Small Town Proser

Breakfast On The Beach

2012-01-23T12:59:00.000-06:00

This is my re-telling of John 21, for those who have requested it. I left off the intro stuff and the actual scripture (you can read that for yourself here before you begin), as well as my closing remarks.

Breakfast on the Beach

It was just a couple of weeksafter Jesus was crucified. The men who followed Him everywhere, the ones knownas disciples, had their entire world in turmoil. Their leader had been killed, andthey were sure they were next. And then three days later He was back. There wasa wild day of rumors and uncertainties, a mysterious empty tomb, their friendMary Magdalene telling them He was alive, and then… they SAW Him. That Sundayevening. He came into the locked room where they were hiding, without botheringto open the door.

Then eight days later, on aMonday night, they were together again. Thomas was the one who still hadn’tseen Him. He was, I think, understandably reluctant to allow himself to havetoo much hope. But then He came again. Again, through locked doors.

But then He went away. Thingswere different now, they knew, but they were full of questions and pretty shortof answers. Was He going to start traveling around teaching again? Wouldeverything be like it was before? He had been with them, spoken with them,eaten with them, but they had no idea what the Plan was. What were theysupposed to do? The first two times they saw Him, it seems they were still inJerusalem, hiding, afraid of the Romans, afraid of the Jewish leaders, afraidof a thousand things. Then somehow a few days later at least seven of them hadleft Jerusalem and walked the ninety or so miles north to Galilee. They wereconfused, but hopeful. Scared, but excited. In turmoil, but with a strangepeace. They wondered what was next, but they were stuck in a holding pattern.They didn’t know what to do.

Finally, one evening, Peterlooked out at the Sea of Galilee, a pretty good-sized lake where the fishing wasgood. He turned to the others and said, “I’m going fishing.” James and John werewith him, and they were former professional fishermen as well. Thomas,Nathanael, and two other disciples were with them. They sort of looked at eachother and decided they’d all go too. Thomas and Nathanael and the others didn'tknow the fishing business as well as Peter and James and John did, but they weredisciples, and they were all bound together now.

They started putting together somegear, and by the time they were done they decided they’d go out for all night andsee what they could catch. It was most likely late April. The weather would havebeen cool that night, maybe in the upper forties or lower fifties. Maybe they shivered a bit inthe night breezes while they pushed the boat out from shore and lifted a sail.They warmed up a little as they got into the rhythm of the work, casting nets,pulling them in, casting again. They weren’t finding the fish somehow, but thiswas work they knew – casting, pulling, casting, subconsciously watching thestars for clouds to roll in, feeling the wind and watching the sail for signsof change in the weather.

Maybe Thomas sat watching,lending a hand where he could. Feeling a little chilled and sleepy, butenjoying the slow lift and settle of the boat in the waves. A little ashamedto be glad that here in the middle of the lake, he didn’t have to look over hisshoulder in fear of being arrested.

A few days before, when Jesushad appeared for the second time, Thomas wasn’t allowing himself to believethat Jesus’ resurrection was real. He wanted it to be true so badly, but he hadseen Him die. His heart had been broken. If he believed Jesus was alive, andthen it turned out not to be true, he wondered if that would be enough to crushhim completely. But then, on that Monday evening, hiding in that room inJerusalem behind locked doors, suddenly there He was. Jesus. Alive, real.Coming toward Thomas, showing his scars, inviting Thomas to touch the scars, asif any of that mattered now. Saying, “Thomas, don’t be faithless any more.Believe.” Thomas’ eyes filled with tears, his chest tight and his hands shaking.He wanted to say, “No, Jesus, I’m sorry. I see it’s You. I should have believedin You if I believed in anyone. I don’t need proof. I know You’re the Son ofGod!” But the words weren’t that important any more. He fell to his knees andhis voice was so choked, but he managed to say, “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus gently replied, “Youbelieve because you have seen me. Blessed are those who haven’t seen me andbelieve anyway.” Thomas was ashamed, but he knew Jesus cared enough for himthat He was willing to let Thomas see the scars. His fears of believing insomething and being disappointed were gone.

Now, tonight, on the lake,Thomas still had fears. They were all still worried about being arrested bysomeone – they weren’t even sure who. Thomas wasn’t sure what was going tohappen in the future, but as he sat there in the boat, he knew one thing forsure. Jesus was alive. Whatever happened, Thomas would follow Jesus anywhereand everywhere, forever.

A cold spray of water made himgasp, and he looked up to see James grinning at him in the moonlight, gatheringup a dripping net for another cast, shaking water at him. John looked over and splashed some water atJames in retaliation. The Sons of Thunder, these brothers had been called.Every issue had been argued at top volume, and sometimes with fists. But nowthey were relaxed, insulting each other’s casting technique, joking that theonly thing they were catching tonight was a cold.

John cast his net again,the familiar motion letting his mind range freely, remembering. On the worst three days of his life, John had moved in a numbed haze. In a “last will and testament” kind of statement, Jesus told himfrom the cross that he was to treat Mary, Jesus’ mother, as his own mother.“John, this is your mother.” A plea from a dying friend. Over the next three days, it was what kept Johngoing. Nothing seemed to matter anymore with Jesus dead. But John wasdetermined not to let Him down. He took Mary with him, hiding with the others.They were two people with shattered lives, moving through a gray world without hope,taking care of each other because it was the only thing they could think to do.

Then Sunday morning, there was MaryMagdalene, running up, shouting, confused, afraid, “His body is gone! I don’tknow where they took Him! Why would they take Him?” John knew something hadchanged. He looked at Peter, and they both took off at a run. John didn’t knowwhat he would find. He had to see. He outran Peter and got there first. Hestopped, his heart pounding and his breath short. He looked in, and there wasthe empty burial cloth. The linen that had covered Jesus’ head was neatlyfolded and placed to one side. Peter came running up and went inside. Johnfollowed, and suddenly a thousand things came together. Prophecies Jesus hadmentioned about Himself. Details John hadn’t thought about before. A wild hopecame up in his heart. Standing there by a shapeless linen burial wrap, Johnknew. Jesus was alive. He and Peter walked back, and John wondered what Peterwas thinking. He wanted to talk it all out, but Peter was wide-eyed and silent.John knew that Peter was ashamed of himself for what had happened on Friday, sohe said nothing. Then that very night, Jesus was there, and John stood withtears streaming and his heart shouting a song of praise. Jesus was alive. Thewhole world was new and different and nothing would be the same.

John pulled in his net. Nothing.He wondered absently where the fish were tonight, but he didn’t really caremuch. The familiar motion was pleasant, and this cool night was perfect forhard work.

He looked to the stern of theboat where Peter had established himself, his stance wide, his expressionalmost grim and determined as he cast nets and made small corrections to theircourse. He had thrown aside his warm cloak, but he was sweating as he moved ina steady, tireless rhythm.

No fish yet, Peter thought. Buthe knew he wouldn’t stop until dawn at least. His muscles were tiring, but itfelt good. Fishing was something he knew, something he was sure about. The restof the world wasn’t so simple. He knew Jesus wasalive. It made him joyful, but at the same time his shame was a cloudthat darkened everything.

That awful night when Jesus hadbeen arrested, Peter had been fearless at first. When the soldiers came, hepulled a sword and decided to fight and die for Jesus. He swung at the nearesttarget, and when the man ducked, Peter’s sword cut off his ear. Peter got readyto fight as long as possible before they mobbed him and killed him. But thenJesus said, “Stop! Peter, put your sword away.” And then He healed theinjured ear. Peter stood, confused, surprised, bewildered, standing still as the crowd swirled around him. Then they weregone, taking Jesus away, and no one was coming at Peter with a spear. He bolted, ranaway, and then followed from a distance. But then when he tried to blend intothe crowd and get close enough to see what was going on at Jesus’ trial, peoplestarted looking at him, pointing and talking. “You’re one of His followers,aren’t you?” a girl said. Peter was suddenly terrified. He yelled and cursedand kept repeating, “No, I don’t know him.” Then, a rooster crowed. At thesame moment, over the heads of the crowd, the soldiers, and everyone else atthe trial, Jesus turned and looked straight at Peter. Peter turned and fled,groaning and weeping, suddenly seeing the enormous, horrible depth of hisbetrayal. As Jesus was beaten and crucified, Peter’s agony grew moreexcruciating. He was a coward, a disloyal, false counterfeit.

But then Sunday morning came,and the breathless run to the empty tomb. A day of unbearable confusion,wondering, questions. Peter pacing around the room like a man obsessed. Andthen that night, there He was. In the room, standing there. The same as before,and yet more. “Peace be with you,” Jesus said. He looked at each of them inturn, and for a moment Peter allowed himself to hope that even for him, there might bepeace. He wanted to run to Jesus, to tell Him how sorry he was, to begforgiveness. He wanted Jesus to come to him and confront him, rebuke him, even shout at him, buthe also feared it. He stopped, uncertain. And then the evening was over andJesus was gone. “Peace be with you,” Jesus had said. Peter had desperatelywanted that peace. But he couldn’t accept that it was for him. Not yet.

The fishing is terrible tonight,Peter thought. Maybe we’ll find some fish yet, though. He was ashamed that theothers in this boat knew about his denials, but hadn’t been angry. They hadn’t confronted him angrily or even silently avoided him. When he had decided on a night ofsolitude on the lake, he had half wondered if they would be relieved to be ridof him for the night. But then they had all come along. Even Thomas, who hadreceived the forgiveness and reconciliation that Peter wanted so badly. Peternoticed suddenly that the sky was getting lighter in the east, and the breezewas dying as they sailed slowly along parallel to the shore, a few hundredyards away. Dawn was coming, and not a single fish to show for a night’s work.He straightened and stretched, realizing how weary he was.

Peter watched the shore slidepast in the growing light, dim shapes materializing into trees, rocks, shrubs.Suddenly he realized there was a man standing on the shore, watching them. Heturned and saw John, stopped in the act of pulling in a net, looking at theman as well. They were all suddenly looking at the figure on the shore, waitingfor something. The man spoke. “My friends, have you caught any fish?” Hecalled.

They glanced at each other, their nets trailing idly down the left sideof the boat, and then James found his voice. “No,” he said, a question in his voice.

Then the man on the shore saidthe oddest thing. “Throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you’ll getplenty of fish!”

James glanced sharply back at Peter, who shrugged. With aself-conscious grin, James pulled up the largest net and began to gather it up.Peter and John dropped their gear and moved beside him. They cast the net, thesame motion as hundreds of times before that night. The ropes ran out throughtheir hands, and they began drawing it in. Peter knew immediately something wasdifferent. There was a resistance, then a weight, then a living, bucking, wildtension on the ropes. They braced and pulled hard, looking at each other with expressions that shared the surreality of the moment. Thomas and the others jumped up to help. They pulled together, butPeter stopped them. “We’ll have to drag it to shore,” he said. “It might tear otherwise.”

John suddenly spun and stared atthe man on the shore. His eyes wide, he looked at Peter. “It’s the Lord!” hesaid, his voice tight with excitement. Peter dropped his hold on the net, andthe boat lurched. James chuckled and braced himself for the added weight.

Gazing at the shore, Peter grabbed his cloak, pulled it on, and on a suddenimpulse he ran the length of the boat and dove into the chilly water. John andThomas yelled, and James and the others were laughing. Peter swam strongly,straight toward the man on shore. He came out of the lake, his clothesstreaming water, shivering and splashing through the shallows. He ran up… toJesus. They stood for a moment, Peter staring, Jesus smiling.

Then Jesus turnedand walked to a campfire. There was fish frying, and bread. The wind changedand Peter smelled the earthy, delicious smell of breakfast. He suddenlyrealized he was starving. The boat pulled up to the shore, the other disciplesshouting and laughing, straining to pull the net out of the water, counting allthe huge fish in the net. “Bring some of those fish!” Jesus called. Peterremembered his manners enough to go help pull the net in. Jesus tended the fireand then called, “Now come and have some breakfast!” They all came, grinningand nodding, tired but happy.

Jesus served them fish and bread. They talked abit at first, but mostly they sat there and ate with the contentment that menshare eating a well-earned meal around a campfire. Thomas smiled to himself,thinking, everything tastes better cooked over a campfire, and when it’s cookedby the Son of God, it’s unbeatable.

After breakfast, Jesus cameto Peter. He sat beside him and looked at him. Peter was apprehensive. Jesuslooked at him, and then said, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more thanthese?”

James, sitting across from them,wondered what the “more than these” part meant. Was Jesus asking if Peter lovedHim more than he loved the fish? No,that was too weird. Did Jesus mean to ask Peter if his love was greater thanthe other disciples’ love for Jesus? Whatever He meant, Peter seemed tounderstand what He was asking.

Peter’s voice was tight with emotion and hesaid, “Yes, Lord, You know I love You.”

“Then feed my lambs,” Jesussaid.

Peter thought he understood. Jesus was giving him a commission. He was tocare for the new group of people who were coming to believe in Jesus. Peterwould do it. He would give it his all. There was still the cloud of his shame,but Jesus was giving him a job to do anyway. It was his chance to provehimself.

But then Jesus looked at himagain, and asked again, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

He had Peter’sfull attention now. Peter looked him in the eye, and thought, He wants me to betotally sure. “Yes, Lord,” he said, “You know I love You.”

“Then take care of my sheep,”Jesus said.

Peter knew then that his responsibility would be to care for all ofJesus’ followers to the best of his ability. It was an overwhelming task, butPeter would do it. He would give it his all. He would prove himself.

But then Jesus asked himquietly, a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Peter’s eyes filledwith tears. His shame came crashing down. His denials came back in full force.He felt the anguish of that night again. He cried bitterly for a few minutes,wondering if he really could say that he loved Jesus, when he hadturned away from Him. But Peter realized that whatever awful things could be truthfullysaid about him, he couldn’t help loving Jesus. There was no life for Peteroutside of loving Jesus. He knew he wasn’t good enough to love Jesus and wouldnever be, but he couldn’t help it. He spread out his hands in a helplessgesture. “Lord, you know everything,” hesaid finally, his voice trembling. “You know I love You.”

Jesus reached out and grippedhis shoulder. His voice was warm as He smiled and said, “Then feed my sheep.”He looked into Peter's eyes. “The truth is, when you wereyoung, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went whereveryou wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, andothers will dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.”

Peterunderstood. This was a passage from selfishness to selflessness. Jesus waswarning him that he would eventually have to give his life for the sake ofChrist. But Peter’s joy was surging in spite of the sobering words. The cloudwas gone. He was looking into the eyes of his friend, his savior, his Lord, andhe was loved and forgiven.

Peter didn’t know what to do orsay then, so he resorted to his old habit of running his mouth before he couldstop himself. He looked at John, who was smiling like an idiot. Peter askedJesus, “What about him, Lord?”

Jesus raised an eyebrow. “If Iwant John to stay alive until I return, what is that to you?” He pointed at Peter and said, smiling, “You follow me.”

Peterducked his head, embarrassed. But his heart was warm, even in the cool breeze.

Thesun was up now, orange in the eastern hills. The men cleaned up the last bitsof breakfast, and then got to work on their fish.

___________________________________________

This is the end of the story for Thomas in the Scriptures. Tradition says that after the Jewish diaspora he traveled east, sailing down the Red Sea and eventually to the West coast of India. There in India there are several ancient Orthodox churches which trace their lineage back to the work of the Apostle Thomas. He followed Jesus anywhere, everywhere, forever, and was martyred near Madras, India, killed by a lance.

John preached in Jerusalem, in Asia Minor, and other places. He also wrote one of the four Gospels and three Biblical epistles. Under Nero or Domitian he was exiled to Patmos. There he became the Revelator, and was allowed to see a vision of Jesus at the end of time making "all things new."

Peter led the early church, first from Jerusalem and then from Rome, until his martyrdom. The Acts of the Apostles records much of his early leadership of the church. He wrote the two epistles that bear his name, and probably served as a major source for Mark's writing of his Gospel. He was crucified in Rome under Nero's rule. One tradition has it that he asked to be crucified upside down because he was not worthy to share the same death as Jesus. Whether this is true or not, his death by crucifixion fulfilled Jesus' prediction: "...you will stretch out your hands, and others will take you where you don't want to go."

Doubt, My Old Friend

2012-01-06T15:52:00.001-06:00

The truth is that none ofus is immune to doubt. Overall, I like to think of myself as a confident guy. Ihave admitted to myself, though, that in the difficult times I have sometimeshad serious doubts. But I have always consoled myself by claiming that I didn'tdoubt God - I just doubted myself. Anyone who works with youth will probablyrecognize the feeling. It usually comes after a disappointment: you hold ayouth event that was supposed to minister to fifty or more, and five showed up.It's humbling. This time of year is the customary time to plan for the yearahead. In light of what I see as past failures, I tend to let my doubts rein inmy planning. I pray for guidance, but then too often pull back short of God'scalling because of "humility."

There's a tricky thingabout that kind of thinking, though: doubt of God often disguises itself ashumility about oneself. I doubt that I'll be able to be the man God has calledme to be, forgetting that when He calls, He promises to provide, equip, andempower.

I've cleverly disguised mydoubts as doubting something otherthan God, but disguises are worthless under the penetrating gaze of the Authorof Truth. Moses, for one, tried this disguise method unsuccessfully once inregard to his lack of public speaking ability.

But if you're feelingguilty along with me for your own doubts, keep reading.

There is good news aboutdoubt. That good news is that when we recognize doubt and have a frankdiscussion with God about it, He gives us more grace. He helps us to keeptaking risks and working for Him even in the face of that doubt; sometimes evenwhen the feelings of doubt are still hanging heavily around our necks.

Last week I worked hardto prepare a message for our Wednesday junior high youth group. I thought I hadsome good material, and it was going to be great. Before I could even get goingI had to break up a fight and suspend two students for a week. (Suspendstudents from coming to CHURCH?!? Yes. Call me if you have a better provenmethod for corralling students who show all signs of being future convicts.)During the message two of the most influential older students were a constantdistraction. I left feeling like I needed to quit. I just couldn't do this anymore. I didn't have the ability. No offense, God - it's not you; it's me.

Then Thursday I got a messagefrom the middle-school counselor at the public school. She wanted to talk tome. I drove to the school with a sinking feeling, which was remarkable in thatI didn't know I could sink much deeper. I waited outside her office on the samebench where (the secretary told me) several of my youth group students hadwaited to be called on the carpet. I felt a certain affinity for thosestudents' feelings while sitting on that bench.

Finally I was called intothe office. I hadn't met this particular counselor yet, although I knew who shewas. She shook my hand and introduced herself as I prayed desperately forstrength and hoped this wouldn't be as bad as I was imagining it might be. Thenshe said something surprising: "I wanted to meet you, because I keephearing your name from students - you're really doing something right overthere at the church."

I'm so glad there's novideo recording of my facial expression at that moment.

She went on to say thateven some of the most troublesome students would mention our youth group assomething that was helping them to do better. She also quoted one student assaying to another, "Hey! Jim would bust you for talking that way abouther!"

He gives more grace -sometimes in the form of appreciation from a public-school counselor.

Some of you who work with youth may be in needof more grace. I hope these words will supply a bit of that: God has called youbecause He designed you for this task. Your past failures and your present imperfectionsdo not matter - in fact, God may use them for His purpose. I AM has sent you;now go do His work through His strength.

Learning My Lesson Again

2011-10-03T16:32:00.002-05:00

I'm very humbled and grateful this week for many reasons. One of those reasons is that through the generosity of a couple of individuals, Jeremy Oehring, Darrin Griffin, and I got to go to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Worship Music Conference last week in New York. It was just what I needed in several ways.

There are several other things in my life right now that make my humility and gratitude increase all the time. But there is one thing that happened last week that sticks out to me.

I met with a young man last week who wanted to talk about his soul. He had lots of questions. (His biggest question was about the "unpardonable sin." Google it if you want to see a confusing maelstrom of opinion, dogma, heresy, and fanaticism. It's understandable that anyone would be freaked out about it. Pastor Joe and I talked to him and listened to his story. In the end, we assured him that it was highly unlikely that he had committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.)

But after this conversation, the young man came back to my office a few days later and we talked for some time about his desire to commit himself to God completely and break some addictions he was dealing with. As part of this very candid conversation, he revealed that although he had dealt with anger, bitterness, addictions, and other things, he had not been sexually active with the girl he had dated for several months. He said, "She was more than that to me."

This gave me a shock. Here's why.

A few months ago, I saw this teenaged couple together, and I thought, "Well, I've been working with teens for a while, and I know the signs. They're sleeping together." I thought long and hard about this, because I cared pretty deeply for both of them. At the time the girl was much more open to talking to me than the young man was, and she would occasionally ask me to pray for something. I thought I saw signs of her at least considering drug use as well. I was very concerned. So I wrote her a letter. It was a long letter, handwritten. I tried to say in as compassionate and caring a way as possible that it looked to me like she was making some wrong choices in her life, and urged her to reconsider those choices. I finished the letter, and showed it to Cindy and asked for her honest opinion. She very wisely said, "Wow. That's a really heavy letter. Maybe you should sleep on that before you give it to her." I told her that I thought that sounded like a good idea, and we prayed about it together. In the end, the letter sat on my bedside table for a month or so, and every time I saw it I thought about it. I never could find a peace about which way to go with it, so I eventually threw it away.

I've been doing this job for a while, and I think I'm generally a pretty good judge of teenagers. I can usually guess who is doing what, and how clued-in their parents are. But this last week I was humbled because of how wrong I had been. (I wasn't totally wrong - there had indeed been some unhealthy things going on in that relationship, including codependency.) I was also extremely grateful for the wisdom of my wife and for what I believe to have been the leadership of God in not sending that letter, which would probably have closed the door for any future influence in that young woman's life.

