Night Shift Lullaby

On days like today, I just don't know if I have anything left for cyber space.

Back in the day, aka, before I lived in Chicago, I liked to blog as much as possible. I liked skimming through news wires and scouring websites for things to read and ruminate on and write about. I liked to imagine that these things I jotted down would somehow start revolutions in small towns like Lewistown and Lake Geneva. I liked communicating, even if it was only to a few friends. I liked to write for the sake of writing, all else be damned.

Now, I can't decide. I've been reading so much about so many things lately that the actual thinking takes place so fast that I move on in minutes. Not nearly enough time to sit down and write about them. But mostly, I just want to talk about things with real people. Like my roommate, or neighbor friends, or people I work with. I'm tired of these endless internet conversations. Idle chatter. Vague witless posturing. Blah blah bitty blah. I'm doing it again. Right now. As I type.

I was reading an article in a magazine recently about how voice software and podcasts could be the deathknell of the printed, written word. As if Gutenberg's little project was only a blip on that great big radar of fads. And mostly, it made me want to stand up and tell the magazine to fuck off. So I did. (Well, not the standing up part, that would have been a bit too dramatic, I think.)

Thing is, I don't want there to be an end to the written word. Especially the printed word. I want to be true to books, thick with worn paper and familiar smells, for as long as we both shall live. I want words of mine, to find themselves onto those pages someday. Pages with bindings, and engraved title pages, and fonts not seen 1874.

And there I go again. On so many different levels.

No big truths here. No lessons to live by. No advice for future newlyweds. No parting shots or words of wisdom. Just these things.

Besides, lessons are overrated. And points do more to hide the truth than they can ever hope to reveal.

As for you and me, let's talk again. Or at the very least, write letters.

The Mongoose Has Left The Building

Go ahead and add Camp Michindoh to the growing list of evangelical institutions I've lost confidence in.

I've blogged before about my losing battles NRB, ETS and Focus on the Family. And I've written down my current doubts about Huntington University, too. But that old camp in Hillsdale, MI just got thrown in with the rest. A friend of mine was recently let go from Michindoh for some objectionable blog content on his xanga. And though I won't get into the thick of it (go here for my initial xanga-thoughts last week), I did want to add just a few things.

Even though I don't have much trust for the current administration over at Michindoh, I still don't hold any ill will for their summer camp program. It might not be the old Tom Roots affair it once was, but it's still alive, it's sill kickin', and it still needs good young men and women to make it one of the best programs of its kind in the Midwest. Michindoh sees hundreds of kids every summer come through that front entrance on East Bacon Road, and it shouldn't matter if the CEO is a buffoon -- that program, and the rest of Michindoh, still serves a greater purpose.

So go forth and counsel, you know? Just don't expect me to shed any tears the day Mr. M. finally leaves Michindoh Ministries. It's about time someone new took the helm of that place anyway. Let's just pray it's someone with a little more heart for ministry, and a little more brains for business. Because Lord knows Michindoh could use both these days.

China, China, Everywhere!

China has been all over the news recently -- mostly for free speech abuses. Even though the Chinese constitution officially offers protection of free speech, the Chinese government in Beijing has never done much to protect those rights, as evidenced by recent events in China and the U.S.

First off are accusations against internet giants Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and Google for censuring the results of their search engines in China. Searches for democracy, Chinese dissidents or references to Tiananmen Square and Tibetan independence are filtered out of search results. Google alone was able to retain a warning telling users when results have been blocked. Google also refuses to provide Chinese users with email accounts and blogs, after reports that Yahoo helped Beijing locate two of its users who used Yahoo to post criticisms of the Chinese government. Both men are serving prison time in China for "uncovering state secrets."

Meanwhile, just yesterday, a group of Communist Party elders and scholars in China published a report criticizing Beijing for its heavy-handed control of the Chinese media. The report offered support for Freezing Point, a weekly supplement to the Communist Party published China Youth Daily newspaper, which was recently ordered to shut down by the Communist Party Propaganda Department. The report called on Chinese President Hu Jintao to stop unconstitutional and illegal repressions of free speech in the Chinese media.

