Karl Barth is sooooo smart.

How does one reconnect with God? How can we reverse the flow, and go against the way we were born into this world? Were we crying when we came into this world because we knew---ever so clearly and simply---what it feels like to be separated (in some sense) from God's heart?

Conversations lately have been wild, as I feel almost embarassed at how blunt and obvious so many people in my life have been when it comes to approaching me about my own faith. Case in point: today at work, one of the receptionist ladies who answer phones, do patient charting, and a host of other things, asked me "tell me what was the best single thing you learned while at school/seminary last year?" Now, understand this: up until this point, the most contact I've had with this woman is a fair 'hello' exchange from time to time. But here she is, asking me the most radical thing I learned last year at seminary and wouldn't you know I had to think for five minutes before even answering. My response, now looking back, wasn't so great even though she seem to accept it as legitimate and marginally profound. And now that I think back again, I wonder why I didn't steal from the great theologian Karl Barth when giving my response. Because after decades of theological research and intense epistemological debates and creation/evolution talks, and liberal/conservative protestant discussions, he was asked what (out of it all) was the greatest thing he came to know.

"The greatest thing that I've ever learned and known is that Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

Sometimes I need to be just taken back to square one and remember who it is I'm actually living for. Yes, Jesus loves me...and Jesus even likes me (something Brennan Manning taught me to accept) and this I've come to know and love and cherish and cling to when I'm feeling alone and depressed, and depend on when I don't know where to go or who to turn to. It is the "it" in the gospel that blows me to pieces. It is in the form of grace and yet still, it hits me almost every time.

U2

I have a new favorite U2 song: "So Cruel" from their Achtung Baby album. Oh my! I've heard this song before but this is the first time I heard it and felt like I got it! And ironically, it was playing on the radio last Saturday night after talking to my childhood best friend from third grade for 2 hours.

Thank you again Tara for allowing me to see the light, again and again.

Welcome Home

South Carolina is just as beautiful as I remember it, and coming back for a wedding of one of my beloved childhood friends has been the thing I needed to do. Running into old faces, and friends I used to ride bikes to swim practice with, and my best friend from 3rd and 4th grade who I haven't seen since my family moved away from South Carolina, almost 13 years ago...has all been nostalgic to say the least. It's been like one of my favorite movies "About Schmidt," as the melancholy feelings and bittersweet recollected memories parade around in front of me in the form of ticking clock. I know I'm getting older, every day, every hour, every time the sun goes down below the trees. I realize this is happening but I don't think I'm comprehending it. I think most of the time, I like to live as if it's not happening. And although I don't think it's possible to live always aware of our finitude and of our own everyday reality, I do think it's possible to at least try.

Whirlwinds

Tody is one that is flying---by both bad and good winds---and I can't seem to figure out what the heck is even going on! Work was a blur. And I realize when I say that, I sound like Lindsay Lohan from "Mean Girls," but it was. I left it going, "what in the world just happened today?" Everyone's temperature seemed to be boiling at both ends of the spectrum---one minute people were laughing and giggling, the next they were in fits of rage or squabbles of tears. What is going on here!?!

I know people bring their home to work and vice versa. I realize that amongst me at work there are nurses working who have husbands that beat them, and there are those of us who are extremely lonely and confused, and there are others who continually find themselves living in fear, in anger, or in a state of being where nothing makes sense---at all. I realize we all bring our own worlds to the big world of work and we all attempt to continually throw bits and pieces of our worlds into the wide open melting pot. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised at days like today. And maybe you're reading this and wondering what the heck it is I'm really talking about.

It's so hard to explain really, but I"ll try in one sentence. You ever have the kind of day where near strangers began to ask you about the ultimate questions of existence, where persons are opening up to you about serious personal issues they have at home, where another woman seeks out your advice on whether or not it's "okay" for her to be a lesbian, and where in the midst of it all, you're constantly being torn between the thought of doing the work you're at work to do, and doing the kind of human work you know deep down really needs to be done?