Last week at Brooklyn Tabernacle the emphasis was on following the leadership of the Holy Spirit in leading worship. (Not much there on technical aspects of worship music. It was just what I needed.) I've always been pretty cynical of people's claims that the Holy Spirit told them to do this or that. So many times it was obvious to me that He hadn't told them anything of the sort. But I'm so glad that He led me in this situation, and in a thousand others.

I tend to depend too much on my expertise sometimes, or my experience. Then something like this comes along and shows me that I really don't know that much. I'm humbled. And grateful.

You Have No Idea....

2011-02-07T16:38:00.004-06:00

You know a line I think should be outlawed in all future movies and TV shows? This one: "You have no idea what i'm capable of." It's usually spoken in a low, tough-guy sort of voice, and can either be by the good guy or the bad guy. But it's always a lousy writing device. Why does any character, EVER, need to say that to any other character? It's a cheap way to say to the audience, "Wait, don't walk out of the theater/change the channel yet. This guy gets more interesting later!" It's intended to create a sort of ambiguous menace and mystique around a character when they can't find a way to just give him a mystique the honest way.

Recent sightings include the first episode of the new show The Cape and the trailer for the new movie I Am Number Four. (That's not to say I didn't sorta like both otherwise...)

According to a quick Google search, it's also been used in the movies The Dark Knight and The Hulk.

But my favorite usage of the phrase comes as a quote of yet another usage thereof:

Got any other sightings of this phrase for me?

This Is About As Patriotic As This Blog Has Ever Been

2011-01-06T14:50:00.002-06:00

Today, on my lunch break, inspired by what Congress did this week, I read the Constitution all the way through, including amendments. I had somehow never done that before, all in one sitting like that.

It's mostly not too boring, and in some places quite a beautiful work of literature.

Urban Exploration

2011-01-04T16:11:00.001-06:00

My brother-in-law, Kevin Carlson, and I like to get on top of buildings, towers, etc. I also like exploring old places.

Therefore, this website was fascinating to me.

http://www.undercity.org/

A Poem I Like, But Can't Quite Decipher Yet

2010-12-02T14:13:00.007-06:00

This is a poem by a guy named Christian Wiman. I got it here. I love the flow of the verse, and its circular continuity and searching wistfulness. I don't think the guy is a Christian, for those who may be wondering. I'm interested to see what you poetry fans make of the meaning.

Every Riven Thing

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into the stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made.

This is a poem from Mr. Wiman's newest book of poetry, titled Every Riven Thing.

EDIT: Wow. Read this article by the same author. It gives quite an interesting insight into his thought process.

ANOTHER EDIT: Double wow. Read this essay as well. GOOD writer, this guy.

Disclaimer: If anyone with rights to this poem arrived here via search engine and objects to my posting, please let me know and I'll delete the text and just leave the link. I'm definitely not claiming any rights or permission to post this, and I'm not making any money on it since I have like five readers total. I just liked the poem and wanted to share.

Election Season is Over!!! ...and Couch Potatotude.

2010-11-03T16:16:00.004-05:00

We have a home phone, but mostly because we want a number to be able to fill in to forms and give to businesses that we never want to talk to. We don't have caller ID, we don't have long distance, and we don't have an answering machine on it (actually, we DO have an answering machine built in to the phone, but we leave it turned off). We got on the national "no-call" list when it first became a reality (one example of a time when our beloved elected officials got something right!). So most of the time, we only get calls on the home phone from our phone company, from Cindy's mom, and from each other. We figure the people we want to talk to mostly have our cell phone numbers. (Yes, Cindy's mom does have our cell phone numbers too - what kind of awful people do you think we are?!?)

But unfortunately, during election season, political campaign calls are not covered under the no-call umbrella. Our phone (like yours, probably) has been ringing at all hours. The large majority of these, of course, have been recorded messages. These frustrate me, but not too badly - it's easy and somewhat satisfying to angrily hang up on a recording. Shouting at the recording prior to hanging up is also a therapeutic option, and one which doesn't bother the conscience like shouting at a live person.

Among others, we got calls from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, some veterans' group or other, numerous PAC's, Ike Skelton, Vicky Hartzler, the Missouri Republican Party, some dubiously-named Missouri group claiming Tea Party allegiance, and Sarah Palin. We hung up on all of them except a timid-sounding young person politely taking a survey, to whom I granted "five to seven minutes of [my] time."

Last night before and during dinner we received three separate "get out the vote" calls. After dinner I decided to go to the office while Cindy went to her Bible study, so that I could be a couch potato (desk-chair potato?) in peace.

Today, it's over. No more phone calls! Woo!

I realize that our election season was MUCH less annoying than most people's, simply because we don't really listen to the radio (except NPR and Christian non-profit stations), and we don't have TV. So we were blessedly free of the onslaught of annoying campaign ads!

Let me clarify the "we don't have TV" statement. While we don't have cable or satellite, and can't get any broadcast channels at home, don't start getting all impressed at our self-control and minimalistic, spartan lifestyle. We have discovered that the shows we want to watch can be seen on Hulu. Or if we REALLY like them, we can buy the episodes on iTunes or Amazon, or even buy the DVD's. The cost of a few seasons on DVD per year is MUCH less than the cost of cable or satellite. (In similar vein, consider this Wired bit comparing costs of internet TV vs. cable/satellite.) Yeah, we want to seem all self-controlled and spartan, but the truth is we watch quite a bit of TV - especially for people with no ability to watch live TV.

I know many people would say that we'd be much better off if we didn't watch TV shows at all. For most of my growing-up years, the only viewing screen in our house was on the old TRS-80 desktop computer. (And later the HP DOS-based PC with a thumping 40MB hard drive! And for those of you born in the 90's or later, they didn't even have a color monitor!!!) I certainly didn't suffer as a result of being deprived of TV as a child. I'm a prolific speed-reader today, and I attribute this to the fact that as a hyper, ADD child, I didn't have TV, so I read books for my entertainment and imaginative escapes.

But I'm not so sure being a TV teetotaler is as much a character-builder as some say. Obviously there's a lot of junk on TV. But there are also some well-written shows with good plot lines and great humor. Occasionally there is even the positive portrayal of virtue and the realistic depiction of the consequences of evil.

So I think a certain amount of TV watching is okay - even healthy!

Okay, now I've philosophized about it enough. To be honest, I just like me some good TV sometimes. And here are the current favorites occupying my Hulu.com queue:

Chuck (totally unlikely plot, but great characters and so much fun.)
The Good Guys (funniest cop show on TV)
Castle (murder mysteries with humor and good characters... and Nathan Fillion of Firefly)
No Ordinary Family (new superhero show - like a live-action The Incredibles, but a bit more angsty)
The Office (obviously)
Psych (the funniest buddy comedy on TV, plus Sherlock-Holmes-like sleuthing abilities)

What are your favorites? Any obvious ones I'm missing?

Return to Blogging, and an odd story

2010-10-18T16:38:00.002-05:00

I just want to let everyone know that I plan to blog on a semi-regular basis again. (Disclaimer: Semi-regular may mean anything from daily to annually.)

Now for an odd story.

I was in Nevada today (Nevada, MO, for those unacquainted with the geography in these parts - NOT the state of Nevada) because I drove Cindy over this afternoon to teach her evening class at Cottey College. Usually she takes the car and I just stay at work late.

After I dropped her off at the college, I went to the one coffee house that is currently open in Nevada, AJ's Coffee Rush. There was a sign in the window saying that they had moved to the Daylight Donuts building a few blocks away, so I drove there. The signs just said "AJ's Daylight Donuts - Now Open." I assumed that meant I could still get a cup of coffee at least, and sit in peace for a while. I went inside, and found what at first appeared to be an empty place. There were some paint buckets stacked in the corner and evidence of recent painting, so I wondered if they were actually closed, and the painters had just stepped out for a bit without locking the door. But the espresso machine had lights on, and there was brewed coffee gently steaming in the Bunn carafe. There were also doughnuts still on display in the glass case behind the doughnut counter.

Then I glanced around and noticed a laptop sitting open on one of the tables. Then to my surprise and bemusement I saw that there was a young gentleman lying on the bench beside this laptop, deep in dreamland. I had made a decent amount of noise when I entered, ringing the bells hanging on the door and scooting a chair out loudly to see if it would summon someone from the back room behind the counter. I had to assume that here on this bench was the sole employee on duty. I hung around for about ten minutes, and when nothing happened, I left. I could easily have grabbed several free doughnuts, some coffee cake, and a to-go cup of coffee.

I'm still not absolutely certain that the place was officially open. I've always had good service in their old location, and I didn't recognize the snoozing fellow as one of the employees I'd seen previously.

My Other Colorado Adventure

2010-08-13T13:43:00.005-05:00

Last week, Cindy and I went on vacation to Colorado. We climbed Mt. Democrat. We stayed in an awesome bed-and-breakfast. We clambered and explored in Eleven Mile Canyon. We hung out with Cindy's brother Kevin and his wife Jessie, and Cindy's high-school friend Kristy and husband Ryan. It was a great week in which we occasionally wore jackets while our mid-western friends and family sweltered in temperatures topping 100.

I hesitated at first, however, to share this other story, but I have decided it's too good to miss.

Our story begins late last Sunday evening. We pulled up in front of Kevin and Jessie's house in Colorado Springs, where we were staying. It was late at night and we were both tired. I parked by the side of the road, with Cindy's passenger door directly over a drainage grate. (In hindsight, this should probably have been avoided.) Cindy gathered a large armful of various items that needed to go inside the house, and opened her door. Her phone was held loosely under one finger. When she moved to get out of the car - alas! - the phone slipped from her fingers, and she watched in horror as it fell neatly between the bars of the drainage grate and out of sight into the sewers below. She was understandably distraught - not, you understand, because she is one of these loathsome, execrable girls who experience withdrawal symptoms if prevented from texting for over ten minutes. No, her dismay was rather due to the fact that she's nowhere close to a renewal of contract, and there is no insurance on the phone; so we were looking at paying full retail price for a replacement phone. If you have ever been faced with a broken or lost phone, you know that these so-called "full retail prices" are set by servants of Sauron just after undergoing a root canal.

So, I grabbed a flashlight and checked out the drainage grate. To my dismay, the phone was far below in a large drainage tunnel about fifteen feet in diameter. It was lying on moist concrete out of the small stream of water, but it was definitely out of reach. The drainage grate was concreted into the street and wouldn't budge. Kevin came out and helped me take stock of things. There was a manhole in the middle of the street. We reasoned that this manhole might connect to the tunnel twenty feet away, so we got a crowbar and lifted the lid. Unfortunately, the ladder of the manhole just led down to a tiny drainage tube that undoubtedly led to the tunnel we sought, but was inaccessible to anyone larger than a marmot.

At this point, we gave up and went to bed.

On Monday morning, I went to the Verizon store, and was essentially told, "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." The full retail price in question was $399. And no, they don't package it in a solid gold box for that price. I left the store thinking vague thoughts of Ebay or armed robbery.

When I got back to the house, I looked through the grate again and saw the phone lying there forlornly, the battery cover off to one side. I noted the direction of the water's flow, started looking at the lay of the land and absently got into my car and drove around the block to find the next drainage grate downstream. It was equally inaccessible. I kept circling, headed gradually downhill. About a half mile down the hill, there was a creek with high concreted retaining walls on both sides. I strolled up and down, looking for the tunnel. This I found after some searching. I clambered down the muddy wall with the aid of a random tree that was growing nearby.

Then I approached the mouth of the tunnel. My phone has an LED camera flash on it that can be used as a flashlight, so I turned it on and looked uneasily into the inky depths of the tunnel's concrete-and-corrugated-steel maw. I checked the sky - just some distant wispy clouds with nothing really threatening-looking as far as flash floods - and started walking. In my ears were echoing the dire warnings of my parents about drainage tunnels. I ignored them and kept walking. I counted my paces from the entrance. The tunnel made a slight bend about fifty paces in, and then all daylight was gone. I started picturing scenes from several movies. I kept walking upstream and counting paces, reasoning that I would recognize the look of the tunnel under where our car was parked from my careful examinations on the surface. The tunnel never divided, and the various bends seemed to coincide with my surface explorations, so I kept walking. Occasionally there would be glimpses of daylight from a drainage pipe coming in from the sides. After 800 paces (which I estimate at about a third of a mile), I came to a place where striped sunlight was streaming straight down onto a cell phone. I picked it up and examined it. It didn't seem damaged, and it hadn't been lying in the water. I pressed the power button and got nothing, but I remembered that the battery had been low the night before. So I turned and headed back downstream. I didn't bother counting paces this time, since the tunnel had never divided and I reasoned that all I had to do was go downstream. After walking for some time, I started regretting my decision not to count paces - the blackness started creeping up behind me a bit and I heard lots of critters scuttling in the darkness. My weak little camera-flash beam showed me about ten or fifteen feet of tunnel behind me - just enough to help indistinct shapes look scarier. But to my relief, a few minutes later I rounded the final bend and saw daylight ahead. Then all I had to do was climb back up the wall, come out on the sidewalk, and nod politely to a bemused jogger who happened along at that moment.

I drove back to the house, and presented the phone to Cindy with a flourish. With trepidation, we plugged the phone into its charger. It booted up and worked perfectly. At this moment, I experienced one of those moments of manly triumph that one experiences sometimes. I felt like a HERO OF NORSE LEGEND.

Now I know this was a rather stupid thing to do. I know I'm setting a bad example for any foolish minors who might be reading this. But for $400 (or even the $200-250 it would have cost to buy a used replacement phone on Ebay), I would probably do it again... after carefully checking the weather report.

MainStreet Worship

2010-04-19T17:42:00.003-05:00

In the last post, I talked about this new worship service we're starting. (Read that post to get caught up if you need to... Done? Okay, let's continue.)

One very important question to me in approaching this project was, what can we do to make the experience less of a concert/lecture feel and more like something you actually get into? (Especially since a theater naturally lends itself to concert/lecture just by its architecture...) My friend Dwain, who I believe would consider himself agnostic as far as religious belief, once attended one of our services and wrote up a very valuable critique of it from his perspective. One of his observations was an astute question on preaching: "Wouldn’t it be more productive to enter into a dialogue with the community?" That question has stuck with me, because I agree. (Obviously we try to do exactly that in small-group settings, and that's one reason we believe in small groups so strongly. We also try - with varying degrees of success - to promote a small-group culture where honest questions are welcomed and not greeted with fear and loathing.)

We had several ideas as to how to accomplish this goal of making the teaching more interactive. First, though, we had to realize that going all-out and riding the leading edge of church innovation probably wouldn't work in small-town Missouri. With some exceptions, the fashions, language, and lifestyle of our town stays about two or three years behind what's going on even in nearby Kansas City, not to mention on the coasts. Very few people in this town are probably ready to come to a worship service where the venue is covered in modern art and the scent of incense fills the air and they're handed a piece of art charcoal and told to express their feelings on the atonement by creating spontaneously on a long roll of parchment.

One idea we've seen elsewhere that we really like is to enable questions and feedback by putting a text-messaging code on the screen that people can text questions to. Then the speaker or a panel can respond to those questions at the end. The problem with this service is that it costs around $50-80 per month. We think it's cool, but we're sorta running this thing on a shoestring budget right now. Also, some of the staff have wondered out loud (and probably justifiably) if getting people started texting during the service is actually going to end up being counterproductive to what we're trying to do.

So we've ended up with a fairly easy-going atmosphere, occasional random elements added to the service like Q&A sessions, people who come and tell their story, drama, video, and other things. We're looking for ideas that are creative, without being so weird that people in this town run screaming in terror.

Your thoughts? What have you seen elsewhere that seemed to work well?

EDIT: Also, this week's theme (as part of the "God, I Have Questions!" series) is "Is Hell Real?" We want to present this not as a scare tactic, but as accurately diagnosing the danger... Kind of a "No one has to go to hell - you have to reject Jesus' forgiveness to do that. But if we believe it's real, shouldn't we be honest about trying to make sure people don't go there? Even though it is an inconvenient truth?" (Pardon me for that last...)

Ideas for something interactive or different to communicate this without screaming and such? (And no, I don't want to do a "human video" that starts with a pretty teenage girl who gets attacked by demons who make her drink and then the Jesus character comes in and beats up the demons and saves the pretty girl.)

Filling the Hours

2010-04-19T16:40:00.002-05:00

There's a line from Oceans Eleven that I love. Daniel Ocean, played by George Clooney, is talking about assembling the team for a heist. He comments on the "Mormon twins," saying, "I got the sense they're having trouble filling the hours." This is followed by a scene showing the twins racing a monster truck against a remote-controlled miniature version of the same truck and arguing like ten-year-olds.

This week, Cindy and I don't have every waking hour spoken for, finally. This after several weeks in which "filling the hours" didn't require much in the way of effort at all. In the weeks leading up to Easter, we were heavily involved in several major projects.

The first was our church's Easter play, in which Cindy plays one of the two main narrator characters - Pontius Pilate's wife - and I play one Jesus of Nazareth (you may have heard of him). The rehearsals and set/tech work took the amount of time that these things always do.

The second major project was our church's new worship service. For several years, there have been two Sunday morning worship services - one at 8:30 am, and one at 10:45 am, with Sunday School classes between the two from 9:45 to 10:35. These two services are virtually identical in style and schedule. Last week, on the Sunday after Easter, we added a third Sunday morning worship service, running from 10:00 am to 11:10-ish. This new service is a different feel. The music is a different style (more guitar-driven and without an orchestra), the flow is different (the order of things shaken up often), and the look is entirely different. In fact, the venue is different. It's the Opera House Theater, a historic building in downtown El Dorado Springs that was completely refurbished a few years ago and is now a super-sweet movie theater with chandeliers and gold ceiling and lots of awesomeness. We worked out a deal with the theater owners that allowed us cheap rent in exchange for some cleaning and promises of being very very careful not to burn the place down or otherwise steal/kill/destroy. The approach is casual, and aimed at a target demographic of people who think cool old buildings and gold ceilings are neato. It's called MainStreet Worship.

So anyway, this required a TON of work and lots of prayer sessions, both personal and corporate, in which we had no difficulty whatever admitting our inadequacy for the task. All the groundwork leading up to the new service put a big load on the church staff. For example, Sunday school classes had to be analyzed, and in some cases moved to a new 11:15-noon time slot. If you've ever been around American Bible-belt evangelical churches, you know what a huge deal it is to change that. Also, the same message would be preached three times, by the same man, but the second of the three times would be in a different venue and different atmosphere. So the schedule is the main difficulty - Pastor Joe finishes teaching in the first service at 9:45, and has fifteen minutes to get to the theater for the start of the worship service there. No sweat. But then, depending on the way the MainStreet service is scheduled, he's sometimes finishing up there around 11:00 or 11:10. That means he rolls in to the 10:45 service about the time the music/announcements are wrapping up, and he's got to be ready to start speaking again, just minutes after finishing the message the second time. Fortunately the theater is just a bit over two miles from the church's Park Street location, and El Dorado Springs doesn't really struggle with traffic jams, so the commute is rarely a problem.

And then there were questions. What do we do for childcare at this new location? Should we recruit some "core members" for this new service? Can we change the aesthetic of the theater for worship in some simple, portable, yet powerful ways? How can we avoid just falling into the same old ruts in a new location?

So we kicked it off last week. And yesterday was the second one. I loved it. I hope the people who don't currently attend church who have come the last two Sundays liked it too. Most seemed to (but of course in this small town I'd be one of the last to hear any negative feedback, because negative feedback comes in round-about ways in this culture).

Then Saturday night, Cindy was one of the main sponsors for prom. She got drafted into that job a few years ago through no fault of her own, and stays in the job because she won't take my advice and do shoddy work to get out of being re-elected. She has to beg and plead and cajole to get enough helpers from the Junior Class (the official producers of the event) to get all the decoration/planning done. I hate prom. But since she has to be there, I help. And I watch all the worst parts of my memories of high school played out in front of me. And I see teenagers I care about getting way too much in the vein of a Britney Spears music video for my taste. (I'm going to be a very overprotective father, I'm afraid. I suspect my children will not be fans of me when they're teenagers.)

So three weekends in a row were the Easter play, MainStreet Worship's first iteration, and prom. We haven't had trouble filling the hours.

More on MainStreet worship in the next post. I hope you read that one and give me your feedback.

Sleep Talkin Man

2010-01-21T09:08:00.003-06:00

Okay, so I just discovered this thanks to Kevin Allred. This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while, but BE WARNED - his sleep-talking language is definitely obscene at times.

http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/

Awesomely Bad Church/Ministry Websites

2009-12-11T09:21:00.002-06:00

So a couple of weeks ago, Jeremy Oehring, who has been interning here this fall, found a church website with the most awesomely bad flash intro either of us had ever seen. You MUST check it out here (BUT make sure your speakers aren't up too high - they might explode from sheer awesomeness!):

http://www.evangelcathedral.net/

My favorite part is that after the glory beams launch into the sky around the church building and we're done with the intro, then the rock guitar kicks into its plaintive wail, and the pastor welcomes us to their "PPresence" on the web (a "P" plosive sound is a cardinal sin in recording).

Yesterday I was trying to find this site again to show it to someone, and couldn't remember what it was called. I googled for "church site flash intro" and it was in the second result - this. Careful - if you spend too long in that post you may never return from the awfulness. But I noticed that several in that list were designed by the same designer as Evangel Cathedral's, including this one:

http://www.iccm-1.org/

Another gem on this site is found after the intro is over by clicking on the "Founder and CEO" link on the left. The guy has "over one hundred best-selling books"?!?!? REALLY? Over a hundred? Best-selling by whose definition? I'm pretty sure Stephen flippin' King doesn't even have that many best-sellers. So why haven't I heard of this guy?