"This constitutes a violation of the constitution," the report said. "In order to control public opinion, they have diminished freedom of speech, made blacklists, and conducted secret investigations. These deeds are ridiculous and rude and totally beyond the boundaries of law."

Officially, the Chinese government claims to only block pornographic or terrorist-related websites. Liu Zhengrong, of the Internet Affairs Bureau of the State Council Information Office, has been quoted as saying, "No one in China has been arrested simply because he or she said something on the Internet....After studying Internet legislation in the West, I've found we basically have identical legislative objectives and principles."

The BBC is quick to point out, however, that there website is still blocked in China.

Finally, dissident critics of the Chinese government have claimed harassment even outside the borders of China. Falun Gong, a spiritual movement extremely critical of Chinese religious and political oppression, says its members have been harassed in South Africa, Hong Kong, Australia, and now the United States.

Peter Yuan Li, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was beaten, tied up and blindfolded in his own home in suburban Atlanta by three Asian men. The men stole two of his laptops, phone and wallet, but left other valuables like his TV and camcorder. Li is a member of Falun Gong, and works for the Web site of the Falun Gong-affiliated newspaper The Epoch Times.

The Chinese government calls The Epoch Times "a propaganda machine of the evil cult," though it denies any involvement with the attack on Li's home. The FBI refuses to comment whether or not they suspect if Beijing was involved.

Just what we need. A little more government stonewalling.

I can't get enough!

Baptist City, Population 16.4 Million

The old school Baptists are having a rough go of it lately. Not only do the Southern Baptists dominate the cultural conversation in America, they dominate church attendance rolls, too, claiming some 16.4 million members. The Baptist denomination my parents grew up in, the American Baptists, has only 1.4 million members, not many of which can be found in the South.

An excerpt from the AP article, which focuses mainly on Baptist congregations in Rhode island:

[J. Stanley] Lemons, the First Baptist historian, is more blunt about the split. He says it upsets him to hear religious figures such as the Rev. Pat Robertson, a Southern Baptist minister, say God will forsake those who oppose teaching "intelligent design" in public schools -- which Lemons views as a violation of [Roger] Williams' unwavering support for church-state separation.

"For these guys to talk about a Christian nation," he said, "Williams would go up in smoke."

For info on Roger Williams, my favorite, crazy Baptist, wikipediathis!

States! Unions! Forever!!

Why George W. Bush can't balance his budget.

The best way to address the deficit and move toward a balanced budget is to encourage economic growth and to show some spending discipline in Washington, D.C.

--President Bush, 2006 State of the Union Address

Spending discipline. This from the same president who pushed for the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act -- a spending bill that will add some $535 billion to the cost of Medicare over the next 10 years. Not to mention that 20 years out, as an aging baby boom generation needs the program, budget estimates put the cost at well over $4.5 trillion dollars. Mr. Bush has yet to mention how the government will pay for this plan. And because the bulk of the cost will come long after he leaves office, what the president likes to leave out is that promised benefits can only come from massive cuts in education or national defense (or an enormous hike in taxes).

What's telling is how quickly President Bush was able to squander the budget surplus we had just six years ago. When the president took office, the ten-year budget surplus was projected at $5.6 trillion by the CBO (the Congressional Budget Office, or the accounting arm of Congress). By August of 2003, the CBO projected a ten-year deficit of $1.4 trillion. If the tax cuts are made permanent, as Mr. Bush plans to do, the ten-year deficit grows to $6.0 trillion ($6,000,000,000,000 with all the zeros). That means that by 2014, there will be a extra $90,000 of federal debt for every family in America.

It must be said that Mr. Bush took office right before the economic storms of a recession and the bursting of the stock market bubble, not to mention the chaos following 9/11. Yet the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan think-tank of budget hawks and conservative economists, estimates that at least one-third of this $10 trillion swing in the budget (from a $5.6 trillion surplus to a $6 trillion deficit) can be accounted for by the Bush tax cuts.

