Vintage: A Simple Man (November 2011)

I've been called a renaissance man. I'm pretty good at everything, I'll try my hand at anything. I, like my father, am driven. Constant in my mind is the long list of e-mails and messages to write, the projects I would like to complete, all the things I think I should be doing.

I complicate things.

I make up things for myself to do.

I am an intellectual. I believe in God, but there are plenty of things in the Bible I don't live and don't believe.

I'm a poet. I like things I can't completely understand. I like art that is ambivalent, art that's complex emotionally, formally, and ideologically.

I'm an individualist; I don't depend on others. (People leave, and the show must go on.) Lately, emotional and intellectual confusions have kept me from depending on God as well.

I pray to love God, but in the daily reality, I sing Manchester Orchestra's "I'm gonna leave you the first chance I get." Because the terror, the unknown, the pure emotional energy it takes to love a jealous God I can't see and who can change everything in an instant is enough to send me running away most days. Also, I sin, and that makes being around God uncomfortable. It's miserable, but it's true. So instead of finding myself in this God who others deride and don't believe in, instead of throwing myself on a God who, rather than being "understanding," of my faults and doubts, says "repent" and "I love you" (I love you? Who says that? What good is that to me?), I prefer a complex web of identity markers: I'm a poet, I'm a singer, I try to follow Jesus, I'm a volunteer, I'm an intellectual. This way, someone can't reject me on the basis of just one thing, and I can have a conversation about faith or poetry where I get ignored or insulted and still feel safe. Because only part of me is on the line. Nobody knows all of me. Heck, most people can't even keep track of what country I'm in. I'm safe; I'm complicated.

A couple weeks ago at youth group, we talked about Paul. Paul said "To live is Christ, to die is gain." Honestly, I'm not confident enough to say to live is Christ. I'm a full-time missionary! But for me, to live is to do my best until I have time for God, to do good things, to try to be worthy.(?) As for death, well, I hate how many Christians talk about tickets to heaven and all that and ignore the present commands of God, so I don't let what happens when I die enter my theology or my motivations. I pray for mercy, that as I live and die, God won't cease coming around, teaching me, pursuing me, using me, showing little bits of his glory.

Watching "Chariots of Fire" today, I was struck by Eric Liddell. I'm more like Abramson, out with something to prove, striving, straining, wanting to be the best, because if I'm not the best, I apparently am not trying hard enough. So I try to be everything to everybody, I try to be the best Christian, the best poet, the best musician, the best missionary, the best friend. Lately, about once a day, someone unfriends me on facebook. And I ask myself "what did I do wrong? Was I not interesting enough?"

"I try to be my best."

Jesus was a simple man. He did what he saw his father doing. Paul was a simple man: to live was Christ. Liddell was a simple man: Running on the Sabbath was out of the question.

I'm more like Solomon, thinking too much for his own good, or Samson, all for God until "oh hey look, a pretty girl," or David, who violently throws himself back and forth between repentance and failure.

I don't want to be like David. I don't want to have to look at my wife and go "Well, I f*cked that one up, but I'm a good man and I'll live with the consequences, and hey, she's sexy." I don't want to be like Solomon, who seems to me, depressed, and in the end, wasn't really loving and serving God at all. I don't want to be like Samson, who sure, God used him to fulfill his destiny, but didn't really get to enjoy the journey and knew God more as a judge than as a Father. I'm not saying God isn't big enough to redeem any mistake I make. I'm just saying, I want to be a person of joy, and a clean conscience, I want to know and experience God deeply.

God, I need you.

I understand obedience. I understand, that if I feel like God is calling me to Central Asia, I must go. I won't be happy otherwise. I understand that, like Paul, if I knew I was going to die going there, it wouldn't change anything. I must live by faith.

 But I don't want to be a good servant. I don't want to reach the end of my life and say, "Well, God, I lost you somewhere in the madness, but I made 150,000 converts, and helped 550 orphans." I want to be like Liliya, singing "won't you let me love you more?" to God as she goes through her day.