If you want lots more of the same, check out the designer's portfolio here. Especially scroll to the second page and watch the K & K Mime site intro. It doesn't even have a "skip" button! It actually just has a "replay" button! How... why... uh... eh?

I wish I could come up with some pithy summing-up paragraph here that makes a clever commentary on something. I think the Flash awesomeness was just too much for me though.

Umbrage

2009-12-07T09:51:00.002-06:00

A useful website my dad showed me: www.umbrage.org

Make sure you read the FAQ.

The whole "keeping the Christ in Christmas" thing

2009-11-09T17:01:00.006-06:00

Long ago I decided that I think it's phenomenally silly to protest or boycott businesses, organizations, etc. that call Christmas "Xmas" or just refer to it as "The Holidays." Well-meaning folks like the American Family Association have been in the forefront of the fight to force businesses to use the word "Christmas" for the past few years. I confess I fail to see the point of protests and boycotts on an issue like this. A time to remember the advent of the Savior of the Universe, and we're writing angry letters and signing petitions threatening boycotts.

Now let me make clear that I do oppose efforts in some circles to ban the use of the term "Christmas." Ridiculous. Losing the legal right to use the word in business or governmental circles would be highly annoying to me. But punishing businesses who use "Holidays" has long seemed silly and a misdirected concentration of energy badly needed elsewhere.

But though I've long thought that these well-meaning efforts were a bit silly, more recently I've decided it's more than silly. It's counterproductive and even injurious to Christians' representation of Christ to the world. The AFA article linked above refers to the "Christmas culture war" and compares a small-town municipal decision to remove a nativity scene from public property to the Taliban's removal of cultural symbols from Afghanistan. I'm thinking if I'm an outsider to this odd ghetto of American Christianity, I might originally think it a bit silly of the town's government to decide to remove the nativity scene, but my main reaction to this campaign as a whole would be, "Whoah, AFA. Calm down now." Dwain and others, I'm honestly eager to read your (likely much more erudite) comments if you have a few minutes to do so.

When I hear of this kind of thing I also think of a painful ride home from a certain Large-Scale Christian Youth Event which will remain unnamed.

I had taken my youth group to said event, mostly because their high production values were cool, and several of the students and I shared a fondness for the headlining band that was featured the second day of the event. Also, we had had generally positive experiences at other events sponsored by this organization. But at this particular event, the theme for the weekend was highly military. (Disclaimer here: I am very well aware that the Bible uses lots of militaristic language, but Paul makes very clear that our battle is NOT against flesh and blood. In other words, people aren't the enemy.) The speakers, drama, and all the graphics and promo stuff was all about how we are in a "culture war" in America. Apparently, according to the thrust of the weekend, if we win this culture war, American culture will be predominantly conservative Republican and Christian.

A couple more disclaimers. I'm fairly conservative and Republican, and Christian. And to their credit, this organization did place a heavy emphasis on mission work and compassion toward those less fortunate. But the "culture war" language did its damage. A girl who had gone with us (and I was very excited about it, because she was just coming clean from some serious addictions and other destructive patterns of behavior) who wasn't a Christian turned to me during one of the drama performances and said, "This is why no one likes Christians. You all see us as the enemy."

On the ride home, Randy Joe Bland and I spent the bulk of the two hours talking to this girl and basically trying to tell her how sorry we were for this misrepresentation of Christianity. After that ride I have enormous respect for Randy's ability to listen with compassion, his lack of defensiveness, and his wisdom and depth. (I know some of you are thinking, "RANDY?!? Riiiiight..." But that's because you've only seen his humorous side and his constant deceptive drowsiness.) I think we were successful in communicating to the girl in question how followers of Jesus really should be about compassion and selflessness rather than militancy against fellow human beings, but damage was undoubtedly done. The campaign to force "Christmas" on everyone does similar damage.

Instead of going on the offensive with legal action, boycotts, and nasty letters, wouldn't Christians' cause be better served by buying less junk at Christmas time and using that massive marketplace muscle to put a serious dent in some of the social ills at home and abroad? Instead of decorating the house with 300,000 tiny bulbs and fattening up the Christmas bonuses of execs at Target, why not finance a clean-water well in Africa, where cholera is a sweeping the continent yet again? You can even buy a goat for a family in Africa for $75. Instead of spending time and energy and legal muscle protesting a "Holiday" display, why not spend that valuable time and energy and legal muscle speaking up for those who cannot speak up for themselves?

If Christians want people to celebrate Christmas as Christmas, let's be a people who make the birth of Christ impossible NOT to celebrate.

To close this post, I'll say this. It's easy for me to sit here and whine about how I think some other Christians are a bunch of bumbling incompetents. Talk is cheap. I must confess that my own materialism is seriously out of control in many ways. Without going into specifics, I'll tell you that this Christmas I'm going to do some things to reduce my consuming and increase my contribution to stuff that really matters. Even if it's a bit painful.

I know the half-dozen or so of you that read my blog probably have some ideas for ways to make an impact. Two of you actually ARE a way to make an impact. Share your ideas below please.

-- Edit 11/11 - The AFA is calling for a new boycott. See story here. (I THINK this link works.)

-- Edit 12/16 - See this interesting article from Time about The Advent Conspiracy.

Just a quote

2009-08-07T13:05:00.002-05:00

From Don Miller's blog:

I had a long conversation with a distinguished scholar last month whose lifelong expertise is story structure. He is not a Christian. And as we talked, he said something that fascinated me. He said this:

“I understand you Christians. I understand the essence of your message. It’s this: If you are not a good person, you are going to burn in hell for all eternity.”

As I said, this man was a distinguished scholar and so it surprised me when he made this statement from a position of absolute knowing. There was no doubt in his voice. He wasn’t asking me to confirm. He knew. But he was absolutely wrong. That isn’t the essence of the Christian story, and anybody who believes so is a heretic.

Our story, and by our story I don’t mean the Christian story, I mean humanity’s story, is this:

The Trinity existed forever in a completely loving community. They were and are other focussed, without what we think of as ego (though I believe they have something like ego, we would not recognize it in comparison to our own) and they created an existence, including you and I, to enjoy their company. That is the most loving thing a perfectly loving being could do. But love cannot be controlling, it has to set it’s muse free, so they gave humanity an option out. And humanity took it, thus, by necessity, there was a separation between pure good and anything other than pure good. So now, we who have been designed to be complete in God, seek affirmation and validation from each other as though our lives depend on it. But it doesn’t work. Nobody has agency but God. So God sends his son to earth and his son essentially says this:

“You guys have all walked away from God. He can’t have anything to do with you, because he is purely good. But look, I haven’t walked away from him, so if you marry me, and we become one, you’ll be reunited with the Trinity. He’ll look at you and see me. We’ll do this at a wedding in heaven. Until the wedding, though, just have faith. It’s as though it’s already done. But it’s going to kind of suck until then.”

So that’s where we are in our story. We are waiting for the wedding, and until then, we have hope, and we have an explanation for our hope.

I know some of y'all are hopelessly cynical about Don Miller, and, for that matter, about life in general. My cynical heart beats with yours, but this is good stuff.

My greatest artwork

2009-07-21T16:16:00.009-05:00

Here's the series I did in youth group for the Wednesdays this summer when we actually had youth group. Obviously it was expanded with accompanying material added on, but here is my artistic masterpiece - a multi-part work of staggering genius. My artistic wife is hanging her head in shame.

The series is called, "Don't Make the Mistakes of Jim's Imaginary Friends Roscoe and Rockette."

Obviously each night had a funny one and a slightly-more-spiritual one. The slightly-more-spiritual ones were opposites of the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5.

I think my favorite is number 7.

Click the images to see them larger.

These images are copyrighted by me, although I can't imagine anyone stealing my intellectual property here.

Further Wilderness Adventures

2009-06-26T09:20:00.013-05:00

It has been almost two months, so I'm due to finally post about the backpacking trip I took at the end of April this year.

My friend Travis Sayler, with whom I've planned many a backcountry excursion, has been telling me for several years that I need to go see the Buffalo National River area in northern Arkansas. I've honestly been a bit skeptical, because I've canoed another section of the same river before, and though that section was certainly scenic, it didn't exactly make the Life List category of places you have to visit before you die. However, Travis persisted. Randy Joe Bland also told me of a place in this wilderness area called Big Bluff, where one walks along a narrow cliff ledge 500-600 feet above the river. I began to get intrigued - I'm a sucker for sweeping vistas. Travis mentioned a cave with a waterfall inside. I got a bit more interested. Travis also mentioned Hemmed-In Hollow Waterfall, the highest waterfall between the Rockies and the Appalachians. I agreed to the expedition.

So in late April, despite forecasts calling for rain every day of the trip, five of us - Travis, Brandon Speak (my brother-in-law), Kevin Allred, Drew Ryan, and me - converged on Lost Valley Campground just west of Ponca, Arkansas. That afternoon of Day 1 we hiked the mile-or-so to Eden Falls, beside which is the entrance to Cob Cave. The falls themselves are quite beautiful, but the highlight to me was the cave. A few feet inside the entrance the ceiling gets lower and lower. We crawled in muck and bat guano (the bats themselves were often in evidence) under a low ceiling for about twenty yards beside a rushing stream coming from deeper in the blackness of the cave ahead of us. Then, as the noise of rushing water grew steadily louder, there was a tight squeeze through a claustrophobic spot, and suddenly I felt a sense of space and roominess. I turned around and shined my headlamp upward, and laughed aloud. The roar of rushing water was coming from a waterfall that fell from the middle of a high domed ceiling about twenty-five feet over our heads. It was a bit of a surreal moment for me. Even though this was a readily-accessible cave (we saw families with young children successfully navigate the same passage), it had the sense of a pirate treasure cave or the hideout of an Old-West outlaw. I could imagine looking over in the corner and seeing a bleached skeleton fastened by a rusty cutlass to cracks in the rock.

That night we "car camped" at Lost Valley. Then in the morning of Day 2 we loaded up the cars again and drove a few miles to Steel Creek, one of the popular put-in points for canoe floaters and our trailhead for the trip. There, surrounded by high bluffs with leaky clouds socked in overhead, we made final adjustments to our packs, locked up the cars, and hit the trail. After just a few hundred trail yards, signs of civilization had completely disappeared. I commented to Travis that this was "good trail." He knew what I meant. Good trail doesn't necessarily mean that the trail is well-maintained or even safely banked on steep slopes. It means that it's a narrow track through areas where evidence of civilization is minimal, where the scenery is good, where the noise is all nature noise... It's a bit hard to define, but this was good trail. The steady dripping of recent rain water off the leaves, the misty feel to the air, and the deeper green that a cloudy day imparts to a deep forest didn't hurt. I was pleasantly surprised to find such a place in Arkansas.

It was definitely not easy trail. We had had two choices for hiking. We could have taken the Old River Trail (ORT), which follows the river and fords it about once or twice per mile. The ORT is fairly free of steep climbs and knee-testing descents. The newer Buffalo River Trail (BRT), however, stays feet-dry along its entire length (or at least it does in the Western section of the Buffalo National River area), but incorporates repeated strenuous climbs and descents. In view of the fact that this was early April and the water was still considerably cool (and also in view of the fact that this was the same group that in the two previous years hiked in the Great Smokies and the Grand Canyon), we chose the BRT. The BRT also recommended itself to us because the occasionally brutal climbs sometimes reward the hiker with an overlook in full wide-screen, hi-definition spectacularity.

We hiked without incident for several hours, with Kevin Allred consistently in the rear, especially on the climbs. He freely confessed that he had just found out about the trip a few days before we departed, and therefore had done zero conditioning. "I'm just gonna be slow," he said. So when, after our first big climb, it became evident that there was another major climb in the offing, we made sure Kevin had enough water and then told him that at the next trail junction we would leave a map and make an arrow with rocks showing which way to go. Then we headed on up the trail. You, gentle reader, may criticize this decision. You'd probably be correct in this criticism. But Kevin was eager to avoid being a hindrance to us, and we respected his prowess in the wilderness. Also, if you've done significant hiking carrying a full pack in steep terrain, you know how important it can be to your endurance to be able to stay in the rhythm once you hit your stride on a climb. Frequently stopping or pausing to wait for stragglers is the last thing you want to do when you have a good pace going. All this reasoning was sound, but disastrous. I'll come back to that in a bit.

Brandon and I kept a good pace and pushed out considerably ahead of the others, and reached the top of the last hard climb on the 7.2 miles of our first day breathing hard, but otherwise feeling pretty saucy and full of life. (If you're the geographical type and want to see what I'm talking about on a map, go here and zoom in on the left side of the upper section of the main map.) At that point we had a little over a mile and a half to go, all of which was descent. So we stepped out eagerly, heading for the junction with the ORT at Horseshoe Bend, where we planned to set up our base camp for the next few days. The descent went quickly, and soon we took a left turn and joined up with the ORT, which here seemed to follow an old wagon trail's wide, straight, rutted track northwest toward the river. The deciduous forest turned to tall pines, which gave a spongy floor of needles to walk on.

Two tenths of a mile later, we found our destination. We started to glimpse an open area through the pines ahead. We came out of the forest onto a wide, flat rock shaped roughly like a football, about fifty feet wide and maybe three times that long. On the southwest side to our left, one of the points of the football pushed out directly over the clear blue-green of the Buffalo River, forming a bluff about thirty feet off the water. This, the west side of Horseshoe Bend, was home for the next few days: unlike our previous expeditions in which we backpacked point-to-point or in a large loop, this trip was a base-camp-with-daily-excursions setup.

We decided that the perfect place to camp was just off the eastern edge of the rock under the shade of the pines. We took off our packs, stretched, rested a bit, and then started setting up camp. Travis and Drew had brought lightweight hammocks made of something similar to parachute cloth. They were very excited about hammock camping. They kept saying things like, "It's lighter to carry, much better ventilated, more comfortable..." They had lightweight tarps to rig over their hammocks to keep the rain off, and I don't mind admitting that at first I was just a bit envious. I have two great backpacking tents I've written about before here - one an REI Half Dome 2-man and the other a Big Agnes Muddy Slide 3-man. Both my tents are very lightweight and bombproof in extreme weather, but the hammock system seemed ideal for warmer-weather backpacking.

Brandon pitched the tiny solo tent he was using for the week nearby. I waited to start setting up my tent, because Kevin Allred was carrying the tent fabric while I had the poles and stakes in my pack.

When we had set up camp to this point and eaten a snack, we noted that Kevin Allred still hadn't shown up. We wondered if he'd taken a break to eat his lunch. Then we went to the bluff over the river and spotted a good place to jump off the bluff into the water. The water was very clear, and when I tossed in a rock I could see it take time to fall all the way to the bottom. Brandon climbed down and swam over to the spot, and noted that he couldn't touch the bottom without making a serious effort to dive down and do so. He also mentioned that the water was a bit chilly. But we decided we had found our diving board. I went first, and made the plunge after stalling for only a little bit. The dive was great, the adrenaline rush was wonderful, and the shock of the cold water revived my tired muscles. And it was cold water.

We swam for a while, then dried off and started wondering when Kevin would show up. After I ate a little, I decided to go look for him. I took a couple of granola bars, a full Nalgene water bottle, and a map, and headed back up the trail. I told the guys exactly where I was going and the route I was taking to get there. I hoped to find Kevin in the first mile and help him carry his things back to camp. No luck. I ended up hiking all the way back up the hill of the last descent of earlier that day. It was 1.7 miles and lots of elevation gain to the last trail junction, where we had left Kevin a water bottle and a map. I decided to go at least that far, and see if the items were still there, which would mean that Kevin hadn't made it to the junction. The bottle and map were gone, our directional arrow made of rocks was still intact, but no Kevin. I started to get worried at this point, but not too badly. Kevin had water and a map, and enough food and equipment to survive for more than a week if he had to. There were also roads and trailheads within an easy day's hike in any direction, so he shouldn't have to do more than spend a night on his own unless he were seriously injured. I headed back down the hill, keeping my eyes open for signs that Kevin had turned off the main trail or left us some sort of indication where he was going. At this point I was seriously tiring. I had hiked the seven miles with a full pack, and then after a rest had blasted back up the hill after eating two granola bars and some trail mix. I drank the rest of the quart-size Nalgene I was carrying, but my legs muscles started trembling and I could tell I wasn't going to be able to do much more searching. I headed back to camp. When I got there, we discussed our options. We knew that Kevin was in an area bounded by the state highway on the south and by the river on the north. As long as he stayed on trails (and we were fairly confident he was smart enough to do that), we knew we could find him within a day or so. For now, we were losing daylight, so Travis and Drew just did a little more searching close to camp, to no avail. We were all a bit discouraged when night fell and Kevin still hadn't shown up. But we knew that Kevin was capable in the wilderness, so after praying about it, we felt he was in good Hands and went to bed, ending Day 2.

That night, since I had no tent, I put my Therm-A-Rest and sleeping bag on a tarp on the ground under Drew's hammock, hoping his rain-fly tarp would keep me reasonably dry in case of rain. That's why in the picture above you can see my orange Therm-A-Rest and blue-rain-covered pack on the ground tarp under the hammock on the right. Fortunately, that was the one night of the trip where there was no rain. However, in the middle of the night, we got a nasty surprise. I was dreaming peacefully, when suddenly in the middle of the dream there was a sound like a pistol shot and a loud yell. Then Drew suddenly came down on top of me. I came instantly awake, adrenaline pumping and my throat a little sore from my instinctive yell of terror. "My stupid hammock broke!" Drew said. Then when we realized what had happened, we both started laughing. Travis and Brandon peered through the darkness at us.

After a bit, Travis said, "Dare I ask what just happened?" We got a flashlight out and ascertained that the steel S-hook that was connecting the hammock to the nylon strap that goes around the tree had snapped. This was surprising, because the hammock, straps, and all were guaranteed to 350 pounds of capacity, and Drew is far below that limit. He hadn't been swinging, bouncing or anything either. So Drew threw the hammock down beside me on the ground tarp and slept the rest of the night there.

The morning of Day 3 we awoke, brewed coffee (a non-negotiable morning starter on all trips involving Travis, Drew or me), and discussed plans to find Kevin. We tentatively agreed that the most likely scenario was that Kevin had been unaware of how close to camp he was at the last trail junction, and had decided that he couldn't make it and had therefore gone back to the cars. We were prepared to be frustrated with him and make fun of him mercilessly for this perceived wimping out. Travis had left three inner tubes at the vehicles at Steel Creek, a little over four miles upstream via the ORT. He and Drew and Brandon decided they would take a light pack and hike the ORT back to the vehicles, and then inflate the inner tubes and float back to camp. If they didn't find Kevin, we would search downstream if enough daylight was left to permit it. My jaunt back up the ascent the previous evening had seriously sapped my energy, so I decided to be the one to stay behind at the campsite for the day.

We were expecting Kevin Askew, another companion of previous adventures, to join us that day - he hadn't been able to come the first day, and therefore we had pinpointed on a map where we would be, and he was going to hike over the hills from the north and cross the river to join us. I sat in Travis' hammock (after carefully inspecting the hardware!) and read most of the morning, glad that I had recently downloaded to my phone the newly-published Tolkien book The Children of Hurin, which turned out to be a very good read, if a bit depressing. I kept my eyes and ears open for both Kevins.

A little before noon I heard someone calling, "Hello, the camp!" I turned and saw Kevin Askew striding confidently in (of course - he had no ascents in his hike of the morning). I got up and helped him stretch his own hammock (what IS it with these bandwagon trend-followers?) and filled him in on the sequence of events. After we ate lunch, we decided to try a little fishing by our bluff. Travis had packed in a light rod that was still strapped to his pack, so I assembled it and tied on a crappie jig. Kevin had a pole as well. Kevin caught a couple of decent-sized fish. I had one on twice (it was crazy - you could see the fish hit and everything in the clear water) and lost them both. The rain started falling around that time, and I got out my nifty new Marmot PreCip rain jacket, the one new piece of gear I had bought for this trip. I very shortly decided that I liked that jacket a lot. (Later experience reinforced that first impression. Strenuous hiking will make it steam up inside for sure, but it breathes remarkably well for a jacket that will keep a torrential downpour off you. As I've said before about various items, I'm not getting paid by Marmot to say nice things about their jacket, but I'm definitely willing to discuss offers!)

After we had been fishing for perhaps an hour, we heard an extremely welcome sound. It was that of FOUR familiar, cheery voices coming down the ORT across the river from us. Travis, Drew, and Brandon walked into view, Kevin Allred in tow.

Over the next while, the stories were exchanged. Kevin had reached the trail junction and found the map and bottle. The difficulty was that he had no idea where we had started or where we were headed on said map, and we hadn't marked anything. He had taken the correct trail down the hill to meet up with the ORT. He had gotten to within two tenths of a mile from our campsite, where our route had joined the ORT and we had turned left, heading northwest into Horseshoe Bend. There he had instead turned right, and headed southeast along the ORT. He had in fact then hiked an additional two miles downstream to Kyle's Landing, where most float-trippers in this section are picked up at the end of the day. In traversing this section of trail Kevin had to cross the river four times. One of these crossings put him in an even fouler mood. He had shorts on under his pants for the river crossings, where he would drape his pants around his neck to keep them dry for the crossing. So far so good. But the river was fairly high that week due to the rains, and one crossing was unusually deep and swift-flowing. Kevin stumbled and almost lost all his stuff. His pants fell off from around his neck and were caught by the current and swept away very rapidly. They were sucked underwater and out of sight in another instant. By this time Kevin was in no physical shape to fight rapid current to try to find them, and daylight was fading fast, so he gritted his teeth and kept going. When he got to Kyle's landing, he found a kind Park Service employee who loaned him an old tent that had poles (I was carrying the poles for the tent in Kevin's pack, remember?) and he used it to spend the night there at Kyle's Landing. The next morning he did some thinking and going over maps, and correctly ascertained that we had started from Steel Creek. He found a kind soul who agreed to give him a ride there. When Travis, Drew and Brandon hiked into Steel Creek late that morning, they found Kevin, who had only been there about three minutes. They grabbed their inner tubes, inflated them, and headed back to camp. Of course, the cigarette-lighter-powered air pump they used wouldn't let them get the tubes as inflated as they would have liked, so they actually did more hiking than floating back to camp, but they got there in the middle of the afternoon.

