Walk This Way, Annotated

So why is music today what it is?  Some think that Michael Jackson bringing down the walls of white music on MTV is the big deal...but since rap/hiphop is what most kids these days really like, I think this is Ground Zero for music in 2019.  I'm neither a huge rap or an Aerosmith fan, but I have always loved this song.  Let's dive in.

0:05:  I know Steven Tyler and Joe Perry are crucial to this video...but I wonder where the other guys are during this practice session?  Or do Joe and Steven just dress like this while hanging out? 
0:09:  SYMBOLISM ALERT!  There's a wall.  It's dividing the rockers from the rappers.  Somebody's ticked off.  I'm guessing we will come back to this.
0:21:  Does Steven Tyler walk like this through the Kroeger?  Does he ever kick out the display table and then have to pick stuff up while the manager watches?
0:31:  See, this is why you don't live in apartments.  You get music rages where you stick your speaker up against the wall.  Hoping that violence doesn't break out.
0:42:  So, did Jam Master Jay have a copy of Walk This Way on vinyl?  If he liked Aerosmith enough to have this in his collection, and they are living RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Aerosmith practice facility, couldn't they have made peace before this?
0:48:  Does Steven Tyler ever get dizzy?  Could he have been an astronaut, whirling around on the centrifuge?  True story...a few weeks ago I took my son to an amusement park and I agreed to ride the tilt-a-whirl.  I felt terrible the rest of the night.  I could never have been Steven Tyler in concert.  OK, end of story.
1:11  Did Steven Tyler gripe at Joe Perry to stop playing during this?  Was Joe auditioning for a new lead singer and just didn't have the heart to say otherwise?
1:18  "YEAH!  Throw that milk jug!  That'll show 'em!"
1:24  "Turn it up to 11!  We did that 20 seconds ago, let's do it again!"
1:32  Oh, he's not getting his rent deposit back now.
1:37  I always imagined that the walls of studios were a bit more sturdy?  Was I mistaken?
1:52  Gotta be hard to sing with all that dust flying through the air.  No wonder his voice gets so raspy.
1:58  Um, am I still in this video?
2:14  SYMBOLISM ALERT!  There's a paper curtain.  It's been impossible to break through for years.  But now Russell and and Darryl, they can do this...
2:23  I think this expression is the best part of the video.  That's some serious acting.  That's where his daughter Liv got her chops so that she could be in a sex scene in Armageddon with Aerosmith playing in the background which is so weird now I'm gonna just move on...
2:32  Oh, the laceless Adidas shoes.  Never tried pulling that off, but I wanted to.
2:42  Now they are a trio.  The walls have come down.  Happiness ensues...Run DMC is playing to Aerosmith's audience...but could Aerosmith play to Run DMC's audience?  Hmmm....Given how rap has overwhelmed rock, I think that this was prophetic in where music was going and how 'black' music has been accepted by a 'white audience'.
3:05  Wait, Russell...you break into somebody else's concert and then you are ticked off that they keep singing?
3:19  Steven Tyler screams on behalf of metal bands everywhere.  He knows the game is up.
3:30  The video ends with what seems like 3 50ish white guys trying to get their groove on.  Needless to say, the last thirty seconds of these guys dancing has not aged well.

Fortunately, we don't judge this video by only its last few seconds.  Still great.  This song will still be played a hundred years from now.

Freedom, accountability, responsibility

"Without accountability and responsibility, freedom will quickly become a curse."  -Me. 

I believe that freedom is the great moral challenge of our day.  Why?  Because freedom is one of the rare things that gets 99.9% approval rating.  People on the left love it:  "Yea!  Free love and drugs!"  People on the right love it too.  "Yea!  Gun rights and property!"  Everybody loves freedom, at least freedom as they see it; I have yet to meet somebody in my years that would speak of freedom as a bad thing, even if they think that others go overboard on their own interpretations of it. 

But the older I get I'm starting to think that I'm in that 0.1%.  I look around me and see that freedom must have some sense of control, which means that it automatically no longer is an absolute.  One needs the accountability that comes with living in community, because individual freedom without concern for how it interacts with others will quickly lead to conflict.  My pursuit of freedom might well mean that I care nothing for the rights and freedoms of others, and thus I need to be accountable to those who live around me. 

Of course, this sense of communal responsibility has given way to the rights of the absolute individual.  When you read the second amendment about gun rights, few see that the idea of forming a militia (something that involves people) comes up...it's simply that I want a bigger and meaner gun because that's what I want!  When you hear talk about the 'right to privacy' which has become embedded in the national consciousness, be it internet security or abortion, it's about freedom from others telling me what to do or even being able to watch what I do. 

So what's left when communal accountability is gone?  Only the individual.  And what happens when the individual has no sense of responsibility not only to his community but even himself?  This is why so many people live such poor excuses for lives today.  It's why people are so sloppy, because they don't demand more from themselves.  It's why they there's so much finger pointing, because we see the specks in the eyes of others without seeing the planks in our own.  People are no longer taught to take care of themselves; the left wants government to step in, while the right no longer has any sense of moral foundation; its sense of what is right for the individual (usually the white, rich, male individual) overwhelms everything else. 

I believe that this is the reason that our western culture is on the brink of moral and spiritual collapse.  Having forgotten about the sovereign God, having forgotten about our accountability towards others, and having forgotten even the sense of responsibility towards ourselves to be moral creatures, we have almost nothing on which to stand.  I fear greatly for us. 

