how beautiful.

oh man, this is the jesus i have been looking for!

what a straight shooter, with deity written all over him.

as funny as this video is, i have really wondered if this isn’t all that far from the “jesus” most people tote around in their head and heart.  i heard recently that only 1/4 of people poled in america would describe god/jesus as compassionate… yeah, that sucks.

our need to satarize jesus could be more indicative of our blindness to god’s workings than outright defiance of his character. i mean, im thinking more people are scared, lonely, and wouldn’t mind god showing up in their lives… as opposed to the actual antagonism we love to paste to the foreheads of atheists everywhere.

its like we are the teenage who cusses about and makes fun of his dad because of confusion about all the crap in life, the whole time hoping to be caught and proven wrong.  really, his behavior  points to a need for love, not fixing.

that said, blessings on their heads–all those who need god to do a radical move in their lives.  i guess i’ll throw myself in there too : )

god, do your miracles and re-establish your precedence for love.

i sat in the bagel shop near my church on sunday, gazing out the window while i journaled about my week.  the scene outside was a little orangier than normal, and i noticed shadows hiding behind trees for the first time since i started my pre-paseo del rey ritual.  i had a sinking suspicion Fall had all of a sudden rolled back into the neighborhood, conveniently forgetting to tell us.

apparently the sun noticed too, cause he started getting off work early and going home… oblivious to my vitamin d difficiencies and tendency towards “sad”ness.

at this point you may be internally chuckling, thinking to yourself “man, this poor soul doesn’t realize there is no such thing as fall in san diego.”  well… i hate to be the bearer of bad news.

actually, i should probably say mixed news.

mixed news because, even though i miss the rays and fall (and his friend winter) definitely show up hear in san diego, i have lived enough years now to realize that seasons bring with them a little something special, an opportunity to wonder at the natural rhythms with which we live life.

dont get me wrong, im not exactly excited for fall–but it is a chance to thank God for the growth of this past spring and summer, and to allow him to again prune and prepare me in ways that are necessary.

i am thankful for the house i have now settled into, for the church that i call home, the plants i have learned to love and take care of, my roommates, the many books i’ve read, the students who have become friends, for the new ways i understand the the christian life, and for the ability to sit in solitude now.

i still see the need to be pruned in my critical/cynical attitude, the part of my heart that leans away from service, the fear i have of people, my tendency to do things on my own instead of wait for God, my choice of control over love, and the ways i hide (still) behind a false self because reality can be too painful to expose to others.

but hey, i guess that’s why fall and winter can be such longs and dreary seasons… so much pruning to be done  : )

so… as i wake up this morning, rain falling on the national city street outside my house, i thank God for all he has done and what he will do.  i thank God for the natural progression of life and for chance to enter into a new season of pruning and shaping.

prune away.

am i nuts to think that out faith should actually impact others?

i just finished reading chapter 0 in brian mclaren’s generous othodoxy, the chapter in which he warns the reader that he is under the impression that orthodoxy (aka right thinking/beliefs) should in some way lead to orthopraxy (aka right living/action).

having been a christian for 7 years now, i am finally developing a clear view of the landscape–the Church has done an alright job of impressing upon us the need for personal transformation (as well it should), but our idea of faith in western christiandom has come to little more than moral living and political alignment.  this has bugged me for some time, but i haven’t been able to put a finger on it until now.

we have fooled ourselves and disavowed knowledge of the mission God has us on if  we think personal salvation is the point of this whole shabang.  intervarsity (the org i work for) puts the mission this way:

transform people

renew your surroundings

develop people who will change the world

and while no one would argue with the idea of those three points, do we really expect to live those out? i mean, what space do we have in our individualistic, self-focused, consumer christianity to live our the idea that we are supposed to be agents of renewal in the places we find ourselves?  this would take sacrifice, compassion, it would be messy, and we would struggle with our faith in new and fresh ways.

if every christian just took a look around, they would realize there are all sorts of people they interact with on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.  in fact, we would see that each of us has a sphere of influence that stretches further than we could believe.  people are watching us, waiting for us to do/say something, living in anticipation of how God might be viewed through our lives.