Our president promised in 2003 to spend whatever it takes to get the job done in Iraq and Afghanistan. So while American lives are sacrificed to bring democracy to the Middle East, Mr. Bush has never once asked the rest of America to sacrifice their hard-earned money to make this possible. In fact, he has rewarded Americans, again and again, with tax cuts -- blood money as it were, to keep the faithful in line behind an unpopular war.

Why tax cuts are a moral issue.

If this tax relief is good for Americans three or five or seven years from now, it is even better for Americans today.

--President Bush, 2006 State of the Union Address

Bush's reasons for the tax cuts change when the occasion suits him. In 2001, before the effects of the recession were in full swing, the tax cuts were needed to give Americans back part of the projected budget surplus. In 2002, while the recession was very much a reality, the tax cuts were needed to kick start the sluggish economy. And since 2003, the tax cuts have been needed, according to Mr. Bush, to provide long-term incentives for economic growth.

I have no problem with the tax cuts of 2002, needed to provide relief for a slow economy. Temporary tax cuts in times of recession can be a boon to consumers who cannot or will not spend, freeing cash to speed up sluggish growth. However, the president's original tax cuts might better have been used to fund the growing cost of Medicaid. And the tax cuts on the table today, for "long-term growth", have no basis in sensible economics -- especially with a brand-new drug prescription plan that will cost us some $2.5 trillion dollars over the next 20 years.

Conservative economist Milton Friedman (a budget hawk if there ever was one) believed that permanent tax cuts were only a good idea if they were accompanied by permanent cuts in spending. Economists of all stripes agree that you cannot cut taxes in any permanent way if you do not cut long-term spending. This simply means that tax cuts without spending cuts will only shift the burden of taxes to future generations.

This is why tax cuts are a moral issue. Permanent tax cuts only shift the sacrifice from today's generations to the generations of tomorrow. Meaning that you and your children will be forced to pay higher taxes in the not-so-distant future, to pay for Bush's tax cuts today. The only other option is massive spending cuts in education, the military, homeland defense and social security/health benefits for the aged -- leaving children, the elderly and our nation's security out to dry.

The good news is that there are ways to avoid this future. Doing away with Mr. Bush's tax cuts -- especially at a time when the economy is recovering -- is a good start. Reforming social security, health care and sky-rocketing budget spending are all vital steps as well. What we need is a national figure who will ask Americans to give up some minor comforts today, in order to secure the rights of our children tomorrow.

Unfortunately, our president is not one such leader. Mr. Bush should be ashamed for refusing to recognize the blatant immorality of his reckless tax cutting and slipshod budgetary spending. It's not simply voodoo economics; it's just plain wrong. And the American people have a responsibility to call him out on it.


Sources:

• 2006 State of the Union Address, from the Washington Post
• FactCheck.org's Review of the 2006 State of the Union
• The Concord Coalition's budget reports and projections
• Runing on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It, by Peter G. Peterson

Oh hey, I was just wondering if my future wife was studying music at the Boston music conservatory, too.

"When I say I was married to the cause, I was married to my husband whom I loved -- I learned to love, it wasn't love at first sight -- but I also became married to the cause. It was my cause, and that's the way I felt about it. So when my husband was no longer there, then I could continue in that cause, and I prayed that God would give me the direction for my life....But then I finally determined that it was the King Center, because Martin's message and his meaning were so powerful....So I felt that my role, then, was to develop an institution, to institutionalize his philosophy, his principles of nonviolence and his methodology of social change, and that's what I have spent my years doing."

-- Coretta Scott King


I had this friend in high school, we'll call her Mindy. I doubt she reads or even knows of this blog, but I don't want to embarrass her in any event, so Mindy she shall be called. Anyway, Mindy was absolutely and wholeheartedly in love with global missions. She knew, in her heart of hearts, that she was bound for the mission field. And she knew this because every time a chapel speaker from another country would come through our school, her heart ached. It was practically the only thing we ever talked about, because I sometimes felt the same way, and we both liked talking to someone who didn't care about the practical, pragmatic or sensible thing to do after high school. We were romantics about the thing. And the world needed saving.