My true measure of success, is when I wake up or fall asleep, I pray, that I want to be with You. That when I have nothing to do, I spend my time with You, and when I am overwhelmed, I turn to You, and You are my rest in the storm.

God scares me. I heard Chris Kelly in a sermon say that the number one command in the bible is this: "Do not be afraid." I trust God has my best in mind, I'm just afraid of how much that will cost, of how hard things will get this time. I'm afraid that somewhere in there I'll give up or fail or have a major David-like blow-up. And God says "do not be afraid." "Don't worry." "Rest in me." "I love you." And I'm like, "sure, as long as I can keep my complications around to fall back on." And he's like "Chill out, what you yellin for? I am. I am enough. I love you."

15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”

 Dad, make me a simple man, a man who can say "I love you too," with no ifs, ands, or buts. Erase me, as needed. "Make soft my heart, in thy strong flame, to take the imprint of thy name." Change me.

"I am in love with You, and there is no cost. I am in love with You, and there is no loss. I want to take your name. I want to cling to You, Jesus."

Vintage: Jumping off Bridges and Braum's Conversations (June 2009)

My heart cringes at the thought of more school, despite everyone's advice. My dad and I biked down to the American River, I was holding the brakes so tightly that my hand cramped up, but they still weren't slowing me down. That's how I feel about the future right now. He said I should jump off the bridge. I waited a while, going back and forth; really, it wasn't the fall that scared me so much (I trusted his judgement) as that I wasn't sure I wanted to get in that cold water. Eventually you just step off and go with it and you're in the air for a few seconds wondering what the heck you're doing. Then comes the smackdown and the cold water. Whatever the next step is, it feels kinda like that right now.

Please stop asking your kids what they want to be when they grow up. They'll come up with their own dreams in due time, and I think it's a distortion of reality that we "are" our jobs. 

When I was in fourth grade, I was in a play where I was the shopkeeper of the "I'm-going-to-be Shop"...I helped all the different kids find their careers and rationalized with the guy who wanted to be "A do-nothing frog, who sleeps in the sun" (Heh...in hindsight I wonder what political agenda the play had--why didn't we just perform "the Hairy Ape?"). I definitely was wearing a maroon apron (in practice it was a Raggedy Ann and Andy one). It's either cruel irony or fate that, now that I've graduated, my work uniform at Braum's (an Ice Cream/Grocery Store) includes, among other things, a bright maroon apron.

Speaking of Braum's, if you ever want a snapshot of your society, work checkout in a grocery store and talk to the customers as they come through (heck, just talk to your co-workers). I've met architects, mechanics, lawyers, all kinds of kids and students, World War II Vets, working women and grandparents. Most people just give the standard answers and don't elaborate much, but I've had some thought-provoking run-ins:

"So what have you been up to today?" I ask the grandmotherly woman across the checkout.
"If I told you that, I'd get arrested."

"What have you been up to today Sir?"
"Visiting my mother-in-law...My mother-in law, during the War, would date someone if she knew they had an extra ration card for shoes."

A middle-aged man: "It's a good idea to try to give somebody something every day: even if it's just a smile."

"How are you doing today ma'am?"
"Fair to middlin'."
"So what does that mean?"

"How much do you owe me?" the man asks.
"Uh, $10.26."
"Alright then, pay up."
"What?"
"You said you owe me $10.26."

(Handing out $5.11 in change) "Your total is five dollars and eleven cents."

(Pressing the total button on the register) "Your change is twenty-eight dollars and twenty-three cents. I mean, your total. Sorry, I'm tired."

"I'm sorry, the credit card machine just doesn't like you." (No joke, it takes a good 40% of people three swipes to get it to take...sometimes it's the machine, sometimes not)

"How was your day?"
(Gruffly) "If it had been a good day, I wouldn't be here buying Ice Cream."

"Where do you work?"
"I'm an elementary school teacher."
"Oh, cool, how long have you been doing that?"
"Four years." (dang it, she's probably out of my league ;) )
"Do you like it?"
"I love it, but I don't think I want to do it for the rest of my life."
"Ah, just the kids or..."
"No, it's the parents. Most parents just...really aren't concerned about their kids getting an education."

