Faith + Knowledge

How to Be a Person of Depth

2012-01-16T09:10:00.000-08:00

"Superficiality is the curse of our age…. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."
-Richard Foster, "Celebration of Discipline"

I've always been intrigued by people who seem to have a lot more going on under the surface than on the surface. I'm sure most reading this will know what I'm talking about. At least I hope you do because I'm not quite sure how to describe it. Sometimes it's a quality that you can somehow sense upon first meeting someone. Other times, you might perceive that a particular person wears everything on their sleeve, until you learn something surprising about them and you second-guess.

Regardless of whether it's perceptible immediately or gradually, it eventually comes out. You realize that no matter how many questions you've asked (hometown? degree? job? aspirations? married? kids? dogs or cats? music?), no matter how much Facebook stalking you've done, you've only seen the tip of the iceberg. Whether it's for potential romantic interest or pure friendship, you find yourself compelled to learn more about this person.

There are five things that stick out to me when I pose the question, "How do people cultivate depth in their personality and in their character?" One is that they have deep friendships. This may be counter-intuitive because the kind of person I've been talking about may seem coy, hidden, or mysterious. However, this is not necessarily the case. I think deep people can be any range of introvert or extrovert. The key is that there's just a few people, their closest friends, who they really allow to see inside. They value those friendships more than just about anything else in their lives, and they maintain those friendships over long periods of time, even when things like careers and geography threaten to break them up.

Ironically, solitude is the other side of this coin. Deep people are in the habit of being alone on occasion. When left to themselves, they find enough there. Inside. They are not instantaneously bored in the absence of people and iPhones. They can read, write,watch a movie, eat, think, pray, or any number of other activities all by themselves and be perfectly okay (at least for some limited amount of time, of course. Introverts may naturally enjoy more extended bouts of solitude. The balance is that introverts have more trouble being social, which is also needed for depth. And that leads me to my next point.)

Deep people have a wide variety of friends. Not necessarily a lot of friends, but there is at least some diversity among their friends and acquaintances. Deep people enjoy good conversation. They seek it out. They steer small talk to deeper waters. They want to hear an array of perspectives. They listen attentively, and respond to what others say, rather than simply waiting their turn to interject what they've been wanting to say all along. They well up with the joy of solidarity upon discovering points of mutual agreement, and they very carefully and gently express points of disagreement. They allow their lives to be shaped by people of varying beliefs, worldviews, backgrounds, and ethnicities.

Fourthly, deep people are grounded and stable. They are consistent in their morals and in their ways of living. Of course, that doesn't mean they never change. They develop, grow, and mature in a steady direction. They are regularly looking for ways to become a better man or woman. They have a certain humility about them, believing that they are not the only person in the world with needs. They of course experience pain just like anyone else, but they often recognize that their problems are trivial relative to the sufferings of so many others. They feel a need to minimize the amount of resources they take from others, and maximize the amount they give.

Lastly, deep people have passions. Not just fleeting hobbies and interests, but deep-seated desires to do something great with their talents. They know the value of arts, crafts, and education. They explore various hobbies, and when they find one they love, they stick with it and try to master it.

Oh, and one more brief add-on if I may: this should almost go without saying, but I'm saying it. Deep people don't spill out their entire lives on social networks. If I can go to your Facebook and Twitter and put together a basic outline of everything you did yesterday, including an approximation of your emotional state at each point, you may want to work on playing your cards a little closer to your chest. : ) And I say that in love because I can go overboard myself sometimes. I'm just thinking that if you feel the need to let ALL of your Facebook and Twitter friends know that much about you, what's left on the inside? What is there left that only your closest of friends will discover? What will it say about our personality and character when the tip of the iceberg is all there is? Author Richard Foster wrote that what the world needs most are deep people, and he penned those words long before the advent of social media! If they were true then, they are even truer now.

I Hate to Admit It, But . . .

2012-01-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

I hate to admit it, but "I hate to admit it" seems to be a common phrase lately. I've recently noticed this and have started to wonder, what makes a person "hate to admit" something? What makes someone begin an observation by essentially stating, "I despise acknowledging the truth, but . . . "

Incidentally, the place where I've noticed this phrase most often is in political discourse. For example, when a liberal admits a good quality of a conservative, or vice-versa. The following is a quote from a comment on a political video a friend of mine linked on Facebook:

"Ron Paul is more dangerous to this nation than Obama when it comes to foreign policy. As much as I hate to admit it."

Let's analyze that a little, shall we? Why would this person, whom we must assume is conservative politically, hate to admit that Ron Paul is inferior to President Obama in the area of foreign policy? I can't think of any other reason than that she prefers that anyone who is representing conservativism would in no way appear to be inferior to someone as liberal as the President.

What she's saying is that the truth is getting in the way of how she prefers to see the world.

What interests me here has little to do with politics, but rather with the way we think about truth. In the case of this Facebook commenter, give her credit for honestly acknowledging the truth. But it strikes me as odd that the acknowledgement is seen as something to hate. She sees the truth as a pesky inconvenience to the way she would prefer the world to be (in this case, conservatives being superior to liberals in every regard).

But shouldn't truth be the goal? If it seems that, according to your beliefs, Obama's foreign policies have kept our country safer than other viable presidential hopefuls, shouldn't that be something to rejoice about? Unfortunately, the Team Conservative vs. Team Liberal rhetoric has made this nigh impossible. When the other team looks good, that's bad for our team, regardless of what is actually true or good.

My First Ever Vlog!

2011-11-29T22:13:00.001-08:00

How to Quickly Identify Cheesy Christian Movies

2011-11-21T12:17:00.001-08:00

Cheesy Christian movies abound these days at various retail outlets around the country. The retail juggernaut Wal-Mart has even been known to give front-entrance spotlight to these films, probably misleading innocent passers-by to think that they're normal, mainstream releases. Of course, it doesn't help that the marketers of these films have tried to be a tad subtler in their approach, using titles that don't necessarily function as warning lables saying "This movie for Christian audiences only." They've even resorted to using actors other than Kirk Cameron in the lead roles. However, fear not! I have discovered a trick that will be quite useful, whether because you want to find such movies to watch or because you want to avoid them. Here it is:

I have discovered, almost like some secret Bible code, that there is one common element in the cover design for each and every one of these movies. Without exception, in one form or another, you will find a horizon in the background, with the bright light of the breaking sun smack dab in the middle of it. Don't believe me? Have a look for yourself:

Brian McLaren on The Slippery Slope

2011-11-18T21:08:00.001-08:00

http://biologos.org/blog/confidence-and-slippery-slopes

Here's a cool, short video featuring Brian McLaren illuminating some of the problems with the good ol' slippery slope argument.

New Robert Alter Translation: Wisdom Books

2011-10-08T11:28:00.000-07:00

As far as I can tell, Dr. Robert Alter is easily the most eminent scholar of Hebrew literature in the U.S. His prolific career has produced numerous, highly-respected works of Hebrew scholarship (among other endeavors), not the least of which includes translations, commentaries, and studies of Hebrew scripture. He has a keen focus on the aesthetic qualities of ancient Hebrew writings, especially the poetry, which he believes is almost entirely lost in all of our English translations.

I first encountered Alter by purchasing his translation of the Psalms a few years ago. I didn't know anything about Hebrew poetry, but I knew enough about English poetry to know that Alter's translation is much more pleasant to read than any versions I had read previously. I've also taken enough English poetics to know that when it comes to poetry, the aesthetic qualities aren't just for decoration. They function as units of meaning, and are essential to conveying the emotive and semantic content of the poem.

Anway, I'm writing all of this because Alter has a new translation that just recently released--The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (A Translation with Commentary)--and I bought it immediately on my Kindle, as these are among my favorite books in all of scripture. I was giddy with kid-in-candy-store excitement.

Here's a sample passage from Alter's rendering of the third chapter of Job:

   Annul the day that I was born
   and the night that said, "A man is conceived."
   That day, let it be darkness.
     Let God above not seek it out,
     nor brightness shine upon it.