A conversation with Buddy

Hey Buddy.  Good to see you again.  I always know it's you, with the rusty gold pickup that has the confederate front plate and the Punisher decal on the back window.  Cool. 

Haven't seen you in awhile...last time I saw you was in the gym.  You and your buddies were standing around the free weights.  I don't remember you lifting them very much, but you looked intense, and I'm sure that those Tapout shirts with the cutoff sleeves made you feel really ripped.

That was awhile ago, though.  Looks like you are spending less time at the gym, more time at the Golden Corral.  I know, I know...it's hard to put in as much time working out when you're trying to support three different kids with two different women.  And yeah, what about that other girl you're with now?  Isn't she pregnant?  Man, you gotta be busy. 

My brother went by your folks' house the other night because he had heard that you moved back in.  He told me that he loves what they've done with the place, with the giant TRUMP flag flowing in the breeze just under Old Glory.  He went around back to see if you were around but the dogs went crazy, and decided it wans't worth it.  Was that your refrigerator in the yard?  He couldn't tell, there was so much stuff out there.  Your neighbor stared him down as he stood on the porch with a beer in his hand; after smoking a few more in his car he finally decided that he'd talk to you another time. 

Speaking of beer, I heard that you got that second DUI.  That really stinks, man.  Don't the cops know that guys like you just want to have a good time?  And your boss...man, I can't believe that you got fired from the machine shop.  I mean, I know they said that they don't want people handling sharp objects that can't handle their beer.  But that was a good job.  It just ain't right that they hired some hispanic guy to steal your job away. 

But I heard Taco Bell isn't the worst place to work, as long as you don't mind smelling like grease and sweat all the time for minimum wage.  I know that we're still trying hard to MAGA, but it's not easy with all these dadgum liberals taking away our rights.

Hey, you heard about Billy, right?  Darn shame, how he blew off part of his hand while messing around with his Glock 19.  Good thing he has the right to bear arms still, no matter what those liberals say.  We're gonna have a fundraiser to pay for his $30,000 in medical bills because the dude didn't have insurance.  He told me that no way was he gonna have that stupid socialized Obamacare.  I don't have it either, so I hope that I don't get hurt but guys like you and me, we're invincible!  We're never gonna have that problem!

Good to see you, dude.  Thanks for coming by to see me.  I get out in another 185 days.  My woman said she isn't gonna take me back, she keeps saying something about 'Hashtag Me Two' but I don't know if that's some kinda military thing.  At least she's still got her guns, even though they're actually mine.  I should know, I blew a hole in her wall when I thought she was cheating and I was only trying to show her how much I love her. 

Stay strong.  MAGA! 

'Hope Never Dies'

Having finished a number of other books and not wanting anything too heavy on my reading table, I started browsing through my library reading app when a book popped up called 'Hope Never Dies'.  On the cover, standing up in the passenger seat of a 70s Firebird was Barack Obama.  Driving was Joe Biden.  Whaaaa?????  Intrigued, I opened up the description and found that it is Obama/Biden fan fiction, a detective story in which they go and solve a mystery.  I was in immediately, and have had more than a few laugh-out-loud moments so far in just the first few chapters. 

In this time of the misery that is the current presidency, it's escapism that sometimes gets us through the day.  As a Christian I am grateful every day that I serve the true king, but even so looking at the slavish devotion that 38% of my fellow citizens continues to give to the Dear Leader makes me sad.  Obama wasn't a great president, a B- by my analysis.  But at least he had ideas beyond boosting the rich and hating minorities and foreigners and sought to be a decent human being.

This week we learned that our president will not likely be indicted.  The special counsel found that there was no collusion between him and Russia, and he gave no opinion as to whether or not he obstructed justice.  Trumpites rejoiced...'completely exonerated!' they screamed.  Well, not really...we haven't actually seen the Mueller report, only a 4-page book report of it written by a Trump appointee less than 48 hours after 22 months of work was turned in.  And if this is what success looks like (not being a traitor, perhaps not obstructing justice but perhaps doing so, and having dozens of your closest advisors gone to jail or indicted), then that's a really low bar for success.  

But the president wins this week, as sad as that is.  So to 'Hope Never Dies' we go to take our mind off the foolishness that is our world. 

Of Books and Bibles

Today I finished a book about a theological foundation for the church.  It's one of those books that once upon a time I would have absolutely loved for its eye-opening view of the church.  About 20-25 years ago, as I began ministry, there were a lot of these new viewpoints of Churches of Christ that ended up in print.  I have many of them on my shelf...a few are excellent, most are ordinary, and a few are terrible.  I also own some of the counter-reactions to this written by those who were terrified at the thought of change.  A few were well-reasoned and helpful but most were simply fearful rants about 'change agents'. 

As I get older and have now spent almost 24 years in full time ministry, though, these kind of books just don't appeal to me anymore.  Maybe it's that absorbed their content so fully that they don't have anything to say to me. But I think that the more likely answer is that I now am more interested in reading the Bible again.  Perhaps these books pushed me back to being more Biblical, and if so thank you, but I am more and more fascinated with what a two-millennia-old collection of Hebrew and Greek texts has to say about the church and about God and about my own faith and about the reality of the world around me than I am about what non-inspired people have to say on just about anything. 