"What are you up to this evening?"
"Well, I'm gonna go pray and we're gonna see people healed...(How do you respond to that? He goes on to talk about God's healing and various healings he's seen)...I've seen everything but the dead raised." (He then goes on to talk about how he's confident he will see that happen before his life is over)

The same man (at a later date): 
"What you been up to today?"
"Hanging dry wall for my daughter. (goes on, it's obvious he's worn out and this was difficult for him)...but you know, Give thanks to God in all circumstances."
"Even sheetrocking?"
"Yeah, even sheetrocking." 

I've talked to people running late for their wedding rehearsal, people going through divorces, young baseball players defeated and victorious. I met a woman from Persia who is a Kindergarten teacher...she's been here in the states longer than I've been conscious of the world, and I wonder which of us is more American. Some of the Spanish speakers like it when I talk to them in Spanish...some of them feel self-conscious. Amusingly, I've had a few conversations lately where for understanding's sake I would speak Spanish and the person I've been talking to responds in English.

Yesterday I had dinner with a Korean War Vet, a guy who was a Trucker for 45 years before he retired, a guy who's helped raise kids, grandkids, and now a great-grandson. Yes, I sat down with a stranger in a fast-food restaurant. Yes, I would recommend it, and no, you should not go try to sit with the pretty girl in the corner (I mean, well...if no one else is sitting alone, go for it, but otherwise, pick somebody else, you'll learn more.). He was concerned about the lack of progress in our society, the lack of education and values in today's youth, the lack of common sense and work ethic. He felt like society had regressed if anything. He was definitely a member of "the greatest generation," one of those people who believes in doing right because it's right:

"If you've got an opportunity to get an education, get as much as you can."
"...Well, I just feel like, with where I'm at in life and with my faith that...I've got a lot of head knowledge but I don't know much about living."
"Like common sense? Well, maybe you need to take a year or two off before you go back."

Mebbe so, kid. George Müller and Mat Kearney haunt me: "No parachutes of safety nets here, one foot on the water to face these fears." And one foot in the boat so we can pay the rent (?). I'm torn between leaving my nets and tentmaking, the spiritual and the physical. But I have peace. I feel human, a sort of sometimes-lovable screwup who can't seem to figure out how to live community, communicate, or figure out where he's going. Taran Wanderer. Thanks friends...It's good to be myself.

"Here we go, there's nothing left to choose. And here we go, there's nothing left to lose."

"Freefall, weightless and terrified. On I go, crossing over, from living to so alive."

Vintage: February 2009 (and the storms came)

So I think I feel like opening up my creative-non-fiction box again.   As a run-up I'm posting some old thoughts as well...

"So die Minuten are feminine because women take up lots of time. [Laura didn't think this concept was funny] Plants are feminine cuz they don't talk, so they kinda represent the ideal female. And die Fragen are feminine because girls are really confusing."


Tim: "Someone has to take a firm stance on the total depravity of girls."

I walked out of class and the sky was heavy grey, bulbous and oppressive. I ran to get my camera to try to capture the smell, the weight, the overwhelming power of the storm, but I missed it somehow. I wasn't using the right tools. Images. I went to the top of Dale Hall Tower to try to get the scope. Reflected lights in the room kept tainting the sky. I was trying to catch lightning on the horizon but it eluded me, flashing its defiance, the bright streaks uncaught by the lens. I was trying to catch the raindrops splashing on the sidewalk, large wet tears that scatter on the cement awash with color. I couldn't capture it.

On the first of February I had summer plans for South America. By mid-February I was applying to teach English in St. Petersburg. Last week I decided I'm staying here.

Four harps harmonized "Let it be." It was the first time I'd ever appreciated the Beatles.

I had lunch with a member of the European parliament, an English Baroness. She believed that Turkey should join the EU and will once they implement the thousands of laws required. She spoke of corrupt elections in Russia, the death penalty, Russian aggression, widespread corruption in the handling of EU foreign aid, and the differences of interests and power between France and Germany; between the European Parliament and the commissioners. She believed in democracy, the voice of the people; she believed in the EU so much that she switched parties to become an MEP. She believed deeply in right and wrong, and we talked for two hours straight. The EU is for staving off the clouds of war.

