wedding here in the midwest?
6:58: Now that's just over the top.  Body checking the wedding cake?  C'mon, dude.
7:04: Remember my worries about the glass ring?  That's nothing compared to my horror at Slash scuffing the top of the piano over the next two minutes.
7:09: The wedding priest must not have been available for the funeral.
8:14: Ominous look into the sky by the kid.  Wait, rain ruined the reception, now it's gonna ruin the funeral?  COME ON.
8:33: If that dude running from the funeral flies into a cake, I'm done.
8:40: ROSES.  Ohhhhhh
9:05: "It's Red.  It's White.  Yeah yeah yeah!"

What if...

Today I was walking home at lunchtime and I walked by a house that we had considered buying when we moved to this town 13 years ago.  It was a nice enough, but in the end we decided against it because we got our current house with our first offer. 

There are a handful of other houses in town that we could say the same thing about.  One in a bit nicer neighborhood but had tiny rooms; one that was much larger but was a repo and so would have taken a lot of work we didn't want to do; one that was brand new but would have required a lot of extra costs to move in.  Even though I despise our kitchen I still really like our house and don't think about moving. 

But at times my mind wanders to thoughts about something random like that...what if our house had not been for sale and we had moved into a different one?  Would we still be living in this town?  What kind of friends might my kids have made instead of the ones that they did?  Would they have ever been hurt living in that house because it had a tree in the backyard in which to play?  Would my wife have taken the job that she did (which happens to be around the corner and in walking distance to our house)?  Would the higher costs of other houses have prevented us from doing other things we wanted to do, like buy a newer car or go on a trip? 

Even little choices like what house we chose to buy have helped shape our destiny as a family.  When I watch a sci-fi show that speaks of multiple timelines, usually the points of separation are about some Big thing, like who won a war, or a famous scientist dying or not dying in an accident.  But most little twists and turns of our existence are about so much more simple. 

I wonder how God looks at these things? 

Pulled pork

I made a pork shoulder roast today in a crockpot; after 7 hours of cooking it was so tender and pulled apart with two forks.  I finally realized that this is why it is called 'pulled pork'. 

I am so smart. 

Today in shopping

My son really likes Reames chicken noodle soup.  There's a kit in the frozen section that we get when we go to my in-laws.  But around here neither of the stores (Wal-Mart or Dillons) carries it.  They carry the Reames egg noodles, but no the soup kit.

So I go to our Wal-Mart neighborhood market today and I go to customer service with the empty box and ask if they can get this, since after all they get the egg noodles.  The first person had no idea how to help.  The second person came and scanned the bar code, and then looked at his tablet for the next five minutes, with the same expression linguists use when they were trying to interpret sanskrit for the first time. 

Finally, he tells me that they don't carry it.  I know, I said.  That's why i'm asking if you can get it.  He tells me that his warehouse has no record of this product.  Remember, this is WAL-MART we are talking about, the place that has likely the most extensive retail list of any store in the world.  I tell him that stores only a few hours away have these things, and the company that makes it makes other products that this very store sells.  But he continues to tell me that the warehouse has no record of it.  Finally I say thank you and go on and do my shopping for the day. 

I'm not one that likes talking to people with companies or spending time on phones trying to explain what I need.  But surely, somewhere in the world of Wal-Mart, a person will take initiative to call somebody who might know how to get what a customer wants?  just one phone call, "Hey, can we get this product that a customer has requested?" 

I love America, but this is another sign of its increasingly stupidity. 

A Year With Jesus: Questions #2 (kid edition)

As I continue to think long and hard about what it must have been like to spend time with Jesus in the flesh, I have more questions for his, but this time for when he was a boy growing up in Nazareth. 

-Did Jesus ever roll his eyes at something his parents said?  Did he ever complain to a friend about how unreasonable they were being?
-Did he ever tell his half-brothers and sisters to shut up?  Did they ever do the same to him? 
-If Jesus was the oldest of his mother's sons, did he have extra responsibilities in taking care of his siblings? 
-When he was a toddler, did he sit in his father's lap and pass gas and then say, "I fart on you!" and laugh uncontrollably?
-Did he ever play a practical joke on a friend?
-Did he ever flex or stand up taller when a cute girl walked by?
-Did he have acne?  If so, what did he do about it? 
-Did his parents ever find lice in his hair?  Did he ever have to get his head shaved as a result?
-Did Jesus ever look up at the stars at night and think, 'That one was my favorite to create?' 
-Did Jesus ever play street games with his friends?  Was he good?  Did he ever get beaten badly at something at then sulk for half an hour? 
-What was his best friend's name when he was 10?  What did that friend think about him? 
-Did Jesus and his friends ever have a competition to see whose pee would fly the furthest?  Who won? 
-When Jesus' baby teeth came out, did his parents do anything special to reward him? 
-Did he like to climb trees?  Did he ever fall out of one and break an arm? 