and yet we have our noses buried in the latest christian self-help book, wondering why we have very little sense that God is active in our lives.  please set down your latest version of wild at heart and start to live it.

its ok, just set it down. look around.  take a deep breath.  and talk to you co-worker, daughter, neighbor, or friend.

you have no idea what a big deal this is.

so what the heck is the gospel?

literally it means good news, but when i sit down and readjust my thick, culturally tinted glasses i notice some very interesting things about my gospel.

it seems my gospel here in america has the magical power of keeping me safe from harm and suffering, it helps me find a high paying job and makes sure my house is large enough so that people know my God is a big deal.

my gospel works only one day a week–sundays–and spends the rest of the week conveniently adhered to the back of my car in the shape of a fish.

and don’t get any funny ideas, because there is some serious power in my gospel… just look at the way we nuked harry potter, the da vinci code, gay people everywhere, the environment and the neighborhood athiest. of course, my gospel is not always about tearing down, but building–evidenced by the divinely inspired organizing of the nra, the religious right, focus on the family, and christian radio.

but you know, i have wondered about this “gospel,” this so-called good news.

in talking to a friend recently i couldn’t help but smile as she explained the dilemma she has limped into… turns out she has been reading some provocative literature that has produced more questions than answers and, dare i say, caused her to wonder at the true meaning of the gospel. in fact, she freaked out people around her so much so that there was serious temptation to administer the evangecube–the only tried and true measure of ensuring the gospel has safely remained in american hands.

i didn’t smile at her wanderings to taunt her but to encourage… after all what good is a christian if they can’t ask the truly hard questions?

in fact, jesus himself stated that christians are to be recognized as “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” by the people around them. christians are to be the first to stir things up, to ask and wonder, to push and pull, and to get to the heart of injustice. we have the god-given call to spice things up. think what kind of implications this type of gospel has… the atmosphere should literally change because we are there.

recently at a bible study i was hanging with a friend when we read a section of the bible where a leader in the early church quotes what appears to be a poem or song circulating within the church community:

awake, oh sleeper/arise from the dead/and christ will shine his light on you

i turned to my friend and he had the same look on his face, as if we had just been let in on the most amazing secret. he then wrote on his paper, “there are so many people with dead souls, and we need to help them find light.”

and as i read the word light, something inside of me flicked on. of course! as simple as his sentence is, i marveled at how good this sounded to me–people’s souls awakening, and their deadened spirits coming to life because of the light they are witnessing within us, the light of christ in us.

and then i thought how dangerous a thought this is also… the gospel not as formula or rules, but as mystery and untamed. god at his best work releasing people from spiritual bondage and cultural oppression. dangerous because we have very little power over such a gospel, no way to fit it into a cube or a tract, to shove it into four bullet points or recite it quickly at the end of a sermon. it doesn’t fit neatly in a repeatable prayer, or even snuggly with my own theological view.

i need to admit i don’t know the gospel as well as i should. the one i thought i knew has now been disgarded and left by the side of the road with more than a flat tire–the engine has blown up and the axel cracked. i am now forced to walk on foot.

or should i say we are forced to walk on foot–an anti-evangcube friend, a scando roommate, a few disillusioned artists, a handful of compassion-driven peeps, and a considerably large chunk of the college generation. we walk with integrity, because even if we could drive it, the old kind of gospel just isn’t worth traveling in anymore.

a few years ago i was visiting a friend, nick tawa, at his house in cerritos. being the good friends that we are, the conversation carried on for hours until we finally moved out to the driveway as i prepared to leave. i was finishing a great monologue, a brilliant soliloquy if i do say so myself, when i happened to slip the word damn in there. now i had been roadtesting the word for a little while, part of my new badboy-disillusioned-postgrad persona, and found a few choice words placed intermittenly in conversation could really capture my critical stance of our failing world. no sooner had the word left my lips than nick, becoming serious, turned to me and said, “bro, when did you start using that word?”

“what word?”

“damn.”

“uh, i dont know… recently.”