A flurry of Cellos spinning deepsound.

At youth we sang "I'll Fly Away" slow, clouded, and cold. A friend lost a mother.

McCarthy trials in the faded 1954 papers. A storm of ink and rhetoric: Brown vs. Board was an asterisk, but don't worry, the South will rise again; don't worry, here in Oklahoma it won't affect your kids; don't worry, we don't have these problems in Los Angeles. The governors of Georgia and Arkansas vow that this won't happen in their states, and South Carolina explores the option of privatizing all of their schools. The New York Times assures Americans that equal laws do not mean that we were created equal. An uneasy silence. France is losing its grip on Vietnam. It looks like we assassinated some populist leaders in Guatemala. The Reds say that Gone with the Wind is a racist film. A Michigan Senator proposes the insertion of "Under God" into the pledge. "All communists would oppose it...97% [of Americans] believe in God." Soviet dictionary definition as reported: "Benevolence--In bourgeois society private material aid extended to the poor in a hypocritical manner which insults the dignity of man; benevolence is one of the masks behind which is hidden the exploiting nature of the bourgeoisie."

"Heroes from the West, we don't know you, we know best." Sometimes your enemies see you most clearly.

The Tulsa race riots in late 1921 left hundreds of African-Americans dead and a much of Tulsa was wrecked. When Natasha Trethewey's parents wanted to get married in Gulfport, they went to Ohio. According to the eyes of the government, her mother was black and her father was Canadian, and so their marriage was banned in Mississippi. This was after the Civil Rights movement, and she spoke of the narrative of the tragic South, the Civil War, lying between her parents as a cross burned in the yard. The South shall rise again; and what does this sound like to African-Americans? I wonder, hearing the ghosts of Gulfport, what hidden histories lie in Pensacola's past. I remember hearing of riots at Woodham in the 1970s. Norman was a sundown town: Don't be around after sunset if you're black, posted at the edge of town. I have heard that the Nazis cited American success in their treatment of Native Americans as evidence that their "final solution" for the Jews could be successful. Most of the laws passed in 1936 were designed to make the distinction: Jews are not Germans.

Demetria Martínez read a short piece on what she was calling "Sanctuary II." College students saving the lives of illegals lost in the desert. Discarded water bottles and strollers. "The life of a poor foreigner depends on speech." Translation errors can mean deportation, misdiagnosis, or hatred.

At youth we played "Identity." I was Shakira, Princess Jasmine, Yoshi, and myself. 

Despite the fact that the 1970s hipster personifications of individualism were exaggerated and perhaps pop, the social critique levelled at the male species in The Stepford Wives was killer. Would you trade real relationship, real otherness, for something you could control? We do this so often with God and girls. Do you want a partner or a playtoy? Why do men make all the plans?

Plants are the ideal feminine because they don't speak. Things that don't speak can't express emotion. Things that don't speak can't express difference, disagreement, or self. Really I don't know that it's guys and girls that are so complicated, it's that gulf between individual selves compounded by our fears of otherness and rejection complicated by those bonds that entangle us. I realized that I'd been treating you as an extension of myself for quite some time. It was safer that way, it was terrible...everything you were to me swallowed up in an idea in my head.

Images. Computer screens, and my friends are sitting in the same room as me on the other side of the world. Once again we are sitting on opposite sides of the stream, unaware and separate. Or painfully aware. "You cut me open." Identity. I wonder about relationships, about the politics and emotions of being "just friends." Ben's eyes welled up too I think when "Chasing Cars" came on. I've been meaning to ask him about that. I don't know what the point of falling in love is, or maybe I've just done it all wrong. The First Single Valentine's day I wanted to dance with a stranger, I'm not sure why. I'm not sure what I need to do. For closure.