Mindy and I were never anything more than friends. We just shared a love for the Gospel. The last time I saw her was the summer of 2000, two years after graduation. She had married the year before, to another high school friend of mine, who was studying medicine. Mindy had known all along that he wasn't ready for life in the mission field, but she loved him, and that was that. She was married to someone who didn't share her passions, and as long as he loved her, it didn't matter, I guess.

Going to a solidly evangelical college, I made more friends like this, young men and women with a passion for local ministry or foreign missions, who found mates that didn't exactly share their hearts. In most cases, it's not so much a big deal. You move past it. Maybe you're not Rick and Kay Warren, but you can still minister. Yet like Mindy, a few of my friends found mates who weren't ready for the mission field, either. And their dreams had to change. I don't know how it works, this whole bit about dreams evolving. It doesn't seem like a very satisfying experience. But most of them seem happy, so who am I to say otherwise?

Coretta Scott's dreams didn't change so much after marrying her husband. She was passionate about social justice long before she met Dr. King. Growing up in rural Alabama, her mother made sure that her children made it through school, sometimes renting a bus and driving her kids and the neighbor children into town for classes. When Coretta went away to college, her intentions were to teach, but her local community didn't allow for black teachers, so she ended up studying music in Boston instead, where she met Dr. King.

Historian Clayborne Carson, Director of the Martin Luther King Papers Project at Stanford University, spoke today on NPR. A long-time friend of Coretta, he said of the couple, "It was clear that there was a meeting of minds -- they were not only deeply in love with each other, but they had a passionate commitment to peace and social justice, which was very striking even in the days when they were dating." After her husband's death, Coretta Scott emerged as a leader in the Civil Rights movement (a process which had begun long before her husband's death), continuing his work for nonviolent resistance and civil rights -- her life's work culminating in the creation of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, a training center where young people could learn Dr. King's philosophies.

Coretta Scott didn't simply continue her husband's work because it was her husband's work -- it was her business, her cause, too. I'm not saying I know how this works -- finding a mate that shares your deepest passions. I'm not saying it even works at all. But it sure seemed to work for Coretta and Martin.

Spending the day with the radio on, I've learned more about Coretta Scott King this afternoon than in the past 25 years. And because my job entails a lot of standing around, I've had a lot of time (probably more time than was healthy) to think about her story. And this is what I've come up with: I don't want to settle for anything less than Coretta Scott did.

I'm not asking to marry the next human rights leader of the Western world. I just want to find someone who's passionate for life, someone who loves people and hates injustice, someone who's a complete and total geek for experiencing new things, learning new ideas and discovering new worlds. Someone who weeps for the widows and refuses to turn a blind eye when the time for weeping is through. Someone who loves children and isn't afraid of calloused hands. And someone who's funny as hell. Someone who knows that baking is more important than the finished cake. Someone who cares about tradition and change, who's strong-willed as all get out and not afraid to call me a motherfucker when I'm wrong. Or whatever it is they prefer. I'm not a stickler for the actual MF-word.

I just want someone who shares my passions, you know? And if Coretta Scott wouldn't settle for anything less, then why should I?

better version of me

I'm not sure how or why this is, but officially, according to the Potter Boy, aka my computer, I have no internet connection at the moment.

Any yet, here I am.

This is a cheat post. It's a dirty cheat post, and a damn dirty lying cheat post at that. It's not written when it's said it's written, and I'll admit to that right up front. I'll admit to it and move on. I'll admit to backposting because I haven't had much luck with the world wide web recently, and didn't have the chance to write my annual year end post at, you know, the end of the year. So I do it later, I admit to it, and then I move on.

Moving on, I've been hating the internet lately. I've been hating it's oodles and oodles of useless knowledge and my inability to get at it. My inability to pick a simple wireless signal. My inability to use any computer other than the Potter Boy to access Al Gore's beautiful invention we call cyberspace.