     Let darkness, death's shadow, foul it,
     let a cloud-mass rest upon it,
     let day-gloom dismay it.

     That night, let murk overtake it.
     Let it not join in the days of the year,
     let it not enter the number of months.

Alter has refreshed my love for these books, and I look forward to reading much more of his extensive body of work in the years to come.

On a side note, one of the most eminent and accessible New Testament scholars in the world, N. T. Wright, has his own translation of the New Testament forthcoming at the end of this month. I intend to pick that up as well.

Party Poopers

2011-08-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

What one person perceives as thinking independently, another may perceive as intellectually non-commital. For example, this often happens in religious contexts when someone holds views that diverge from traditionally accepted doctrines or official church teachings. It can also happen in the context of politics when someone doesn't think along the lines of a particular party or political philosophy. Typically, the "heretics" may characterize themselves as some sort of Socratic figures, while those that prefer to plant their feet on one side or another may see self-professed "independents" as wishy-washy, lovers of controversy and argument, or even intellectually dishonest. In her novel Middlemarch, George Eliot puts the sentiment quite elegantly in the mouth of Mrs. Cadwallader, who characterizes Mr. Brooke as "leading a roving life, and never letting his friends know his address." Mr. Brooke defends himself as simply "caring for nothing but the truth."

There are good arguments on both sides of this issue. Personally, I'll just say that I don't hide the fact that I admire and emulate Socrates. However, my point at the moment is not an all-out defense of that method. As we approach another election season, I merely want to point out that there are good reasons to disassociate oneself from the kinds of rhetoric that often characterize the conversations that people have in coffee shops, front porches, classrooms, and online communities during this time. And the thing is, I don't just believe, a priori, that if there are two or more sides to an issue, then there must be some middle ground that is better than any one side. It is entirely possible for one side to be right. However, in the case of conservative vs. liberal politics in the U. S., I believe that there are good reasons from history that demonstrate that, much like a see-saw, the middle ground is firmest in this particular context.

I've been reading Edward Larson's A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign. This book, just like any other book that covers early American presidential politics, handily dispels the commonly-believed myth that the Founding Fathers speak with one voice to the current woes of government. We often assume that all of our problems are, at their roots, manifestations of the fact that we have veered from the path that the Founding Fathers and the Constitution set out for us. There are innumerable problems with that assumption, foremost among them the simple fact that the Constitution itself was born of vicious argument and strife, and its ratification only happened because of compromise among people who vehemently disagreed with one another at many central points. Of course, these disagreements would be the seeds of what we now call partisan politics, which many of the founders, especially Washington, believed was a corruption of government and should be avoided if it all possible.

Larson's book chronicles the 1800 presidential race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, which gave our young nation its first taste of party ticket voting, presidential campaigning, and partisan rhetoric. One of the things I love about Larson's approach is the abundance of original quotes from the politicians involved, as well as the newspapers of the day, which I was surprised to find out were usually partisan as well. I want to provide here a select sample of these quotes that I believe demonstrate my point well enough:

“I much fear that this country is doomed to great convulsions, changes, and calamities,” Maryland Senator Charles Carroll of Carrollton, an extreme High Federalist, wrote to Hamilton in 1800. “The turbulent and disorganizing spirit of Jacobinism, under the worn out disguise of equal liberty, and rights and division of property held out as a lure to the indolent and needy, but not really intended to be executed, will introduce anarchy which will terminate here, as in France, in a military despotism.”

In private letters and conversations, Republicans began referring to Hamilton as “our Bonaparte.” “The enemies of our Constitution are preparing a fearful operation,” Jefferson warned a fellow Virginian in February 1800. “Our Bonaparte, surrounded by his comrades in arms, may step in to give us political salvation in his way.”

"It is asserted with confidence by the anti-federal party here that all your electors will vote for Mr. Jefferson as president; if such an event shall really happen, it is probable he will be chosen; of such a choice the consequences to this country may be dreadful."

“You who are for French notions of government; for the tempestuous sea of anarchy and misrule; for arming the poor against the rich; for fraternizing with the foes of God and man; go to the left and support the leaders, or the dupes, of the anti-federal junto. But you that are sober, industrious, thriving, and happy, give your votes for those men who mean to preserve the union of the states, the purity and vigor of our excellent Constitution, the sacred majesty of the laws, and the holy ordinances of religion.” Christianity means nothing to Jefferson and his friends, many articles charged: “The devil is in their hearts,” one declared.

“Merchants, your ships will be condemned to rot in your harbors for the navy which is their protection Jefferson will destroy,” a typical Federalist editorial charged. “The temples of the most high will be profaned by the impious orgies of the Goddess of Reason, personated as in France by some common prostitute.”

“Peace or war, happiness or misery, opulence or ruin! These depend on the results of the approaching election. If the friends of liberty are zealous, the system of EQUAL RIGHTS will yet flourish,” one Republican writer exclaimed. “The political happiness of America hangs suspended upon the fruit of your activity upon the present occasion,” another added. “Rise then with Republican firmness, with energy and patriotic activity, in defense of those invaluable rights for which during the Revolution you fought and bled.”

These are just a few of the ways in which Federalists and Republicans demonized one another in the years leading up to the 1800 election. Incidentally, Jefferson won the election and served two terms as our nation's third president. And yet, [shocked face], none of the Federalist-predicted consequences, such as anarchy or military despotism, actually occurred! If I may be permitted to venture a guess, I might say that had Adams been elected, we likely would not have experienced the Republican-predicted consequences of war, misery, ruin, and the trampling of individual liberties. But that's only a guess.

Here we are 212 years later, history having repeated itself every four years since, monotonously and predictably. And I don't see any reason why it won't continue to do so, but I at least want to say that you have a choice. You can choose to participate in it, or to rise above it.

Of Gods and Men

2011-07-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

I restarted my Netflix account, mainly because of the numerous movies I've wanted to see recently that never make it to the theaters (or Redboxes) here in Lafayette. This was the first one on my list, and I definitely wasn't disappointed. We're going to watch it in my small group Tuesday night. Check it out if you get a chance.

Only One Pearl

2011-07-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

The Kingdom is a treasure, for which we forsake all things.

Except, of course, our money, and the blessings it brings.

And of course not love, or wedding rings.

And of course, we still serve our earthly kings,

For God loves the land where freedom rings.

I'll forsake all, even if it stings,

except for my right to grasp at brass rings.

"I surrender all," the congregant sings.

Except for land where the Liberty Bell rings.

Questioning the American Dream

2011-06-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows I'm all about questioning traditional wisdom. It's not that I believe something is automatically suspect just because it's traditional. But neither do I want to accept it just because it is traditional. In doing such questioning, I often find that a "traditional" view may not be as traditional as it is perceived to be. This is especially true in looking at American traditions, customs, beliefs, etc., as they are relatively young in the scope of human history.

One bit of American wisdom I've thought about recently is the idea that career aspirations are the most important thing to consider when making big life decisions. I'm not arguing that this is definitely not true, but I do wonder if there are other things that are at least equally important, if not more.

In America, our career is our legacy. It defines us. What we do in our careers is what we are known by in life, and it is what we desire to be known by long after we are gone. We invest heavy, sometimes inordinate, amounts of time and energy to advance and cultivate our careers.

Now consider how we do friendships, comparatively. Most of us would not hesitate for a second to leave our friends for a great job opportunity. In fact, if one were to say, "I don't want to leave my friends" as a reason for passing up an opportunity, we would see it as a sign of weakness, or it may even seem juvenile. Only kids value friendships that highly, right?

But I'm wondering, why not value friendships at least equally highly as we do our careers? I've learned over the past few years that just like careers, friendships and community require effort, time, energy, and years of practice to cultivate properly. Why do we find it so easy to abandon all of that, while we find it a terrifying prospect to abandon a career path to start a new one from scratch. If we suddenly have to up and move, well then so be it, but if our business goes bankrupt then it is utter tragedy.