An uneasy silence. Pizzas. My co-workers are from the DRC, Colombia, Cameroun, China, Korea, Japan--and the other half are from here in the states. Ryan's here, and it feels like something lost is back again, a group. We speak of bonds, borrowing against the nation's future. Philosophies and farm subsidies. Brynnan's quiet, but she knows how to drive a combine, mowing down rows of grain. She wants to paint and work in museums. Danny is going to learn how to dismantle bombs for the Air Force. I found out from a stranger that my sister applied to OU. I wonder where we're all going. 

I figured out that it's not so much the fact that God would allow or even bring about war and slaughter that bothers me. I mean, it bothers me a lot, but I don't expect to understand everything about God. It's that we try to explain it that bothers me. This cheapens death. This cheapens the reality that things are not as they should be. I see this in the church too, and I think that it's important to remember that none of us really have it all together, that we're all falling, fallen. My dad and I are trying to figure out what we're gonna do when we grow up.

I buy poetry and bread but at this point I run out of money. I bought too many groceries and I was having trouble getting on my bike until a man offered me a ride. After church I said "God bless you" to a woman who was, at the time, homeless, and she replied "he already has, he already will, and he already does."

Images:
Homeless. 
Illegal. 
Unchristian.
Conservative. 
Mexican. 
Female. 
Black. 
Am I putting images in your heads? Why? Does anyone really fit these categories? I'm asked to give a definition of what it means to be black. I write half a page of precise definition. This disturbs me. I'm asked what it means to be white? Nothing? It's true, but totally false: there is an American culture, a Western world. Funny thing is that you go into Mexico right next door and that's a different world. Like the Middle East, only less so. 

Corey tells me that girls struggle deeply with self-image, measuring up to a standard. Supermoms and worker-moms fighting for their identities. And what of those who don't want to be called mommy? I am curious to note that everyone in my class is wearing jeans besides me, but in spite of this Brittney isn't wearing clothes at the beginning of her last video. My classmates protest that college doesn't count. How many times do we flock to the pretty people? How many times do we write off the girls who have the self-respect not to sell their bodies for popularity? It seems to me that as guys we generally write each other off as not even interesting, as if we had nothing to give one another and had no value. I think this is terribly destructive and isolating.

A storm of colour nearly bowled me over when I went into the Fred Jones Museum of Art. All the Southwestern art, the Native American aesthetics, the bright reds and oranges of the dirt stood in stark contrast to the safe blues and greens of the European landscapes I've seen. Trethewey found a dictionary definition for native that defined a native as someone born into a lower caste, a position of servitude. Someone in Mexico told Tim that there were three types of treatment of natives in Mexico: In one region the Spanish enslaved them, in one region they intermarried with them, and in the last region they slaughtered them. The ritual costumes in the paintings spoke of a different world, an alien world erased by the coming of the white man. Men painted up in zebra stripes, antlers on their heads, dancing frozen, totally silent and still on the canvas, like my voice on this screen. I try to capture a month of conversations, images, thoughts, and feelings and it is beyond me. "Peoples is peoples." Peoples like you, even when they're nothing like you. I hope you get that in what I'm saying. May we learn to love our neighbors more than we love ourselves.

"You treat me like I'm blind. Setting fires around houses on the hill. But light gives heat. You segregate my mind, burning crosses from your fears...

Would You teach us how to love?"

Da Burbs

Maybe my Darwinian compass is broken, but I've never understood suburbs. As much as I can reckon, the point is that suburbs are safe. You have privacy fences and big houses set back on lots far away from the noise and crowds of the city, but still close enough to work there or go see a movie. While this protects you from some crime it seems to me that buying a big house is like putting this big "steal from me I'm rich" sign on, or "in case of communist uprising, burn here first." So, then the rich people have to pay for security guards, and then when their workers strike, call in the police or military to protect their money. All that work just so people will hate you.

The second thing I can figure about middle and upper-class suburbs is that they are generally clean. But are they really? All those housing chemicals? All those lawn fertilizers and weed killers? *shudder* Everybody in America is allergic to everything these days because they're growing up with fake foods and fake environments where they aren't exposed to enough dirt. That's my theory anyway. Maybe life isn't supposed to look like Disneyland?