So we were all there. Travis, Drew, Brandon, Kevin Askew, Kevin Allred, and me. Kevin and I triumphantly reunited the components of our tent and set it up in a likely spot. That night was considerably more cheery, despite the fact that it rained steadily. And by the way, after going through a rainy week, even Travis was ready to admit that a good tent was preferable to a hammock-and-tarp setup for weatherproof comfort. My gear envy abated.

It was nice, though, to have the rain-fly tarp over Drew's hammock for use as a rain cover while cooking.

I don't cook in tents for several good reasons, but the tarp was high enough and ventilated enough that it was great for that purpose.

My MSR Pocket Rocket stove brewed coffee, cooked my food, and did everything I asked - from roaring flame to gentle simmer - all week, with only two small fuel canisters used and a total pack weight of 19 ounces including fuel. A great little stove.

The rest of Day 3 was spent bluff-diving and hanging around camp. We went to bed that night in a much better frame of mind.

The next two days were spent swimming, fishing, and sitting on our large flat rock discussing life's mysteries.

One evening we accomplished a very difficult feat. Using only the rain-soaked wood we could find around us, and using a small hatchet to cut into the drier core of some logs, we lit a very respectable fire and had it roaring even with the light rain continuing to splash down drops from time to time. That night we sat on our flat rock by our fire and had a time of frank discussion and prayer that I will, very simply, treasure for the rest of my life. I hope the other guys benefited as much from that time as I did. Gentlemen, my profoundest thanks.

We took two side excursions that are definitely worth a mention. We did these hikes in various groupings, because Brandon had to leave a day early and we were shuffling transportation around. The first was Hemmed-In Hollow Waterfall. I don't have a good picture of Hemmed-In Hollow, because I made the rookie mistake of allowing a stranger to take the only picture I have of the fall so that I could be IN said picture. I am indeed in the picture, blurred and unrecognizable. And the fall is nowhere in the frame. But Hemmed-In Hollow was definitely worth the hike. The fall (which are dry when there is no rain for a few days) was gushing water impressively, tumbling into a craggy box-canyon that soars up almost 300 feet.

The other side excursion was to Big Bluff. This will stay in my mind as one of my favorite spots. It definitely lived up to the hype that Randy gave it. We hiked through the rain in late afternoon, noting that the clouds were clearing off in spots and hoping that the sun would peek out and give us an impressive sunset we could watch from Big Bluff. There was a difficult 1.6-mile climb up the hill northwest of Horseshoe Bend, followed by a mosquito-filled "primitive route" for a quarter of a mile or so onto the Bluff trail. But then we came out onto the little ledge. There was an overhang of rock above our heads, and a wide panorama of the river below us. We got there with a few minutes to spare before sunset, and were rewarded for our labors. The sun came out from under the clouds just before it set, and for a glorious half hour or so we watched clouds forming below us as rain water evaporated off the trees and slowly moved up the river valley. We sat and brewed coffee and tea, and then headed back before it got too dark to navigate the treacherous parts of the ledge.

Finally the last day came. We were intending to hike out on Saturday, but we heard rumors of a huge thunderstorm brewing, so we decided to head out on Friday. We hiked out in various directions and hit the road. As we headed north, a monster storm moved in and pelted us with hail and blinding rain. We later heard that there was golf-ball-sized hail falling in the area where we were camped. We were glad our tents and tarps weren't put to that test.

We met in Springfield at Lambert's Cafe. "Throwed" rolls, fried potatoes, and classic southern American food. I did something I never thought possible before: I took advantage of a little-optioned Lambert's policy that allows you to get a second helping of your entree for free if you finish the first. Before I've always felt so full after the rolls and pass-around food that my entree barely fit. This time I ate all the rolls, pass-arounds, and my barbecued pork steak, and STILL wanted more. I cleaned my plate the second time and wasn't even painfully full then. So I don't think that counts as gluttony... A week of hiking creates, I think, an extenuating circumstance, right? (I'm starting to think much more about gluttony lately after I heard someone describe it quite debatably as the "pet sin of the American church." Hey, buddy, there's a lot of competition for that award...)

So anyway, I loved the Buffalo National River. In fact, I liked it so much that when our friend Candace wanted Cindy and I to go backpacking with her to celebrate the end of the school year in late May, I convinced her that we should go back to Arkansas. And we did, despite the fact that we only had three days instead of six. Cindy bravely ignored her claustrophobia and conquered Cob's Cave, and we used the ORT and its multiple river crossings to do an overnight out-and-back trip from Steel Creek to the same campsite on the west side of Horseshoe Bend. The warmer weather meant lots more drunken canoers this time around, but it was still a blast. Cindy and Candace both did the cliff dive, Cindy with the stylish "angel wing" that is now her trademark.

Sign that the apocalypse is upon us...

2009-06-05T13:46:00.002-05:00

This is truly creepy....

Project Milo

You know what's even cooler? Real people!

Un-thin

2009-05-14T14:15:00.005-05:00

You've probably heard a lot about the flap surrounding KFC's Oprah-enabled free meal coupons to promote their new grilled chicken.

I find it hilarious that the domain they chose to publicize the coupon offer (and the new grilled line) is www.unthinkfc.com. Of course, their take on that is "un-think what you thought about KFC."

I guess no one in their marketing department realized it also says "un-thin KFC." Hrm...

My Inner Geek Rejoices

2009-04-13T09:24:00.006-05:00

Okay, this is awesome. Segway is teaming up with GM to make a new all-electric two-person urban transport device that makes all my gadget geekiness giggle with gratuitous glee. It's got six wheels - two small ones just for safety in the back (they don't touch the pavement unless you run the battery clear dead and then lean back), two small ones in the front that it rests on when parked, and two larger main wheels that it runs around on, automatically balancing on these two wheels Segway-style.

It's strictly for urban commuters - the 35-mph top speed limits it for use on major roads. And the version they're showing around right now has absolutely zero aesthetic appeal. It's not cute OR cool-looking OR impressive-looking OR even ugly enough to inspire a sort of backward affection. It depends on sheer geek appeal. They call it the PUMA in a futile attempt to make it seem tougher somehow. But it runs for 35 miles before needing a recharge, and that's plenty for almost anyone who commutes on urban streets. They're also promising a low energy impact to accomplish that recharge. If they make it reasonably rain-proof and sell it for less than, say, 10 grand or so, I think they'll have a serious seller on their hands.

The jury is, of course, still out on the wisdom of picking up your date in this thing.

True love = exorbitant over-spending!

2009-04-08T13:11:00.004-05:00

It's been a month, so here's a brief thought for you in the middle of Holy Week that has nothing whatever to do with Holy Week. (This week around here being an insanely busy one if you're employed where I am.) Enjoy Holy Week, never lose sight of the victory won by Jesus' sacrifice, and worship with abandon this Sunday.

The rest of this post will be a rant on something much less sacred.

De Beers, the dominant worldwide diamond supplier, created a masterful marketing campaign some time in the twentieth century (early 1900's or just after the Second World War, depending on which source you believe) that said the proper amount to spend on an engagement ring is two months' wages. Since then, most people have accepted this figure as the proper one.

Some of you will shout me down as a cheapskate and say I must not love my wife very much, but you'd be wrong. About the loving my wife thing, that is. Almost five years in, my marriage is better than yours. Sorry, it's a fact.

I am admittedly a bit of a thrifty person, but those who know me best will tell you that one of my love languages is gifts, and I've been known to save up my lunch money and surprise my wife with something awesome and a bit expensive from time to time.

But before De Beers created the aforementioned marketing campaign, engagement rings with diamonds were much less common than they are today. Only the very rich could afford diamond rings until the discovery of the Kimberley African diamonds in the late nineteenth century, which led to greater supply and lower prices. Until the early twentieth century many engagement rings were plain, or had other precious stones, if they were used at all. During the Great Depression the sale of diamonds dropped drastically, and after the Second World War De Beers began heavily marketing the slogan "Diamonds are Forever," and promoting the idea of two-to-three-months' salary being the proper amount to spend on an engagement ring.

There's an interesting art project here that explores this idea. This it was that got me thinking on this topic and produced this rant.

I think all this is pure malarkey. The idea that a minimum-wage-earning worker struggling to make ends meet should spend in the neighborhood of $2000 for an engagement ring makes my blood almost boil. That is fiscal irresponsibility. Such a ring will almost certainly have to be financed over time, and it's a terrible idea to carry a debt like that into a marriage. I know some of you will probably disagree violently with me on this, but there it is. Besides that, consider the implications of having such a man's fiancee/wife toting around a two-thousand-dollar bauble on her finger in what is most likely a low-income neighborhood.

How much was Cindy's engagement ring, you ask? None of your business. But it was certainly less than one sixth of my annual salary. And we're not still paying for it. Is this an indicator that my love for her is somehow lacking? I will fight anyone (despite my total ineptitude in hand-to-hand combat) who suggests such a thing. I love that lady more than the highest poetry, prose, music, and art allow me to express. I desperately want to be the best husband Cindy Carlson Purtle could ever have. And with God's help, I will be.

Oh, and she said yes. Eat that, De Beers.

You may now criticize me mercilessly.

[Note: I know it's fashionable to criticize De Beers for exploiting workers and fostering "conflict diamonds," but they really seem to have turned the corner in the past two decades and are now doing much more responsible commerce in Africa than many other large corporations who do business on that continent. See this article for more on that.]

Snowy Insanity... and a Raccoon

2009-03-06T12:12:00.004-06:00

Last Friday, our friend Candace Fortney, who is a track coach and an avid backpacker and marathoner, called to see if we wanted to go camping that night. The forecast said the overnight low would be in the twenties, and there would be snow. So of course we excitedly agreed. (I excitedly agreed. Cindy more just sighed.) We have good gear - our tents, sleeping bags, inflatable sleeping pads, etc. are quality stuff. We dressed in our Merino wool base layers (Merino or good wicking synthetic base layers are essential for cold-weather camping/hiking - cotton is the worst) and hit the woods.

We set up camp in Stockton Lake State Park, after determining that at this frigid time of year, there is no one staffing the place where you pay your fee for camping.

We originally set up in a designated campsite with just a few trees between us and the lake. But after we had the tents up, Candace discovered that there was a raccoon lying on the ground a few feet away from one of our tents, apparently having some sort of seizure. I watched it for a while, and even tossed a couple of twigs at it to see if it would respond. It didn't seem to react at all to a flashlight or to the twigs. I didn't know if it was rabid, dying, or just insane, but I've seen enough dumb comedy movies involving the outdoors to know that a crazy raccoon can do bad things to tent fabric. So we pulled up the stakes and moved about a hundred feet away.

There was a fire ring nearby, and I got a fire going. I knew it would be a challenge with the damp weather, but we had some dry logs and I used a Strike-A-Fire jumbo match thingy to get it going, and it burned cheerfully and willingly. That was good, because I didn't bring any lighter fluid or other accellerant. The fact that the snow hadn't started yet probably helped.

We ate lots of carbs in the form of S'mores, granola bars, and peanut butter, and then went to bed. Our sleeping bags were warm enough with all the layering and other stuff we did.

The rub, however, was that I had to get up TWICE in the night to answer nature's call, which causes several problems. The first problem is that when you're warm in your sleeping bag, it is downright miserable to get out in the cold again. You have to put on your freezing boots (Get On Your Boots - U2's new album - check it out. "Let me in the sound..."), and enough other layers of ice-cold clothing to keep you alive in the elements. Then, you have to actually get out of the tent into whatever those elements are doing to try to kill you. Finally, you have to risk the possibility that you will be attacked, um, (ahem), mid-stream, as it were, by an insane raccoon or other servant of Sauron; and this precisely at the least advantageous moment for you to flee or defend yourself. But both times, I successfully accomplished my purpose, and then was rewarded with that heavenly feeling of snuggling back down into the warmth of my sleeping bag.

About two inches of snow fell during the night. Snow has the effect of quieting everything: the tree branches are more muffled when the wind blows and the dead leaves on the ground don't rustle. There's just the occasional swishing sound when the snow on the top of the tent gets enough accumulation that there's a clump that slides off, pulled by its own weight and nudged by the wind. Usually all this combines for ideal sleeping conditions. On this occasion, however, the first such swish woke me up with a start, imagining the raccoon, with red eyes and four-inch fangs, beginning his assault. As soon as I was fully awake, I realized what the actual cause of the sound was, but the adrenaline kept me alert for half an hour or so. Cindy was sleeping like a log, which was a small victory because it's very hard for her to get warm in a tent. This time she was toasty.

The snow had turned everything spectacular by the time we got up in the morning.

A park ranger in an SUV drove within view once, but didn't stop. About half an hour later he came back, this time with a small girl in the back seat staring at us wide-eyed. I wondered if he went by the first time and then went back to his cabin, where he commented on the crazy people camping in the snow, and then the little girl said, "I wanna see!"

I went over and checked on the raccoon. He was still there, and the only movement I could see was his breathing. I asked Travis Bland (one of the great authorities of our time on Ozark wildlife) about it later and he said that it's common for raccoons to get canine distemper, a virus that effects breathing and nerve function.

Also, I discovered that the door to the pit toilet was actually unlocked, despite the website's claim that all facilities were locked until some time in March. Our nighttime fears of a ring-tailed attack could have been abated, but by the time I figured it out we were ready to leave.

We packed up our stuff, and after we got everything loaded in the car, we drove to The Powderhorn Restaurant for epic-sized pancakes. Never had one, you say? You should.

Patriotic Over-Spending

2009-02-24T12:29:00.002-06:00

Those clever writers at woot.com come through once again with insightful social commentary, this time on how profligate spending is somehow "patriotic."

http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=7539

Jim's Guide to Kansas City

2009-02-02T18:03:00.009-06:00

I wrote this in response to a couple in our church who spent some vacation time in Kansas City. They're from Wisconsin and don't really know Kansas City at all. I figured I might as well post it here.

Clarification: this post is written mostly for the benefit of Kansas City outsiders who, like us, live on a budget, but have managed to scrape together funds for a "splurge" weekend in KC. Your budget may allow you to stay at the Hotel Phillips for a month. If so, this is not your guide to KC. I've included a few chain places on this list (sorry Chris), even though I support local flava whenever possible.

Here's a rundown on some of our favorites in Kansas City.

PLACES TO EAT

Downtown:

The Majestic Steakhouse ($15-30) – Steaks, pasta, and seafood. The atmosphere is old-town Kansas City class. The building was a speakeasy during prohibition, among other things. On the weekends, the Bram Wijnands Trio performs at dinnertime (Bram is one of my all-time favorite jazz pianists). Ask to sit downstairs where you can see the band.
http://www.kansascitymenus.com/majesticsteakhouse/
http://tinyurl.com/c9ym4k

The Hereford House ($20-40) - One of the great steakhouses. A Kansas City classic. I've heard it much maligned recently, but I still support it. I've only been able to afford it a few times, but every time my steak was a memorable experience (in a good way). Thanks to bigBADbobby for reminding me to include a few steakhouses!
http://tinyurl.com/b26dme
http://www.herefordhouse.com

The Peachtree Restaurant ($10-20) – In the Power and Light District next to the Sprint Center Arena (the Power and Light District has lots of other places to eat, plus a sweetastic-looking bowling alley, but we don't have good info on them yet). “Soul food with elegance.” Fried chicken, catfish, cornbread, collard greens, sweet tea, and peach cobbler. The original location off Eastwood Trafficway is one of my dad's all-time favorite places to eat.
http://tinyurl.com/bhbvo6

Arthur Bryant's Barbecue ($5-10) – Near the 18th and Vine jazz district. Bryant's is still neck-and-neck with Gates & Sons for the title of The Classic Kansas City Barbecue Place. I slightly prefer Bryant's, although if you're buying a bottle of sauce for your own purposes, go with Gates.
http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/
http://tinyurl.com/dgqg3q

The Happy Gillis Cafe ($3-12) - Just off the northeast corner of the Downtown loop. A really cool little cafe with yummy breakfast sandwiches and pastries, plus the best soups and sandwiches anywhere for lunchtime.
http://www.happysoupeater.com/happy_gillis.php

The Skies ($30-50 for dinner, but we just go for dessert, which is $6-10) – The rotating restaurant high atop the Hyatt Regency hotel by Crown Center. Awesome view that rotates all the way around slowly, so you see the whole thing in about an hour. Go at sunset or later.
www.hyattkc.com/skies/

Pancho's ($3-7) – Awesome, epic, huge, authentic gut-busting burritos. Open all night so you can make your heartburn worse. I've spent a large percentage of my restaurant dollars here. Get the carne asada burrito and experience true felicidad.
http://tinyurl.com/aarv9d

Town Topic ($3-7) - One of those classic 24-hour diners that kept blue-collar Americans alive through the best and worst of the twentieth century. The burgers are the famous part, and I love them in all their greasy goodness.

Southwest Boulevard/ Crossroads Arts District:

Lulu's Thai Noodles ($8-20) – Cool little Thai place on Southwest Boulevard. Good atmosphere and great food. If you like really spicy curry, order theirs and prepare to have your mouth on fire for hours. Most menu items can be made milder, though.
www.lulusnoodles.com
http://tinyurl.com/dgujh5

Manny's Mexican Restaurant ($7-15) – Authentic Mex with a real south-of-the-border atmosphere. If you can't find Manny's, just keep going down Southwest Boulevard and eat at any of the dozen or more Mexican places. They're all good.
www.mannyskc.com
http://tinyurl.com/cvphd2

Dagwood's Cafe ($4-10) - Another classic diner. Dagwood's pancakes take my prize for best-in-city, and their burgers are hard to beat. Also try the biscuits and gravy, cinnamon rolls, and breakfast sandwiches on Texas toast. Open for breakfast and lunch only.
http://tinyurl.com/b4xbkm

The Plaza/Westport:

- The Country Club Plaza (mentioned above) is a short drive south of downtown Kansas City. It's the classic romantic place to hang out in KC. Upscale shopping and dining, with the look of the Mercado in Seville, Spain. It's probably most famous for its fountains and for the Plaza Lights (during the Christmas season). You can take a gondola ride on Brush Creek, but I recommend saving that idea for the warmer months.

The Cheesecake Factory – hard to go wrong here, but I recommend just getting your dessert here. It does have the best-looking interior and exterior of any CF location I've seen, though.

The Classic Cup Cafe ($8-45, depending on when you go) – Probably my vote for best romantic place for couples in Kansas City. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but upscale and a bit spendy (especially dinner).
http://tinyurl.com/cbhcvh
http://www.classiccup.com

PF Chang's China Bistro ($7-25) – Surprisingly good Chinese place, and laid-back atmosphere, just across from the JC Nichols Fountain (the huge one with the rearing horses and such).
http://tinyurl.com/c6olcp

O'Dowd's Little Dublin ($10-20) – Irish pub with my favorite shepherd's pie ever.
http://tinyurl.com/cfc55j

Andre's Confiserie Suisse ($5-15) – A Swiss chocolatier that also serves lunch. You can go for awesome pastries and coffee for breakfast, or get lunch for around $13 per person, which includes drink and super-nice dessert.
http://tinyurl.com/dlz3pk
http://www.andreschocolates.com

Winstead's ($4-12) - A 50's-themed burgers-and-ice-cream joint and a Kansas City tradition. Their food is good, but the highlight is the Skyscraper Soda, an enormous ice cream soda that you need a buddy (or two or three) to finish.
http://tinyurl.com/d3janx

D'Bronx Pizza ($6-10 approx. per person) - Very very good New-York-style pizza. The original (and by far the coolest) location is in Westport. Other locations on the bottom floor of Crown Center, on Metcalf in Overland Park, and now on Johnson Drive in Mission.
http://www.dbronxkc.com/

Blanc Burgers and Bottles ($8-20) - Possibly the best burger I've ever eaten, although I'm willing to accept arguments from anyone willing to buy me a burger at Westport Flea Market or 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. But you do pay for it. They use seriously premium ingredients to make seriously premium burgers. The Kobe burger is excellent, but spendy. Also, they serve fries (and you can get truffle fries for an upcharge) in little shopping carts that sit on the table. And the atmosphere is very cool. The "Bottles" part is that they have tons of bottled drinks. Most are alcoholic, but they have a very wide selection of non-alcoholic bottled sodas and other interesting bottled drinks. Also, the milkshakes are made with Shatto milk and Foo's Fabulous Frozen Custard. I invented my own milkshake made with Shatto Root-Beer-Flavored Milk (which is awesome) and vanilla custard. WIN. They have recently moved from Westport to the Plaza, and have a second location in Leawood on Mission Road just north of I-435. Don't look for a Mission Road exit, though - there ain't one. Take Roe or State Line and use 103rd to get there. It's between 103rd and the highway bridge on Mission Road.
http://www.blancburgers.com/

Jerusalem Cafe ($6-15) - A middle-eastern restaurant with two Westport locations. Things like beef and lamb kabobs, falafel, baba ganoush, hummus, pita sandwiches, gyros, etc. For the price, you get a ton of food. We usually share the big complete meal for two that costs around $20, and there's enough to take some home and feed us another complete meal later!
http://www.yelp.com/biz/jerusalem-cafe-kansas-city

Other Locations:

Oklahoma Joe's Barbecue ($4-10) – The best barbecue in the world. I know you're going to try to argue, but stop. It's simply the best. These guys won the American Royal Barbecue competition several times in the nineties, and then decided, hey, why not open a restaurant? Get the pulled pork sandwich. They have the world's best fries, too. It's in a gas station, so don't let that throw you. (There's a classier-looking location now in Olathe, but go to the original.)
http://tinyurl.com/cwkjc5

Waldo Pizza ($6-20) – Good pizza, with good crust. If you're feeling the need for good basic pizza, this is your place. Or if you want to get some crazy pizza, this is also your place. One of my favorites is pizza with barbecue sauce instead of marinara sauce, topped with chicken and maraschino cherries. No, seriously. Or you can get things like pine nuts and artichoke hearts on your pizza. No, seriously.
http://tinyurl.com/bnchhk

Tatsu's ($15-35) – Possibly Cindy's favorite restaurant. French cuisine that doesn't leave you hungry when you're finished. It's kind of buried in a residential neighborhood, which can make you feel like you've taken a wrong turn somewhere when you're trying to find the place.
http://tinyurl.com/auhosn

Coffee:

The Roasterie Cafe – Has recently emerged as one of my favorites, and is now battling Toto's (RIP) for the top slot. They roast their own, and they know their stuff. Classy place, too. If you're a coffee purist, try one of their Clover coffees or the siphon-brewed coffee. Ask them about it – it's hard to explain.
http://tinyurl.com/bhuqyf

Toto's – CLOSED NOW! ALAS! RIP Toto's... you were my introduction to fine coffees, and my hometown pride. Long my favorite coffee shop (but see above), just a great little place.
http://tinyurl.com/b8kgnm

Homer's – Good coffee, and free live music on weekends. The cinnamon rolls, scones, and tiramisu are pretty great too. In the fall, they have a hot caramel cider that Cindy and her friend Maggie refer to as "liquid autumn."
http://tinyurl.com/banqzc

Benetti's – Excellent little place in Raytown, which is a recent discovery for me. They do great latte art and know how to make a traditional Italian cappuccino.
http://benettiscoffee.com/

LIVE MUSIC

The Blue Room – in the 18th and Vine Jazz District. Some of the best jazz players in the world come through this club, which is a smoke-free dedicated jazz venue attached to the Jazz Museum. Some nights are free, others have a cover charge attached. Check the calendar.
http://tinyurl.com/675yjq

The Majestic Steakhouse and other restaurants with live music are mentioned above.