Again, I'm not trying to argue that careers aren't that important, just that we should perhaps be a little more willing to consider other things as well. Maybe something is wrong with the way we do friendship if we see it as such an easy sacrifice to make for our careers. Maybe it's possible to establish our legacy and define ourselves by our friendships and communities, and not just by what we do for a living.

insidious

2011-05-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

I was sitting at Starbucks today (I wonder how many entries in the blogosphere start with that phrase? Hold up, brb . . . okay, a quick Google search for the phrase "I was sitting at Starbucks today" turns up 784 results. "I was sitting in Starbucks today" gives us an additional 212. Great, almost 1,000 people have started a blog with the same phrase I just did. Way to be original, Ken. Let's start over.)

I was reading Catch-22 today (0 hits on Google. Much better!), at Starbucks, when I came across the word insidious. The reference was to some type of insidious disease. I had a vague notion of the connotation of the word, but I wasn't sure I knew exactly what it meant, so I plotted my cursor down to it on my Kindle and used the handy-dandy, built-in dictionary feature. A definition magically appeared at the bottom of the screen:

Proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects.

I was immediately struck by the beauty of this word. (I studied linguistics in grad school, and I've long been fascinated with words, language, communication, etc.) How marvelous, I thought, that this word, already quite sonorous in its phonetic qualities, with its efficient compaction of four whole syllables into a relatively small verbal space, and not too shabby-looking on paper either, could have such a precise meaning.

I clicked to view the full entry for the word and learned that it came from the Latin parts in-, meaning "on" and sedere, meaning "to sit". In exercising some etymological imagination, I thought about how this elegant English word apparently evolved from the simple idea of something sinister just sitting and waiting patiently to strike. I was all the more amazed.

I think I have a new favorite word.

Be Careful

2011-05-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

This two-word imperative, "Be careful," is shorthand in the world of Christian jargon. It's what one Christian tells another when they believe that the other is on the vaunted "Slippery Slope." It means, "I can't say what you're doing is wrong, but I don't like it, so what I'll do is tell you that it might eventually lead you to do something wrong." There is an implication that one wrong will lead to more and more wrongs, until the poor slippery-footed Christian is accelerating down the slope, aka "backsliding," until one day they are no longer living for Christ and most likely are on their way to Hell.

Be careful. Two words, well-intentioned, but full of heavy implications incongruent with the ease with which they're spoken.

Most Christians, if asked, will say they are okay with people asking honest questions. What they often mean by that is, they are okay with the kinds of questions that kids ask in Sunday school. But ask a question like, "How do you reconcile an eternity of conscious torment with the idea of a just God," then you might be told to be careful. The message is that some questions are good, but others might lead us to heresy, backsliding, bad doctrine, or maybe even Hell itself.

This also leads me to wonder, why do we rarely see the 'danger' of becoming too conservative? Was that not the problem of the Pharisees, that they were unable to stop exalting their own ideas to the status of holy writ? And yet, rarely does anyone say, "Be careful there brother. If you become a pre-Millennialist, you might find yourself on a slippery slope to being a crazy religious zealot."

This baffles me. Why do people think that it rains only on one side of the hill? It almost seems that we have this underlying assumption that of the two choices, it's obviously better to become too conservative than too liberal. I disagree. I dare speculate that Jesus might have disagreed also, judging by the severity of his warnings to the religious establishment of his day. But that's somewhat beside the point. I'm not trying to debate which side is more slippery so much as I am advocating getting rid of the slippery slope rhetoric altogether.

The Apostle Paul told the Phillipians to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." This encourages me to believe that it's okay that I am working things out, as long as I properly revere Christ and his teachings. Until I lose the fear and trembling, I will reject the notion that I am in danger because of my questioning.

How Stories Make You a Better Person

2011-05-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

You should never read just for "enjoyment." Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends' insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick "hard books." Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god's sake, don't let me ever hear you say, "I can't read fiction. I only have time for the truth." Fiction is the truth, fool! ~John Waters

The waters saw you, God,
   the waters saw you and writhed;
   the very depths were convulsed.
The clouds poured down water,
   the heavens resounded with thunder;
   your arrows flashed back and forth.
Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
   your lightning lit up the world;
   the earth trembled and quaked.
Your path led through the sea,
   your way through the mighty waters,
   though your footprints were not seen.

You led your people like a flock
   by the hand of Moses and Aaron. (Psalm 77:16-20)

The author of Psalm 77 understood very well the power of stories. He writes in a time of great despair, wondering if God has abandoned him. The verses quoted above come after he makes a deliberate choice to recount the faithfulness of God in the past. Retelling this story gives him enough hope and strength to press on through his moment of despair.

We do this all the time. We are shaped by our experiences. We can feel overwhelmed by the various struggles that arise in our lives, until a close friend is good enough to say, "Do you remember that time when you were sure you were going to fail, but you so admirably pressed on, and you succeeded?" Or until we remind ourselves, "I've been here before. I can do it again."

Often times, it's other people's stories that give us strength. As the Psalmist shows us, remembering God's faithfulness can inspire us. Similarly, a hero is someone whose story motivates us to make our own stories better. Like people in extreme cold who share each other's body warmth, we are permitted to share in each other's stories, so that even when our own experiences and memories aren't sufficient, we are not doomed to utter self-reliance. This is part of the in-built grace of existence. When we make bad decisions, we don't have to be fated to increasingly bad character. We can be rescued.

The beauty of fiction then is that great stories don't even have to have actually happened. We have a trove of "experiences" that we can draw from, even where we lack personal experiences, and even where we lack real life heroes. As long as we have access to these stories, we are never abandoned. There's always something "out there," telling us, "You can do this." "It's not impossible." "This is the right thing to do." "You have what it takes."

My favorite stories all serve this purpose for me. For example, (at the risk of oversimplification), The Lord of the Rings is my bravery. The Narnia books are my sense of wonder and awe. Lost is my sense of the power and value of community. The Catcher in the Rye is my compassion. Harry Potter is my belief in sacrificial love. The Gospels are my faith and hope in the victory of God over evil. The list could go on.

Read. Read books that matter. Watch movies and TV shows that tell great stories. Pure entertainment is fine on occasion, but challenge yourself to seek out the good stuff more often than you gobble up the lowball stuff. Do it to make yourself a better person.

iPod Education: TapQuiz Maps

2011-05-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

If asked, could you pick out the country of Qatar on a map of the Middle East? What about the province Nunavut on a Canadian map? Or the nation of Belize in Central America?

I can! And no, not because I'm smarter than you. It's because I've recently discovered the power of apps for the purpose of self-education. If you have any type of portable Apple device, there are some great apps you can get that will enrich your life much more than Angry Birds. One app in particular that I've found to be very effective is called TapQuiz Maps. You pick a region of the world you want to learn, and it quizzes you by naming a country and then letting you point to where you think it is.

The best part is, this app is free AND contains no ads! (At least none that I've noticed thus far. If they are there, they're very non-intrusive.)

I've only had this map app for a few days, and I'm already able to identify all the countries of the Middle East and Central America, and all the provinces of Canada. Next challenge: the vaunted Eastern Europe!

Most of us have had the embarrassing experience of hearing about a war or natural disaster in some country or another and realizing you have no idea where in the world that country is. Comedian Paul Rodriguez once joked that "war is God's way of teaching us geography." With this app, you don't have to wait until war breaks out in Estonia to know where it is.

Quick Quote

2011-05-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post for now. I was reading the March edition of Christianity Today and there was an interview with a religion professor named T. David Gordon, who recently authored a book titled, Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns: How Pop Culture Rewrote the Hymnal. There was one quote in the interview that really stuck out to me. Gordon is essentially asked, what's the problem with church music sounding like modern pop if it helps bring people into church? His response was

". . . it's like reaching the rich young ruler by throwing money at him."