Last night I watched City of God. It was a gritty, disturbing, and sometimes disgusting film about some drug gangs in the flavelas of Rio de Janeiro; it was also very well put together and won many awards. To save your sensitivities, I'll give you the sum-up: Gangs formed by teens and pre-teens grow up to terrorize neighborhoods and start intergang wars that bleed the community. Eight-year olds with pistols shoot up brothels and gangsters. Some people would watch this film and get excited by the lawlessness and crazyness. Some people will feel pity. My thought is, man, there are places where there are boys like that need role models. (Also, don't underestimate who might be packing heat) There are schools in those places that need good teachers. There are places that need cops that aren't corrupt, judges that can't be bought or intimidated. There are battles still worth fighting in this world (and I'm not talking about, 99% of the time, with guns).

This morning, I was reading Through Painted Deserts and Don Miller was talking about living in the woods and mentioned Welches, Oregon. I try to appreciate the beauty in every place I go, but it's really difficult after you've been to NW Oregon, because the rivers flow from majestic ridges and these towering mountains through damp pine woods full of ferns and berries and sorrel before they cascade over waterfalls into the Columbia before finally reaching the rocky coast that comes alive at sunset. Anyways, I've always wondered about how working in an office just probably isn't good for you, especially if you drive there and breathe in exhaust for an hour or two on the way. Like you need sun and fresh air and exercise. Why people would work in an office when they could save for a couple years, buy a little something somewhere and plant things and get your hands in the dirt? Dirt is good. I know a money-based economy is safer. I know you'd have to find a state with low property taxes. But why would you live in Los Angeles if you could live where you could see the stars instead?

I suppose the only reason would be because there is so much going on. So many people, so many dreams, so many beautiful artists and craftsman and exciting events! "Didn't have to look up to the stars burning in the night sky, they were burning bright in the eyes of people passing by." (Bradley Hathaway "Look Up") People are moving to the cities like never before, and I love cities (although it's hard to breathe in Moscow or LA or Mexico City). I am overwhelmed by the possibilities of cities. You mean I could go to a concert EVERY night, not just three on Friday nights? There are more museums than you could explore in a month in these big cities, and there's always a million things happening. They probably even have Creative Writing Societies. (Bloody Americans--I hope I can find a good Creative Writing Club in Central Asia)

Switchfoot has this song "throwing chairs," it was never released, it goes like this "I want to wake up low, in the world below, I want to love life low, where we need it most." Perhaps I'm a hippie of sorts, but I believe in living close to the earth, close to others. The suburbs, and the mentality that goes along with them, protects us from crime. It also protects us from trying to help fix our cities. Privacy fences keep our secrets, but they also help our sins from being exposed. Big houses give us sanctuary, protecting us from other people, and from the elements. They protect us from feeling the rain on our skin, and from engaging others in community so that we can be healed and grow and learn. In insulating us from people who aren't like us, the suburbs destroy a piece of our common human community. This isn't just not ideal, it's dangerous.

I think that, when it comes down to it, the suburbs are based on fear. Fear is what makes ghettos and slums lawless, it's what allows things like racism, dictators, and thuggery to persist. Fear does not lead to us loving our neighbors as ourselves, or to seeing that we are all neighbors. Fear runs opposite to love. Love breaks down fences, knocks on doors, pays one another's medical bills, attends one another's funerals, shares meals, and shares life.

Church could use a little Revolution

Non-violent, in completely non-condemning love, of course. "I'm not trying to be a nuisance, I just think we can do better than this." This is following off of Don's thoughts here:

http://donmilleris.com/2011/04/05/unlike-todays-church-leaders-none-of-the-early-disciples-were-professional-educators

I saw a similar model in action at Norman Community Church, to what Don's talking about. A church led by musicians. :P If church is about meeting God, ministering to one another in community, and living the kingdom, why do we sit and listen most of the time? Norman Community is the only church I've been in where relationship was more important than the service, where service and living the Kingdom was more important than intellectual theology. Where training was about learning to live out our faith and making people do it. Honestly, for all my 'ministry,' I felt completely inadequate at Norm Comm, because I was so afraid that the church might ask something of me. And I want that so much, to be challenged and told I'm wrong and asked where my heart is at.