The Music Hall – The place to see major touring shows, at least until the new Performing Arts Center is completed.
http://tinyurl.com/cvmbpv

The Sprint Center – The new downtown arena. Concerts from Bon Jovi to Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Coldplay. Lots of special sports events, too, and the NCAA Basketball Experience is attached. Check the calendar.
www.sprintcenter.com

The Main Street Cafe – Christian coffeehouse venue with reliably good indie/underground Christian music from The Almost to Bradley Hathaway to Derek Webb to Waterdeep.
www.mainstreetcafe.org

CULTURE

First Fridays – The Crossroads Arts District, just southwest of downtown KC, has an open gallery night on the first friday night of every month. There are street performers and lots of things to see.
http://kansascity.about.com/od/thearts/p/FirstFriday.htm

Union Station – the old train station, now refurbished and gorgeous. Houses a science museum, theaters, and traveling exhibitions.
www.unionstation.org

American Heartland Theatre – Live plays. Good ones.
http://www.ahtkc.com/

The New Theatre Restaurant – Dinner theatre. Good dinner theatre.
http://www.newtheatre.com/home.html

Crown Center – Shopping, dining, ice skating – attached to the world headquarters of Hallmark Cards.
www.crowncenter.com

River Market – The downtown farmer's market with restaurants and the Steamboat Arabia Museum attached. Walk around and find crazy stuff to buy. Free samples all over the place on Saturdays.
http://www.kansascityrivermarket.com/

MUSEUMS

Nelson Atkins Art Gallery – One of the world's premiere art galleries. Ancient to modern art from all over the world. Free, except for special exhibitions. Also, their Rozzelle Court Restaurant is a very romantic place. Ahh, memories...
http://www.nelson-atkins.org/

National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial – This is a really cool place if you're into history. Also, the tower has great views from the top. Go and just hang around outside for free, or pay to see the museum.
http://www.theworldwar.org

Kauffman Garden – A small but memorable memorial botanical garden open to the public. Within walking distance of the Nelson Atkins gallery.
http://www.powellgardens.org/default.asp?page=KauffmanMap

Powell Gardens – Botanical garden.
http://www.powellgardens.org/

PLACE TO STAY

The Raphael Hotel - ($120-200/night) - This is our favorite KC hotel. It's across Brush Creek from The Plaza, and just had a major renovation. Very romantic, if a bit spendy.
www.raphaelkc.com

This is all just scratching the surface. There are movie theaters (including IMAX), shopping malls, the Royals and Chiefs, and lots more places to eat and hang out. Have fun!

30 Strikes with a Vengeance

2009-01-19T17:11:00.002-06:00

I'm sitting in a coffee house in Nevada, MO. The overhead music is the Fort Scott, KS "Oldies" station. This "Oldies" station just played the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris," a song I remember hearing a DJ say was "the newest from the Goo Goo Dolls" while I was driving my truck to school one morning.

I am stinkin' OLD.

My Grandpa is a Failure at Materialism

2009-01-19T16:40:00.003-06:00

Cindy and I are under a curse. A curse? you say. Surely, Jim, you're not getting superstitious, are you?

I'll explain. My mom's family is a gargantuan, many-headed monster. I have seven aunts on this side of the family. When they all get together, I call it the Invasion of the Aunts. When we all get together, with all the uncles, aunts, cousins, cousins-once-removed, and various hangers-on and gate-crashers, there are enough of us to perform Riverdance (if any of us believed in dancing, that is... cough...).

So every year at Christmas, instead of everyone getting something for everyone (which would singlehandedly revive the US economy, if the buying-stuff-is-patriotic crowd is to be believed), we all draw names out of a hat (or box or basket or bedpan or whatever) and just buy one gift for a giant exchange. Everyone fills out a little four-question form saying what we're into and what stores and colors and sports teams we like, and this form is provided to the person who draws the name. And it's a lot of fun every year having everyone open the gifts, and then having a massive gift-wrap fight afterward. Wherein, you ask, lies the curse?

The curse, gentle reader, comes in this form: every year Cindy or I draws the name of one of my grandparents. Now don't get me wrong. My grandparents are wonderful people. Silas and Irene McGehee are two of the finest members of the human race. But they are utter failures at the grasping capitalistic materialism that most of us in America have mastered.

They fill out the little form with the most insipid answers to the questions. "What are your hobbies?" asks the survey.

Grandpa's answer: "Spending time with our wonderful family and friends."

The survey reels in astonishment, but dusts itself off and comes back for another try. "What are your favorite stores?" it asks.

Grandpa responds, "I don't really have any."

The survey, aghast, makes a last-ditch attempt. "Any specific gift requests?"

"That our family be unified and that each one be fully committed to Christ." NOT HELPFUL, GRANDPA.

HOW, I ask you, does one find a Christmas gift for such a man? He does like John Deere tractors and associated memorabilia, but he has literally everything there is to own on that score. EVERYTHING? you ask, skeptically. Yes. Everything.

And Grandma is no better. Now, a clever reader at this point would suggest, "Hey, why not make them something, if they're into stuff that reminds them of their family?" My response to you, clever reader, is that their legion of daughters is much more artistic, crafty, talented, and musical than I am. Everything creative and crafty has already been thought of.

Why can't we just draw the names of some real capitalists? The chances of our drawing their names every year are very small, but as I said, we're cursed.

A small chuckle

2009-01-08T09:41:00.003-06:00

Those guys at woot.com are masters of satire. Here's an excerpt from their live blog of Steve Ballmer's keynote at CES yesterday:

A musical-comedy interlude was provided by Aussie-sounding acoustic trio Tripod, who lifted their shtick from Flight of the Conchords the way Windows has lifted a lot of its shtick from Apple. We give MS points for hiring an act whose name includes the letters "ipod".

A Horrid Forward

2008-12-08T09:44:00.002-06:00

One of the most ridiculous e-mail forwards I've seen in some time:

*Three **Bullets*
>
>
> **With God all things are possible*-Matthew ** 19:26 *
>
> There once was a man who had nothing for his family to eat.
> He had an old rifle and three bullets.
> So, he decided that he would go out hunting
> and kill some wild game for dinner.
>
> As he went down the road, he saw a rabbit.
> He shot at the rabbit and missed it.
> The rabbit ran away.
>
> Then he saw a squirrel and fired a shot at the squirrel but
> missed it.
> The squirrel disappeared into a hole in a cottonwood tree.
>
> As he went further, he saw a large wild 'Tom'
> turkey in the tree,
> but he had only one bullet remaining.
>
> A voice spoke to him and said, *
> 'Pray first, aim high, and stay focused.*
>
> However, at the same time, he saw a deer
> which was a better kill.
>
> He brought the gun down and aimed at the deer.
> But, then he saw a rattlesnake between his legs about to
> bite him,
> so he naturally brought the gun down further to shoot the
> rattlesnake.
>
> Still, the voice said again to him, *
> 'I said, 'Pray, Aim high, and Stay focused.'*
>
> So, the man decided to listen to God's voice.
>
> He prayed, then aimed the gun high up in the tree,
> and shot the wild turkey.
>
> The bullet bounced off the turkey and killed the deer.
[huh???]>
> The handle fell off the gun, hit the snake in the head, and
> killed it. [um...]
> And, when the gun had gone off, it knocked him into a pond.
>
> When he stood up to look around,
> he had fish in all his pockets, [Well, of course.]
> a dead deer, and a turkey for his family to eat.
>
> The snake (Satan) was dead simply because
> the man listened to God. *
>
> Moral of the story:* *
>
> Pray first before you do anything,* *
> aim and shoot high in your goals,* *
> and stay focused on God.*
>

I guess I give them credit for resisting the urge to tack on a bunch of guilt-tripping at the end about "If you love Jesus, forward this. If you regularly slaughter babies as satanic sacrifices, delete it." I guess this e-mail was originally written by someone who thought it would be inspiring??? And here's the kicker - apparently there are some people I know who DID.

I can't take this kind of thing before 11 on a Monday.

Music

2008-12-04T16:20:00.004-06:00

So I'm wondering what's new in the music world that's worth a listen. If anyone has input, feel free to contribute.

One of my youth group guys just discovered "Falling Slowly" a song from the indie film Once that won the Oscar for Best Original Song this year. I still haven't found the film, but I would like to. The song is decent, and the premise seems promising. (A promising premise! Eh? Eh?) [update 1/8/09: I got the film on DVD for cheap, and it's pretty great. Lots of f-words, but I think that's because Irish people say f-words just to make sure they're still breathing. Great plot and some very funny moments.]

Ben Folds' newest effort is a fine one, but then whaddya expect? One of my favorites was the collab with Regina Spektor called "You Don't Know Me." It's quirky and fun. Beware the language though...

Speaking of Regina Spektor, the soundtrack from Prince Caspian also contained her song "The Call." She didn't write it, but her performance is meltingly lovely. Her voice is doing some pretty technical stuff and making it sound effortless.

On the strength of those two songs, we got Spektor's latest album Begin to Hope. It's a bit esoteric at times, but her musicianship and songwriting are pretty impressive. That, and she draws on her eclectic heritage as a Russian-born Jewish-American for inspiration. "Apres Moi" is one of my favorites on the album. We got the iTunes version, which includes a few bonus tracks.

One of the surprisingly good albums I've found lately is Chris Rice's newest, What A Heart Is Beating For. Despite the fact some precise personalities might insist that a more correct title would be That For Which A Heart Is Beating, this is a good album. Even more encouragingly, it's getting no radio play on KLOVE that I've heard. "Here Come Those Eyes" is great stuff for romantic occasions, and "Punch Lines and Ironies" has some of that great lyric and melody combination I love about Chris. "So Much For My Sad Song" is a warm tune that Cindy refers to as "anti-emo." I think the world could do with a bit more music of that description.

Not especially new, but still good, is the latest from Sanctus Real, We Need Each Other. This guy's voice is one of the best, and their songwriting is very solid. This is a band that I would hit the road with as a touring keyboardist tomorrow if they called. From the offbeat timing of the opening rocker "Turning on the Lights" to the solid ballad "Lay Down My Guns," this album is in danger of getting over-played on my iTunes playlist.

I could go on ad nauseum, but I'm curious about your input.

Too Soon...

2008-11-01T14:52:00.000-05:00

Today, the day after Halloween, Wal-Mart is playing Christmas music in the overhead speakers. Also, it's the "Jingle Bell Rock" variety, not the classy jazz/orchestral type. I have not the words...

Funny stuff

2008-10-23T09:10:00.000-05:00

This blog entry had me chuckling:

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2008/05/208-christianizing-your-facebook.html

The rest of this blog is pretty consistently funny as well.

Coffee Shops

2008-10-06T15:56:00.003-05:00

El Dorado Springs has a bit of an odd tradition. For decades the elderly gentlemen of the town (and the surrounding area) used to meet every morning at a ridiculously early hour to drink coffee, read the newspaper, and express opinions on all manner of topics at a place colloquially known as Clem's, or just "the coffee shop." The official name of the place was Casey's Honeybee Restaurant, but nobody called it that. The coffee was cheap and good, and the regulars and semi-regulars could count on reliable service and Clem Casey, the proprietor, keeping the flow of conversation going. Then Clem retired and sold his restaurant to a couple rumored to have moved to town from California. Within two months, the place had closed its doors, and has now sat vacant for more than two years.

The odd thing is that since Casey's sat next to the local McDonald's, and since McDonald's offers decent prices on a cup of coffee for senior citizens, the older gentlemen have unofficially shifted their early-morning custom to McDonald's. And now, when you hear one of these pillars of the community talk about going to "the coffee shop" in the mornings, they are actually talking about McDonald's. But McDonald's is only called "the coffee shop" in the early mornings. After about 9 am, they refer to it as McDonald's again like the rest of the world.

I have mixed feelings about this phenomenon. On the one hand, I am in favor of any tradition like this where people can gather and share a sense of community. On the other hand, something in me rebels against a major national chain serving as a host to this kind of thing. I even typically eschew Starbuck's or Caribou coffee in favor of local establishments. Clem's was never a coffee shop to fit the modern definition - their idea of innovative variety was to brew both regular and decaf - but I respected the culture and local flavor of the place. And there are other local establishments in town that could serve as "the coffee shop." I wish McD's weren't getting that revenue.

The McDonald's corporation has absolutely no idea what great fodder for advertising they have here. They're trying to introduce the coffee-shop vibe into their restaurants in several test markets, including ours. They're redecorating, including in several cases constructing separate rooms with couches and coffee tables to promote the atmosphere. If they realized what is going on with the elderly gentlemen in our town, I'm convinced some advertising wheeze at the corporate level would just turn backflips of yuppie glee.

Still Lazy After All These Years

2008-10-02T13:58:00.003-05:00

When I was small, my mom told me over and over again that if I just sat around reading and daydreaming and if I just spent all my time riding my bike and pretending to be the Lone Ranger or Michael Knight or a secret agent or a sea captain, I would never get my homework done. She was a cruel, cruel mother who forced me to practice my piano lesson - sometimes up to an hour per day! She consistently squelched my creativity and crushed my spirit by regularly assigning such drudgery as putting away the dishes from the dishwasher, mowing the lawn, folding laundry, vacuuming the carpet, and (horrors!) putting my toys away!

I remember one incident in particular where I was lounging in the recliner and reading an Important Book, probably from the Sugar Creek Gang series. There were various items of dubious origin scattered across the living room floor, and my mom told me to come and pick up my things. I said "Okay," and of course returned to my Important Book. By the time thirty seconds or so had elapsed, I could no longer even remember the conversation, except for a vague nagging sensation that I needed to remember something when I finished the book. When she returned after a few minutes and saw me unmoved from my literary repose, she let me know that the time was now. "Come and put away your things RIGHT NOW." I decided to take the obvious blame-shifting maneuver. "But, Moooom!" I wailed, "NONE of this stuff is MINE!" My mother's response to that brilliant bit of rhetoric will shock you. The Dorothy Purtle that most people know and love have never seen the side of her that so despises Important Books that she would resort to what Stuart Scott so insightfully diagnoses as "playa-hatin'." She began walking around the room, picking up all the things that actually did belong to me. Some of these things were very important to me, like Woofy the stuffed dog, my lever-action Daisy toy rifle that sounded and kicked almost like a real gun when fired, and others. My mother took all these items into her room and put them on the top shelf of her closet. She told me that I would get them back the day I turned 65 (or some other date equally distant in the mind of a ten-year-old - it may possibly have just been a week). A heartless woman, my mother.

She even went so far as to tell me that if I developed the habit of being lazy, I would be lazy when I grew up, and it would be difficult to cope in the "real world." Well, most of the "real world" I've experienced has been much kinder than the one for which I was prepared. You don't get fired from your minimum-wage job if you show up a couple of minutes late. You don't even get fired if you just don't show up one day, as long as you only do that once a year or so. But my mom was right about one thing: I am still lazy. I turned thirty on Tuesday, and I now officially have no excuses for not behaving as an adult should. But I'm still lazy. I have to pretty much zap myself with 110-volt current to get myself to wash dishes or vacuum floors. But I am pretty energetic and motivated when it comes to my job, and that's something only a small percentage of the global work force can claim.

I haven't really gotten much teasing about starting my fourth decade. This one is probably not as annoying as the big four-oh. The most depressing thing about my age is that I can no longer hear the "teacher-proof ring tone." The typical teacher-proof ring tone is about 17 kHz, and my hearing now tops out about 14.5 kHz. As recently as two years ago, I could still hear it. Where does your hearing top out? Check here. (Remember that if you have cheap computer speakers you probably won't be able to hear anything above 15k or so. Try a good set of headphones.)

In other news, my hot wife had Governor Matt Blunt visit her Calculus class on Tuesday. He was coming to observe Cindy teaching using her new SmartBoard, which his METS education initiative helped to fund. Cindy was very nervous, but when the governor showed up, she just coolly taught Calculus and used the SmartBoard to its best advantage. The governor stayed for about fifteen minutes and made the class nervous. Then he and his entourage left. Everyone laughed, because they were relieved and because of how silly it was to pretend that it was just another normal Calculus class with The Governor standing there and a dozen cameras in the back of the room. Cindy gets extra kudos for putting up the giant "Don't Panic" sign, printed in large friendly letters on the wall over the SmartBoard.

Tonight, we're planting flowers, the kind that you plant in the fall. I have no idea about that kind of thing - I'm just going to dig where Cindy tells me to dig. I dig flowers.

Scams

2008-09-09T11:00:00.002-05:00

Disclaimer: This post will be very boring for most of you.

One of the greatest college classes my wife took was a class called (I think) "Logic and Critical Thinking." I wish I had had the opportunity to take the same class. The most interesting part of what she learned was the list of fallacies in reasoning.

Fallacies in reasoning differ from factual errors. A factual error simply getting the facts wrong, like saying, "The capital of the United States is Poughkeepsie," or, "There are seven feet in a yard," or, "The moon is flat." These are clearly not errors in reasoning or judgment. They just have the facts wrong.

There is a long list of logical fallacies, and I find them to be very interesting, because many of these fallacies are commonly used in political campaign advertising, in e-mail forwards and scams, and (unfortunately) even in sermons. For example, an ad hominem fallacy is an attack on a person, instead of on his arguments or their premises. For example:

Joe: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque is one of the finest barbeque establishments on the planet.
Mo: You're a dirty liberal environmentalist, so I don't believe you!
Joe: But don't you agree that their brisket is one of the most perfectly-seasoned delicacies you've ever tasted?
Mo: It don't matter. You're a tree-huggin' granola-faced pansy boy, and therefore you're wrong!

The ad hominem fallacy shows up in political advertising all the time. One candidate claims that his opponent cannot possibly be correct on any questions of foreign policy, because she was involved in anti-war demonstrations in the sixties.

Political advertising can blend all sorts of fallacies into one grandiose fallacious cocktail. One advertisement might, for example, use "straw man" arguments, ad hominem arguments, appeals to fear, appeals to emotion, and false dilemma simultaneously. For example:

Candidate 1: Candidate 2 has stated that his biggest priority is the future of our children. But Candidate 2 voted against children last year when he refused to vote for the "No Child Without an Internet Connection" bill. [straw man] Candidate 2's obvious disregard for our children's future makes him a poor choice to be our state's attorney general. [ad hominem] If Candidate 2 is elected, he will destroy our children's future. [appeal to fear] If I am elected, our children's future will be secure. [appeal to emotion] On election day, will you vote for Candidate 2, or will you vote for our children? [false dilemma]

The sappy pseudo-Christian e-mail forward I got just this morning admonished me:

"If you believe in God and in Jesus Christ His Son .. Send this to all on

Your buddy list. If not just ignore it. If you ignore it, just remember that Jesus said. ‘If you deny me before man, I will deny you before my Father in Heaven.’"

"If you believe," then send to everyone? If you ignore it, then you're somehow denying Jesus??? What if you have serious problems with the substance of the e-mail and believe it to be based on serious misinterpretations of Scripture? This is a dozen or more logical fallacies at once. Besides, it's just common bullying.

It's even more unfortunate, I think, when preachers, Christian authors, and Christian teachers fall into these logical fallacies. I'm trying to examine my teaching these days to make sure I'm minimizing this. I don't want to be unintentionally scamming anyone.