Again, these questions may seem weird or disrespectful to some.  But his fully humanity makes me wonder. 

Party in the USA, annotated

The week is dragging along, and if I drank coffee I would have downed my 4th cup by now.  But I don't need it...'cuz I got Miley Cyrus and Party in the USA freely available on YouTube.  Wooo!  Let's roll the tape!

0:04:  Um, I'm guessing nobody over the age of 25 is going to be in this video
0:09:  Good parties start with everybody parking in their proper spots.
0:19:  If Trump builds the wall, illegals will still be getting into Miley Cyrus videos in the trunks of cars.
0:29:  That's the wave of 'Hey, I see you, I'll just keep walking, OK?'
0:44:  Um, Miley dear, that's a speaker, not a microphone.
0:52:  Neck cramp!  Neck cramp!
1:22:  Why you singing about your girls not being around you?  They were just in the video like 12 seconds ago?
1:40:  'MERICA!  WOO!
1:49:  "What did you do in the video?"  "I was the guy feeding the confetti into the blower."  "Did you get paid for that?"  "Nah, but they had a really nice buffet on the set."
2:06:  Just hit me that she's singing but there's nobody there.  Not much of a party in the USA or anywhere else.
2:14:  Safety warning...dancing on jungle gyms is not a recommended use by the manufacturer.  Warranty becomes void through misuse.
2:18:  Five years earlier everybody in this video would have been more interested in playing on that jungle gym.  My, how the kids grow up.
2:30:  USA!  USA!
2:34:  Gotta admire the ethnic diversity of Miley's background dancers.  Miley is the American Dream.
2:59:  Parkour was a big thing around 2009, I think.  I'm guessing one too many flips where a dude landed on his head and it probably died out.
3:13:  For about the 6th time in this video the old guy in me is starting to worry about safety violations in this video.  Break dancing on a rickety picnic table?  Maybe Miley faded because she spent the next five years fending off liability lawsuits.

A Year With Jesus: Questions

On Sundays through this year I am preaching from the gospel of Luke a series entitled, 'A Year With Jesus'.  There is so much in those few short chapters that I have way too many sermons to fit into 52 weeks...but still, there are a lot of other questions I have if I really did have a year to spend with Jesus. 
-If Jesus was a carpenter like his father Joseph, did he ever hit his thumb with a hammer or cut himself with a saw?  What did he scream if this happened?
-What kind of food did Jesus like?  Did he complain that his fish wasn't seasoned?  Would he have liked tacos?
-While Jesus surely would have loved Donald Trump, would he have considered Donald Trump a true follower?  Or what of Barack Obama?  The pope?  Jerry Falwell, Jr? 
-Did Jesus ever look out at an audience while he was preaching and see a woman and then have to pause to catch his breath because she was so beautiful?
-Did Jesus ever on accident step in donkey poo while walking down the road? 
-Did Jesus ever have a thought flash through his head while looking at Peter, "Man, that dude smells like fish."?
-When Jesus preached in the synagogues, did he ever get impatient waiting for the people praying to finish so he could get up and preach?
-Did Jesus ever have food stuck on his face or beard?  Did any of his disciples reach over and brush it off? 
-Did Jesus ever look in a looking glass to check out his hair?  Did he smell under his armpits?  Did he ever walk back into a room to adjust an off-center tunic?
-When waking up in the morning, did Jesus have a stiff neck or a bad back?  Did he have morning breath? 
-Did Jesus ever have to break up a fight between his close disciples?  Did he have to take Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector and put them on opposite sides of the room to make them calm down?
-What would Jesus have thought about television?  About movies?  About our culture of entertainment? 
-Did Jesus ever do a spit take because something around him was so amazingly funny?
-What did Jesus dream about?  Did he have nightmares? 
-Did Jesus ever have to deal with a woman who threw herself at him sexually?  How did he get out of it? 
-Did Jesus read things besides the Torah, prophets, and writings?  Did he have a favorite book? 
-When working in his carpenter's workshop, did Jesus ever realize that he made a mistake in measurements and have to throw out something? 
-When Jesus was twelve and spent three days alone in Jerusalem at the temple before his parents found him, where did he sleep and eat?  Who took him to their home? 
-Did Jesus enjoy a good poop or pee as much as we do?  Did he ever leave the spot he relieved himself at with a leaf stuck to his sandal? 
-Was there anybody Jesus loved but never really liked that much?  Did he ever see somebody walking towards him and inwardly groan? 
-What was Jesus' favorite weather season of the year?  Was he more about winter or summer or spring or fall?