Not sure exactly how I came this way, but I love the Bible so much more than I used to.  I used to think of it as something I had to read as a good Christian, and something I had to mine as to be a competent preacher.  Do I read the Bible more than I used to?  Not really...right now I am doing a daily Bible reading program on my app, and I'm not preaching any more exegetically than I used to (I've always depended upon thru-the-Bible to set up most of my preaching).  But the Bible seems now more alive to me than it ever did before. 

I'm sure if I was to forensically examine this, I could give great thanks to many good Bible teachers I've had in the past, or books that have pointed me in the right direction.  But I wonder if the real gamechanger was when I started to take the Psalms and the Prophets more seriously.  That happened around the same time, not long after we moved here 13 years ago.  They are Scripture, but they are a very different kind of Scripture...not law, not story, but rather poetry and prophetic correction.  I always thought of Scripture in terms of those first two, but even though other poetry interests me not at all, and prophetic correction even now can seem a bit overbearing, I think pulling these into my frame of mind has given me the closest hope of grasping the totality of God's story as I have been able to get.  It's still not complete, of course, but no longer do I look at Scripture and just sigh and think that it's too big, too inaccessible. 

Preaching and Truth

It's Sunday night, another day of preaching and church fellowship in the books.  Today I preached about how Jesus is not who people expected he would be (from Luke 5:27-6:5) and then tonight I did a meditation on the importance of joyful praise from Psalm 111.  I don't know that either sermon was great, but both seemed to get a good response...probably because both of them were absolutely true. 

One thing I have really tried seeking in recent years when it comes to preaching is truth.  If it's not true, and if it means that I have to fudge things in order to have something to say, then I won't preach.  I have sat through too many sermons in my life that were not true.  Sermons that said that I had to interpret a Scripture in a particular way that took it wholly out of its context, or sermons that were more interested in damning others rather than looking at our own problems, or sermons that had nothing to do with reality but sought out a life that God never promised.  There's too much preaching both inside and outside of Churches of Christ...TV preachers, personality-driven preachers, 'faithful brotherhood' preachers, dull and lifeless and scared preachers.  I have heard enough of them to know what I never want to be. 

This isn't to say that I always get things right.  I misinterpret Scriptures, because I am not perfect in my knowledge.  I misunderstand the nature of God, because he is God and I am not.  And I mistakenly think I know what is in the hearts of others, when instead they alone must stand before God just as I alone must stand before God, and we both only have Jesus as our advocate. 

But truth is something that must be pursued, even if people don't want to hear it.  Our job as preachers is the incredibly difficult job of ensuring that hard truths will be at least considered, even if not easily acceptable.  I'd like to think that our little church here trusts me well enough to know that even if they don't like what I say, they will at least hear me out and consider whether or not this is the will of God.  If that's what I've been able to do, this is enough.  They know that I love God and love Scripture and love them enough to try to make sense of it all.  Again, I will fail in this at times, but I am grateful that the church lets me at least take a shot at this. 

This week I go back to the task of preparing more sermons for the next time I preach.  We have a guest speaker on Sunday and then a devotional on Sunday night, so the next time in the pulpit is two weeks away.  But truth will be truth, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to pursue it. 

A Tale of Two Alternators

A few weeks ago my truck broke down...just an alternator for a 20-year old truck, no big deal for my really good mechanic, but still a bit traumatic at the time. 

Yesterday morning I go out to my bus, turn the key, and...nothing.  Our mechanic puts the charger on it while I borrow another bus to run my route, but I come back later and he says that the battery was OK, it was the...alternator!  Yep, my 20-year-old school bus broke down in the exact same way as my 20-year old pickup did within the same month. 

Is that eerie?  Is it coincidence?  Do alternators have a time limit and once they are done, they are DONE? 

The skeptic in me knows that there's nothing related at all in these things.  But the 'there's something interconnected in all things' looks at this and goes WHOA...that's so bizarre.  It's like when I am doing something and I suddenly have a flashback that I dreamed of such a thing a few nights previously?  Was my mind just getting ready for the activity, or did the paths of time and universe cross in such a way that my head got messed up by it all? 

It's the end of the week and my brain is full. 

Spring Blessings

Today is the first day of spring.  It's 60 degrees with a light north wind, a few puffy clouds in a mostly clean blue sky after last night's slow rain.  It's the kind of day that we think of here in the midwest when we think about early spring. 

I am so blessed as I think about my life on this beautiful spring day. 
-I have a beautiful, loving wife who has grown in her faith to the Lord throughout our almost 15-year marriage. 
-I have two remarkable children who are both loving and 'good kids' but who are absolutely nothing alike. 
-I live in a community in which most people are friendly and at least try to do the right thing. 
-I serve a church in which there is little to no open division or hostility, where people want to follow Jesus, where all people find some sense of worth, where the willingness to let the Holy Spirit lead us is real. 
-I have two parents who are still alive and two siblings who are hard at work raising their families and doing their jobs.
-I don't know that I have a lot of close friends that I hang out with because my introversion sometimes gets in the way, but I have many people both near and far that I could call on at almost any moment if there was a need and they would respond. 
-I enjoy a second job of driving a school bus; we've had a safe year so far and I think that kids respect me and at least try to behave. 
-I make more than enough money to be as comfortable as I need to be, with the ability to put away some money for retirement and the kids' college funds. 
-I am relatively healthy for somebody who is close to a half-century old.  I don't have aches and pains like many of my peers, and though I need to lose 20 pounds (and have needed to for 20 years!), I still look better and younger than people I went to school with. 
-I have been able to travel extensively throughout our nation, to see many of the great wonders of creation. 
-I live in a nation that overcomes even terrible leadership, ideological wastelands, and overt sinfulness; even in all its problems it's still the only place this side of heaven that I want to live. 
-I have a wonderful Savior, a trusted Spirit, and a powerful God who is for me, not against me. 