He says much more in the interview of course, but that particular line really arrested me. Gordon is comparing the music played in contemporary evangelical worship services to something as superficial and dishonest as bribery. Something to think about . . .

Bibliomysticism

2011-04-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

I'm sure we've all had the wonderful experience of having a vague concept of something suddenly solidified by the discovery that our language actually has a word for it. That is precisely what happened to me today when I encountered the word

bibliomysticism

on a linguistics blog that I frequent called The Language Log, where contributor Eric Bakovic defines it as "the belief that the printed-on-paper word is somehow endowed with power that cannot be replicated otherwise."

The primary context in which I have noticed this phenomenon is in hearing people talk about the Kindle (and ebooks in general). I'm a proud Kindle owner myself, but I've heard many people speculate that they might not like the Kindle because there's "just something" about the printed-on-paper book, some nearly mystical quality, that outweighs the plethora of advantages offered by e-readers, such as easy storage, not having to hold your page, and ridiculously fast access to books, to name a few.

Personally, I'm fine with some aspects of the bibliomystic mindset, as long as it is acknowledged that this "mystical" quality is primarily a type of nostalgia and has very little to do with anything inherent in the paper form itself.

Li [b/t] eral

2011-04-03T12:56:00.000-07:00

As a Christian, there are a number of beliefs I consider important, and I believe them in the most literal sense possible.

I believe that God literally created everything in existence.

I believe that in the historical person of Jesus of Nazereth, God literally became a human being.

I believe that Jesus literally healed people, drove out demons, and preached about the Kingdom of God.

I believe that Jesus literally died by crucifixion.

I believe that Jesus literally resurrected from his tomb after being literally dead for 3 days.

I believe that Jesus literally ascended into Heaven.

I believe that Jesus will literally return to Earth again to literally carry out the judgments of God.

I believe that Jesus has literally sent the Holy Spirit during these last days to empower the Church to spread the Gospel.

I believe in a literal Heaven and a literal Hell.

I believe that God exists in 3 persons, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Literally.

Yet somehow, for some segments of Christianity, all of this is still not quite literal enough. Weird.

Biblical Gentlemanhood

2011-03-24T21:11:00.001-07:00

I believe in gender equality. Not only on ethical grounds but Biblical ones as well. It seems that scholars with any familiarity with the cultural mores of Jesus' time acknowledge that he was positively scandalous in the way he interacted with and affirmed women. (Kenneth Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is an excellent example. He deals specifically with Jesus and women in chapters 14-20.)

At the same time, the Apostle Paul says some things about gender roles that are difficult for modern ears to bear. I'm not going to go through all the passages, but the sum of it all seems to be that men have a more authoritative role, while women are to be more submissive. While for some of these passages I'm quite unsure of what to make of them, I've come to believe in a version of gender roles that I believe still upholds equality. Let me explain.

It's uncontroversial, not to mention provable with DNA alone, that there are biological differences between men and women. Among these differences are that in a strictly physical sense, men are generally stronger than women. Obviously there are plenty of women who are stronger than plenty of men, but men tend to be naturally bigger and to have more muscle mass.

I'm no expert in gender studies, but it would make sense to me to argue that the social differences between men and women, i. e. the current and historical differences in socioeconomic status, rights, privileges, etc., are, in large part, rooted in these physical differences. Because men are physically stronger and more imposing, it is all the easier to assert themselves and have their way in the context of a society. And this is essentially what we have done throughout history and throughout most cultures.

From the Biblical perspective, this is part of the curse of sin. God says to Eve, from that point on, "your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

But that wasn't the way God wanted it to be, and it apparently wasn't the way things were before the disobedience of Adam and Eve. And now the New Testament provides us with a different ethic. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians "submit to one another out of reverence to Christ."

Now if you and I submit to one another, and yet you are of a higher status and/or physically stronger than I, then isn't your act of submission in a sense greater than mine? Submission is always challenging. It always goes against the grain of our instincts. But isn't it even more challenging for the stronger to submit to the weaker? For the older to submit to the younger? For the one with more rights and privileges to submit to the one with less?

This is how I reconcile what the Scriptures teach about equality with what they teach about male leadership. In the truest sense, in Christ, there is no longer "Jew nor Greek, male nor female," etc. However, we are not yet completely free from the curse of sin. So if the husband is to still "rule over" the wife, he is to do so via the act of submission. In other words, he is to do it the Jesus way, laying down his life, as Christ did for the Church. He is to lay down all the rights and privileges and power afforded him by his Y chromosome, just as Christ laid down all the rights and privileges and power afforded by being God. In doing so, he finds the true leadership that comes through servanthood.

This also happens to be the way I make sense of gender roles in dating relationships, i. e. the man initiating, paying, holding doors open, etc. It would seem to me that the whole notion of the "gentleman" is predicating on this idea of having power but not using it for personal gain, always submitting it to the one with less.

Anyway, that's just some thoughts I've been having. Feel free to join in on the conversation. I'm especially interested in hearing some female responses to this perspective.

Thanks for reading!

Bell's Hell: The Controversy Surrounding Rob Bell's New Book

2011-03-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

I recently read Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. I bought the book primarily because I wanted to be an informed participant in the giant explosion of discussion and debate the book had spawned. Little did I know I would be haunted by the book long after putting it down.

The questions Bell is asking are precisely the questions that anyone who has followed Christ for some time should be asking. They are also precisely the questions that we tend to avoid.

If the common Evangelical view is right--that a person is undoubtedly Hell-bound until they acknowledge Jesus Christ and make a conscious decision to allow him to be Lord of their life, then that means that the overwhelming majority of the 7 billion people on Earth, as well as the overwhelming majority of the people who have lived and ever will live, will experience never-ending torment for all of eternity, with no hope of relief or escape or reconciliation with God.

If that thought doesn't deeply disturb you, you have no heart.

And yet the idea is so familiar that at times it barely fazes us. That's even more disturbing.

We must ask ourselves, and answer with all honesty, are we okay with all of this? Is God okay with it? What kind of picture of God does that create? Has God's plan mostly resulted in a catastrophic failure? Will he really allow endless suffering for most, while relatively few are saved? Is he happy with that? Is there anything he can do about it? Is that truly just? Is it truly merciful? If God has placed in human hearts a deep longing for both justice and mercy, how is it that his way of doing things could seem so unjust and unmerciful? If all this is true, in what sense can the Gospel truly be said to be Good News?

These are all important questions. And yet there's one more that's even more important than all of them: Is this really what Jesus taught?

We can talk about what sounds good or doesn't sound good, what this pastor says or that pastor says. But what does Jesus say?

Answering that question is more than I can do in this writing space, as Jesus talks about Hell an awful lot. So here I refer you to Bell's book. Reading it would not be a bad way to start engaging these questions more deeply. I, for one, am thankful that he is bringing this oft-avoided topic to the forefront of discussion, as it has led me to repent from being too comfortable with Hell.

Baffled, Befuddled, and Bewildered

2011-03-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

The world is a baffling place.

The great feats of Newton and the Enlightenment and Baconian science once had us confident that the inner workings of the natural world would soon be known exhaustively. We thought that we would eventually be able to map out, in their entirety, the natural laws that governed all natural phenomena, just like cartographers map out geography.

But ever since the late 19th century, we have been learning that the classical physics of Newton et. al. only describe particular aspects of the world; as for those other aspects, particularly the quantum aspects, it appears that the more we learn about them, the more frequently we are confounded by them. Even though we've come a long way in understanding the quantum realm, we won't have anything near the certainty we once had regarding classical physics until we are able to understand the precise relationship between the micro and the macro and why they operate so differently.

The world is a baffling place.

What's even more disconcerting is that quantum physics isn't the most baffling thing about it. We are.

Our quest to understand ourselves, our societies and cultures, our languages, our behavior and our choices, has arguable yielded relatively little fruit when compared with what we've accomplished in the sciences. For example, we certainly have an exponentially better understanding of the physics of motion than Aristotle did; however, if we ask the question, "Why was Socrates executed?" can any of us legitimately claim to give an empirically better answer than Plato did?