I know that some of these questions sound ridiculous, if not scandalous.  He is our Lord, of course...but as he was fully human, would not these things have been very real possibilities? 

Fandom

I have friends who are genuine Alabama friends, and this post is not about them.  But it is about those 'fans' who didn't go to that school, who know nobody from Alabama, who have never been to Alabama, yet in recent years here far away from Alabama have decided they are Alabama football fans.  Why?  Because they have won, a lot.  While I care nothing for college football anymore, I am annoyed by fake fans. 

I write this because as I am driving my bus this morning I see a kid coming into the school wearing a a Clemson Tigers shirt.  Does he know anything about Clemson?  Is he from South Carolina?  Could he locate it on a map?  But hey, they won the national championship last night over Alabama...and now we have brand new gear being broken out in honor of their victory.  I am guessing that this kid is not really the problem...likely he has stupid parents who thought it would be good to clothe their kids in orange. 

One of these days these programs will give way to Michigan or USC or Texas or Oklahoma or somebody else...and soon those kids will be wearing clothes reflecting that kind of 'fandom'.  I suppose this is the world we live in...no loyalty beyond victory.  It's the same mentality that makes the 42% of the population still fans of the current president.  He's not the other side, and the economic hasn't fully tanked (yet).  So they'll keep supporting him even though for years they demanded a Christian president, a man of character and nobility.  Soon they'll turn on him, too, because somebody else will soon come along. 

Hymnals, church, family

Another church nearby gave us their old hymnals, which are just like our current ones.  On the inside of the first book that I pulled out of the first box was an inscription that said it was given in honor of my grandmother, from my aunt and uncle. 

Now, this seems like an amazing coincidence, until you know that my grandmother and her family went to that church for many years.  I'm honestly not surprised that it says something like that...if I go through the rest of the books probably a few more would say something very similar. 

Church really is family.  I almost typed in 'something like' family, but in fact, yes, it IS family.  Not only do I have blood relations with many people in many different churches, but I also have people whom I have known in the church far better than my own blood family.  This weekend we went to a funeral for an old dear friend who passed away suddenly on New Years' Eve.  At the funeral we saw many people I had spent four years with while living in that town...couples for whom I had done their wedding, families that I had gone on trips with, people whom I had known years ago and look no different today.  They are still my family, even though I never see them. 

The blood of Christ brings us together.  And if the church is blood family as well, so more the better. 

The Power of the Mind

On Friday I was driving my bus route and I kept having the thought, 'what would happen if my bus broke down...like, really broke down'?  I have gotten my bus stuck in the mud a few times, and I have had mechanical troubles that made me limp back to the garage...but never has the bus been completely disabled. 

After dropping off my last student I started to smell a very strange odor.  About the time I got back into town it was strong, and as I pulled into the bus barn lot smoke started to pull out from the engine.  I called in to the office was told to pull into the garage where we soon found that diesel was spraying out all over the engine.  Had I been driving a gasoline engine vehicle, likely it would have been consumed in flames. 

How much power does our mind have when it comes to control over the world around us?  When I was a kid I could will myself into a fever in order to miss school...I genuinely believe that the mind plays a huge control over our own bodies and we can will ourselves into wellness or illness.  But what about the world around us?  Do we have power in that way?

It is easy to make fun of the people who proclaim that everyone on earth having good thoughts at a particular moment will change the universe.  But I wonder, how true might that be?  As a Christian I believe in the power of prayer, that in speaking to God things change (even though I don't pray as much as I should).  But do we as children of God also have power to change the world around us? 

Maybe I was already beginning to unconsciously absorb the diesel fumes as I had those thoughts on Friday.  But maybe, just maybe, something within my consciousness helped trigger the problems my bus developed. 

Or maybe it's just an old bus driving on terrible roads...who knows.  But the mind is a powerful thing.