God has blessed me greatly through the first few months of 2019.  May he continue to bless each of us all of our days. 

$430 Million

Today we were stunned to learn that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (I still think of them as the California Angels, but oh well) signed Mike Trout to a 12-year, $430 million dollar contract extension.  That is a crapload of money, however you look at it.  Some thought that maybe he didn't make enough (by statistical metrics, some think that he probably is worth twice that, if he stays healthy).  Others think that Alex Rodriguez, in current dollar figures, probably made more money.  Still others are worried how this will increase ticket prices.  The general feeling, however, was that this was to be celebrated as a good thing...one of the greatest ballplayers of this (and maybe any) era is going to get PAID. 

Of course this story comes out one week after last week's story about the horrible, horrible people who dared to pay bribes to get their idiot children into the perfect college.  I sense a connection...why are we so quick to celebrate people getting paid unbelievable amounts of money to do things that ultimately don't matter in the grand scheme of things, while at the same time denounce when similar kinds of people spend unbelievable amounts of money to do what they think is best for their children?  Surely the two things are related? 

Wealth is a corrupting influence, no matter how you look at it.  We might think that only the love of money is the root of all evil, that only the worst offenders of corrupting wealth deserve to be roasted over the coals of public opinion...but for all those people who denounced inequality last week, shouldn't they also be just as upset this week? 

Random subjects

One of the biggest struggles I have is not what to preach, but what format to preach.  Let me explain...ultimately, all preachers only preach the same ten sermons.  Yet how we preach those sermons and teach our classes varies.  Do we start exegetically and go from there?  Do we preach topical sermons based upon our systematic knowledge of Scripture?  Do we overlay various human schematics in trying to make sense of it all?  None of us get this right all the time. 

So I have a hole in my Wednesday night class schedule in a few months, and I am praying and thinking and agonizing about what ought to be taught.  Do I use another writer's book as a starter?  Do I simply go back and do another exegetical class?  Do I formulate my own plans? 

I'm not sure, exactly...but I did have a crazy, radical idea while going for a walk earlier today...what if I took a Bible website and simply asked it to give me a random verse?  Could I do a series of 8 classes on 'random verses from the Bible and what that means for us all?'  It would have to be wholly electronic to be random, because most of the time I can at least guess where we are just by feel from a Bible.  At dailyverses.net the first one to pop up was Mark 12:30, about loving God comletely...the next was Psalm 119:130, about having my heart set upon God's laws.  A third was Psalm 112:5, about how God come to the aid of the righteous, and finally Hebrews 12:14 about the need be peaceful and holy to all.  You know, I don't think it was truly random...I really expected that some list of genealogy or some obscure OT law was going to pop up.  But no, each of these were easily readable, without much context; likely they were pre-selected, then made random.  Too easy. 

Or, could I open up a Bible dictionary of some sort and randomly pick out a topic to teach about?  For instance, if take my Harper's Bible Dictionary and close my eyes and open a page and put my finger on something my first class would be on..."Literature of the Old Testament".  Meh, let's try it again.  "The Revelation to John."  OK, maybe these topics are too big.  "Guard, bodyguard."  Two paragraphs, maybe not big enough.  "Bitumen."  "Sociology of the New Testament."  One more... "Jesus Christ." 

So, that didn't work.  Maybe it's the wrong dictionary, maybe it's the wrong concept.  What if I did this with my 'Little Kittle', the Theolgoical Dictionary of the New Testament?  "Pneuma", section C, Spirit in Judaism.  "Kainos" (newness).  "Stoma" (mouth).  Again, hit or miss.  Maybe this isn't the best idea in the world. 

I don't know...maybe I just need to go back and do what I used to do all the time, simply work my way through a book of the Bible.  I enjoy that, and I've done it with the entirety of the NT and most of the OT.  Fortunately the word of God is ever-powerful, even when I stink as a preacher. 

The risk of preaching

Today I preached a sermon about the risk of following Jesus, and how Jesus then takes a risk to save us.  Luke 5:12-26 shows a man who crossed quarantine boundaries from Leviticus 13 and another man and his friends who crossed social boundaries to make his way to Jesus when the path was blocked.  Jesus then touches and heals the leper, and he forgives then heals the cripple, even as the Pharisees are aghast that he would do such a thing. 

It was a good sermon, I think.  But one thing that I struggled with is that I have the order backwards...ultimately, God is the one who takes the first risk, and then we respond.  The sermon made it as if we are a people who risk everything to come to God, and then he follows.

Sometimes preaching has a way to obscure some truths as it enlightens others.  The process of communication means that something vital is being said, but the fallible nature of humanity means that something is lost in the process.  Often times the good of the truth is more important (and even more obvious) than that which is wrong, but somewhere, I am certain, people will misunderstand things.  Even in the best of times, with the best of sermons, I have people who come up to me to thank me for saying something that I did not say. 

This is why preaching must in the end be Spirit-based.  As preachers and teachers we necessarily screw things up at times, because we are still people who on our own are filled with sin.  Only by the grace of God do we end up at all good, and even then we obscure truth along the way. 