Well, if you get that you know what kind of day I had. Not bad, not necessarily good---just befuddling and confusing and fascinating, all at once.

Gay marriage, Abortion, and Enron.

Maybe I'm so far off it's not even funny or maybe I'm just angry and wanting to think outside the Christan norm...but a discussion with my small group tonight made me think about this central question: is the Church apart of the the main "battle" going on in the world today?

Of course, it's hard to read such a question without hardly any context but immediately I thought 'no...it isn't!' Even though I generally frown upon such language (i.e., "we've got a battle to fight today, and the Church must fight back!") I understood the question and still found myself disagreeing. Consider the past presidential election for instance.

Were the two main issues (gay marriage and abortion) evangelical Christians rallied behind really the ones central to the global Church's concerns at large? Meaning, were these issues the main battle going on in the world today? Were these the biggest hindrances to people coming to Christ? Or coming to God?

Once again---like in the good ole' scary Bible times---people who know very little about God and don't even pretend to call themselves Christians generally seem to be the ones fighting for justice, for peace, for love. So when the Enron scandal came out, how did the Church respond? Did it speak vehemently and passionately against this corporate scandal of injustice, lying, cheating and stealing, like it did when it spoke about abortion and gay marriage? Or was it merely just another story of man wanting too much money and the Church believing that there were other more pressing issues out there? Could it be possible that maybe, the Church missed the boat---again!?

In the New Testament, it's no surprise to the average person that Jesus addressed the problem of greed and the love for money as the single greatest threat to knowing Christ. Yet, when was the last time you heard a sermon on America's equating salvation with earning more money? When did the Church last picket corporate criminals who steal from middle and low income familes just so they can take another week of vacation in a year?

Somehow, most of us Christians (including myself), don't seem to be too concerned with that whole "sell everything you own and follow me," command that Jesus gave. No, we're on America's side for the most part. After all, how dare we question this Christian nation's values? How dare we suspect that the things that America holds to be its dream is not at all what we Christians should be living or dreaming for?!

Elliot Fox Hoeflinger

I finally got to meet and see my beloved godson Elliot Fox Hoeflinger, and he is just as beautiful and wonderful and near-perfect as I imagined. Seeing Dave and Lindsay (his parents) was a blessing in and of itself, but Elliot added a little extra bit of wonder to the evening. I hope someday I can be like my friend Dave Hoe...not just because he's cooler than I'll ever be but because he really is (and tonight, watching him with Elliot and Lindsay and in just about everything) I saw the selfless, love-filled Dave Hoe I remember from Taylor freshmen year.

In other news (as if some of my friends confirming of this thing wasn't enough) I've finally come to terms with something about myself: I'm not a cynic, despite always saying "maybe I'm a cynic" in every other post. No, I'm an idealist. So whenever something coming from me sounds purely cynical, know it's really just my idealistic mind meeting up with my idealistic heart in order to construct an idealistic world.

Failing the Test: The Story of Abraham and Isaac

Recently, I've been thinking about something I read in a Madeleine L'Engle book ("The Rock That is Higher") more than a year ago that until now had dismissed as just merely something I didn't believe. The story of Abraham and Isaac is one of the most common ones to the Christian Orthodox and Jewish traditions, and rightfully so. Having to sacrifice your son is never something I'd like to be challenged to do in the future, and so, I used to not feel any connection to Abraham and the entire story surrounding God's request that he should sacrifice his son.

But then, it came up somewhere else---in another book---and I decided to revisit the story again and see if I really agreed with the "new interpretation" that was out there in so many Christian scholar circles today, on this particular story.

Simply put, many Christian and Jewish scholars today are saying (what Madeleine wrote over 10 years ago about) that perhaps Abraham actually failed the test yet God honored and fulfilled his promise to him anyways. Yes that's right...you heard what I said: Abraham failed the test and God intervened just before his son was to be killed.