Like someone who's never seen a reflection in a mirror, we seem to understand nearly everything outside of ourselves better than we understand ourselves. Our struggles to understand our very own brains seems like an itch that comes from deep under the skin and all the scratching in the world just doesn't relieve it.

The world is a baffling place.

Even the Holy Bible acknowledges that truth. If you've read Job and Ecclesiastes, then you know that they are books about men who learn faith and humility the hard way, when their philosophies and theologies fail them. They are confronted with the limitations of their minds in the face of a God who refuses, for whatever reason, to spell things out for them.

In fact, this lesson is not only to be found in Job and Ecclesiastes, as most of the Scriptures are written in this way--images, metaphors, parables, crazy stories about people who do crazy things, sometimes brave and noble, sometimes wicked and dumb. And guess what . . . no footnotes!

What baffles me the most then is why on Earth any Christian would feel comfortable being so damn certain all the time.

When the Scriptures talk about faith, it's in regard to what we know about God. Even though we can't by any means prove it, we are to have faith in God's goodness and character, and in the saving work of Jesus Christ.

But faith is not a good way of knowing scientific facts. Nor is it a good way of learning politics. It's not even a good way of knowing why particular things happen to particular people or cities or nations (just ask Job about that one.)

Faith is a way of knowing God, and when it is appropriated in other ways, it is being misused.

Of course, our beliefs about God will influence our beliefs about everything else. That is inevitable, and it's a good thing. But the whole "absolute certainty" thing just isn't Biblical, simply put.

Changes

2011-03-12T18:08:00.000-08:00

Hello faithful blog readers!

When I first started blogging, the appeal was simply to have a personal page where I could write whatever thoughts I felt like writing about. Whoever wanted to read could read, and my only hope was that some of my friends would check it out every now and then.

Well, I am excited to say that my ambitions have grown a little bit since then! Many of you that have read my blog have affirmed me as having a gift for writing and sharing thoughts, and over the years that encouragement has lead me to think that perhaps other people than just my friends would be interested in reading my writings.

The changes you see are meant to reflect these new ambitions. I've depersonalized the blog, since I am not a celebrity and people who don't know me won't really be interested in reading about me. Also, I've given it a bit of a focus. Thinking about things related to science and religion has really become a hobby and passion of mine, and I want to try to make the blog exclusively about those things.

I renamed the blog to "Faith + Knowledge," which was inspired by a verse in the Bible in which the Apostle Peter tells us to not be content with simply having faith, but to add several things to our faith, including knowledge. This reflects my personal philosophy that any faith worth having must not be afraid of questions, doubts, new information, etc. My desire is to know Truth, and to be open to all of the methods we have at our disposal for gaining knowledge.

The various portraits in the header are personal heroes of mine. People who had faith, sought knowledge, and accomplished great things as they integrated both into their lives.

To everyone who follows this blog and/or reads it regularly, thanks so much! I hope you will continue to read it and enjoy it. I also hope that other truth-seekers will discover it as well. Not because I have all the answers, but because I know from experience that as people mutually share their struggles with faith, truth, and knowledge, we all learn and benefit.

The Holy Bible: New Oversimplified Version

2011-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

Don't worry, I totally photoshopped that picture. There's no such thing (yet) as an oversimplified version of the Bible. Many of us would probably be appalled or at least highly amused by such a thing, and few of us would buy it except for perhaps the entertainment value.

However, the striking truth is that many of us buy into an oversimplified version of the Bible every single day of our lives. We really want it to be simple, so we project that desire onto our interactions with the text. We have a sense that it should be simple, which can lead us to interpret it to say what we think it ought to say. But is it really simple? Can you read Ecclesiastes and still say that it's simple? Or what if we asked Job, would he say that it's simple? If it's so simple, why was Jesus so troubled and filled with sorrow in the Garden of Gethsemene?

It's not simple, but we pretend it is every time we tell someone "This verse says [x], therefore [y] is true." We don't take time to consider the context, and we ignore the verses that might seem to contradict the proposed claim.

When considering the idea of Scriptural support for our beliefs, the most important question is NOT, "Can I find a verse or passage that supports this idea?" The most important question is, "Does this accord with the Scriptural revelation of God, particularly in regard to the definitive revelation found in the person of Jesus Christ?"

This is how I will filter my beliefs now. It's harder than the "find a verse" method, but it is also the more honest method of the two.

Loving Yourself

2011-01-05T14:13:00.000-08:00

I was listening to NPR in my car recently. I regrettably wasn't listening very well when the artist and song title were mentioned, but this beautiful, sad song started playing and the very first lyrics were something to the effect of "I've never been one to say I love myself; how can you expect me to love someone else?"

There is profound wisdom in those words.

It's tempting to associate self-love with pride or arrogance or just plain cheeseball, New-Age-iness. Talk of loving oneself can conjure up images of Stuart Smalley talking to the mirror: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!"

Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." In this sentence, the command to love neighbor is predicated on an assumed love for self. You get the sense that if you don't love yourself, you may find it hard to love your neighbor, which is the precise sentiment expressed in the lyrics quoted earlier.

In my experiences, I find this to be true. If I don't love myself, and if I am not aware of and secure in the beauty and gifts endowed to me by my Creator, then other people are necessarily rivals and enemies--points of comparison, rather than other free persons endowed with their own distinct gifts and beauty.

Despite all my faults, which are often quite atrocious, I love myself. I am an expression of God's image. When people ask me why my hair is dark and my beard is red, my response is, "Because God is an artist." I love the mind he's given me. I love the sense of humor he has blessed me with. I love the calm spirit he has bestowed on me. I don't pretend that my glaring faults aren't there. I recognize that I am broken and dysfunctional, and that only his love and grace can restore me. But I also refuse to disparage myself because I know it hurts his heart when I do.

Love yourself. It's okay. He really wants you to.

Advent-ageous

2010-11-14T19:29:00.000-08:00

Today is Advent Sunday. If you don't know what that means, relax. As an unfortunate consequence of the Evangelical shucking of all things ritual, you are not alone. Many of us lament the commercialized, mass media-ized version of Christmas that gets thrown in our faces every year right after Halloween. Meanwhile, a perfect antidote lies dormant in a 2000-year old tradition, just waiting for us to dust it off and rediscover its potent properties.

I write about this tradition as an attempt to do just that. As it is, even for those of us who see the tragic irony of commercialized Holy Days, it seems like the most we ever do about it is remind people to "Keep the Christ in Christmas." It's a catchy slogan, but Advent has the potential to be so much more powerful than simply trying to remember to wish Jesus a "happy birthday" while we stuff ourselves with gifts and feasts. (Not that I am at ALL opposed to Christmas meals and presents.)

The word "Advent" comes from Latin and means "coming." It's a translation of the Greek word "parousia," which is the word used in the New Testament to refer to the second coming of Christ. So rather than being a single Holy Day, Advent is a season of preparation, leading up to Christmas. Thus, during Advent we prepare to celebrate and commemorate the birth of the Savior and the wondrous miracle of our Lord's Incarnation. But far from being strictly an object of remembrance, this Savior lives and has promised to return. So while we remember the first coming, we prepare for the second.

The practical side of it is fairly simple. During the season of Advent, we center our devotional life around these two "comings" of Christ. In our reading, in our prayer, in our giving, in our volunteering, in our church-going, and in anything else we do as an act of faith, we keep our focus on Jesus as Incarnate God and Coming Lord.

Advent is a time for both solemnity and joy, hushed reverence and eager expectation. As though standing in front of a campfire, we feel the cold of winter at our backs, while the holy flame heats our hands and faces. So I invite you, come stand by the fire. This hopefully served as a good primer, but I encourage you to do further research about the meaning of Advent, join in the tradition, and maybe even start some traditions of your own. I intend to write more about this in the weeks to come.