Cyberspace is such a weird word.

And the internet is stupid lame.

What I really want is a photocopier and some sort of artistic ability. And to be living in 1983. Because if I had all those things (plus paper) I would put out this awesome little 'zine called Wasteland or Argyle Veritas or Tootsie for Golfers. And I would send it out to all 27 people on my mailing list. And then do it again three months later.

Back to the present. And real life. Sort of. I've been reading comic books lately. And maybe, some day, I'll write about why. For now, let me just say that there is something intrinsically noble about the idea of heroes with awesome powers, who, though they have every ability to rob banks and overpower small countries, use what they've been given to help out everyday Joe's and Jane's. I want to believe in a world where normal people with abnormal powers do great things. I want to live there and work there and drink it's water every day.

In the end, it's all fantasy. These things I love are fantasy. Comic books and Star Wars -- The West Wing and Punch Drunk Love. But not in the escape-from-reality because-I- can't-deal-with-it sort of way. But fantasy in that sense which gives us a glimpse into what life could be like if we only let it. A life where we fly to other planets on rickety star ships, and elect presidents whom we trust, and follow the women we love across oceans in distinctive blue suits.

I talked a lot about what I wanted life to be like in my last post. But maybe it's time to stop yearning for what's not there and just simply find it instead. And while Paco's right that I am a big baby-whiner-pants, I don't really want to do big things. I dream of them, sure. But in reality, I just want to live simply -- read books and watch stars -- cancel my cable and cook my dinner. I dream big, but to stay sane, I take very, very small steps. Saving people from speeding trains sure seems nice, but if I had to do it all the time, I'd probably go nuts.

(And strapping the world's problems to giant-huge boulders is probably a lot easier than actually having to deal with each problem individually. Unfortunately, it's not very feasible. For starters, I don't even know where to buy boulder-straps. Menards, maybe?)

I really don't know what I want to do it all these days. Which makes it all the more easier to wish I lived in a time where I had less choices and more responsibility to my extended family of maize and/or soy bean farmers. Waking up to milk the cows at four every morning doesn't sound ideal, but neither does living with the paralyzing fear that every time I buy gas I'm funding terrorist attacks in Iraq. You can see my predicament.

So over the past year I've lived in Wisconsin, wished I lived 1885, and moved to 21st century Chicago instead. My heart is freakin' all over the place, from Iceland to Oregon to Wright Hall. This is the year I officially graduated from college, and the year I officially became an urbanite. I'm another year older, one year less a lover of all things city-like, one year more a lover of things like witches and lunar calendars. One year of struggling to find God in the concrete, and wondering if globalization scares Him as much as it scares me.

In the end, I'm more confused about the world than ever.

All that to say, this is the last day of 2005. The first day of new things. My name is Jonny Rice, I live in Illinois, I want to be happy, I need to be content.

Believing in something for once

There's this scene in Syriana, where a Muslim cleric is talking about the cure for the modern condition. And he lists these things that have failed to make us whole: capitalism, liberal democracy, Christianity. And he's right in some ways. The modern condition, the modern disconnect that we see all around us -- in our advertising and our transactions and our jobs and our lifestyles -- it's not going away; and it's not being soothed by our current understanding of God or democracy or the Koran or whatever else it is we put our faith in. We're still disconnected. We still don't get our place in this new world.

Before Europeans set foot upon the New World, there was no poverty on this continent. There was a multitude of cultures we lump together as "Native Americans," who lived in the bronze age or the stone age or however it is we describe primitive cultures these days, and who worshipped gods we'd never heard of, and had ways of life that seemed strange and alien to us, and took care of their people, and shared their land and their goods and their resources amongst their tribes. And life for them was good, and they understood their relationship to their clan and to their ancestors and to their land.