The Slog and the Spring

Spring break is finishing this weekend, and my children are gearing up for the final sprint to the end of the school year.  9 weeks of putting the finishing touches on whatever it means to be in the 5th and 7th grades: music programs, track meets, final exams, preparations to go to a new school or become the big dogs at the old school. 

It may seem like a sprint to the end, but it's a slog getting there.  We only have a few days off around Easter, and many of the kids are already checking out on their classes.  I would hate to be a teacher this time of year, and on my school bus I know that discipline is likely going to be a problem. 

But even as it's a slog, spring is finally peeking through.  Today it is 60 degrees and the sky is a beautiful, rich blue, and the long-term forecast calls for some showers here and there but no more of this arctic blast that numbs us and makes my thumbs start to crack.  I put my winter coat away the other day, and I do not anticipate having to get it out again for at least eight months.  Shoots of grass and weeds and perhaps even flowering plants are starting to break through my dormant yard.  Soon I'll have to go out and clean up the lawnmower and spend my evenings (with daylight savings time it's not dark now until almost 7:45pm) out mowing and cutting down the anxious plants that will not rest, even if a drought starts. 

I feel for my kids, as I know that they'd much rather be outside on a beautiful day than inside thinking about pre-algebra.  But soon the school year will be over, and they'll have all the time in the world to be outside (or, more likely, staring at their phones).  And I'll be happy to have made it through to summer as well. 

Genesis 27

I promise, this is my last thought about this week's scandal of stupidity.  I know I write this only for myself, but years from now if I look at this and wonder why I spent three striaght days on this I will wonder if I had a brain aneurysm or something...

Got to thinking about Genesis 27 this morning.  It's a long chapter and I won't tell the whole story here but you have a Bible so go and read it.  Rebekah, who loved Jacob more than Esau, ensured that Jacob got the family blessing ahead of Esau, though he didn't deserve it.  It was the 17th century BC's version of giving Jacob the answers on the SAT while locking Esau out of the room.  Jacob was blessed, Esau was outraged and threatened to kill his brother (but not his mother, suprisingly, whose idea it was, though I wonder if he ever knew that), and it's years until the brothers ever see each other again.  Rebekah did all these things knowing that she might never see her favorite son again...did she know that she might go to jail or incur Isaac or Esau's wrath? 

The older my children get the more that I see that as parents we are often irrational when it comes to our children.  On our own we nitpick at them and we hassle them on things that are unimportant and at our worst we drive them away from us even as we think that we are doing is being done in love.  But should somebody stand in the way of them and their bright future?  We will destroy these interlopers.  In something as insignificant as a middle school basketball game we will harbor hateful thoughts towards the other team, the officials, and even their own teammates and coaches if something unfair happens to our child.  We want what is best for others, and so often it blinds us towards anything else. 

And since we are fallible, messed up human beings, we often don't even know what is righteous anymore, so obsessed are we to make things 'right' for our children.  Sometimes, like Rebekah, we even blow up our entire family to ensure that one child is favored.  I'm sure that as some pious mother is doing her Bible reading this morning she is outraged at Rebekah's behavior, even as she is plotting the easiest path for her youngest child to enter into Harvard. 

Outrage was invented by the political left and has been perfected by the political right.  I sometimes succumb to it, but I have made the choice to no longer be controlled by it.  I have too much other stuff going on in real life to have the time for it. 

Outrage du jour

The outrage over the college admissions scandal continues.  I wrote last night what I think, and I posted a few counterpoints on Facebook today with people who seem to be willing to cast that stone ("I've never thought about doing something like that!"). But I'm at peace with being annoyed but not really bothered.  I know we don't live in a meritoracy, and I know that people will be ticked off. 

So today I want to give some outrage starter sentences.  Nobody will read this blog because I keep it mostly hidden, but should one of you stumble across this you are free to find some new outrage hidden in this.  Good luck. 

-The moon doesn't shine, it only reflects the light of the sun.  How dare the moon trick us like that, pretending to shine on us when in fact it's stealing light intended for elsewhere.
-I have hundreds of books on the shelf of my office, some of which I have not opened in years.  How dare I have had these trees cut down so that my brain could have washed over these pages.  How dare I deny the education of others so that I can hold onto these books.  How dare I continue to put pressure on the screws that hold my wall shelves into place.  How dare I hold onto books that really weren't good to begin with, some of whom I disagree with, and a few even which ought to be thrown into the fire.
-My pickup truck is sitting in the parking lot outside of my office.  Why am I not being so generous to leave the keys in it so that somebody who might need it cannot borrow it without asking?  I am so, so stingy in that way. 
-Democrats and Republicans both support a system of taxation.  I didn't agree to it by casting my vote directly, and neither did you.  Why am I am having to pay taxes that I don't like?  It's communism, I tell you. 
-I was born in the United States, to good, Godly parents.  What right do I have to even live, so fortunate was I?  I oughta give up everything and go live under a bridge in some third world country...that would only be fair, right? 
-There is a road out in front of my house.  It's been there for almost 60 years.  I didn't agree to it being built, so why can't I go out and pickaxe the road and turn it back to what it once was?  To deny me that right is a pure outrage, a denial of my American freedom to do whatever I want. 

OK, it's stupid, I know.  Outrage du jour is not a fun game, but it is something that far too many people like to play.  Just leave me out of it. 