Crying

2008-09-08T13:04:00.006-05:00

Here's an issue that I'd like feedback on from both of you who actually read this. What makes you cry? My observation of my own lachrimosity suggests that tears are a poor indicator of my emotions. I apparently cry at the slightest provocation, while on some occasions when I've been desperately sad, my tear ducts were like Tucson in August.

I find that Cindy and I are both non-weepers, as a rule, in funerals. I've been very sad in funerals many times, but I can only remember two where I cried (out of perhaps a hundred or more funerals I've attended), and in both cases I think that was because someone else was crying copiously at the time.

In general, I cry a lot more than Cindy does. She mostly cries out of extreme frustration, whereas I cry for the dumbest reasons.

I'm completely random when it comes to which movies make me cry. Here's a list of some that did:

Blood Diamond
Lord of the Rings (all three)*
The Constant Gardener (GREAT movie, but watch it with someone who knows where to cover your eyes)
Amazing Grace
The End of the Spear
The Passion of the Christ (obviously)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Saving Private Ryan
Amistad
Letters from Iwo Jima
We Were Soldiers
The Patriot
The Green Mile
3:10 to Yuma
Mad Max
Man on Fire
... and many more.

And some movies that DIDN'T make me cry that made several "Top Tear-Jerker Movies" lists I googled:

A Walk To Remember
Autumn In New York
Little Women
Man in the Iron Mask
Armageddon
Romeo and Juliet
Moulin Rouge
A Beautiful Mind
Hope Floats
Bambi
Lion King
Gladiator
The Notebook
Titanic (Aside from the amazing effects, awesome recreation of the ship, and attention to historic detail, this movie was horrible. Absolutely worthless plot.)

And some books that had me crying:
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
Lord of the Rings (all three, again.)
The Magician's Nephew (oddly, this is the only one of the Narnia series I remember crying while reading - it's the part where Digory wants the apple to heal his mother)
The Reverse of the Medal (by Patrick O'Brian - one of the Aubrey/Maturin series that includes Master and Commander)
Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose
Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose

What about y'all? I think I want some feedback on this one.

*A note on this: I don't really cry at the death scenes (except for Boromir's in Fellowship - I mean, of COURSE). The Lord of the Rings moment is like this pressure in your chest, a swelling pride. It comes when the elves march in to help at Helm's Deep, or when Rohan Charges at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, or when Aragorn gives his "...but it is not THIS day. Today, we fight!" speech. It tears you up from the glory and virtue and sacrifice and the sense of standing with them and staring death in the face without backing down. I got that feeling the most of any movie when Private Ryan tells Captain Miller that he's staying at that bridge. Some of you will scoff because I'm somehow equating LOTR with a WWII movie. LOTR to me perfectly captures in epic mythic form all of the great struggles and sacrifices of the "Greatest Generation" that won WWII. Take issue with that if you will.

And now, for something more substantial...

2008-07-16T22:50:00.002-05:00

Do you change your voice based on who you're talking to? (See, if I'm writing that sentence thinking that my mom would read it, it would have been thus: "Do you change your voice based on the person to whom you're talking?") Do you change your vocabulary or even your accent? Obviously most of us talk differently to small children than we do to adults. Most of us also subconsciously edit our speech for more sensitive ears. For example, if you're talking to a nice ladylike woman, the phrases "screwed up" and "that sucks" are conspicuously absent in most cases, right? If you don't do such editing, do you edit other more explicit words?

I change my voice quite a bit when I'm talking to people of different ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities. In fact, my prejudices about a person probably evidence themselves somewhat by my voice, vocabulary, and accent when I address them. That's a bit embarrassing. But on the more amusing side, Cindy can almost always tell who the person is on the other end of the phone conversation with me. It's more pronounced with some people than others: I have a distinct voice I use when talking to my grandpa. There's another one for when I'm talking to my mom, and another for my dad. My sisters get a completely different voice.

Also, I have a theory that may be a bit spurious, but I think it has some basis in fact. I watched a DVD of myself teaching in a Sunday morning worship service here in El Dorado Springs, and I think I can tell with a fair degree of accuracy which group of people in the congregation I'm looking at at any one time by the change in my voice. If I'm looking at one of the old-timer Missourians, my southern Missouri drawl thickens and I draw a bit of my vocabulary from my dad's Tennessee roots. If I'm looking at youth group members, I do a lousy imitation of a surfer dude. If I look at Aaron Ash or Randy J. Bland, my vocabulary suddenly improves.

What's with that?

A bit ashamed...

2008-07-16T22:49:00.002-05:00

It has been entirely too long since my last post.

And I Would Walk Five Hundred Miles... Thoughts in Praise of Gallivanting

2008-02-18T11:21:00.006-06:00

This last weekend I made a long road trip. It was actually a touch over 1000 miles each way to Central, South Carolina, where my cousin's wedding was happening. Central, South Carolina, as it happens, is in northwestern corner of South Carolina.

(I can only imagine the Seuss/Ice Cube mashup:

She came from south-central
Central, South Carolina
Up in the Northwest corner
Where tha honeys is mo' finer.

Yeah, we rock it
South-central Central, northwest
South Carolina style.
Yeah. whaaaaaat!)

The wedding was good - my cousin Bobby successfully married a really cool girl named Heidi, which was the important part. My sister Karen played the piano magnificently - she's really good at preludes and postludes where you have to fill like an hour with appropriate music. I played and sang a song, and got through it with a satisfactorily low number of mistakes.

The road trip itself, though, was what got me thinking. I like long road trips. I love the changing terrain, the sense of freedom. I especially love long road trips where Cindy and I take off and just go, with only the essentials firmly planned and everything else flexible. This weekend, though, was a bit frustrating in some ways. I drove 2000 miles, and my only non-essential deviation from the route was to visit the REI store in Nashville. I saw some very beautiful country - we crossed the tail of the Appalachian alligator north of Chattanooga and the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers east of Sikeston, MO. But Cindy had to stay home. And besides that, when the trip odometer rolls back over to all zeros at least once in your journey, it's a little maddening to be forced to stay on target, with no leeway for gallivanting about the countryside.

Gallivanting is one of my favorite activities. Whether in a car or far out in the back country on foot, I recommend gallivanting highly to anyone. www.m-w.com gives two definitions for "gallivanting":

1 : to go about usually ostentatiously or indiscreetly with members of the opposite sex
2 : to travel, roam, or move about for pleasure

Now while I'm mostly referring to the latter definition here, my experience has certainly shown that the quality of my gallivanting has improved considerably if I take Cindy along and incorporate the former definition into the latter. She is an excellent traveling companion, despite the fact that she's absolute rubbish as a driver for more than about an hour or two at a time (car trips are her Ambien).

When gallivanting on foot, I've discovered many wonders. In the wilderness I've found hidden waterfalls, crazy rock formations, weird flora, rarely-viewed wildlife, and unexpectedly spectacular views. In cities I've found the best Bubble Tea and Bulgogi place ever; the hot-dog-stand guy in New York who piled the toppings higher than any other; a place in Naples, FL that served me a cheeseburger than can only be described as epic; and many small parks, pleasant nooks, and awesome used bookstores.

My car-borne gallivanting has been no less satisfying. Cindy and I were in California two summers ago and randomly decided to deviate from our plan and drive down the coast from Monterey to San Luis Obispo... gorgeous.

It was also while gallivanting about in the car that I discovered the best coffee shop in Topeka, the best Carne Asada burritos in Kansas City (warning: "colorful" use of language in this review), and a very cool little overlook just north of the Kansas City River Market.

My dad is also a talented gallivantist - once on vacation in a town where we'd never been before, we decided to eat supper at Applebee's. I offered to look it up in the phone book and get directions. He said, "Oh, let's just go see what we can find." Without benefit of a map, Yellow Pages, or any other navigation aid, he drove straight to Applebee's. He is also the master of finding the lowest gas price in six states, just before his tank runs dry.

So the moral of all this is, I think, that we all need to leave ourselves a little gallivanting room. Make your plans, but abandon them and gallivant a bit if the opportunity presents itself. Celebrate when the odometer reaches a pleasing symmetry or when you reach the top of a tough climb in the trail. Other advice I'll leave you to find for yourself. Get out there and gallivant, but don't run out of gas or drinking water.

Great pasta and other things

2008-01-07T11:31:00.000-06:00

I think resolutions of any kind are counterproductive for me. Some time around the end of September, I had been journaling and blogging fairly regularly, and it was a good exercise of the writing muscle, besides all the intangible benefits. It was going well, so I decided to make a resolution to journal every day and blog every week. Ahem... My journal's last two entries are dated 9/26/07 and 12/12/07. And you can read the dates on my blog entries.

So no talk of new year's resolutions for me. Cindy does great with them - in 2007 she read at least one chapter of Proverbs every day except for the TWO days she missed. A 99.45% success rate is not too shabby. My wife makes me depressed sometimes. But then I buy her a box of Fruit Gushers candy and watch them disappear, and I feel better. Petty? Yes. Spiteful? Certainly. Sadistic? Now, now, let's not venture into hyperbole.

On another topic, I sometimes can't believe how materialistic I really am. I feel an inordinate protectiveness and affection toward my iPod and other gadgets. Large speakers and beefy amplifiers make me grin like a mean kid who's just been handed a BB gun. I even have a shamefully unmanly soft spot for our pots, pans, and dishes. But here's the worst one - I hoard random audio and video cables, adapters, and sundry computer-related doo-dads like Nixon hoarded hair pomade. If I go help someone hook up their new computer or DVD player or TV, I use the minimum number of the cables that came in the box, and then casually say, "Well, it's ready to go. You got any use for these extra cables?" I try to modulate my look and tone artfully so as to indicate that these "extra cables" are certainly NOT something they have a use for now, and are highly unlikely to be useful to them at any time in the future. I also try to communicate with my body language and other appropriate means that "these extra cables" are not only an unnecessary inconvenience to them, but are also likely to become a dangerous hazard to pets and small children, and might even be forming a union and plotting the overthrow of the management structure of the home. My subtlety is usually rewarded with a "Oh, no, I don't need them. Do you want them? And can you let go of my shirt collar now?" At which point I invariably begin to feel a Gollum-like sense of possessiveness toward the widget in question. Whenever anyone needs to borrow something, I narrow my eyes at them. I give the hardened, distant look of a seasoned veteran of many battles with electronics, and I exude a heavy skepticism that this rookie standing before me really has a need for the serious adapter firepower I have to offer. Ideally, I send my supplicant off with an admonition to make do with what he already has. But in some cases I do decide to loan the requested whoozit. I slowly open my cables-and-adapters-and-widgets drawer. I carefully remove the desired item from its nest, but with many a doubtful glance at the requester, as if mulling his pedigree with distrust. I hand it over slowly, hesitating just as he starts to reach for it. I pull back for a moment, a look of fond nostalgia in my eye as if recalling the time that very cable fixed the bad connection in Bono's microphone receiver just before he went on stage at Live 8. Then, with a resigned wilt, I release my treasure into the care, nay, the stewardship of this person who has had the audacity to occasion a breaching of the sanctity of my cables-and-adapters-and-widgets drawer. With any luck, next time the guy wants a stereo RCA cable, he'll go to Radio Shack and pony up the $2.79.

I'm also ridiculously fond of backpacking gear, but that's another story.

In other news, Cindy made some amazingly good pasta the other day. It was from the Quick Recipes magazine my sister gave her, in their section on the best ways to prepare leftover turkey after Thanksgiving. It's called Next-Day Turkey Primavera. Cindy approaches recipes like a jazz musician approaches a music score, so she substituted grilled chicken for the turkey, whole-wheat rotini for the penne, and green peppers and broccoli for the asparagus. She also monkeyed with the sauce a bit, but she can't remember how. It was amazing.

Speaking of food, if you're in Nevada, MO any time soon, find the Cherry Street Grill and eat there. Any of the pastas will make your day, but if you're feeling saucy spend a little more and get a steak or some grilled mahi-mahi. And if you're lucky the owner (who fits the word "jolly" better than Kris Kringle does) will walk out in his puffy chef hat and offer you free seconds on your soup. It's pretty standard procedure. And the atmosphere has both classic charm and hipster cool. In a place like Nevada, MO, that's a rare find.

Lastly, if you're not familiar with Car Talk, I'd recommend that you check it out. Even if (or perhaps especially if) you're not a car person.

The New Place

2007-10-10T13:21:00.000-05:00

So as I've said, we just bought our first house. We've been renting until now, and we decided it was time. So here are some pictures.

(Note the authentic rural-Missouri washing-machine-on-the-front-porch look.)

This stairway was what really sold the house - I love the woodwork.

It was built in 1910 - we're thinking of having a centennial party for the house in three years. Three bedrooms (which aren't pictured here because that's where all the junk is currently stashed) and two bathrooms. We'll be scraping off wallpaper and painting the walls soon.

It has a rock-walled basement that is very low-ceilinged and dungeonesque - I'm planning to film my first horror movie in it.

Y'all come see us now, ok?

Oh, and One More Thing...

2007-10-04T16:20:00.000-05:00

Mil Millington has just sent out a new entry on his mailing list. My vacation now has reading material!

If you aren't familiar with his work, you seriously need to check it out. Especially if you enjoy the very finest in snarky Brit humor, a la Douglas Adams without the sci-fi.

Finals Week, But More So

2007-10-04T15:49:00.001-05:00

In college, finals week was the crunch time. All the semester papers came due, and there was cramming on a grand scale. I actually relished finals week. I performed pretty well under that kind of pressure. I did some of my best work on very little sleep.

For the past month, my life has been an extended finals week. Finals week isn't as much fun when it keeps stretching out for two, then three weeks, then a month or more. Many of you can sympathize, I know. Sometimes I still perform well under the pressure. But when the pressure is over such an extended period of time, it starts to wear on the soul a bit.

The past three weeks have been a pressure cooker. Last week on Monday and Tuesday I planned five weeks' worth of lessons for Wednesday night youth groups, closed on a house on Wednesday afternoon (I still plan to post pictures and a writeup of the new house, but I haven't received permission from Cindy to photograph the interior yet - too many things still to put away), did Wednesday night youth groups (we're in full swing now with the high school and junior high separate), packed and moved on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, did a planning meeting Sunday afternoon, and preached Sunday night (on my birthday). This week has been one solid mass of video editing (a promo video for our Christian school), youth group planning, staff and volunteer meetings, video editing, unpacking, and video editing.

You may omit reading the previous tedious paragraph if you wish (now that you've already read it - hee!) and substitute the following: I'm a bit pressured. My brain is a bit fried. So this afternoon I'm quitting my job.

... for a few hours. (Did I have anyone going for a moment there?) I'm writing this blog entry, and then I'm going to go outside. I will breathe the fresh (albeit slightly allergenic) air of early harvest season in southwest Missouri. I will walk aimlessly. I will go home and find something nice to do for Cindy.

And then this evening Chad and I will be back at it, editing video like Enron execs editing financial records.

As of right now, I'm officially on vacation... until about 7 pm. Postcard, anyone?

On Religious Conservatism and My Own Silliness

2007-09-20T17:00:00.000-05:00

Last week, I attended the annual Ministers' Conference of the Churches of God (Holiness). Most readers of this blog will know what that is. Those who don't will invariably first ask, "Why is the 'Holiness' in parentheses?" Well, it's a long story, and a convoluted one. But my favorite short version of the story is that there were two churches in one town called the Church of God. One was known for the integrity and uprightness of its members. The church paid its bills. The other church was known for continually being in arrears on all manner of financial obligations, among other problems. The church that paid bills wanted to avoid being confused with the one that did not. Therefore, they attached the parenthetical word to the end of their name, and the tradition spread. According to my best sources this story isn't very accurate, but it's my favorite. I've never been one to let a little thing like accuracy or truth stand in the way of a good story.

Being raised in a Church of God (Holiness) church was a very good experience for me on the whole. The Gregory Hills COGH in Kansas City was the place I attended for the first twenty three years of my life straight. I was fortunate enough to have great pastors, and there were no ugly church splits or other church tragedies until shortly before I left.

The COGH has a tradition of very careful conservatism in matters of doctrine, and also in matters of external appearance like clothing, hair, makeup, and jewelry. Until very recently, pastors in the Churches of God (Holiness) who wore wedding rings were frowned on severely. If they wore shorts or even short-sleeved shirts, they were risking censure. If their wives cut their hair (even a trim) or wore pants (instead of skirts and dresses) or jewelry of any kind, they generally weren't kicked out (the governmental structure of the movement makes such a disciplinary move quite difficult). But such a pastor would be marginalized and never elected to any position of influence.

When I was small, I'm sure my parents tried to teach me the Scriptural principles behind these rules. I know they must have told me that part of the reason we followed the rules was that modesty was very important. They probably told me that we followed some of the rules just out of respect for others in our church. But as a kid I never listened very well, and when you're a kid everything is pretty black and white. When a lady from our church who babysat me occasionally started cutting her hair and wearing pants occasionally, I cried because I thought she was going to go to hell.

Many of my generation appreciate very much the conservatism in matters of doctrine, but not so much the "dress code." A good number of my generation can't even see the good in the doctrine because the dress code is so irksome to them. I think this is a shame, but I see where they're coming from.

When I was in high school, I realized something. The rules against jewelry and against women cutting their hair came from a few passages in I Timothy and I Peter. I Timothy 2:9 - "I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes..." I Peter 3:3 - "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes." The injunction against women cutting their hair comes from a somewhat convoluted interpretation of I Corinthians 11:3-15. Look it up if you're curious, but you'll be confused unless you come from the same background I do. So what was the realization I came to in high school? Did you notice that in the two verses I quoted above, there was a phrase about braided hair? Yet in our churches, the most conservative families let their daughters run around with braided hair. Hmmm... And sometimes it was elaborate, crazy braiding. The inconsistency will at once appear to the alert reader. And the inconsistencies didn't end there. They were everywhere. And as a cynical high school student with an inflated sense of my own intelligence and importance, I began to raise a stink about it, just like so many before me and after me have done.

Since then I've gotten a bit of perspective. I realize that ten years from now, I will probably again have an entirely different view of all this, but this is where I am right now. I've realized that no matter the religious tradition - "conservative" or otherwise - there is this tension of the establishment versus the coming-of-age. And this is a universal issue that occurs not just in religious circles, but in life in general. It's part of being human.

I've also realized that the tendency to turn personal preference and tradition into a sacred dogma is universal as well.

There are many versions of the story of the young woman who cooked her first beef roast and nervously served it to her mother. Her mother complimented the dish, to the daughter's relief. "Oh, mom," she gushed, "I'm so glad it came out right. I even remembered to cut off the ends before I put it in the pan, just like you always did."

The mother looked confused for a minute "Honey," said the mother, "that was because our roasting pan was too small - I cut off the ends to make it fit."

That's our natural tendency - even teenagers do it. There's a new drama teacher at the public high school here in El Dorado, and I've heard some of the teens - in particular one whose first year in drama was last year, commenting on how "Mr. Wells always did it THIS way." (Mr. Wells is the previous teacher.) And recently one of the college students who graduated from our youth group two years ago returned and visited youth group. He was disturbed by how we were doing things differently now, and grieved that we didn't have a youth center now. He said commiseratingly, "I hope things get back to the way they were soon." He didn't realize that we now have a youth group that in most ways is as strong as any we had when he was in high school. It was different, and traditions (even traditions only a year or two old) die very hard.

I'm guilty of this myself. If someone proposes an idea for a new way to do something, I'm quick to jump in and explain that "this is how we've done this before." If they fail to see the superiority of the current procedures, I'm often a bit miffed.

So I suppose I understand a bit better now why some of the COGH traditions continue, even though I confess I don't see much justification for them. It is true that many of the early COGH people were some of the most completely dedicated and devoted followers of Christ I've ever heard or read about. And many of those who are even now careful to maintain the old standards are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet.

I guess my conclusion from all this is that I need to be a bit less impatient with people who adhere to standards that at first seem a bit ridiculous to me. It's sometimes difficult to know how to be respectful without being hypocritical, though. And I get into these ridiculous moral dilemmas that shouldn't even be an issue.

For example, when Cindy and I serve as team sponsors at Harmony Hill Youth Camp (the COGH camp), we take off our wedding rings because they ask us to do so, and we're happy to comply. However, when I was at the Minister's Conference last week, I wasn't quite sure what to do. Several of those present still think wedding rings are unscriptural, and would probably be somewhat offended by my wearing one at such a conference. So I took off my wedding ring for the duration. I know most of you reading this are shaking your heads in disbelief. "THAT'S your moral dilemma???" you shriek. "You obviously haven't dealt with much in the moral dilemma line, then. What's wrong with you?" you continue disgustedly. "It doesn't even remotely matter!"

I know, I know. In fact, I think I was probably being a bit hypocritical and perhaps just trying to overcome a bit of a perceived prejudice against me in that group. I'm not analyzing anyone else's motives for such things, but I think mine were not quite in the right place.

My perception of the ministers present at the conference is that some of them see me as the personification of all that is wrong with the younger ministers of the COGH. Some of them think I've singlehandedly ushered the youth of our churches into condoning and even enjoying "worldly" contemporary music. This is a misconception. It also gives me far too much credit. But I think that my perception of the general opinion of me at the conference intimidated me. I did something silly and weak in an attempt to compensate. And what's more, I spent a lot of time and energy stewing about it, when almost every day I talk to teenagers whose moral dilemmas are very real and on much more important things than this.

Why I felt the need to vent about this here in this blog I'm not sure. An urge to confess, perhaps.

In more cheerful news, Cindy and I just bought our first house (we've been renting until now). We closed yesterday. We're moving this weekend. My next post will be a more cheerful writeup of said house. With pictures. Anybody want to volunteer your panel truck?