If you read more closely and you seek out the character of God more thoroughly in the Old and New Testament, it seems very against God's nature to request such a thing. I know, I know...many of you are saying, "But he was only testing Abraham---to see if he really feared God, and loved God more than anything." But I'm thinking more now, "Was he?" It seems this tenth test of Abraham was really a test of whether he would choose law over love. And sadly, instead of choosing love Abraham chose law, and didn't even go as far as to question God's motive on the matter. Was Abraham simply obeying or is there such a thing as discernable obedience? Why didn't he question God who had called him to keep his commandments (which how could he forget, included "Do not murder") when God was asking him to violate one of these commandments? All throughout the Old Testament it seems Abraham and so many others wrestled with God and argued with Him whenever He would ask something shady or unreasonable of someone. I mean come on, God changed his mind a number of times because of people like Abraham who wrestled and duked it out in the relational life pool of ideas with God. Is it ironic or mere coincidence that Jacob, the man who wrestled with God is whom Israel is named after? God's chosen people's very name suggests the fact that they "wrestle," and yet, Abraham (this time around) doesn't do anything of the sort! Something is seriously messed up here, isn't it?

Perhaps I'm merely trying to understand the infinite too hard with my finite brain. Perhaps I really don't understand this kind of God---a God that would ask me to murder someone I loved so dearly. After all, if this happened today would not 99% of Christians be telling the Abrahams out there, "That is not God telling you to kill your son! That's someone else! Don't listen!"

From my perspective so far, it seems that you don't have to change a lick of scripture to come up with this interpretation of the story. It seems that Abraham could've seemingly failed the test, but yet, by God's grace was given what was promised to Him anyways. And if I'm not mistaken, wouldn't that be more in line with the God we Christians proclaim to serve? Wouldn't this interpretation make more sense when it comes to years and years later and Jesus is about to be crucified, and it is uttered (and compared) "Are you sons of Abraham or sons of God?" Or metaphorically speaking, do you live for the law or live for love?

I'm still thinking on this a great deal, but when I read this again recently and did some more research on it, I came to see it as a much more freeing and grace-filled interpretation of a sacred story that's been agonized and studied over year after year for thousands of years. I'm gonna keep searching, but for now this is just another thing in my life in which God's grace grows and my need for mercy extends even greater.

Behind the Times

I just saw the music video for the song by Beck entitled "Dead Weight," and although it's almost a decade old, am I so lame of a person to want to have it and listen to it now again and again? I know great songs can be enjoyed whenever but it always seems like that when it comes to the music world, I'm years and yeard behind the rest of the world.

But at least I enjoy it still even though most people would simply scoff and say, "Oh my gosh! That song came out like last summer! It's so old!" To which I always smile and say, "I know....but I really love the old songs! What can I say?"

Get to know your co-workers.

"Sometimes you see things and...well...other people, they can't see them."

One of my many favorite lines from the movie "Millions" seems to appropriate today after I got to know one of my employees at the hospital a little better. She is one of those wonderful older women---vibrant, very alive, and a very hard worker---and she also wears a necklace key change thingy that says "Jesus Loves Me" on it repeatedly (one phrase after the other) and is vehemently not a fan of George W. Bush. She makes me smile whenever I get to talk with her.

So today, she's sharing with me about herself, her past and her life basically and it saddened me to hear her story. Hearing how she struggled with physical and emotional abuse for years and years until finally, after 30 years she left him (she forgave and forgave and forgave and just kept letting him "come back"), I was angry with the world again but yet, too upset and sad to really do anything about it. I stood there listening, and watched as my respect grew even more for this woman---a 52 year old child at heart---and I thanked God again for being able to see someone I thought I knew...in an entirely different light. And this goes on all the time and I seldom choose to notice it. Maybe I don't want to see how I see people because it makes me think about the way people might see me. I wonder how so many people could be wrong about me, and I think about the few who I feel "get me"...like few people in this world do.

And I suppose that is how life is generally supposed to work. We see people the way we want to see them until they give us reason to see otherwise. And when those few people in our lives give us that other reason, they no longer become simply other people---dancing in the sea of the census---but they become our friends, and the ones who will hold our hand when we will leave this world, and be with us as we slip into the next.