And it wasn't communism. And it wasn't proto-communism. It had nothing to do with our childish Western ideas of labor and capital and free enterprise and centralized planning. Disregarding everything we learned in social studies and western civ and econ 101, it was their way. And it worked for them. And Adam Smith and Karl Marx could go screw each other for all they cared.

Over the last three centuries, we've learned how to harness steam and electricity and coal and gas and nuclear power. We've built waterways and railroads and highways and transcontinental airlines. We've stretched our imaginations across the frontiers of the West and the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Tranquility. We wondered what was on the dark side of the Moon -- and then we found out. We built bombs to safeguard our way of life, and sent soldiers around the globe to introduce it to others. We invented computers and fast food. ATMs and the auto industry. People Magazine pop culture and Wysteria Lane suburbia.

But we can't figure out how to live with it all. We drink and do drugs in greater numbers than ever before. We kill ourselves with knives and pills and oncoming traffic. We work and we work and we work, then we retire and long for the days when we worked and we worked and we worked. We go to church more often than ever before. We elect presidents who sound more like pastors than politicians. But nothing does the trick. We still send our kids to crappy schools. We still distrust our elected officials. We still spend our money like there's no tomorrow. And then we wake up, and realize that tomorrow is here, and that it scares the living shit out of us.

But the Native Americans, whose land we've turned into a giant strip mall, can't save us now. And the Muslim cleric, who realizes that we're up to our necks in the problems of modernism, doesn't have anything better to offer us -- unless you count blowing up shit as a reasonable solution. The Wealth of Nations and Das Kapital and The Descent of Man offer us little more than platitudes. They can't tell us how to fix our broken hearts and our addled minds.

And our understanding of God -- our understanding of God is so warped and wrapped up in the modern condition that it does nothing for us. Our modern God either loves the free market or hates private property. He lives on in our freedom of speech and dies for our right to bear arms. He offers his grace to suburbia and turns his back on the coasts of southwest Asia. In other words, he's just another capricious son of a bitch sky-god we use to justify whatever it is we need justified in order to sooth our guilty conscience.

That's the kind of God that couldn't find his way out of a wet paper bag, let alone solve the modern condition. He's a paper tiger and a dog with no bite. There's a whole lot of people who're gonna be waiting a very long time for him to answer their prayers. And there's a whole lot of people who're gonna be extremely let down in the end. We reap what we sow, and when we put our faith in a supersized George Bush or Michael Moore....it ain't gonna end up roses. Mostly, we'll just curse God and die.

Somedays, I just don't know if I'm built for this world. I just want to have calloused hands and a plump wife and a passion for the earth. Concrete jungles and UPCs and Hugo Chavez scare the hell out of me. I don't feel like I'm enough for the 21st century --that there's some part of me that somehow got left on the assembly line, and no one bothered to let me know how to get replacement. I sit up at night and wonder what in the world is going on around me. If any of this makes a lick of sense to the people I pass on my way to work in the morning. Because if it does, throw me a bone here. Cause I've got nothing.

Under the weight of so much bullshit, I just want to crumble. I'm not enough for this world. It makes so little sense that what little sense it does make seems more like fiction than reality. This is more than simply finding my path or my passion or my calling. It's finding a way to function that doesn't make me want to slash my wrists every time I pull into a gas station or send an email or buy a hamburger.

In my heart of hearts, I want to fight crime and have kids and broker peace in the Middle East. I want to plant churches and root up oppression. I want to tie the world's pain to a big fucking boulder and send it hurlting into outer space. Just to be done with it. Once and for all.

I want Jesus to come back and give me that new body he promised me ages and ages ago.

Instead, I keep trudging, figuring out the smaller problems one at a time, hoping that something will start to snowball eventually, all the way to the eschaton.

Or something like that.

And who knows, maybe I'll find my wife and my kids and my farm one of these days. And cake my fingernails with the dust of God's own country. And live life like it was meant to be lived.

And, in my spare time, blow some shit up every once in while.

You know, just for fun.

Beatles and Bazaan and Blue Jean Shorts

I have this thing for the Beatles.