Musings of a Wannabe Rock Star, One Year Later

2007-09-13T09:15:00.000-05:00

This entry won't be particularly deep, entertaining, or funny. Just some stuff I've been thinking about.

This month marks one year since the members of the band Uncommonsense parted ways (amicably), and the only time we've all been together since was for Jonathan's wedding. I wrote about this briefly just after it happened here. From the outside, it was the same story that happens to the vast majority of the bands out there. Band forms, band breaks up. Band replaces personnel. Band plays some gigs. Band breaks up. Band re-forms with a few personnel changes and perhaps a new name. Band finally gels a bit and gets some momentum going. Band breaks up. Band re-forms again. This time it really seems to work, and band buys a van and a trailer full of gear and hits the road. Band plays all over the country, to large crowds occasionally, but more often to tiny crowds in cramped venues. Band records a solid project, footing the bill themselves. Band sees some major label interest, but nothing definite. Band signs to an indie label of dubious parentage. Band tours some more, building a fan base. Then the band comes to that critical point where they either have to quit their day jobs and take a huge gamble on this thing, or do something else. Band decides to go their separate ways.

From the outside, that's what happened to us. We did all the above things. We played in churches, at camps and retreats, at summer music festivals, in coffeehouses, in Kemper Arena once, and even in bars and clubs. (I've prayed with several drunk guys, unsure whether they would remember it the next day.) A very common story. In our case, the uncommon (hee!) part of the story was what was less visible.

One less-visible thing was the bond, musically and personally, that the members of Uncommonsense had. Musically, we were very tight. We made lots of musical mistakes, but we had a feel for each other on stage that is hard to find. We could glance at each other and change the plan on the fly. We listened to each other and played as a band, not as a collection of would-be soloists. Personally, we were real friends. We were accountable to each other. We shared our lives. We fought at times, like brothers do. But we were friends.

The other thing that was less visible was the set of goals the band had. A disclaimer here: we were, of course, trying to make money with this band. Some bands claim that they're not trying to do that. They're either lying or already have a vast store of wealth. Or they only last a month. You have to make enough money to keep going. We made enough, just barely. All of that money went back into keeping the band going - it wasn't a financially profitable venture at all. But making money wasn't the main goal. Chris (the bass player and my best friend) and I felt that we accomplished two very important goals with Uncommonsense.

The first was that we were successful in serving youth pastors across the country. When we decided to call it quits, we got several really nice e-mails from youth pastors saying how much they appreciated what we had done.

The second was that we played until the guys who had no backup plan (Jonathan and Grant and Victor) had a good shot at making it on their own. Jonathan will make (and is making) a living playing the drums - in fact he would probably be doing just that whether or not he had ever been in Uncommonsense. The boy can play. Grant came to the band as a decently good rhythm guitarist, and became an artist and a gifted worship leader (those are two very different things, in case you didn't know that). He's doing well on his own too. Victor can flat out sing. He can do rock, soul, R&B, or whatever. He'll make his living doing music as well. The rest of us had backup plans. Lance (the previous drummer) is a plumber, and plays drums for his church. Chris is a very successful realtor, and leads worship in the same church worship band. I'm a youth minister in El Dorado Springs.

Now here's the kicker and the whole reason for this post: I have to confess that sometimes when I'm playing music with the youth group band here in El Dorado Springs, I'm still a wannabe rock star. It's embarrassing to admit - I'm almost thirty years old and I'm still stuck on that. I know that my current job really does more to contribute to the lives of students than any band does. I'm aware of how fortunate I am to have the privilege of serving at this church. It isn't a perfect church - not by a long shot - but by God's grace we've so far been free of most of the church-splitting conflicts and moral deficits in leadership that have plagued many churches. I love my job. But in some sense there's a part of me that still wants to be a fighter pilot or captain of a frigate in the British Navy in Lord Nelson's day or a Navy Seal or Aragorn. That same part of me still wants to be a rock star.

I know the reason I still want to do/be all those things is that God has "set eternity in our hearts." We're made to yearn for the epic of His making creation right again. And this yearning makes us desire something larger than the humdrum. I think my problem is that sometimes I don't realize the epic nature of the struggle that is cleverly disguised in the humdrum. As one who spends my days ostensibly ministering to and discipling teenagers through the impossibilities of adolescence, I know that God is calling me to take some risks I hesitate to take. It's easy to run a snappy-looking youth ministry program. I've sort of figured out how to get students to show up in decent numbers and have a good time while they're there. I can run a program that looks good to the parents and the church board - solid numbers, "good kids," and the like. But the risks come when I try to lead these students to be more than "good kids," when I try to reach the "bad kids," and when I abandon the easy route of snappy programming for the much more difficult route of dependence on God's leading and focusing on connecting students with people who will pour their lives into those students and ultimately connecting those students with a God who won't be content with leaving them the way they are. I truly believe that doing this takes much more courage than standing on a stage in front of thousands. I also believe it's more difficult. Playing music to entertain a crowd or even to move them to action is difficult, but making a long-term difference in someone's life is excruciating. If someone in the crowd doesn't like what you're doing, there are hundreds or thousands of others in the crowd who are easier to please. Even if the whole crowd boos, there are other crowds. But living in relationship with someone, risking that they will reject that relationship (and perhaps even reject their faith) is a different matter entirely. Ever wonder why so many performers - even Christian performers - have messed-up relationships? Part of it is that the relationship with the crowd is so much easier, and it's tempting to substitute that easier relationship for the harder work of an ongoing personal relationship. I know that my work as a youth minister is ultimately going to make a much bigger difference in the lives of these students than the boys from Pillar or Relient K or Grits or even Fallout Boy or Green Day or the Black Eyed Peas will. (Nothing against those bands - fine musicians all.) I'm a big admirer of Bono from U2. I know it's cliche right now for youth pastors to be Bono fans... I'm still a fan. Bono (and other musicians who have used their various platforms to speak out on issues political or otherwise) has taken a lot of criticism from all points of the political and religious compass for his outspoken stance on gun control, poverty, and other issues. Again, this is so cliche it almost makes me ill to write it, but the reason I admire Bono is that he hasn't backed off from the controversy and he's actually brought about a great amount of cooperation from unlikely partners in trying to solve some of the world's problems. But here's the thing - I have an opportunity to impact the lives of these students in a way that even Bono never can.

So even though in some ways I'm still a wannabe rock star, I'm realizing that the rock star, the fighter pilot, the frigate captain, the mysterious ranger fighting for the realm of which he is heir to the throne - all those aspirations were placed in my heart for a really really good reason. I pray that God will give me the grace to live up to that Reason.

I welcome your thoughts.

High on Water

2007-08-12T12:58:00.000-05:00

It has long been a semi-secret dream of mine to climb the water tower near my church in El Dorado Springs.

Well, allegedly, recently some individual (who may or may not be an acquaintance of mine) may or may not have supposedly climbed (or not) said alleged water tower.

And here are some alleged pictures.

Let no one follow this foolish young (or old) man's (or woman's) alleged example. Especially not wearing flip-flops! But it was a mighty fine view of the sunset. Supposedly.

Tonka Tick Madness!

2007-06-25T15:51:00.000-05:00

I've written here before of a great little overnight backpack not far from my home. It's a state park called Ha Ha Tonka, and there's a seven-mile loop trail that's got some great scenery and crazy rock formations. Well, my dad and I went and hiked said trail on Fathers' Day weekend. It was a great time with my dad, and I was really glad we did it. That said, it was also ritickulous! I've never seen so many ticks in my life! I had some DEET repellent cream that I was smearing on myself, but when we were hiking I would look down every few minutes and there would be upwards of 20 or 30 ticks on EACH pant leg. I'd brush them off, only to be retickulated a few steps further on. I think it's intickative of the move away from widespread DDT spraying in America. (Not that I'm convinced DDT was a good thing, mind you - it apparently almost wiped out some predatory birds. Don't tell me that's a bunch of bosh, either, because according to the best research I can come up with that issue is far from settled.)

Anyway, the ticks. I read somewhere that a pair of guinea fowl will clear two acres of ticks almost completely within one year. I'm considering buying some. The ticks were so bad on this trip that I don't have any enlightening photos to accompany this post - I was too busy brushing off ticks to take pics. (Oy - this post is really overdoing the lame wordplay.) I still have lots of itchy bites on my legs, too.

But I was glad my dad did that hike with me. It was fun despite the crazy ticks, and we had a good talk on lots of issues.

Right now my dad and mom are in Yosemite, so recently vacated by Dwain, and before that, by Pastor Joe and family. My mom and dad rode an Amtrak train to California and rented a car for the drive up to Yosemite. They like this Amtrak traveling stuff - I'm pretty jealous myself.

My Mature Little Sisters

2007-05-24T18:14:00.000-05:00

Okay, this one is about my family. If you don't care, don't read it.

I'm the oldest of three siblings. I have two little sisters, and we're each separated by about two-and-a-half years. Lynette is the older of the sisters, and Karen is the younger.

Growing up, I always had to be better than both of them at everything. I of course would regularly beat them up just to prove I could. I would always outdo them in whatever they were doing, and laugh scornfully to rub it in. Unfortunately for me, though, I was the sibling with the, uh... laid back... approach to life. When you're on top of the heap, you tend to lose your edge, after all.

I had zero attention span. I was oh-so-fashionably ADD. After a while this had a telling effect on my quest for superiority in everything. Lynette learned to read well early, and taught Karen all she knew. Karen began reading Nancy Drew books... at age four. I did well in school for the most part (although my report cards all talk about my problems with "lack of focus" and "daydreaming"). My sisters did better. We all loved music and took piano lessons. We all enjoyed acting and drama. By high school, my sister Lynette was better than me at acting. By the time I started college, both sisters passed me up in their piano skills. I decided to switch my area of specialty to synthesizers, since I didn't have the chops to out-play either of them on the keys.

Karen eventually became the best pianist our side of I-70 (she recently charmed a piano store owner out of a really nice grand piano for much less than it was worth, just because she can play Debussy like Pujols can play baseball).

Lynette eventually got a scholarship for theater and now teaches the subject at Shawnee Mission South High School, a job she accepted to the great consternation of many top-flight acting schools, Broadway producers, and film agents who were stalking her day and night and demanding she sign fat contracts. Watching her run a rehearsal is better than the special features on any DVD you can name - the lady knows her stuff.

I? I became a six-year college student who couldn't settle on a major and eventually got a bachelor's degree in youth ministry so I could hang out with hyper teenagers whose attention spans were compatible with my own.

A couple of years ago Lynette married a strapping, hirsute fellow named Joel. He's a theater guy too, besides being a swell fishing, camping, and video gaming buddy.

Last year Karen married a strapping, hirsute ninja named Brandon. He's a preacher, ninja, and a fine backpacking companion.

Both of my sisters are better than me at most things.

Both of my sisters' husbands could snap me like a twig.

But I can still program a synthesized sound from the waveform up, or take a sample of a cow mooing and turn it into Beethoven's Fifth. Let's see them do THAT. Oh, and whereas both of my sisters had to condescend and marry somewhat below their station, I married Cindy. If you think a thermonuclear detonation creates heat, you should see this lady walk into a room.

Okay, enough of this mushy talk about my sisters. I've got to be able to keep my supper down, after all. Speaking of supper, y'all should try my fajitas...

Comfortable Discomforts

2007-05-21T09:32:00.000-05:00

So earlier this month, I added Great Smoky Mountains National Park to my list. To the best of my recollection that makes ten national parks, not including various national forests, national monuments, national historic sites, etc. I'd really like to see all of them before I die. I know there are amazing natural wonders outside the boundaries of national parks, but you're pretty much guaranteed to see some cool stuff when you go to one. The Department of the Interior at least got that part right.

My favorite park is, and probably always will be, Yosemite. But Great Smoky Mountains National Park was great too (Hee!). The reason I went was that my friend Travis Sayler and I organized a four-day backpacking trip for several of our young COGH minister colleagues.

There ended up being five of us once all the riffraff chickened out after hearing the daily mileage figures. Meh - lightweights. ...And I have to admit we chickened out too after the first day. We cut a significant chunk of the mileage off our original plan. The trails in GSMNP are for serious. Our highest altitude of the trip was just a bit over 6,000 feet, which isn't much, considering. So I must admit I underestimated the difficulty. After all, I've hiked "fourteeners" in Colorado and done okay. I even did Half Dome in Yosemite, one of the toughest (but most rewarding) day hikes you'll ever meet. But even though Great Smokies never gets very high, there just aren't many level places on those trails. That, and I seriously over-packed. Hey, I'm an eagle scout. "Be prepared," right? I was prepared for a tsunami or a blizzard. But I was hauling close to fifty pounds on my back. No problem, right? Well, as I said, there are no level places on those trails. One day we gained over 3,000 feet in about three or four miles, then lost 1,500 feet of that again in the next mile or so. Ascents like that are tough. Descents are, too. They take a different kind of toll on the body, but descents aren't as easy as you'd think when you're hauling a heavy load, especially on narrow, rough, steep trails with dangerous washed-out places and not a lot to stop you if you start falling down the mountainside.

But even though I'm whining, I must confess I loved it. One day I was hauling up a tough grade on a trail appropriately named the "Sweat Heifer." I was feeling the weight in my pack pretty intensely. A mosquito landed on my leg and began his snack. I started to smack him, but then said, "Drink all you want, buddy - that's a drop of blood I don't have to haul up this hill." I had my teeth gritted, my lungs on fire, my legs burning, sweating more than the trail's namesake, my stronger (and more lightly packed) companions out of sight far ahead of me, and I just started giggling. Delirium? Probably. But also, I was surrounded by relentless beauty. I was... not at my desk. I was pushing through the pain and I knew I wouldn't quit. I was having frank discussions with God on all manner of topics. There was almost a comfortable feeling that came over me when I looked at the distant views, the mossy rocks on the trail, the freshly green hillsides around me.

The nights were the best. Two of the four nights, we stayed in Appalachian Trail shelters. Shelters on the AT are unique backpacking experiences. They're made of rock, logs, and tin roofs. There are several wooden racks that everyone sleeps in. It's completely random whether you'll have the shelter to yourself or share it with twenty strangers.

One night, we five young ministers shared the Peck's Corner shelter with two or three atheists,
a hippie universalist, a Native American who was reading Screwtape Letters, and a Scottish agnostic. That evening we all sat around while some burned incense, tobacco, or marijuana (I only burned part of my supper - for reals), discussing the world and God and matters of faith. The full moon rose just after sunset and we discussed evolution vs. creation. We talked shop on various methods of packing, the best trail foods, and how to save weight. (Did you know that through-hikers on the AT sometimes cut the handles off their toothbrushes to save those few fractions of an ounce?) We talked politics. And we went to bed with no one angry and no one being argumentative. (Contact highs? Perhaps. ...Just kidding. The marijuana use was covert and at a respectable distance from the shelter.)

One of the atheists even told us he was glad there were Christians out there like us - Christians who didn't view people like him as the enemy. And for all you Christians reading this, they aren't! So much of the time we use battlefield rhetoric in some potentially dangerous ways. There's a "culture war" or the Left is "making war on Christians" or any number of others. When we talk like that about people, those people tend to get a bit nervous, and understandably so. We have to remember our battle is NOT against flesh and blood. Write that down - it will be on the final.

So that night I slept on an upper rack above a Native American who turned out to be a world-champion snorer. The Scottish fellow was no slouch, either. Again, though, I loved it. I fell asleep grinning, an odd comfortable feeling coming over me.

Oh, I love my REI Half Dome two-man backpacking tent. It's light, easy to set up, well-ventilated, dry as a bone in torrential downpour, and they thought of everything. Two of the nights on the trip I shared this tent with my friend Kevin Askew. If you're looking for a great two-man tent, get this one. (REI, if you want to talk paid endorsements, I'm listening!)

Since I'm talking gear, I also recommend Merrell boots and Smartwool socks. I had no idea what a difference merino wool socks made for your feet. And no, they don't make your feet hot and itchy. Buy Smartwool and enter a brave new world of foot comfort! The Merrells are highly recommended as well. Brandon Speak (my brother-in-law) and I were the only two on the trip who had them, and we were the only two who had little or no blistering on our feet. Randy J. Bland, another friend who did the trip, had his feet in shredded, bloody agony after the first two days. I loaned him a pair of Smartwools, and he said the next day was relatively pain-free. Also, Smartwools don't stink nearly as bad as cotton or synthetics. Again, Merrell and Smartwool, if you're looking to pay someone for endorsements, I promise to do a nice writeup in my blog.

Out On A Limb

2007-04-12T17:10:00.001-05:00

This is a great video that features the Skit Guys, my favorite acting duo of the moment. It won the Southwest Airlines "Wanna Get Away?" commercial contest.

Church Signs Continue to Shock, Awe

2007-04-02T13:35:00.000-05:00

The latest entry in the "World's Worst Church Sign" Contest has it all: vagueness, failed attempts at clever irony, insider churchy language, and simple awfulness.

This one has a story attached, even. The sign read, "When eagles are silent, parrots will squawk." I saw it, thought it over, and chuckled a bit. I told Cindy about it, and she, always trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, said she thought the intent was good. We decided it meant that if the noble, good, and true folks don't speak up, then the gaudy, noisy, and rude will rule the day. But... wow. Then Cindy happened to mention the sign to a coworker in a conversation about noisy birds outside classroom windows or some such. The coworker acted a little offended that Cindy would mention it in such an offhand fashion, saying she thought it was an important reminder that we need to be silent and listen for God to speak in our lives. When Cindy told me this, my reaction was a hearty guffaw. So God is the squawking parrot? I love this town.

A Tree-Hugging Granola-Faced Pansy Boy

2007-03-30T10:29:00.000-05:00

So I grew up going to a Christian school (a very good school, too) in Midwestern Suburbia. Our state representative, state senator, US representative, US senators, governor, and the rest were typically Republican. My teachers in school taught a very conservative political outlook on life, fueled by doses of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Reagan.

I'm still fairly conservative politically. I find the abortion issue tough to sidestep, and I still weigh that issue very heavily in my consideration of candidates to vote for. I'm still registered as a Republican voter. But there's an insidious streak of liberalism in me, and for this I place the blame squarely on my dad.

Readers who know my dad will doubtless be shocked by this wild accusation. Dwight Purtle teaching liberal politics to his son??? Lemme 'splain you how come.

It started with the family vacations. Unlike most Baby Boomer uber-capitalists, my parents didn't buy us enormous piles of plastic junk for Christmas every year. We got stuff, and it was good stuff. But some of my friends got a lot more stuff. One year when I was about ten and my sisters were about eight and six or so, I noticed the disparity between my friend's stack of Christmas loot and my own. I broached the subject with my dad, and he looked thoughtful for a bit. Then he told me that my friend Steve's* parents spent half the year every year paying off Christmas. They were apparently proud of it. He told me that wasn't the way we did things.

Then he asked me where Steve had gone for vacation that summer. I told him I thought they went to Branson for the weekend. "And where did we go?"

We'd gone to California. Two full weeks away. Granddad's house and Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks in the Sierra Nevadas. We did this at least every other year. I loved that trip, even though it usually meant a road trip of three days out and three days back in an 80-something Oldsmobile sedan with my two sisters and me in the back seat fighting most of the time. Sequoia National Park is home of the world's largest living thing: the "General Sherman" tree, a Giant Sequoia redwood. There are also lots of great mountain hiking trails and scenery.

Yosemite National Park was, and still is, simply my favorite place. I've mentioned it before in this blog. Granite monoliths almost a mile high, some of the tallest waterfalls in the world, and relentless beauty everywhere.

On these trips, my dad taught us wilderness ethics. Littering was a crime deserving severe punishment. We were to leave campsites "better than we found them," picking up not only our trash, but the trash the previous people had left as well. "Don't feed crackers and food to the squirrels," he said. "Our food isn't good for them." We were not to get too close to wildlife, even though other people would surround a deer or bear with their cameras clicking excitedly. We were not allowed to pick wildflowers. "Leave them so everyone else can see them too." We stayed on the trail: we didn't want to damage the plants or erode the soil. We kept our voices low, and saw more wildlife than many of the other hikers. We went to ranger talks in the evenings and paid attention when they told us how to "leave no trace" when we hiked and camped. We listened as they told us how people had damaged many of the pristine wilderness areas, and how we could help restore those areas by following certain guidelines. We decried the debacle of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

Another major contributing factor to my liberalism for which I blame my dad is National Public Radio. The NPR member station in Kansas City is KCUR, and I've probably listened to more programming on that station than any other in my lifetime, with the possible exception of a Christian station in Kansas City called KLJC. My dad would also tune in the nearest NPR station wherever we were on the road. Besides promoting all kinds of obscure underground jazz, world music, and new age artists, NPR has a decidedly leftward-leaning slant on the news, especially on environmental issues.

And then we started to recycle. We started taking in aluminum cans long before it was fashionable. We got a "recycle bin" at home just like the rest of the neighborhood, but we actually did it conscientiously. We would cut the labels off tin cans and pop bottles, cut the little plastic rings off the tops by where the lids screwed on, and we recycled everything we could recycle - by the book. We turned off lights and tried to conserve water (this was mostly because it made good fiscal sense, it's true, but we did it). We lowered the thermostat in the winter and raised it in the summer. We got energy-efficient windows and light bulbs.

And finally, we took National Geographic magazine for my entire life. I still read it cover to cover every month. Do you know they have some of the finest photographers in the world on staff?