This is why today, I'm happy to be alive.

The Giver lives in Our Town

In Mrs. Vavra's sophomore American Lit. class, we gathered into small groups and read certain plays from the past century during our "20th Century Theater Month." My group read Thornton Wilder's obscure play "The Skin of our Teeth," in which Sabina and a host of other colorful characters crash historical events on the stage. Many people don't know this wonderful play, because many have only heard of Wilder's more widely known play "Our Town," which semi-inspired "Dogville" (the movie by Lars Von Trier, starring Nicole Kidman). Anyways, so right before I left L.A. I found a copy of "Our Town" for a quarter (oh I how I love thrift stores in L.A.---I miss them already) and decided I'd add it to my summer reading list (a list I have laughably yet to really even officially start).

So now I'm reading "Our Town," and it is simple but lovely. It may seem strange that I'm reading a play before I go to bed, as it's not your typical Mary Higgins Clark or Dan Brown summer fiction reading type-of-a-book, but for me---honestly---I love that I'm finally getting to read it and so many other classics like it because I feel like I robbed myself back in high school by sliding through and hardly reading a thing! If it weren't for Miss Smith, my senior year A.P. English teacher, I might have even escaped high school having not read "Hamlet!"

But back to books I'm reading or have been reading: "The Giver" by Lois Lowry...I skipped it in 5th grade but came across it recently and said "I need to read this Newberry medal award winner!" and so I did, and again it made me so happy. I don't know if I would've appreciated this book or many others for that matter, had I read them when I was "supposed to." So perhaps now is my time---as the writer of Ecclesiastes would probably agree---and today is the day when I will see the beauty in so much literature that I blindly and foolishly scoffed at during my early childhood years.

So here's to a summer reading list sprinkled with bits and pieces of the classics! And by the way, don't be surprsied if I start quoting famous dead literary geniuses and turn into a high school english teacher by the end of July. As you all know, I tend to get caught up in whatever it is I'm currently reading and someeeetimmmes take my happiness a little too far.

Hospital hugs

My first day back working at the hospital yesterday went wonderful minus a few things. I enjoyed seeing many old faces, scrubbed out in their appropriate hospital uniform attire. Since I've been gone, Robin gave birth to her first baby boy and he's almost six months old now! I saw pictures and ooo-ed, and awww-ed respectively. And then there is Pat, who since I last left has chosen to die her hair a very horrible brown color and at first sight, I was tempted to tell her that I much rather preferred her beautiful silver-colored hair, as opposed to her present choice, but instead I say nothing and hug back. Some thoughts need to be spoken; others must be taken through the ringer before coming out of the huge hole in one's face. Otherwise, there probably would be very few people with friends here on planet earth.

Case in point: nurse Jenny saw me and didn't recognize me at first. So when it clicked in her head, "Yes, this is Neville. From last summer. You remember!" she gasped and blurted, "Oh my gosh! I saw you from behind and I thought you were an old man! What with your receding hair and all!"

She said it like it was Kalamazoo Gazette front page news. Like it was the given common sense we all really must recognize, and point out. She hugged me tight, laughing and giggling, and I have to admit, my gut reaction was to give her a noogie while trying to rip chunks of her own hair out of her head---you know, just so she could feel what it's like to have "receding hair." But then I thought, 'she's probably right.' After all, my hair...styled with gel and sticking straight up, and getting longer every new day, probably resembles a 42-year-old doctor's head more than my own 22-year-old one. And so, I keep hugging Jenny back, and I smile, and I think of how fun it is to be 22 years old and already losing your hair.

I guess I should've never made fun of all those Rogaine commercials I saw when I was young. God is surely getting back at me...in a very smart, and clever way. Oh well---that's life: God-1, Neville-0.

And yes, I AM keeping score!

Only seven more to go.