One time, when I was in college, Dr. Lance Clark had the HC Comm Dept pay for me to go to Cornerstone. Me and Michele and Brandon and Dave got press passes, and they kind of let you roam where ever you wanted -- you know, back stage and in the press tent and maybe other places that I forget. We borrowed Micah Beckwith's Jimmy and drove along I-80 south of Chicago with absolutely no air conditioning. And it was July. And it was a disaster.

But not the festival. Brandon and I hung out in the press tent as much as possible. We were the only ones who asked Bill Mallonee questions not having to do with that one song he wrote about sexing up his wife. And we were the only ones to ask Starflyer 59 any questions at all in a tent full of journalists -- we sat in the front and basically had a conversation with Jason Martin and that one bass player named Cloud while everyone else dicked around with the reporter-bags and pretended to be interested.

Assholes.

Also, this guy Fuzzy from college was there, too. I remember he liked POD.

Michele and I interviewed Jon and Nick from Unwed Sailor between the giant merch tents, and talked about JPUSA and Fugazi and what it meant to be in a band that didn't sing lyrics. I saw Jon play four different sets that year. One with Nick that was old-school Sailor, one with Ester Drang that was all new material, one with Roadside Monument that might have been the best hardcore show ever, and then one on the mainstage with David Bazaan as Pedro the Lion.

Which brings us back to the Beatles. Almost.

Dave was going through some weird phase at the time (for all I know, he still is) where he would take questions from the audience during his set. People asked about everything -- his cheap-ass guitar, his darker albums, his swearsies and songs about copulating, and his favorite band.

It was the Beatles.

And he did this all in front of thousands of people, who were really just waiting around for Jennifer Knapp and Toby Mac, while he wore these amazing cut-off jean shorts.

Possibly my favorite rock and roll moment of all time.

So from what I can tell, Dave Bazaan and I would be friends. Because A) we both have things for the Beatles; and B) we both have cut-off jean shorts in our closet.

Mine are from camp, where every spring I would take a couple pairs of pants and just cut off the legs right around the knees and wear them all summer long. Because I was poor (as usual) and couldn't afford real shorts, except for that one pair of khaki skate-shorts I bought from Old Navy in 2000 that I currently have on right now.

They're pretty tattered these days, but they have no embarrassing rips or holes, which makes them wearable.

So I wear them.

While listening to "Please Please Me" and "I'll Get You" and "Twist & Shout".

And wishing that Dave Bazaan would just leave Jade Tree and hole up with Jonathon Ford and write music I could actually care about again.

End.

The Heart of the Father

Further Thoughts on the State of the Suburban Church

What makes you feel guilty?

I had a conversation with my brother this week about guilt and conviction. Apparently, David was confronted by someone in his congregation (let's call him Jack) who felt that David's teaching on a Christian's responsibility to assist the poor was a misrepresentation of Scripture. "Jack" said that if David felt convicted to help the poor, that was great. But because Jack didn't feel convicted in that way, he didn't feel it was a universal principle that David ought to be teaching on.

A little bit of background. The church David works for is located in the suburbs of a small metropolitan area. Most of the pastoral staff at his church only feel "led" to equip their congregation with the necessary skills to minister to other suburbanites. David and his wife, however, don't live in the suburbs along with most of the church. They both have experiences teaching in impoverished urban environments, and live in a decidedly low-scale part of town. But it was never their plan. They live where they live because it's what they can afford. And they've worked where they've worked because it's where God presented opportunities for gainful employment. But, as is often the case, God took advantage of their situation, and has been giving David and Wendy a heart for their neighborhood. That's how God works. He makes our plans his plans eventually....if we're open to it. Sometimes, even when we're not.

Back to Jack. Jack's perspective is one held by a good number of suburban Christians. In my last post, I talked a little bit about what drove people to the suburbs in the first place, and those same reasons still apply today. Suburbs are a fenced-off area for those who can afford it, offering safe streets, good schools, low crime rates and easy-access to $4 coffees and Baby Gaps. They get you out of the big-bad city and into a worry-free environment. Or so the story goes.