Thoughts on Quiet Time

2010-11-03T05:20:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at my desk. It's early, barely light outside. The only sounds I hear are the hum of my computer and the music of Bach's Cello Suites (my favorite "quiet time" music) gently gliding from the speakers.

I love this time. I value it. So much so, that I am often torn about exactly how to use it. I race through the possibilities. If I don't make a decision soon, I'll start to become anxious as I feel the time slipping away.

I could just sit in contemplation and prayer; I could read from the Bible; I could read something from my Kindle; I could read some articles from some of my favorite websites; I could watch a free documentary or lecture online; I could do some research on a recent topic of interest; I could blog; all of these are potential candidates to receive a sizable donation from a bank account called My Quiet Time.

Of course, there are some things that are off limits. I won't do anything work-related, and I won't play games or watch TV.

I could solve the dilemma of having to decide what to do by simply planning in advance, which I do from time to time. If I really want to be diligent about finishing a particular book, or writing about something I've been thinking about, or something of that nature, then I might set aside the time for that. However, I have found over the years that it just doesn't work if I try to plan out each and every morning.

I've often wondered why this is so, and for a long time my best theory was that it was just a lack of discipline on my part. While that certainly is a factor, I've also come to realize recently that it just sucks all the fun out of it. I get joy from the simple act of sitting down, knowing the free time I have, and thinking, "Alright, what can I do now?" "What do I get to do now?" rather than "What should I do?" or "What must I do.?"

My theory is that, as long as certain things are off limits, then I'm not just wasting time or lacking discipline. I'm simply doing things in such a way that I know I will best enjoy them. It's the principle of Sabbath, applied to the first hour or two of my weekdays.

I've begun to apply this same logic to my relationship with God. Granted, there are aspects of my relationship with God that are, rightfully so, based in concepts of duty, obligation, discipline, etc. I'm not devaluing those things. But some important questions to ask are: Do I ever have times with God that I just simply enjoy? Can I tame God to the point of relegating him to a few blocks on a weekly schedule sheet?

I love discipline and formality, but personally, I find that if those are the only ways I live out my relationship with God, then my picture of him becomes, at best, some kind of austere taskmaster. At worst, he becomes an impersonal object, just something I do on a semi-regular basis.

Discipline, properly practiced, makes room for spontaneous joy and genuine affection. We are allowed to experience God as a person, and to delight in him as a Friend and Father.

This is Me on Coffee

2010-10-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

I am generally known for being somewhat slow of tongue. I take my time with thoughts and words. My speech is often accompanied by its fair share of verbal pauses, which are tools I use in order to ensure that the next word is the one I really want.

However . . .

There are definitely plenty of times where I get a little quicker . It usually happens when I have a buncha coffee and I get all worked up about something I'm excited about and I can actually talk somebody's head off for awhile until they start to wonder when I might stop because I'm not really giving them a chance to speak or ask questions, so all of a sudden the conversation ends up being pretty one-sided and then I have this "Aha" moment where I'm like, "Whoa, I've been going on for quite a while here and I'm starting to run out of breath," so I just try to hurry up and finish my thought and then stop.

The Lost Art of Moderation

2010-09-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?

Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

It's good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them. (Ecclesiastes 7:16-18, NAS)

Ecclesiastes is my favorite book in the Bible. I can't say exactly why. The first time I ever read it, I was exhilarated. It seemed like the exact book I would have written myself, if, you know, I was the wisest man in the world AND being inspired by the Holy Spirit.

I used to try to put my finger on exactly why I connected with it so well. I eventually stopped trying to figure it out when I realized it was a multitude of factors: the brutal honesty, the vulnerability of the author, the rollercoaster-like nature of the Teacher's sequence of reasoning, the beautiful gems of wisdom, the stunning resolve of the conclusion, and who knows what else. It's a fairly complex text, and I don't think I could ever comprehensively list the ways I connect and interact with it. But, as of a few days ago, I can add one more to the list: it is a book of moderation, which has always been something I value highly.

The verse quoted above is a prime example. To be clear, I don't think it's encouraging us to dabble in wickedness, nor to temper our good deeds. The author is confronting the reality of pervasive sin in our world. He's saying that if you indulge in it, you will destroy yourself, AND, by the way, you're not much better off if you try to pretend that you're above it.

Traditionally, we put prophecy and wisdom in distinct genres of Biblical literature, but I sure do wish we could receive words of wisdom as prophetic. These words could speak so directly to the heart of the American church, if we would allow it. My fear is that extremism is too ingrained in our cultural DNA for that.

Everything is permissible, and many things are beneficial.

2010-09-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

If you can excuse this blatant distortion of a famous passage of Scripture, I believe I have a valid, and even Biblical, point to make here.

The Apostle Paul originally wrote the following in a letter to the Corinthians, who were apparently trying to justify as much sin as they could get away with, based on the idea of "freedom in Christ":

"Everything is permissible," but not everything is beneficial (1 Corinthians 10:23)

This is certainly a valuable piece of Scripture, that can guide us when we find ourselves tempted to dance right on the edge of the line of sin. It can guide us when we confuse our freedom in Christ for a free pass from God to engage in whatever behavior our hearts desire. I think this is the intent of Paul's words.

Unfortunately, this passage often seems to be used as a kind of all-purpose guilt-trip tool. When there's something we just think is bad or dangerous, but we can't find any clear Biblical teaching against it, we pull this little trump card out of the deck. Game over.

But there's often a double standard. For example, Paul also stated that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). People always point out, and rightly so, that it's the love of money, and not money itself, so there is nothing inherently wrong with acquiring wealth. In fact, wealth is a very good thing when it is used appropriately. I agree.

But you never hear anyone saying, "Well, you should just avoid the temptation to love money altogether by just not having any." No one counsels a man whose getting a raise by saying, "You know Bob, from a Biblical perspective, you probably shouldn't take this raise. No, there's nothing in the Bible that forbids it, but there's a line, and shouldn't you want to stay as far away the line as possible?"

If Paul says "not everything is beneficial," the other side of that is that there are many things that are beneficial. While we should certainly use Paul's words as an impetus for throwing out bath water, let's keep the baby in the tub.

Reflecting at 28

2010-09-08T05:01:00.000-07:00

Where I come from, birthdays are sacred.

Birthdays always meant I could eat whatever I wanted.

I could hit my brother, and he couldn't hit me back.

I could watch whatever TV show I wanted, even if my sisters had no interest. I could sit where I wanted. Eat what I wanted . . . wait, did I mention that one already?

All those things might seem trivial now that I'm 28 years old, but for me, birthdays are still sacred.

The things we call "sacred" are simply things that remind us of God. The Ark of the Convenant was sacred because it reminded the Israelites of God's laws and promises. The Eucharist is sacred because it reminds us of the body and blood of Christ, and the promise of his return.

Birthdays are sacred to me because they remind me that my life is not my own. It is a gift, given to me by God. He has blessed me tremendously, with not only life, but health, friends, family, and even his very own Self, given over like bread and wine at a dinner table.

I haven't earned any of these things, any more than I earned being born 28 years ago to this day. They are all gifts that both humble me and drive me to live my life in a manner worthy of them. This is my sacred reminder, my birthday.

And I like ice cream and cake.

How to Avoid Sippin' That Hatorade

2010-09-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember, it has been one of my core philosophies of life to not hate unnecessarily. In urban terms, having unnecessary hate is referred to as "sippin' that Hatorade." In case you didn't know, Hatorade is bitter, unattractive (except to fellow Hatorade drinkers), and contains no electrolytes. I don't want to have a lot of hatred, so I try to reserve it for things that really matter.

For example, I may not care much for teen pop idol Justin Bieber, but it would be trivial and wasteful for me to actually expend energy on bashing him or trying to convince other people to not like him.

Another example: just because I absolutely LOVE the TV show Lost, it doesn't mean I have to feel threatened when someone tells me their favorite show is 24. We don't always have to compete about everything (cf. Twilight vs. Harry Potter for definitive proof that this kind of behavior is indicative that one has the mind of a middle-school student.)