I've been in churches that have their heart all in the right place, where I had great relationships with almost the whole congregation, but our service and our expectations of the service didn't leave us the space to really ask how one another was doing, or to pray over people. Since we don't Sabbath on Sundays anyway, I think our liturgy needs to go and I think house churches are the way to go. Most healthy churches actually do "church" in small groups, but I think this sends the wrong message to the world...how is attending seminars the first step in following Jesus? Jesus did dinner with people.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in the church. I need to worship, I need Church. I believe in preaching, I get something almost every week. I believe in having people study the scriptures, and having well-thought out, Biblically-based theologies. But if I'm just at church to hear a sermon and sing, I might as well watch it on TV. And I think that's the opposite direction of where the church should be going.

I think this is at the core of why many Men have given up on the church. We don't value things like barn-raising and tentmaking or cooking as possible forms of ministry leadership. It's an intellectual/emotional game, and let's be honest, if it's not backed up by actions, it is a game. Or it's a social club where you have to mind your Ps and Qs all the time, and boy that's exhausting. Faith without works is dead.

I'm gonna take it one step further and say the same thing that is wrong with our churches is also wrong with our schools. Kids hate school because the stuff they're doing is pointless...because it is! Sixth-graders have the intellectual capacity to change the world, do research, lead community projects. It happens all the time!!! But our expectations of kids is to "practice" learn for 16 years before they ever do anything, and it's incredibly patronizing and a shame that our romantic idea of "childhood" and "teenage freedom" keeps kids from becoming engaged citizens and real adults until around 23-28. What if instead of paying an economics teacher we loaned kids $50 and told them to invest it for a semester, grade will be based on your rate of return. The Kingdom of Heaven is like that. ;) That's the real world. (well, in the real world most kids would get 50c and a couple would get a couple hundred thousand, but...)

Why don't we change? It costs more of us. We suck at sharing life and being vulnerable. A Sunday school lesson and games are easier for me to plan than a night of outreach or a night of waiting on God. And what if my youth freak out? What if they get robbed? What if demons show up? I know that youth like games and music. And those are valid things to do together. But as a pastor, (I sincerely believe in the priesthood of all believers) I want my fellow sheepies to be ministry-leaders and pastors themselves in their circles, not church attendees.

I have faith that if I try to do something and fail, it's okay. But walking with God is messy, and I'm afraid if I'm honest about that, the church will reject me. Also I'm poor, I don't know how to ask other people to do missions with me, because missions with me might end up getting you stuck in a foreign country if you miss a bus or lose a wallet or something (strictly theoretically-speaking, of course, it's only happened to me once). I know how to let myself down, but I don't know how to let others down. I almost only talk to strangers when I'm alone because most of my friends get annoyed or nervous. (Greg Wilson, you are an amazing exception to this.) Wow...I'm insecure and I need to change, because I'm becoming the things I don't want to be.

Zach

I was walking around downtown Indianapolis, I came up to this street corner and there was this kid there with a sign asking for food and help, "God bless." He was young and white and didn't look homeless. I started a conversation. I gave what I could, I don't give money to homeless people ever, but I gave him my food. Tried to help. Prayed over him. 19 years old. He was white, young, thoughtful, used to being rich.

I saw myself in this kid. But I didn't see myself in the old black man I passed by a minute before I stopped to talk to Zach. God ordained that I would meet Zach. I was supposed to be on a bus, but that didn't work out. But was I supposed to meet that black man? He had a story too. He had something to teach me and give me. But I didn't see myself in him, and that troubles me deeply. Ironically, working in an inner-city African-American community has probably created stereotypes, racism, and fears that I didn't have before.

Can you see yourself in the person across from you? Are their dreams as important as yours? Their insights as valid? Are you even willing to listen? I went to this conference on orphans last week, and it was very sad to me that most couples place the greatest value on infants. They are cuter, less problematic, less broken than Fatherless teens or even schoolchildren. A director of an Eastern European orphanage remarked that the "baby room" is the nicest room in the place, because once they leave it, they probably won't find a family.