So let me make my confession. I am what some of my teachers at the Christian school might have termed a "tree-hugging, granola-faced pansy boy." When it comes to environmental issues and the whole "greenhouse gas," "carbon footprint," and even the dreaded "global warming" thing, I'm as left as the side of the road the Brits drive on. I like nature to stay natural. I like trees. I like people who pick up their trash. I like fair-trade shade-grown coffee and organic farming. I like clothing companies who don't exploit the environment or employ child labor in other countries. I support local farming. I like fuel-efficient, low-emissions cars. When my wife gets a cup of coffee to go, she saves the cup and reuses it at least once. I'm learning to follow her example.

Let me make clear that I'm still skeptical about various environmental organizations. I read a news story about an Earth Day celebration in Dallas a few years ago that left a lot of litter all over the place. I think a lot of environmentalist wackos are precisely that: wackos. And I still believe God created this whole world, despite reading and hearing all the evolutionism in National Geographic and on NPR. And it's precisely because I believe that God created this world that I think it's worth taking care of. He gave us that job, remember? We're to have dominion over it, but we're not to wreck it with our trash.

Now go pick up some litter. And recycle that soda can.

*Not his real name. Mysterious, eh?

Fear of Depth

2006-12-28T00:19:00.000-06:00

Well, Dwain unexpectedly showed up at my church tonight, and our enjoyable (but regrettably brief) conversation motivated me to blog tonight. I've been avoiding le blog lately, for reasons I'll explain below.

Cindy and I honeymooned in Grand Cayman. I have a recommendation for a perfect small, quiet beach inn for not a lot of bucks if you're interested. Our second-favorite activity on the trip was snorkeling. We went every day, and most often we drove to a place on the north-central section of the island called Rum Point. The beach and reef wasn't too overpopulated by partying crazies there, and the snorkeling was spectacular.

I'm not an exceptionally good swimmer, but I love snorkeling. And Grand Cayman's snorkeling is some of the best. Stingrays, myriad colorful tropical fish, and a colossal reef known as The Wall. At Rum Point, The Wall is about 100 yards out from the end of the pier. Inside the reef, the water stays shallow, very clear, and you can see everything around you. Out past the reef, The Wall drops off a mile or more straight down. It's an underwater cliff.

I have a desire to do some scuba diving over the Wall at some point, but when I'm honest with myself I have to admit I think I know what would happen. Swimming over that drop-off would be a vertigo-inducing thrill at first, but I would very quickly begin to imagine all the things that could be eyeing me hungrily from those dark depths. I would look around at the reef and its inhabitants, take some pictures while glancing constantly over my shoulders, and retreat to the safety of the shallower waters as soon as dignity would permit.

My fear of depth is what has kept me from this blog for a few weeks as well. When I started these little inanities, I did it just to exercise the writing muscle a bit and write about anything and nothing. But I always had it in the back of my mind that when something really deep and write-up-worthy came my way, the Proser would come into his own and this page would become something important. Such was the naive pomposity of my thinking.

A couple of weeks ago, a teenage boy named Dustin was killed in a car accident in El Dorado Springs. He came to our youth group fairly regularly until his dad started a new church about six months ago. Some of his best friends are still youth group members. He was in our home several times. He beat me handily at a video game called Halo several times.

I spent last week doing my best to help students, parents, and teachers through this impossible time in any way I could. Here I need to pause and say that I'm humbled and grateful for the incredible amounts of grace, peace, and strength that God provided for so many of the people involved.

I came to this blog in the middle of that process and stared at a blank screen for half an hour or so. I had my deep, important issue to discuss and I found I had no desire to explore it - at least not in this partly public setting.

Why couldn't I write about something this profound? The deep things scare me away, it seems.

There was also this: while there were many people hurting deeply in the process and many others who really rose to the challenge and did their best to help the hurting, I was disappointed and a bit jaded by other people. Some who weren't even that close to Dustin seemed to want to use the occasion to turn the whole world into their own personal therapy session. Others were well-meaning, but incredibly and stupidly insensitive to those who were hurting. Others seemed determined to grab a piece of the hype that weirdly surrounds a tragedy. I found I had no desire to become one of those hype-grabbers.

I've always heard that some of the greatest songs, books, art, and poetry was born from times of tragedy. I'm not destined to create any of that, it seems.

So that's it. That's my skirting-the-issue way of dealing with the deep issue I'm afraid to tackle. If you're looking for something more conclusive on this issue of grief and loss, you might check out some pretty good things Wendie, Chris and Dwain had to say about it here and here.

Words

2006-12-15T11:19:00.000-06:00

A couple of interesting links for those of you who are of a literary bent:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo

http://www.100words.net

On the 100words site, look around and figure out what's going on, then go to the 2001 entries and look at the September 11th and 12th posts for several authors. Some are quite good.

(Warning: the 100words site doesn't filter naughty words. However, most of the authors do keep it clean.)

Snow

2006-12-02T21:58:00.000-06:00

I love snow. Most people I know talk about snow like it’s some kind of infestation or something. Gotta call the exterminator with the big truck and the plow blade. Spread salt over the parking lot to keep it from growing back.

I know it causes a lot of inconvenience – I had to spend forty-five minutes this morning shoveling it out of my driveway before I could move my car. Then I spent another fifteen minutes shoveling later this afternoon when I got my car stuck in our friend Candace’s still-unshoveled driveway (Candace drives a 4X4 and scoffs at snow shovels like Chuck Norris scoffs at “humane” mousetraps). But I love snow.

The accumulation here last night was about fourteen inches. This made Cindy wildly happy; in the two-and-a-half years she’s lived in El Dorado Springs there has been a total of about 3 inches of snow until last night. Now that she’s a teacher I think she likes snow days even more than she did when she was a student. She was exuberant when they cancelled school.

Also, since I’m a youth pastor, a snow day is a great excuse to get out and go sledding or snowball fighting “to build relationships with the students.” And go sledding we did. There’s a great sledding hill off First Street at the southwestern corner of town. It’s long and steep enough to be fun, but not so long that you’re completely exhausted after hauling your sled back uphill. Alex, one of our youth group guys, took charge of building a snow ramp halfway down the hill. He piled snow, packed it down, piled, and packed. After he’d groomed it for half an hour or so, it was a very cool sledding jump. It actually got a little scary. Some of the people there were afraid to try it at first. It took a little bit to work up the nerve. Then it was off down the hill, and no going back. As long as an intrepid sledder leaned back just before hitting the ramp, he would sail about five or six feet off the ground, pondering just for an instant his own mortality before coming back to earth with a “whump,” a spray of white powder, and a whoop of delight. Invariably this resulted in snow down the collar, in the face, up the pant leg, and anywhere else. But back up the hill we all went, grinning and impatient to try it again. And the best kind of sled to use was the round disc variety – no way to steer, no way to keep from spinning around. Even though it was messy and we were all a bit sore later, we’re doing it again tomorrow!

See Aaron's blog for more pics of this snowfall.

Ha ha.... Tonka...

2006-11-20T09:32:00.000-06:00

Since about the middle of spring this year I had been intending to do a brief solo backpacking trip, and I just never did it. Cindy and I had a great trip, about which I've written here. But a couple of weeks ago I finally did it. Nothing too spectacular - there's a state park just over an hour away with a seven-mile backpacking trail, and that's where I went. Part of the reason I chose this location was that the name of the place is Ha Ha Tonka State Park. But when I got there, I found that I had underestimated the place.

I arrived just after dark, picked up a trail map and started hiking. After a bit I turned off my flashlight and decided there was enough moonlight to leave it off. It was dreamy and a bit surreal - and I had one of the coolest prayer times I can remember. I hiked about two miles, found a likely spot just under the crest of a ridge and set up my tent there. It rained slightly and dipped below freezing for a bit during the night, so I had a layer of moisture on my tent in the morning that prevented my seeing much outside the little window. As the sun came up, I could hear rifle shots echoing through a hundred draws and valleys around me - a reminder that youth rifle season started that morning in Missouri. An understandably nervous buck approached my tent snorting; I gave a polite "ahem," and I could hear his hoofbeats retreating. I was glad he chose that course of action instead of one similar to the deer-convertible incident in Tommy Boy. I lay there enjoying the sound of the wind for a while, then got up and unzipped the tent flap. I was astonished at the view. I had unknowingly picked one of the best places on the trail to set up my tent. From my ridge top there was a glimpse of the Lake of the Ozarks in one direction, a corduroy series of increasingly blue ridges in another, and the burnt-out ruins of a nineteenth-century castle (built by an early Kansas City business baron) in another. The rest of the trail was caffeine to the soul as well. It was a gift.

The trip was exactly what I needed for several reasons, most of which are none of your business. (And no, Cindy and I aren't having marital difficulties, for those of you whose nature leads you to fear the worst.) God apparently knew I needed that appointment with Him, too. The counseling issues I've been dealing with since are way over my head, but I haven't drowned yet. I guess in that way you could say the Holy Spirit is a bit like a scuba mask... that's probably not a simile destined for mass publication, eh?

I liked it so much I went back the following weekend with my brother-in-law Kevin Carlson. It was great again. And the next day when we were driving through Camdenton, the local Dairy Queen was having a "customer appreciation day," during which everything was 50% off. We... ate a lot of Dairy Queen food. Kevin wondered aloud if heaven would be like a Dairy Queen on customer appreciation day. I think he might be onto something there, except that heaven will add Henry Weinhard's Root Beer and an extensive steak menu.

In other news, one of the other churches in El Do this week got my weekly "Worst Church Sign in Town" award. Taking the honors was a sign that read, "Be thankful for what you have, not what you don't."

Ancillary perambulations

2006-10-24T15:25:00.000-05:00

The title of this post is an unabashed ripoff of Dwain's vocabulary-stretching calisthenics. But this blog entry does have something to do with some things I've been doing sorta on the side, and it's all over the map. So the word choice is apt.

First off, Cindy and I went to our first marriage retreat last weekend. (Well, our first SINCE we've been married. We went to one while we were engaged, and that was a bit awkward. We were there to lead the music during the corporate worship times, but between those times when so many of the other couples took their free time to do... whatever, we just wandered around outside and tried to think naive thoughts. They even put us in adjacent hotel rooms for the weekend. Fortunately, I had my band guys calling me all weekend to make sure I was behaving.) The retreat this time around was good through the Friday and Saturday sessions for which we were present, but since we didn't get to stay for the "renewal of vows" ceremony on Sunday (which lots of people said was the best part), we didn't feel like we made any huge breakthroughs or learned any earth-shattering things that will change our marriage forever. But it was good to have a refresher course on all the basics.

Speaking of which, my grandpa is a cool guy. His name is Silas McGehee, and he's been in ministry for about six and a half decades. He was coming down to retirement time, and the Churches of God Holiness asked him to step in as their interim Executive Secretary for World Missions. He's been doing a great job and they've kept him at it now for several years. He's served longer as the interim than some of the full-fledged executive secretaries have. So why did this paragraph begin with "Speaking of which,"? We were, gentle reader, discussing refresher courses. Yes we were. Well, I was anyway... oh, for pete's sake just go back and read it. See? Okay. My grandpa is a walking refresher course on life. One of his biggest strengths in ministry and just in life is his absolutely fearless approach to speaking wisdom into someone's life. He'll just come up to you and say something like, "Jim, that gal you married is a precious treasure. Don't you DARE. EVER. allow anything to start driving a wedge between the two of you. You've got to communicate and you've got to be patient and forgiving and serve her selflessly." And when he disseminates wisdom like that - on topics from marriage to spirituality, from work ethic to woodcutting - he makes. . . inescapable. . . eye contact. I'm not good at eye contact. I blame it on ADD. But I can't look away when Grandpa's kickin the wisdom. And even though most of the time it's stuff I know, it's always a good refresher, and most of the time it comes at exactly the right moment in my life.

Last night my sister Karen, who married a big hairy preacher named Brandon and moved to Mississippi with him, flew to KC. Her best friend Ashlee is getting married this weekend, so she's here all week for the preparations. So my parents, my other sister Lynette and her big hairy husband Joel, and Cindy and I went out to eat to celebrate my mom's birthday. We went to a restaurant called Carrabba's. It's become a national chain over the past few years, and usually I shun national chains in favor of local flavor. But Carrabba's has a meal that is truly fine. Unfortunately, it's a meal I can only afford a couple of times a year, but it's worth the $16 and change plus tip. It's called Sirloin Steak Marsala. It's an Italian way to cook steak, but for those of you whose idea of italian food starts and stops with a can of Spaghetti-O's, you need to know that not all Italian food contains tomato sauce. It's a perfect sirloin steak grilled with Marsala wine sauce. (And for all the teetotalers out there, no, it won't make you drunk. Sheesh.) It is truly the finest steak I've ever had. And I've had steak that cost me $30-50 plus from elite steak houses in Kansas City and Chicago. Every time I order this steak at Carrabba's, with the garlic mashed potatoes that so perfectly accompany the Marsala sauce, I'm a bit nervous that maybe the steak will be a bit tough or the cook won't be quite at the top of his game. But every time I take the first bite of the steak (which I always order medium - don't order a steak cooked more than that because that gives the cook an excuse to use a cut of meat that's been sitting too long and is less juicy and getting tired), it's like an explosion of amazingness. I know that's quite high praise. But believe me, this is the most honorable way I can think of to memorialize the worthy animal who gave its life for your dinner. If there were a heaven for cattle, the beeves who knew that they had died so that a Carrabba's Sirloin Marsala might be bestowed upon a grateful patron of that esteemed establishment would be happy bovine indeed. Oh, and if you're ever lucky enough to be there and order the aforementioned steak, order the lentil and sausage soup if it's available. It's spicy and comforting at the same time.

While we're on food, on Saturday, Chad Pollard and I are organizing the first "God, Guys, and Grub" men's breakfast at church. I love breakfast food. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, waffles, french toast, omelettes, oatmeal, cereal, juice and coffee, bacon, all of it. This weekend we're making this:

I'm excited.

By the way, have you noticed that a disproportionately high percentage of my blog entries deal with food in some way? Of course not. You don't read my blog. You aren't even sure why you're reading this sentence, except that despite the fact that the world economy teeters on the brink of frightening recession, you're desperately clutching at something, anything, to do to prevent yourself from actually becoming productive while you sit at your computer. And reading some poor schmo's blog is as legitimate a time waster as any.

Little gasps of joy

2006-10-02T17:16:00.000-05:00

Saturday was my birthday. I'm 28 years old. And distant acquaintances, upon learning my age, were once again surprised to find that someone as immature as myself is a day over 16.

Saturday also marked the end of an era of sorts for me. My band, Uncommonsense, played our final show Saturday at an outdoor festival in El Dorado Springs, MO, which is where I live. It went well, and the crowd (especially the ever-loyal local high-school crowd) got into it and made it really fun. It was a good final show. The reason it was our final show is that Victor, our front man, just got a solo record deal - as an R&B/pop singer, no less. He's really good at that kind of thing, but we still make fun of him a bit. The others of us talked it over and decided that we would go our separate ways, instead of trying to get another singer and renaming/restarting.

Chris (my best friend and our bass player) and I realized that since the band was the main reason we ever got together any more, we now have to do something that is very difficult for non-sensitive, non-overly-emotive guys like us: intentionally plan to hang out without a purpose behind it. I pray that works, because I know I need his friendship even though it's a bit embarrassing to even admit that here.

Also on my birthday, I got a ton of chocolate chip cookies, most of which came from my mom, whose cookies were mentioned in a previous post. The food of the gods, that.

Cindy gave me a birthday card that I just loved. It was completely random but somehow sweet. I told Wendie about it because she's completely random too, and it seemed like something she would say. But apparently this card is fairly common and she'd seen it before. The card had a photo of a big ferris wheel on the front, with a cartoon of a little hamster. The text was,

If I had a talking hamster, on his birthday I'd take the little guy to the carnival to see the Big Wheel. Upon seeing it, he'd be speechless, simply letting out little gasps of joy.

May your day be filled with little gasps of joy.

My day wasn't, as it turned out, filled with little gasps of joy, because I was dealing with little crises all through the day at the aforementioned music festival. But Cindy does more than anything else I can think of to fill my life with that sort of joy . Oh, and I did give a little gasp of joy when I walked into my house at day's end and saw all those cookies.

Well, anyway, may your life be filled with little gasps of joy.

Off-roading and stuff

2006-09-22T21:59:00.000-05:00

One of my friends is Travis Sayler. He's a former youth pastor who just pulled what we in youth ministry call "the big sellout." That is, he became a senior pastor. But anyway, he shares my tastes in outdoor adventure and quirky humor. So we get along fine. Last week, we were at a pastors' convention, and we cut out one afternoon to go offroading in his X-Terra. My offroading experience previously was restricted to old Toyota Land Cruiser trucks in Brazil and Haiti, and these weren't really offroading in the technical sense; it's just that the roads in question happened to be less passable than your average pond.

So anyway, offroading. We were on a very primitive logging trail in the Missouri hills. There were sharp rocks jutting out trying to spear the tires, and the soil was really loose, crumbly stuff that would send you sliding downhill if you tried to cross a slope at the wrong angle. We got stuck for a bit once, much to the consternation of Travis' wife Daphne. But a good time was had by all. I'm just glad we were in his vehicle and not mine.

Still reading Wild at Heart, and the challenge to my soul is considerable. Incidentally, I think I'm probably "hearing" God more clearly than I ever have in some ways. It's really quite a rush.

Some stuff that scares me a bit

2006-09-18T09:56:00.000-05:00

I've been reading John Eldredge's book Wild at Heart. I started reading this book with even more skepticism than is usual in my overly-skeptical, sometimes-cynical life. But I have to confess that I've been won over for the most part.

One of the thoughts this book has germinated is the concept that a man has a need to be a warrior. And God created us that way. (And if I were you, gentle reader, I'd be a bit skeptical right now. But I won't take the time to try to argue away your skepticism - just get the book yourself and you'll figure out that it does make sense.) And the thought that has stuck with me over the past week or so is that, as Eldredge says, "...a warrior has a vision, he has a transcendence to his life; a cause greater than self-preservation... This isn't just about being willing to die for Christ; it's much more daily than that."

I recently finished reading a book called Brave Men by WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle. It was published shortly after the Normandy invasion, before the end of the European war. It chronicles the author's time attached to various military units from the early North African campaign, through the invasions of Sicily and Italy, up to just after the Battle of the Bulge. He talks about many different aspects of the war, but one of the most compelling chapters is about the front-line infantry units. The troops are uniformly haggard, unsmiling, and exhausted. They have lost all idealistic notions about the war. They no longer fight for the glory of truth, justice, and the American Way. They have seen too much death for that. And yet, despite this jaded, seemingly pessimistic outlook; they consistently, continually perform acts of astounding heroism. Why? They're unable to answer, except to say things like, "It just made me mad that all those other fellows were pinned down and getting picked off," or, "It just seemed like it might get us home quicker," or, "I knew any of these boys would have done the same for me," or, "It had to be done, and I was the one in a position to do it." I wonder what those warriors would have said a few years later if asked the same question. I suspect that the more introspective would have said something to the effect that, "Deep down, I knew it was right, it was proper, it was good. I knew that ultimately what we were doing there was worthwhile."

Back to Eldredge for a quote that hit me center mass:

"For years all my daily energy was spent trying to beat the trials in my life and arrange for a little pleasure. My weeks were wasted away either striving or indulging. I was a mercenary. A mercenary fights for pay, for his own benefit; his life is devoted to himself. 'The quality of a true warrior,' says Bly, 'is that he is in service to a purpose greater than himself; that is, to a transcendent cause.' ...That is the secret of the warrior-heart of Jesus."

That scares me a bit because I believe that God is calling me to step out and take some risks. My nature is to be one of the many soldiers who die with a fully loaded rifle, who never fire a shot, who hunker down and freeze, who play it "safe" until the enemy finds them and takes them out. In my ministry I tend to just do enough to keep the church board, the pastor, and the parents happy, while making sure the students under my ministry have a good enough time to keep coming back. What scares me is that I know God is calling me to more than that. So much of the time I feel like a cowardly hobbit, but God wants me to be Aragorn.

I don't have this all figured out yet. It's occupying much of my prayer and thought right now. I'll let you know when I get there.

In other news, my mom's cookies are this amazing:

And I'm having some tonight.

2006-09-12T10:57:00.000-05:00

Allergies, quack remedies, and high-calorie religious TV

2006-09-12T10:13:00.000-05:00

One of the things for which I'm afraid my family is famous is our food allergy. My dad and I and, to some extent, my sisters, are allergic to tree nuts (not peanuts, though - thank God!), bananas, and the melon family (watermelon, honeydew, canteloupe, etc.). We also have athsma.

I had a chiropractor recently tell me he could fix that. I was a bit skeptical, but excited. To make a long story short, he didn't fix it. And I got pretty sick. (At this point in the story, Aaron and Tim, my former roommates, are laughing uproariously. They used to put nuts in my food on purpose so they could watch me run to the back door and spit. Sadists.) Chiropractors are great for fixing the odd aches and pains, but the wonderful results others have had with "holistic" medicine fixing chronic breathing disorders and allergies have yet to be seen by me.

Cindy and I were listening to the radio while driving across the Mojave Desert in June. There was a Christian station that was airing a talk show. On this show were several "holistic medicine" doctors who were just complete wackos. They said it was a "well-documented fact" that acetimenophen (Tylenol) killed more people than any other commonly taken medicine. They said you shouldn't take Tylenol or aspirin or ibuprofen. They seemed to class these, together with all other drugs made by the pharmaceutical industry, as heinous poisons. And they were trying to equate their "holistic" medicine with Christianity somehow, while associating Tylenol, etc. with the liberal humanistic establishment.

It was a perfect example of how religious media often tries to subvert Christianity to serve its own special pet interests.

And while we're slamming religious media (the easy way out for a cynical person like myself, I admit), read this about how women who watch religious programming are more obese.

Next post will be something more cheerful, with a bit about cookies. I promise.