But the Christian is called to more. Even suburbanites are called by Christ to identify with and offer direct service to the poor and oppressed.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him.... then the King will say to those on his right hand, 'Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or naked and clothe you? Or when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' (Matt. 25:31-40)

Jesus continues with strong words for those who ignore the poor: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave me no food..." Scary stuff, indeed.

But Jack still doesn't feel "convicted" about helping the poor. This lack of conviction seems to stem from a post-Holiness/Charismatic condition that paralyzes the Protestant Church of today: The belief that if the Holy Spirit doesn't convict me of something, it's not a problem I have to worry about. Don't feel bad when you hear about thousands of AIDS deaths in Africa? Nothing to worry about. Don't get convicted when you refuse to make eye contact with the guy on the street shaking a cup of change? It's just natural. Don't feel bad about ignoring millions of people on death's door halfway across the globe? Crap luck, but that's life.

This sort of justification for inaction sweeps a large part of the Gospel message neatly under the rug [see older posts on this topic both here and there]. And it completely ignores how we as Christians encounter the risen Christ. While it's true that there is a universal moral law of sorts, "urging me to do right and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong" as C.S. Lewis wrote -- an universal that guides our hearts apart from the knowledge found in Scripture -- it's only in the reading of and reflecting on the revelation of God found in the Bible that we truly encounter Jesus as Lord.

And it's only when we encounter Christ in this way -- when we seek after the heart of Father God just as he did -- that we come to know what it means to be a people marked by love, a people known for their compassion and graciousness despite of our faults as fallen human beings.

Conviction, as the Christian understands it, doesn't come by reflecting on good thoughts or trying to understand the shadowy "will" of the Spirit. Conviction comes through prayerful reflection on the stories and teachings found in the Bible, specifically the teachings and actions of God in Christ Jesus.

Now it's one thing to study the Bible and have knowledge of what the words say. Anybody can do that. The words of the Bible are available in Greek and Hebrew and English and Mandarin for anyone to see and read and comprehend.

But the Christian is equipped with the guidance of the Spirit when approaching Scripture. Not in some syrupy, pseudo-spiritual way, but in a way that opens our meditations on Scripture in ways that are only available to those who seek the Risen Christ. With the guidance of the Spirit we can do more than simply know of Jesus, we encounter the Incarnate Son -- the Word of God made flesh who dwelt among us.

No one can expect Jack to ever feel convicted to help the poor if his church never talks about it -- if they never reflect on what it means that God in Christ humbled himself in becoming human, humbled himself to die, humbled himself to being nailed to a wooden post, a death reserved for common criminals. Christ's humiliation on Golgotha was the ultimate example a cross-cultural experience if there ever was one -- the Word made flesh and submitting to death. If we claim to live by Christ's example, if we seek to live a life under the shadow of the cross and the hope of the resurrection, how can we not seek to identify with the situation of those who are different from us?

But it takes time. My brother is a patient man, and knows that rivers don't change direction overnight. Jack needs someone to gradually open up those less-traveled portions of Scripture for him, dust-covered passages from so long a time spent on the shelf suburban bliss. There is a place for the prophetic word in these situations, but there is also the place for Christians pulling Christians alongside themselves with grace and mercy and patience and compassion. The suburban church has long been a stronghold for ignorance. And it take time, decades perhaps, for the Bible to get a good dusting off. But eventually, God makes his plans known, and his desires made public.

Because there will always be someone to preach the Word. Someone to speak the Gospel. Someone to teach how the cross should turn our lives upside down, and someone to testify how the empty tomb should turn our priorities inside out.

And this is how we encounter Christ. Reflecting on the risen Lord, through the revelation of the Bible, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in the midst of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Putting away the old man, and putting on a brand new suit, tailor-made just for us. Turning our eyes away from our own selfish desires and reaching out to the hungry and the thirsty and naked and the sick and the oppressed.

In other words, seeking him. And him alone.