“dude, i dont like it and its just not you.”

hmmm. i walked away feeling a little raw and even a bit angry… who is nick to tell me that?! i can use damn if i want–why would he say that?! as i drove home to san diego i had plenty of time to think and chew, and roughly around capistrano something inside just clicked and a huge smile busted out on my face. dang, nick is a great friend to say that even knowing it could be rough on our friendship. i spent the rest of the drive wondering if i would have done the same thing. wondering why i am not the kind of person who people can count on to shoot straight with them.

actually, i have been in countless situations–a piece of lettuce in the teeth, speghetti sauce on the cheek, an awkward comment made, passive-aggresive comments being slung back and forth–and wondered… should i say something? should i just ignore it? wouldn’t it be awkward to point it out, or to bring it up? if i say something would i be publicly shaming them or pulling their crap to the surface when they don’t want it there?

well, in the past two years since this interaction with nick i have thought a ton about the kind of person and friend i want to be. i have started growing in the ways i see conflict and in my understanding of how i am constantly facing the decision to be comfortable or to have integrity in how i approach these types of situations. finally, i had a breakthrough a month or so ago in my thought process (thanks to marcus lee)… often times if there is going to be a problem in speaking into difficult/awkward situations, it will not be in what i am saying as much as how i say it. i hope to never regret the things i am bringing into the open (“you have something in your teeth”) as much as i will need to apologize for how i said it (“i am sorry the way i brought that up made it look like i was making fun of you in front of others”).

i guess what i am saying is i want to be known for being straight, for having integrity, for being someone you can trust when you have a question or are unsure. i want to settle arguments by the way i call out unhealthy communication. i want to have harmonious relationships because i am diligent in apologizing and speaking what i see.

so you can hold me to it. in fact, shoot straight with me.

working for intervarsity, it would be impossible for me to seperate who i am from what i do… and to do so would be a heinous offense to the point of rending all i do void. seriously, if i do not live the gospel i preach, then my time is pointless–if i do all things, but do not have love, forget about all i think i am building.

this gets to be an amazing conversation when you consider just how much our world would try to convince us of our worth through doing. you are worth as much as the size of your house, the price of your car, the salary of your job. or what about finding our worth in how much we actually do… every time we tell someone we can’t do something because we are “busy” we are telling them we can’t do it because in actually we are “important.” business therefore becomes a synonym for important.

one of my favorite authors, henri nouwen, spent his life marinating in this topic and tackling the great deception of our age–your worth is found in what you do. nouwen settled on the term false self to describe the person we become when we give in to such a lie. actually, we don’t become this false self, as much as we create a diversion from our real selves for people to look at… it is literally as if we don’t believe our real selves will hold any real value in this “what have you done?” world we live in.

i have a picture in my head that captures…

picture cardboard cutouts (the ones that usually are movie stars, sports athletes, and famous characters) that teenagers used to have in their rooms… the ones that put han solo 5 inches taller than he is, hair perfect, and the outfit amazing.

now picture yourself with a your very own cardboard cutout. you have your favorite outfit on, your couldn’t have styled your hair any better, and not a single blemish due to some fancy photoshop action. picture yourself going through your day carrying that badboy in front of you, always making sure to keep it in between yourself and the people you interact with. people compliment you on how you look, and you thank them. your cardboard cutout actually becomes incredibly gifted–is there a problem? no big deal, you got it. they need an answer? your cutout knows everything. in fact, you get so used to being amazing and competent, relevant in any situation, that you get to the point where you won’t go outside or interact with anyone unless you have cardboard-you to buffer between you and the world. but is that cutout really you?

i often wonder what would happen if for just a little bit we all agreed to lay our cutouts/false selves aside to engage in real, vulnerable interaction. how amazing would that be to see the people you love and respect for who they really are? take off the make-up, drop the cardboard, and share deeply the real you. i have a feeling the domino-effect would be stunning. we live in a world so desperate for real they would flock to drink deeply of this display of authenticity.

so yeah, these days if you look at me hard enough you will notice a shadowy figure in the background–and yes, thats the real me. someone who is scared of what people think of him, who wants to be great, but doesn’t trust his own motives. who loves to serve people, but also holds that service against people but leveraging it against them as debt. my best days i hope ruthlessly for people, my worse i tear people down to feel better about myself. like the paintings i do, i hope you look at me and ponder, explore, figure out. my biggest fear is that i will never truly be known.