I already have three movies lined up to go on my top ten list of 2005, and while this may sound dorky and lame, I feel like a big burden has been removed from my life because of this. It's usually so stressful trying to dig through all the cream and the crap when it comes to narrowing down all the movies I've seen in one year, but this year seems to be looking up as it isn't even July yet (e.g., Most of the "good" movies don't come out till' summer or fall or around December 31st)!!

So here we go, if I had to make it up right now:

1. "Millions"
2. "Crash"
3. "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room"

I'm such a dork. Goodniggggghhhhhhhht.

Power, please.

I've been thinking about power a lot lately, and how so much of what we do everyday really comes back to our need for it. I don't like to think that I have this problem too, because really, it's much easier to look at the corporate criminals tied up in the Enron scandal and see them as the real power addicts. But essentially, that is to fall into what Madeleine L'Engle dubs judgmentalism and it is too crowded of a road to walk down already. Every time I feel the urge, the need, the must-ness to be right, I'm struggling with power. Every time I look at someone else, and envy and and envy and envy whatever it is they have that I don't, I'm struggling with power. And every time I let control lead, and allow certainty to continually pave my way, I'm giving in and buying into whatever lie power is marketing and advertising.

It is indeed everywhere we turn here in America. You don't have to look too long or too hard before you find it or see it. Power is what so many of our conversations are really about and it's sad to see and understand and comprehend how this very thing can rip the Church apart--and the world too, for that matter.

But still, life seems worth the risk. The risk of living for love is a "fearful gamble," (again, Madeleine L'Engle's phrase---not my own) but it is one I'm ready and willing and wanting to repeatedly make.

Come into my pole barn, please.

The garage sale / yard sale / pole barn sale signs are all over town today. I guess you know what that means: I'm not in California anymore.

Here's to frenzy Friday garage sales and much fun-in-the-Michigan-sun. And as Kelmo "Moselle" Blomgren would like to say...."Boo-yeah!"

The bread, the wine...the pretzels, and diet coke.

There's something about the Eucharist that transcends into all meal times I think---as long as people are open enough to sense it.

Tonight, after flying back from David and Kelly's wonderful wedding in Minneapolis, I had a two-hour plus conversation wtih Dot, a sixty-something-year-old Catholic who was exactly who I needed to talk with after these past few crazy weeks. It was the first real, amazing, transparent, affirming, Catholic / Protestant background dialogue I've ever had where it never turned into any sort of debate or argument. As we sat there, me in seat 16D and she in 16E, we said nothing until the breaking of the pretzels and the serving of diet coke. Up until then, we had both been reading or in our own little American Airline world...trying not to make contact with one another I think. But then, the food came and the pretzels were broken and the diet coke was served to both of us, and we couldn't hold back any longer. And God, I think, had something to do with all of this.

She shared with me about the rich tradition and meditative worship of the Catholic faith, and I shared with her my sunday school class Protestant upbringings, and told of how much I valued these memories today. She needed help with her parish in these ways, while I needed guidance in Protestant problems and it went on and on like that until our plane landed in California. We said our goodbyes, blessed one another and gave the kind of hug Jesus would be proud of, no doubt, and when our own little ways.

And after that wonderful moment, I thought again of how wonderful it is to be apart of something as radical and as breathtakingly beautiful as the Church of Christ. And I thought about the bond Dot and I shared---both spiritually and emotionally---and the common ground we walked on and talked on together. And I thought about the way we laughed at ourselves and joked about the silliness God must look down upon at us in---so often and so frequent. It was the perfect ending to two near-perfect weekends of two events where close friends were pulled together as one by God and by the Church.

I usually never say things like this, but I'm so looking forward to meeting Dot again--wherever and whenever that may be. If it won't be till' heaven, I'll be just fine with that.

And so, the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine proves to be more than just an act or sympbol or practice we meditate on when we remember Christ's sacrifice for us---for really, whenever there is a meal being shared by the people belonging to the open-wide-arm hold of God, and there is fellowship and food and laughter exchanged, there Christ is...affirmed and remembered in spirit, in act, and in action. And the world is really, as Bjork would say, "full of Love"---again.