The College Admission Scandal

So some rich people have been caught doing some bad, bad things.  Everybody is outraged.  How dare they try to make an unfair playing field for their children to enter into certain institutions of higher learning. 

Seriously?  Have we not been paying attention to America for the past 200 years?  We are a nation not of meritocracy, and never have been.  Instead, we are a nation who have promoted the children of the rich and the powerful above all else.  While we may say we don't like this, we don't really want the system to change...because what happens when we are in the same situation? 

Let's say my son, who is really good in math in elementary school, had the option of two teachers next year.  One is OKAY.  The other teacher may be one of the best in the business.  Would I slip the middle school principal a $50 to ensure that he got in with the good teacher?  I'd like to think of myself as a good, moral person...but I might. 

As parents we feel an overwhelming parental obligation to provide the best possible starting place for our kids.  Whether it's getting them into good preschools, or working hard to ensure they have the money to go to a good college, or ensuring that our nimrod children get security clearances from the White House even as they still pursue their own interests....this is what we who are parents do for our children.  For all the outrage that has gone into this current story, I'm guessing deep down many of us are looking at Lori Laughlin, Felicity Huffman, and these other parents with a little bit of sympathy.  They got caught doing something illegal, to be sure...but many of us do things all the time that are little better. 

I suppose that this story has touched a nerve that might be a tipping point about how we view the rich and the powerful.  But most likely this story will soon fade away.  We'll return to the high crimes and misdemeanors of the President, we'll obsess about which starlet is sleeping with which co-star, and we'll soon be transfixed on what nation is getting ready to go to war against another nation. 

Until we go to true lottery system in which every possibility about advantage is considered (and even then, bribes will still ensure that some kids bypass the system), these kinds of things will continue to be what our nation and our culture are about.  Privilege has its price, and that price is gladly paid everyday. Maybe you can't cross certain lines, but the children of the wealthy and the powerful will always have their advantages, righteous or not. 

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

One of my childhood memories was for loud TV ads about monster truck rallies and dirt track races.  We knew when the events were, "SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY" being screamed at top volume.  Since I don't watch much broadcast TV these days I don't know if those ads are still around, but I'm sure there is something still like it. 

I don't know if I ever remember Sundays being thought of as a Sabbath.  Likely not...as a family many Sundays we would go out to dinner at Lady Classen cafeteria in Oklahoma City almost every Sunday; it was one of those old time, old people places, much like the one my friend Derek once mentioned in which 'You know, most of these people will be dead in 5 years.'  Lots of fried chicken, plain jello, and overcooked vegetables; my dad loved it because there he could get rhubarb pie.  Later on we would go to Wyatt's cafeteria in Edmond which was newer and bigger but the food was basically the same.  At least there some of my friends were also dragged after church and we would mock the food while my parents sat elsewhere knowing that at a cafeteria '...at least everybody can find something that they like to eat!'

Sundays involved church, but so much more.  As teenagers in our youth group we would often have activies, such as going to a pizza place or having a devotional or a game night.  And so worship time, at 10am and 6pm, was only part of what Sunday was supposed to be about.  Yes, we were there to worship God...but we are also there to get ready for our busy activities, scout out members of the opposite sex, and get out of the houses in which 3 TV channels was all there was. 

Today there is a lot of hand-wringing about how internet-addicted kids are, and that's a very real thing in my home and in many others.  Sundays are no more immune from this struggle than any other day...but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that 'back in my day, everything was swell!'  It wasn't.  There will always be this problem for us worldly people in that we have distractions that distance us from God.  And it's not even so much a Sunday problem...shouldn't every day be holy to the Lord?  Yes, we set aside time to come to church on Sunday (and, if we are really pious, for Sunday school!), but having Sundays simply being representative of a portion of our life is never enough. 

I'm not sure I know the answer to this.  Maybe this is why returning to some concept of the Sabbath is not such a bad idea in 2019.  We need to have time dedicated to God...but don't let that fool us into thinking that dividing our lives into particular sections is enough.  All needs to find a purpose in our devotion to the Lord. 

Obamacare, yeah.

Today I am doing my civic duty by filling out the mountains of paperwork known as the federal income tax.  They've changed things a lot up this year, but in the end it's the same old thing, just hidden away in some less accessible places.  Oh well...not much has changed for my family over the past few years, but while I hear that for some tax refunds have shrunk, for me it appears that it will go up...way up.  Not because Mr. Trump is more generous, but because of the affordable care act my health insurance has become cheaper and cheaper each year. 

I'm sure that Mr. Trump would want to take credit for this, but considering he and his party have for years been trying to kill the ACA for years I don't really want to give him much credit.  The few hundreds that I have gotten as a tax cut so that billionaires can save millions means far less to me than the thousands that I am getting as a subsidy for health insurance.  Are my tax premiums still too high?  Absolutely, if there were no subsidies.  But with those subsidies I can now put much more away for my kids' college funds, retirement, home improvement, charity, and so many other things. 

Obamacare is not perfect, of course...somebody is paying the huge amount for my health insurance.  But for me and my family, it has worked out really well. 

Conservo-porn

I have been baffled by the self-immolation of conservatism in recent years.  What was in my younger days a principled ideology of smaller government, individual freedom, and the promotion of America as a 'city set on a hill' has devolved into a love for control, hatred of anybody and anything that says otherwise, and a general indifference towards anything not the immediate short-term interests of the white elite. 