and that’s just at first glance.

my grams turned 89 a few days ago. though she treats life like she is pushing 30.

i mean, i dont know another 89-year-old who is as freakin good at cheating at cards, can mack a rum-n-coke nightcap like a warm glass of milk, and still raises havoc around the neighborhood with her boyfriend. she’s a handful.

recently, though, grandma ended up in the hospital–having difficulty eating, super weak, and a little incoherent. the doctor was really wondering if she would make it out. family members started to visit iowa to “stop in” and say hi. i stayed home and wondered.

i wondered about the life she has lived, the children she raised, the grandkids she adored, the husband she lived life with–who loved her dearly, but also loved the bottle enough to place her second. she has seen a few wars in her day, seen a few farms go under, seen a few presidents come, lead, and go.

reading the bible i get the sense human beings were created with an innate desire for greatness and for value. we see this in athletes, community leaders, soccer moms, and everyone else you look at close enough to peer past the outer facade.

so did my grandma desire greatness? has she seen her life as valuable? how would she describe the past 50 years or so in st. charles, a small town outside des moines, iowa? does she have regrets? does she ever wish she did more?

one look at my grams would tell you she has arm-wrestled life, and won. done and done. she has loved and been loved, she has impacted hundreds of lives in only the way she can. what more would you expect.

in some ways, i look at my grandma’s life with a sense of jealousy/admiration. not a day goes by that i dont wrestle with greatness and value; and yet, when all the cards are played and im sitting at my 89th bday party–ace up my sleeve, nightcap in hand, gf on lap–will i have the same sense of easy-going, “ive arrived” feeling? one can only hope, eh?

In a recent meeting for InterVarsity San Diego I had a moment of realization/wonder… we were spending some time in Bible study (Joshua 3) where God asks the Isrealites to cross the Jordan river at flood stage, raging and roaring.

As I reflected on the scene in my head, with children and old folks flailing downstream to the horror of the community, I had to wonder why God would set them up for this kind of catastrophe. At times I feel this way, “God why would you even set me up for this?” I bet you even the Isrealites themselves were wondering this, “God, why bring us across a desert for 40 years only to drown us in this river?”

It is at this point that God gives them a plan. Take the box you made for me, the one that I am supposed to live in, and walk it to the middle of the out-of-control river. Take all that represents your religion and put it in the middle of the chaos. Take what you are sure of and jeopardize it with what you are scared of.

Take you faith and put it right in the middle of the gnarliest situation you can think of.

Am I willing to do that? Hmm.

There is a fence in our back alley that has caught my attention recently. It has tried real hard to keep things together.

I have noticed that in the hustle and bustle of life, ministry, and the pursuit of happiness, I just can’t seem to juggle well enough to pass as efficient. As soon as I get one thing up and running, another is falling and begs for my attention.

You see, in high school I came to a scary realization that days no longer had enough significance and that as they blurred together I could only make out weeks–this week being a good one, two weeks ago being tough. As I entered college, weeks seemed to at first get a little fuzzy with moments of clarity… only to attain official blur status by the time my junior year rolled around.

Now I am blinking hard to figure out what exactly happened in January.

My supervisor, Marcus, pointed out after listening to me self-diagnose that as an adult this is kind of expected. As months blur, we can look to seasons and expect God to outline in even greater detail his intentions for a moment, day, week, month, and even year(s). I admit I like this idea, but still fear that I will wake up tomorrow with a few good sayings as my 73 birthday around the corner.

So again, as I run down my alley starting out on a jog, I pass my friend the fence. We seem to share a lot in common–the understanding that life is going to give you more than you can handle, that generally it takes more than one strike to keep things standing, and that having a plank or two down is not the end of the world. It reminds me I am not perfect; I am not in charge; I fail more than I succeed.

A plank down is humility up, and I am okay with that. In fact, it kind of produces a toothy grin–and people trust that kind of smile : )