My paper from heaven!

I don't think I've ever had the freedom to write a paper this random.

I like when the professors are open to ideas and are not as strict as to where you decide to take your paper. For me, I wanted this one to be crazy---something no one had ever written about before---and so, I'm writing a missiological and theological discussion (written both informally and formally) about Lesslie Newbigin (the great India missionary / evanglelical / theologian), the Church and its relationship with the film industry, AND drawing from three films ("Amelie," "Pieces of April," and "Millions") as springboards for theological dialogue and discussions.

It's either going to be really cool or really bomb---I'll let you know how it goes once I'm done with it. Good night.

The Playboy Mansion

Yesterday for work, I had to run something to and pick something up from the Playboy mansion. Yes, that's right---I was actually there (not inside the mansion itself, but on the premises). I entered the gate, I saw the little white bunnies (yes, actual bunnies---not women) playing in the fenced-in dirt sections near the entrance and I realized that it really does take up half of a mountain off of the infamous Sunset blvd.

My mom and dad will be so proud, for sure.

After 7 years, Nate & Erica are one.

Nate and Erica Shorb. It's official. And it's done. And it was beautiful. And it was very, very good. And I think I just fell in love with Coopersburg all over again. And yes, I cried when "One April Day" by Stephen Merritt was played as Erica walked gracefully down the aisle. And yes, I suppose that makes me somewhat of a strange groomsmen. But I don't care. There was too much of an affirmation of love in the room to react any differently I think.

Some people make getting married easier. I know that marriage itself is not easy at all, but I do know that some people are blessed to enter into the union of marriage having already practiced quite beautifully what it means to be one. For Nate & Erica and their wedding this past weekend, I kept thinking about how I never thought of them as two and wondered whether or not that was why this wedding seemed so unique and special to me. Perhaps it has more to do with this being the first wedding I've attended where a very close friend was the groom---I don't know. Whatever it was though, somehow I'm not worried at all for Nate and Erica. I'm just anxious to see what God will bring into their lives and to see how much love they can keep giving away.

Some people are just better at being selfless I think.

I hope you know!

Contrary to what some people may think, the previous post regarding palm trees, too much sun and Tom & Yvonne Shorb was not in any way written with the intent of receiving something in return. I know Yvonne makes the meanest and yummiest cheesecake I've ever had (and believe me, I've had a lot---just look at my gut)...but my love for these two people is not because one of them makes delicious food; it is because they are truly two of those kind of people who you really need to meet and once you do, begin to fall in love with immediately.

So Yvonne especially, take that for what it is: a compliment and nothing more. I'm not expecting a cheesecake out of you this weekend (wow, that sounds a little strange now doesn't it) so if you try and pull a fast one and make one, rest assure you'll be wearing it before I'll be eating it.

Good night all...and good morning to the rest of you.

Burnt by the Sun

The title of this post is borrowed from a Russian film that won the Academy Award for best foreign language film a few years back, and although I never saw it, I always wanted to and liked the title of the film---despite its implied simplicity.

Yes, I was out in the sun yesterday for Memorial Day. Yes, I was out a little too long. I hate whenever I happen to want to go outside and read under the sun, and then get the suddenly immediate feeling of being really really tired. And then, time gets fuzzy...and I can't seem to remember if it's been two minutes or two hours since I last looked at the clock. Time is very weird sometimes. It must be its own entity or something because I swear sometimes, it's just playing me for the necessary fool that I am.

This weekend is Nate and soon-to-be Erica Shorb's wedding, and as I've told them already, I think I'm getting a little too excited for it. I'm a little worried what I might do at the reception, as it will be the first time in quite a long time that I've been around any Taylor people or my beloved Tom and Yvonne Shorb---two of those wonderful people that everyone in the world should meet at least once. And I think the fact that I'm taking a red eye flight from California to Pennsylvania makes it even more exciting. There's nothing more thrilling than going to sleep in one part of the world and waking up in another. Obviously, I realize this "change-of-worlds" is happening from within the U.S. borders, but still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited about it. I know it may sound like America is the world as I know it, but believe me when I say that's not at all true.