I realize that despite experience to the contrary, I don't value kids with special needs. Even though this 12 year old girl who taught me a song in Mexico, and the girls at that shelter taught me to sing, I don't see myself in them. I don't see how I could relate. I am guilty of the same thing when it comes to older church members. I wish they would reach out to me, because I don't see how to bridge the gap. But all of these, even the least of these, is made in the image of God. God, help my unbelief.

Twenty-Seven+ Ways to Die in 2011

First, if you jump into the cold North Atlantic at dawn on no sleep and then don't eat and go to sleep,
you could get sick.

Second, a few weeks later, you could try to catch Walking Pneumonia at work, which is harder to catch than most diseases, because it keeps walking away, but then once you get it it's really hard to get rid of so I wouldn't recommend it. Lucky for me, I'm a runner.

Third, you could mess up the company rental car, or not have the money to pay for the parking garage, or coming back to pay the fifth dollar, you could startle the cashier while she's counting her money and that could just be the end of you.

Fourthly, there are always arguments with youth at the Cov.

Fifthly, you could have a heart attack trying to catch up with Jr. High youth playing freeze tag.

Or sixthly, you could get killed by the elders for playing with the tennis ball inside the church building.

Seventhly, you could get trampled by a cow at the PA farm show, or die fat and happy of a ice-cream induced food coma.

Eighthly, you could die of cold in Toronto, or die happy because the Curator of the Model Ships section of the AGO tells you amazing stories of ships that were snuck, carried, and sunk. Or you could die because Toronto is liberal and there are cannabis shops. Or because there are statues to Redcoats in prominent squares, and the locals might mistake you for an invading Fenian.

Ninthly, you could eat bad salmon. Or put craisins in your spaghetti (yum!).

Tenthly, you could get attacked by rioting youth on your way to work. Luckily the stones thrown were before I passed by. You could also die by driving the wrong way on a one way to avoid police barricades. They tell me you can die for being a white person in Back Maryland, but I haven't gotten shot at so far.

Eleventhly, you could make sexist comments to your housemates. Or take the car without asking. Or finish off the leftovers. Or leave a dish in the sink.

Twelthly, you could die spazzing over the possibilities of the future and your desire to be in eight places at once and do everything. Or there's the pressure of being a terrible friend and not responding to messages on time.

Thirteenthly, you could stumble across an illegal operation while looking for homeless people under a bridge.

Fourteenthly, you could break your face on the floor when you pass out because you are sick.

Fifthteenthly, you could die of awe over the awesomeness of the movie 12, or die because your roommate is trying to warn you, but you hear Russian coming out of his mouth, even though he is speaking English.

Sixteenthly, you could upset an ex with a youtube video.

Seventeenthly, you could stick with protocol and refuse to tell a parent whether or not their child is currently in the building.

Eighteenthly, you could talk to strangers in elevators.

Nineteenthly, you could try to slide/drive to Philly in the 6am snow and ice. (If you have a good housemate, he'll talk you out of this one.)

Twentiethly, you could write unprofessional messages to your boss.

Twenty-firstly, one could undertake pains to wrongly split infinitives.

Twenty-secondly, one could put your hands in your jacket while being searched by an overzealous policeman on your way to the library. Cops don't like hippies with purses.

Twenty-thirdly, you could walk to work in a blizzard and...I still haven't figured out what could have happened.

Twenty-fourthly, by pool stick.

Twenty-fifthly, you could die because you run out of money. This is what my brain tells me. However, I think it's actually food and air and water that you need. Still though, money is annoying, and it feels like it could kill you.

Twenty-sixthly, unrequited love?

Twenty-seventhly, and lastly, a poet-aster must always be wary of the grammar police, pun haters, rabid fans, and his own dramatic hubris. Alas, it's a dangerous business entering the blogosphere...especially when you don't continue your previous to be continued. Oh wells. Don't hate the player, hate the game??