One of the strangest elements I have noticed in this kind of 'conservatism' (it's not really that, but I'll use that term for now) is the growing body of 'art' that acts more as a bizarre ideological statement than anything.  Yesterday my old friend Rob posted this on Facebook (thankfully to mock):

 So on the left are all kinds of Democrat leaders, from Bernie Sanders to Chuck Schumer to Nancy Pelosi.  And let me say, I'm not a big fan of any of these characters.  But here we have them trampling on the American flag while celebrating every other nation out there, even the European Union.  Mexico, in particular, seems to be their guiding force and greatest love.  In the back right of the picture there appears to be some kind of mob...likely it's the immigrant hordes coming across the border, with the Democrats WHO HATE AMERICA leading the charge. 

But resplendent in a sweet, sweet bomber jacket, Donald Trump is there, looking down and clasping his hands in prayer. The pious and earnest Dear Leader is almost weeping, as he looks down at a child's teddy bear and stands at a children's crossing while all these people WHO HATE AMERICA trample on everything he is doing to MAGA.  Our beloved president is the only thing between us and the total destruction of everything we hold dear. 

Of course, this isn't the worst picture.  I think tat honor goes to Jesus guiding the hand of Donald Trump as he sits at the presidential desk in the Oval Office. 

There's a lot of debate about this picture, in truth...is he trying to stop Trump?  Guide him?  Put a choke hold on him?  Who knows what the intent was.  But even as many of us have called out that Trump and Jesus Christ have nothing in common, many of his supporters think he is God's man.  Some even go so far as to consider him a modern-day Cyrus, somebody whom God used to bless his people.  It's ridiculous, to be sure (with the exception being that Cyrus was a pagan, as is POTUS).  But there's a solid 38% of Americans who resolutely will not change their allegiance away from this man, and many of them base their faith in him with something akin to religious fervor. 

One could go on all day with these kinds of pictures, including this one from an Albanian admirer:  .  Yeesh. 

But all these images really betray almost a pornographic fetish that conservatism is now dead, replaced by a Trumpist ideology that means nothing but the acquisition of power and the hatred of enemies.  Trump is bad enough, but his supporters may be even more dangerous than he is. 

Flat Faith

I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called Behind The Curve, which is about the growing 'Flat Earth' movement.  I wish there had been a bit more of the science behind it, and more rationale for why people defend this kind of belief, but it was still really good. 

A few things that I took from this film.  First, the people who think themselves the truly enlightened ones cannot imagine that they are creating a new dogma.  Near the end some of the people were asked about what would happen if they decided to leave, if they changed their minds, and the answer is that they can't.  The implication was that they are now too invested in this new mindset to ever admit wrongdoing. 

Second, the loneliness that brought many of these people into this movement is the glue that holds them together.  Are these mainly single white guys who live in their parents' basement?  Perhaps...but more than anything, these are people who want to be a part of something, to feel involved, to be accepted for their peculiarities.

Third, the sense that they are their own highest authority is their true polar star (for them, a projection on a Truman Show-like dome over the earth, but whatever...).  In the end, they are not really searching for truth, they are seeking to confirm their biases.  We can't feel the movement of the earth?  Thus it's not real!  Several of the defenders mentioned that they really trusted nobody but themselves in figuring all this out.  Even when irrefutable facts come, they will not change. 

And finally, the battle that these adherents fight are always against the 'them'.  'Them' might mean the CIA, NASA, the scientific dogmatizers, but more likely just a nameless, faceless entity that these freethinkers believe are hiding the truth.  It's all one great big conspiracy, and someday it will all come crashing down and the masses will finally see through this. 

In watching this I was struck by how similar these Flat Earthers are similar to some of the religious dogmatists I know.  I'm not talking about people who have a genuine love for God, a faith in Christ, an openness to see what the Spirit will do.  Rather, I'm talking about people whose particular Biblical interpretations must be 'sound', whose doctrine must be never-changing, whose opinions are taken to be absoulte truth.  In their minds they are not dogmatists, only defenders of the truth.  They only bind together to hide their loneliness, but even with that those relationships are fragile if somebody strays from what the newly accepted dogma is.  They believe there are mass conspiracies against them to pervert righteousness, and though they name 'them' sometimes they're better off just creating a straw man. 

I do feel somewhat in sympathy with the Flat Earth folks, because in a way we are all people who create our own worldviews and defend them with our dying breaths.  Some of us will at times change what we have to believe, but more likely we will hold onto what we believe, no matter how far-fetched it is. 

The Gross Post

When I am stressed I sometimes get little canker sores in my mouth.  Usually only one or two, and I deal with it and they are fine in a few days. 

I currently have at least eight scattered over all sections of my gums and lips.  At least the one that was sitting at the back of my throat making it difficult to swallow anything is gone, but my lips look like I've been punched a few times, that's how swolen they are.  It's really disgusting. 

Compared to most people my life is really, really easy.  I have two jobs that I enjoy and pay enough for me to be OK and provide for my family.  My health is relatively good (except when I get canker sores).  My kids and my wife are healthy and mostly happy, and there are very few big things in my life that cause me stress. 

I suppose with the coldest stretch of winter combined with my truck breaking down and needing an alternator, and my parents not doing a great job moving so far, and the worries of what we would hear at teacher conferences this week, I guess this counts as stress for me.  Plus I tried taking some throat drops to get me through my sermons this weekend and I think I had a bad reaction to them, and now my mouth hates me. 