The sun is out today and the palm trees are trying their best to look beautiful. I never knew this until I moved here, but there are many people---especially mid-westers and east-coasters---who find palm trees especially ugly. Why? I haven't the faintest idea. To me, they seem to be pretty cool and beautiful too. I can think of few sights more beautiful than the gazing up at the L.A. night sky, while driving on the 110 freeway...where the palm trees silhouette themselves into the dreamy, starry heavens. After experiencing several of those moments, I think maybe this is why God made palm trees so unusually tall and awkward. Because other than mountains, there's not a whole lot in creation brave enough to face the sun and the clouds and the stars so closely, and so beautifully.

So please, give palm trees a break. They may be no "maple" or "oak," but they're still pretty wonderful even if some people don't particularly care for them at all.

Loving people is hard; but loving Christians is harder.

It’s scary the way we Christians today view church and pastors similarly to the way we view Hollywood and celebrities. It is no longer God’s church, it’s man’s church. In Orange County, you’ll find Rick Warren’s church; in Minnesota, take your pick: Greg Boyd’s church if you like women in ministry, John Piper’s church if you don’t; in Chicago, there is Bill Hybel’s church—where most mid-west pastors sadly envy to one day be working at; in Virigina, there’s Jerry Falwell’s “homosexuals are taking over the world” church; and in L.A., there’s Erwin McManus’ church vs. John McArthur’s church—with its own big, phat McArthur Bible. And of course there are many, many others. Every book-writing evangelical Protestant pastor of a mainline church seems to be Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts for the shameful subculture of Christianity. But this can’t be right, can it? This can’t be what God had in mind.

I’ve been thinking so much lately about church unity, I feel my frustrations are running out of places to hide. Why do we keep splitting and starting new churches based on denominational differences? Why do we end the argument and discussion and conversation on such controversial matters as if to say, “well, we’re not going to agree so we might as well part, and go our own separate ways.”

No! Why not stay until we agree, or continue the conversation within the fellowship of the Body until we become continually edified through our attempt to be unified? Do we have so little faith in God’s power to seriously work through a church united, as opposed to a church divided?

Jesus said that a kingdom divided against itself will not stand, but fall. My question is simply this: how many churches in America today—separated from one another so much that unity even under the roof of one church is not even possible—are slowly falling? Or more appropriately, how many of them have already fallen? It seems somewhat silly when you think about it to just up and leave whenever disagreements come up in churches. After all, we’re human and fallible and differences come with the territory of being human. Likewise, it seems silly to leave the conversation or debate from within a Church community and say, “let’s just agree to disagree.” Why? Who told us this is a valid response? Who sold us such an easy-way-out? Because it certainly wasn’t Jesus!

Maybe I’m being too much of an idealist, but need I remind you that there are roughly 74,000 different Christian denominations present in the world today? Could this fact signify that maybe be this “let’s just agree to disagree” mentality is flawed? That maybe, to some degree, the really important issues worth arguing for should be wrestled with and through until unity becomes the selfless communal goal all members of the body of Christ are aiming for?

"Take the risk, and just jump!"

Sometimes this feels how most relationships seem to work.

Either you're keeping something from someone you're trying to get to know, or you're thinking about telling them but fear how they might respond in return. Every time I get in this pickle, I usually go through the same thoughts that inevitably lead me back to square one. And every time I happen to be daring and stick my neck out and just jump into the dangers of a loving relationship---and tell what I know I should tell, and be honest about what's been hiding behind closed doors---I am usually relieved, and the burden leaves my mind like a ship off to sea, far far away from the harbour.

I hope tomorrow I will jump when this time comes around.