Another example: speech and grammar mistakes are not moral issues, nor are they very good indicators of whether a person is intelligent or not. If you are one of those self-appointed grammar police, I am begging you, for your own sake, just relax. Your life would be more enjoyable. : )

Another example: it's so much easier to hate when the issue isn't close to home. It's easy to say all kinds of terrible things about homosexuals when you have no gay friends. It's easy to talk about what Muslims "really believe" when you have no Muslim friends. Here's a good rule of thumb: don't post something on a Facebook status or write it on a sign unless you would actually say it, face-to-face, to someone whom you know personally and care about.

In conclusion, while Hatorade can certainly quench our thirst for feeling superior to others, the long-term effects are proven to be hazardous. Next time you're tempted to pick up a bottle, try some chocolate milk instead. You can never go wrong with chocolate milk.

A Muslim President?

2010-08-19T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've heard about it by now, as it's been pretty much the top media story of the day. A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that the perception that President Obama is an adherent of Islam hasn't changed much over the past year. The poll indicates that a whopping 12% of Americans are under the impression that the U.S. currently has a Muslim president. Here are the numbers if you want to check it out: http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=509

Aside from the dearth of evidence to the contrary, it baffles me to think that so many people believe that there would even be a POSSIBILITY of a Muslim president right now. Just 50 years ago, it was a HUGE deal that we elected a Catholic president. Obama is our VERY FIRST black president. We still have never elected a female president. And unfortunately, Muslims are even further down on the social totem pole than Catholics, blacks, and women.

This does raise an interesting question though. When, if ever, would we elect a Muslim president? It doesn't seem like it would happen any time remotely soon, and if it were to ever happen, there would need to be some MAJOR changes in popular perception.

During my lunch breaks, I often watch videos on TED.com (Which, by the way, if you've never check it out, PLEASE do.) They add a new video every weekday, and today's video just so happened to be a talk by an Iranian-American who is a founding member of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour . These are guys who are all of Middle-Eastern descent, and they are making a noble effort to use their comedic skills to both entertain and change perceptions of Middle Easterners. If you want to view this highly entertaining and inspiring video, here it is.

The thing is, fundamentalist, extremist Muslims make up a minute percentage of the total Muslim population. To the extent that we allow the few to dominate our perception of the many, we make the same mistake that has plagued humanity for millenia and has lead to so many atrocities in our world. And of course I wouldn't want a fundamentalist Muslim in the White House, but neither would I want a fundamentalist Christian. So I'm not saying that religious beliefs are irrelevant to what makes a good presidential candidate, but they are not as important as a sense of human decency, justice, and a desire for the common good, which are things that can be held by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists alike.

Surrender

2010-08-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

"Mine" is a word we tend to learn pretty early in life. When we, as children, first begin to realize that there are things that we can call our own, we are, no doubt, thrilled to elation, judging by the overwhelming horror children seem to manifest when "their" toy is taken away. What a cruel reversal of fortunes then, when we reach adulthood and realize that maturity is about responsibility, sacrifice, and other such concepts that go utterly against that "mine" instinct. And it gets even worse if we decide to follow Christ, and he asks us to surrender--not simply making some sacrifices and compromises here and there, but actually saying, "My most precious possession, my life, is no longer mine."

I'm speaking in worldly terms, as if it's a bad thing, when it's actually the best thing in the world. When we first decide to surrender, we feel the liberating power of it, and then how quickly we begin to think, "What have I done?!" Because even though in the moment, we know, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, that's it right, we can't possibly understand all the implications. Fortunately, we serve a God of infinite kindness and patience, who allows us to work out the details as we go along. He doesn't make us sign a prenup!

Spiritual growth can essentially be summed up in this way, as a gradual working out of the terms of our surrender--a gradual loosening of this "mine" instinct that we formerly grasped onto with all of our power. I was in a church service recently, and one of the songs played during worship was the great hymn "I Surrender All" (if you know me well, you know about my love for hymns.) The refrain goes:

I surrender all
I surrender all
All to thee, my blessed Savior
I surrender all

I had a hard time singing along at first because I thought it would be a lie. I couldn't honestly say that I had surrendered quite everything to Jesus just yet. I'm not sure that I ever will on this side of eternity. But then I decided to make the words a prayer, that God would give me the strength to surrender more and more to him. I started to think about what I needed to surrender, and the combination of my love for hymns and the power of this prayer began to overwhelm me.

What was I surrendering that day, you ask? What had I been holding on to? My right to define my own self-worth. My insistence on obtaining significance and value from performance and from other people's opinions of me. I was surrendering my greed--greed for respect, admiration, honor, and the esteem of my peers. As I surrendered, and to continue to surrender, all of those things, I make room for God. He's the only one who loves us unconditionally. He created us; he died on a cross for us; he has forgiven and restored us; he has made us righteous. He should be the only source of our sense of self-worth. My value comes not from what I can do or the tasks I can perform or the things I can produce. It doesn't come from how well-liked or respected I am by the people around me. It comes only from God's unconditional, unimaginably high, deep, wide, long love for me.

Just earlier today I struggled with this issue again, as I'm sure I will continue to. Something someone did made me feel like they didn't respect me or value what I had to say. I felt rejected and excluded. And then I thought about the fact that I haven't been rejected at all. In fact, I've been accepted by the God of the Universe. And the only reason I got upset was because I had forgotten that, and was once again desperately trying to derive self-worth from others, even to the point of overreacting to a false perception of rejection that wasn't even intended to be mean or disrespectful. I apologized for my overreaction, and in doing so, I won a small victory against my "mine" instinct. I surrendered the mindset of, "I deserve and demand the respect that I crave," and I allowed the love of God to replace it.

I hope these words can encourage you to surrender something that you're holding on to.

How to Not Be Triflin'

2010-08-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

While there seems to be some confusion, even among experts, about the exact meaning of triflin', it's negative connotation is universally understood. Of all the adjectives in the vast lexicon of English, triflin' would probably be in the top 10 of most people's "I hope no one ever calls me that" list. Lately, I've been trying to make sure I ain't triflin', and so I figured I would pass on some tips to everyone else.

Urban Dictionary gives one definition as follows:

to play with someone in a bad & poor way, like in destiny's child's song "bills, bills, bills":
"You triflin',good for nothing type of brother
Silly me,why haven't I found another
A baller, when times get hard he's the one to help me out
insted of, a scrub like you who don't know what a man's about"

This particular editor made a slight mistake in the definiton--the definition is for the verb form of triflin', while the example from the Destiny's Child song is clearly the adjective form. For our purposes, we should attempt to adapt this definition into a more adjectival one. Before we do that though, it's helpful to look at the dictionary.com definition for a different, but related, word: trifling. As usual, the commonly-used, online dictionary gives a plethora of definitions, but they all share a common sense, and that is of something trivial, meaningless, having little value, minor, etc:

1. of very little importance; trivial; insignificant: a trifling matter.
2. of small value, cost, or amount: a trifling sum.
3. frivolous; shallow; light: trifling conversation.
4. mean; worthless.
–noun
5. idle or frivolous conduct, talk, etc.
6. foolish delay or waste of time.

So, with both the Urban Dictionary and the dictionary.com entries in mind, if I were to take a crack at defining it, it would be as follows:

triflin': adj., applied primarily to persons; having the quality of habitually living for trivial matters, or treating life as a game or a drama; lacking substance in important areas of life (relationships, career, etc.), esp. in such a way as to make one unsuitable for dating.

More clearly stated, someone who is triflin' is pretty much someone who ain't grown. It's someone who is living for games and fun, reveling in lack of responsibility, and reaping destruction by not giving due thought to the consequences of such actions. A triflin' person is a man or a woman who still lives like a boy or a girl.