My life is really a good thing, but I hate to imagine what will happen when truly stressful things hit.  The patient Job I am not; but sitting on an ash heap might be preferrable to any more mouth sores. 

World's Richest

On my BBC world news page I learned the exciting news today that Kylie Jenner is now the youngest billionaire.  I am so, so glad to know that a child of privilege had her name slapped on something by other wealthy people and so is recognized as a titan of industry. 

These kinds of stories pop up all the time.  How much is Mark Zuckerberg or Martha Stewart worth?  Is Donald Trump really just a bunch of leveraged debt?  Is Apple or Facebook or Amazon going to be worth the trillions that some have made them out to be? 

I always thought that I had something of an eye towards business until I realized that much of what counts as business today is simply accounting.  Put enough numbers (real or not) in one column, create the right kinds of spreadsheets, and you, too are a paper billionaire. 

Nobody would look at me and think that I have much at all, and that's OK.  A few years ago a friend of mine was shocked that the members of the church can look at my yearly salary from the church, that it's not a private thing.  I told him, I don't really care if everybody knows what I make.  I am not defined by how much is in my bank accounts or my stock portfolios, even though I'm doing fine and have never worried for more than a day about how to pay a bill. 

Maybe this is why the Bible so often speaks about the dangers of people getting too caught up in it, whether it's the love of money being the root of evil (1 Timothy 6:10) or the dangers of those who keep adding wealth at the expense of others (cf. Isaiah 5:8).  It's not just the people who do these things who are engaging in sin; it's about the rest of us who will never come close to such wealth who obsess over the wealth of others.  Whether it's simple resentment or jealousy, or a greed that never finds its success, or even a hostility towards material things, stuff is never to be that which defines us.

I don't know that it's ever a good thing to keep reporting on what others have; prophets can surely speak against those who flaunt their prosperity, but obsessing about what others have or don't have is never the Biblical intention.  Rather, let us hear again these words, "...let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." (Amos 5:21)  If we would all pursue these things, we'd no longer care what spoiled heiresses are worth, or even care about what they sell.  And that, I think, would make this world a better place. 

As I Get Older...

-I'm much more sensitive to the cold than I used to be.  I used to love snowy mountains more, but now I like a sunny beach. 
-I don't really care as much about watching random sporting events.  If my kid is playing, great.  If a team I have chosen to like is playing, I'm in (if I can).  But two random teams?  Meh. 
-I don't have time for bad books.  If a book doesn't capture me instantly, it's gone.  Not that it's a bad book, but I just don't care as much. 
-I like streaming TV shows more than movies.  Movies are constrained by a roughly two hour time frame.  Streaming shows can take their time to develop a plot. 
-The Bible continues to interest me far more than any book I've read dozens of times has any reason to.
-My memory continues to fade.  Today at the bus barn they showed us a table and gave us a few minutes to look at the items, then we had to write them down.  I did not do well. 
-But my old stories continue to remain at the front of my head.  Not sure if all of them are true anymore, but other people's stories brings them to mind very quickly. 
-I think I'm a better preacher than I used to be.  I don't know how a young Christian can truly preach more than just a few times; there needs to be a lot more wisdom in preaching than I used to think before it really starts to be something worthwhile. 
-I am increasingly convinced that many people are practical atheists.  They made talk about God and meme Christian ideas and claim that Jesus brings them salvation...but they live as if God really means nothing to them.
-I find myself more and more discouraged by earthly kingdoms.  We are so into the idea of WHO came up with an idea and HOW we should label it that we no longer can think rationally about WHAT is being proposed. 
-The more I really need to have things that will make me laugh.  Good comedy is worth its weight in gold. 
-The more I see the the need to be discerning about what I believe to be true.  Some things are still absolute...other things no longer were worth believing in the first place. 
-I see how I am becoming my parents.  We all do this, but most of us never admit we are a strange amalgamation of who they are. 

Home, Again

This weekend we went to my parents' home to help them as they begin to move out of their house of 43 years into a smaller, more convenient house.  They have already bought a new house and their current house is only being put on the market this weekend, but my thinking was that, with my parent's health being not great, we would help them move a lot of things, to help them do things that they simply cannot do for themselves.  If nothing else, we could start on 43 years of accumulation. 

It's never that easy, though.  I woke up at 6am this morning wide awake, ready to get to work.  Before they arose I started pulling off of the shelves many of their decorative cups and some of the 'special' dinnerware that only gets used a few times a year.  I thought I was trying to help, but I was being presumptive.  My parents, especially my father, kept explaining that 'it will get done', though nothing had been done and it seemed in my eyes that he was engaging in magical thinking.  After some arguing we finally figured out how to co-exist.  It's still their house, and I have to realize that it's still their leadership that will get them through this.  Long after we go home, they still feel responsible for this move and are not willing to give that up, yet.

The Bible continually speaks about the necessity to honor and obey parents.  And this seems to be a very real thing even when the parents no longer are fully capable of being the initiators as they once were.  I screwed up in not letting them go their own pace; I did not honor them fully by trying to make my plans for how they were to move more important than what they wanted. 

There will come a day when my children will have to take over some of my responsibilities for living.  I do hope that I am more willing to let this happen than my parents, but I doubt it.  I'm just as stubborn as they are, and as I my children get older I see more and more of my stubborn self in them.  Maybe they will be living on Mars by that point and we won't have to argue about these things...but even so, as long as I have my parents I need to do a better job honoring their wishes...even when they probably are not right.