Dating 101

Yesterday, I had a beautiful conversation / discussion with Greg, a friend from Taylor I work with, about L.A. and dating. We were talking about how so far off the "norm" is here when it comes to what's acceptable or expected if you're dating someone, and got kind of depressed about the whole thing. Sure, I love my generation but I wonder how much its hurt us to not have a steady, positive, consistent, dependent and altogether loving model on which to build our own romantic relationships on. I'm talking of course about the rampant divorce rate that's skyrocketed in the past 50 years or so, as one afternoon of listening to Dr. Laura can tell you no doubt. You'll hear kids---of parents who are divorced---calling in to try and make things right...trying to mend the wounds and broken bonds their parents have inadverently created within their own family, and it's just really sad.

I know this sounds like I'm a fundalit (Madeleine L'Engle's word creation of a "fundamentalist" and a "literalist") but it seems that the norm in today's society is not something I'd be too happy to always cling on to. Greg and I talked of how we don't think we'd want to be classified as being on the same lines as most people in L.A. when it comes to dating, partially because relationships are usually seen as "the end all answer to solve all of my problems." But as Greg paraphrased so aptly, from that lost-long-Disney-feel-good-heart-tugger "Cool Runnings," "If you're not good enough without this person, you'll never be good enough with this person." I guess he was basically saying that there are some places where only God to go, and I guess for the most part, I'd agree.

The problem comes when you become a "fundalit"---and you start naming where God should and shouldn't go, or where God should or shouldn't be---and that is a sad day, indeed. We Christians talk too much about what God isn't and project too often what God is only as seen through our own eyes. I realize that this is somewhat inevitable---when talking about the infinite, the finite explanation is as far as you'll get---but it still bothers me (even though I'm guilty of this too). I just wonder if it's even possible today to talk about God purely, without limiting Him or Her to a gender, or angry judge, or timid lover, or passive referee on the sidelines?

Time for Time

Before the plethora of summer movie crap hits theaters, do yourself a favor and see the movie "Millions" if you can. If that's not possible, it comes out in July on DVD I believe, so you better watch it then or else. It's definitely one of the most beautiful---looking and sounding---movies I've seen in months, and asks the kind of smart questions few movies nowadays do.

In the movie "Dogma," the title character Bethany who works in an abortion clinic is asked to do the unthinkable: be the driving force, and the person to accomplish and carry out God's work on earth. It is not unlike Mary's own calling to be the mother of Jesus, as I'm sure Mary encountered her own fare share of first century equivilents (like in "Dogma" with the scary teenagers skating around viciously with hockey sticks in hand trying to keep Bethany from completing her calling). But if Mary wouldn't have had the courage and bravery and loyalty and patience and ability to say "yes!" then this world may still be waiting for the Messiah to come.

Sometimes I wonder if all of us get a call from God to do something brilliant and great and history-shaping-and-changing, and that the number of people who truly respond is just so small it's hard to see God working in the world because of ourselves. Instead of God being the problem, maybe we are. Maybe we settle for the main road rather than running toward the seemingly inconceivable and ridiculous path because we are too short-sighted to see and know any better? We think of time as being oppressive but I'm not really sure that it is. And maybe that's where a fundamental flaw in our thinking lies: because we age and grow old and change with the seasons, we think we're running out of time but really we're only spreading ourselves out deeper and wider into it. It's hard to not think in terms of life and death, but I think getting this idea down is one way to begin to think right about our world and our path in this crazy thing we call "life."

Congrats to all 2005 Taylor University grads...

Yes, today is the day you've been waiting for and now it's so gone already. Four years working toward this moment and how does it feel? Anti-climactic, perhaps?

Whatever bittersweet emotions come about, know that this moment only reinforces what so many movies---Kill Bill, Cast Away, A Very Long Engagement, About Schmidt, and many more---have been telling us all along: the gem of it all is found not in the arrival but in the process. It's the pursuit of wholeness, or rather, the wholeness of pursuit that is, perhaps, the bigger, better thing.

Good day, all. Kiss the Taylor grass for me in front of Morris if you can before you head out. You'll be glad you did.