Today in Shopping

At Kohl's we were looking for a mattress topper for my daughter's bed.  The current special was buy one, get one for half price.  In case you want to change the topper out every few weeks, I guess.

At Dillon's there were three open checking lanes with a long line of people, so we decided to take our half-full cart to the self-check lanes.  Every third item we were told Help is on the Way.  It took longer to check out than to walk through the three acres of food and clothing to half fill our basket. 

The twenty-something waiter at our restaurant called me Chief. 

The teenager taking my money as we got Wendy's Frosty's called me Bud.  Twice. 

Church As Experience

One of the things I have noticed in recent years is the trend that churches have to not call their gathering times 'worship' or 'services' but rather 'experiences'.  Awhile back I noticed in a nearby town how a church sign promised 'a new experience every week!' 

I think that's a lot to ask of the church or its leadership, to be honest.  We come together 52 weeks a year, more if a church still has Sunday night or Wednesday night gatherings, and for us to think that we have it within us to create something magical and overpowering each time is foolish, if not arrogant.  We gather together as God's people and bring not just our passions and our talents, but our brokenness and our sin.  Sometimes this means that memorable things may happen...but often it leads to heartache and confusion. 

The church as described in the book of Acts was often timid and uncertain as to what it ought to do, until the Holy Spirit would come and send preachers out or prompt a season of giving.  Even under the guidance of the apostles, they were often no better off than we are today, until God came and his Kingdom became manifest among them. 

I'd love it if every week we had church and something dynamic happens (there is another church near here whose name is 'Dunamis' and has a giant fist on their sign).  But rather than promise something that is not our power to give, we do better to simply be open to waiting for God's mighty power to come instead.  That, then, will be the 'experience' that will convict the world and change our churches forever. 

I tried coffee

It's a new year, and with it comes new intentions to occasionally try new things. 

The last time I had tried a cup of coffee was probably 30 years ago.  It was hotel room coffee and it was so, so terrible.  Maybe I had made it wrongly, who knows, but it was the liquid version of gonorrhea.  I never had any intention of trying again, but I know so many people who take so much joy in their cups of coffee that I told my kids the other day that I would try coffee again.

New years' morning, 7:30am.  My wife and I were staying at a moderately upscale hotel and I walked down to the lobby where breakfast was being served and noticed that two kinds of coffee were available: regular and robust.  I thought that perhaps robust was a bit too far for my virgin mouth, so I went with the regular.  I took it back to my room, armed with a handful of cream and sugar packets, and was determined to give it an honest try.  My wife (who does not drink coffee, either) had finally woken up, saw what I was doing, and gave a skeptical look. 

So I took a first sip and SWEET FANCY MOSES THAT IS AWFUL JUST KILL ME NOW and I spit it back into the cup.  There's bitter, there's rancid, and then there's coffee. 

So I added a packet of creamer and stirred it up and AAUUGGHH THAT TASTES LIKE WHAT THE SPANISH INQUISITION MUST HAVE FELT LIKE and spit it out again.  How on earth, do people drink this?

Finally I added a couple of packets of sugar and stirred it up and HELP I AM DYING OVER HERE and my wife snickered at me and I went to the sink and dumped out the cup.  I think it took almost an entire box of mints to get that taste out of my mouth and even though I probably only swallowed about 3mL my bowels have not been good since.

I am guessing that coffee is not for me.  In truth, it shouldn't be for anyone except for those whom we are trying to extract state secrets out of, but at least I know that now for certain. 

Things I don't care about anymore #1: college football

I used to care about college football.  In the three years I lived on the west coast and was single I would watch football most fall Saturdays starting at 9 until it was time to go to bed that night.  I particularly loved the Oklahoma Sooners, who won a national championship during that time.

As I have gotten older, though, college football has dropped off of my interest radar.  I guess it was 7-8 years ago that I made the decision to quit cold turkey and, except when I have been at a restaurant or somebody's house and it is on and I can't remove it from my line of sight, I have not watched it.  Having kids and being more interested in their activities and the introduction of new interests (hello, soccer!) means that it's no longer an option.  But there are also some very real negatives about it:

1)College football coaches are regularly the highest paid state employees.  Even as education suffers, we pay our coaches up to ten million dollars a year to foster a group of usually non-academic students through an extracirricular activity.  This is wrong.
2)Even as coaches profit greatly, student-athletes make little to nothing.  It was thought by now that lawsuits about profiting through video games licensing would have changed this, but no, the athletes get nothing but a college education in 'communications' or 'general studies'.
3)What does having a great football team have to do with education?  Again, it reminds us that what we think of as 'good' in this country is all out of whack.
4)Enough evidence has been accumulated about the physical toll of football to make me thankful my kids want nothing to do with it.  In particular the brain injury CTE stuff is terrifying if you are a parent.  How can we support a sport that regularly destroys futures?  Professionals make this choice and are at least compensated.  High school and college students, though, may have chosen this but likely were never taught about its dangers before they started playing.
5)When you root for a college football team (or any team that you do not have family or friends playing for) you are rooting for laundry.  How many 'Oklahoma' kids are actually on the Oklahoma team?  I know none of them...why do I care so much whether my group of strangers beats your group of strangers?  This applies not only to college football, but most sports in general.
6)College football borders on idolatry in many places.  Watching otherwise godly people become either giddy or depressed about their team's performance makes me wonder what it is we really worship.
7)College campuses have buildings dedicated to science, housing, the arts, and accounting...but none of those buildings cost nearly as much or are maintained nearly as well as the football stadium.  When T Boone Pickens gives Oklahoma State almost a quarter billion dollars to renovate the football stadium, something is wrong.
8)University administrators are often tasked with fund-raising for athletic teams as much as increasing academic performances.
9)College football itself is often mind-numbingly dull. Watching top teams regularly plaster less opponents by 50+ points is not worth my time.
10)People who regularly complain about the costs of everything think nothing of paying hundreds of dollars for uncomfortable and not very good seats at a football game.  Again, priorities, people.

Maybe I do care about college football...but I care because it is become something so bad for our culture.  Count me out of the worship of young athletes.

Hallmark Christmas Movie Bingo

We don't have cable TV, but anytime during December in which we are near a TV with cable my wife is looking for the Hallmark Christmas movie channel.  She loves those things more than she loves me, I think...so maybe my goal in 2019 is to write a script for one of those movies.  So, here's a bingo sheet for all the elements I need to produce a truly 'good' movie. 

Column 1: C
-At least one 8-10 year old child who is the voice of reason and moves the inevitable romance forward
-An entire village filled with piles of obvious fake snow on the ground
-Perfectly crafted Christmas decorations and lights and JCrew wardrobes throughout the town
-(second hour) The man or the woman of the inevitable couple get into an argument that we fearfully believe will derail their romance
-A silly misunderstanding whereby the man or the woman of the inevitable couple thinks that the inevitable partner-to-be is involved with what turns out to be a cousin, sister of a dead spouse, or a lifelong friend who is gay (but of course this can't be mentioned because it's a Hallmark movie)

Column 2: H
-CGI'd snow falling as the sun continues to shine
-Heroine of the story is dealing with professional struggles in her life
-Introduction of wrench character, aka potential mate for lead man or woman characters who themselves is troubled and surely NOT RIGHT for them
-Folksy main setting of an art gallery, local bookshop, or village Christmas display
-Scene of phone call from heroine to a parent in which said parent expresses fear that said heroine is ruining her life by only seeking success rather than love

Column 3: E
-Scene in which heroine returns to her hometown for first time in a decade but quickly runs across old friend for whom nothing has changed in that decade
-Meeting of secondary characters that will also bloom into romance
-(Middle square, free)  Heroine of the story is a solid 8
-Slight problem with set props in which green grass/trees are seen to be slightly uncovered from the fake snow
-Though the whole story of the romance takes place within 3 days, female heroine has at least 7 costume changes

Column 4: Z
-No appearance in the movie of any chain store
-Male inevitable prince charming goes through a period where he might very well be a complete jerk
-Introduction of minority character in an otherwise WASPy town as best friend, co-worker, or wise elder
-Retelling of backstory in which the man or woman of the inevitable couple speak of a tragic loss of parent, spouse, or dream
-Realization that falling snow never collects on jacket or in the hair of those who are outside

Column 5: Y
-Cars throughout the movie that are always in a winter wonderland appear to be freshly washed in each scene
-Introduction of wise elder of happy town who is considered the unofficial mayor and guiding force
-Final scene at a Christmas party or a town celebration in which the inevitable couple kisses and presumably lets us know they are Happily Ever After
-Man or woman of inevitable couple have opportunity to live somewhere else that will ultimately not be taken
-Every child within the story is well-behaved, clean-cut, and earnest