It may surprise you to learn that in the Holy Bible, the Apostle Paul actually counsels some of his readers to not be so triflin'. He writes, in his 1st letter to the Corinthians (who were a triflin' buncha suckas if there ever was some):

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." (1 Corinthians 13:11)

I don't want to be the "triflin' type of brother" that Destiny's Child sang about. I don't want to live according the "get-what-you-need-at-any-cost" ways of the world, like a child screaming in Wal-Mart till he gets the toy he wants. I don't want my decisions to be based on a need for approval, or a fear of rejection, or a desire to manage my self-image. These are the ways of children and teenagers. I want to live according to the wisdom of God's word, and love for God and neighbor, and the desire to honor and respect others above myself. These are the ways of a real man or woman.

In the words of Paul, let's put triflin' ways behind us.

A Brief Critique of the Intelligent Design Movement

2010-07-19T18:14:00.000-07:00

According to Herman Wouk, the famous physicist Richard Feynman is purported to have described calculus as "the language God talks." Even though Feynman was agnostic and was waxing ironic when made that remark, I love the perspective it offers. Notwithstanding the flurry of attacks on faith by the New Atheists, this perspective has for centuries been a dominant, driving force for scientific inquiry. The very true idea underlying Feynman's ironic remark is that the more we uncover the hidden design of our universe, the more we learn of its designer.

How sad is it then, that this ancient human impulse to learn more about our Creator by studying his creation, has been tangled up with and made nearly inseparable from politics. Don't be deceived--Intelligent Design is neither a spiritual venture nor a scientific revolution. It is a political movement; its aim is to forcefully wrest scientific authority from the hands of scientists and place it in the hands of clergy.

The problem I have is not in simply saying that the Universe has a designer. I believe that. It needs to be asserted and held up against the aggressive proponents of dumb luck and purposelessness. The problem I have with supporters of ID is that they don't want to just say that there is a designer; they also want to define the parameters for saying precisely how he did it. I'm sorry, but that privilege should be the domain of science. Last I checked, most seminaries weren't offering advanced degrees in hard sciences, so I don't trust religious institutions on these kinds of issues. Flexing political muscle in order to advance our interpretation of Scripture over scientific evidence is a recurring mistake that has exacted a severe toll on the credibility of the Church.

I'm hopeful though. History attests that in the end, truth tends to win out over its suppressors. The atheists and ID people can launch rockets in each other's direction all day long; meanwhile, the quiet candle of truth will keep burning to illuminate more reasonable minds.

Harvard University's "Justice" is Edu-tainment at It's Finest!

2010-06-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

Before you proceed, please watch the following highly compelling trailer. If you can watch the first few minutes without being interested, you need not continue reading.

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Michael Sandel has recently become a personal hero of mine, as I believe he is doing our country a huge favor right now. He is providing a service to our college students, and our nation as a whole, by making sure that our political conversations are undergirded with a proper understanding of the moral and political ideas that shaped our government in the first place. By drawing out the philosophies that lie at the roots of our ideologies, party alignments, and voting habits, Sandel helps us to understand the full implications and consequences of whatever stance we happen to take.

In my prideful opinion, this is precisely the kind of thing that we need more of right now. In watching these lectures, I've come to realize that a vast majority of the political conversations going on right now are somewhat akin to people arguing about what it means to be a Christian, without ever having read the Gospels. Or about what it means to be a Muslim, without ever having read the Koran. Or what constitutes good fantasy literature, without reading a word of Tolkien. Or what it's like to be a pro wrestler, without ever getting elbow dropped from the top rope. You get the idea. (I'm sure you got it without all the examples, but I was having too much fun listing them.)

And I have a hard time imagining anyone doing it better than Sandel does. It's evident that he is a master at what he does, judging by the fact that his students are awake and fully engaged at every lecture.

If you have any interest in politics, in moral or political philosophy, or even in seeing the minds of bright, well-educated young people at work, you don't want to miss these lectures. This is probably one of the coolest things happening on a University campus, and the kind folks at Harvard have made it accessible to us. I highly recommend taking advantage.

Harvard University's "Justice" with Michael Sandel

Beauty and Taste (Part I)

2010-05-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

I've had a number of great conversations with people lately on the nature of beauty and art, and how objective or subjective they are. Then I had this idea for a series of blogs that would keep the conversation going. So here's some thoughts to get us started. Please respond in the comments section if you have any thoughts on the topic whatsoever. I am fascinated by this, and I want to get some dialogue going.

For this 1st part, I want to pose a very simple question that I think is a key starting point for a discussion like this:

Is there anything, anything in the entire world that you would consider to be 100% objectively beautiful? Meaning, there's just no room for argument or disagreement. It's beautiful, and if someone doesn't find it beautiful, they must have something wrong in their heads.

Personally, I would say yes. A very simple, but perfect example would be a rainbow. I don't know about you, but I've never heard anyone say that a rainbow is ugly. I've never even heard anyone say something like, "Yeah, I guess rainbows are alright, if you're into that kinda thing." The beauty of a rainbow is inarguable, and if there is anyone who doesn't see the beauty in it, then their sense of aesthetic pleasure is either seriously dulled or somehow distorted.

Agree or disagree? Thoughts to add? Discuss amongst myself.

Adventures in Learning to Drive, Part III

2010-04-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

1st lesson learned as an officially licensed driver: a little moisture in the eyes can obscure your vision.

I could recount the whole experience here, but it wasn't all that exciting. Kelsey Tomes let me borrow her car, Charles Gravely went down to the DMV with me, and Ken Taylor aced a freakin' driving test! 93/100. The end.

It was quite anti-climactic.

Nonetheless, I did get just a little choked up when I found out I passed. And again while we were filing the paperwork. And while we were driving back home. And right now as I write this. Not that it's a HUGE deal; it's just like there was some big hurdle, and I had just been running around it for the past 10 years. And the few times I did try to jump it, I either crashed right into it and fell on my face, or my toes just knicked it. And now it's like I jumped it, turned in mid-air, did a giant DX-chop to it on the way down, and then karate chopped it into pieces from the other side. In slow motion.

Oh, and I'm getting a car from my parents now. So, the question is, with a license AND a car, what shall I do now? Here's what I'm thinking:

I want to be sure to be a good steward of what I've been given. I will use my resources to bless others: rides to places, road trips, bonding time, etc.

Speaking of road trips, 1st stop: The Crescent City. Besides the fact that I just love the city, I've been itching to check out the new Insectarium. And of course, this trip would also include hanging out with Stacey, Deanna, and other cool New Orleaneans.

I've been wanting to pick up a second job. And by "wanting to," I mean "not wanting to, but kinda needing to." I need to make payments on student loans. My very own mode of transportation should be of tremendous help in this endeavor.

And last but not least, I look forward to seeing my family more. Up until now, seeing my family usually meant getting a ride somehow and staying for an entire weekend, which is rarely feasible. Now, if I want to it, I can just go visit for a few hours on a Sunday or something like that.

To everyone who has loaned me their car, took me to practice driving, took me to the DMV, etc., THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Adventures in Learning to Drive, Part II

2010-03-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

With a belly full of fish-fried chicken and biscuits, I went home discouraged but hopeful. How hard could it be to get a turn-signal fixed? I asked some of my more mechanically-inclined friends, who informed me that the bulb probably just needs to be replaced. Really? I didn't even know cars used bulbs! So as soon as I got home, I went and unscrewed the light bulb in my room and put it in my car. (Just kidding. I knew you had to get a special car bulb for cars, silly.) I was more determined than ever; I was going to change that bulb and drive that dang Lumina right back to the DMV and ace that test! And there wasn't nothing nobody could do to stop me!

A trip to Pep Boys and several hours later, I discovered that either changing a bulb on a car is a lot harder than changing a bulb in a house, or the bulb wasn't the problem. With the help of Zeke D'Avy and Chad Brown, I eventually figured out it was the latter. I called Charles and told him the problem. He took it to his mechanic. A few days later he called me:

Charles: I got some bad news about the car.
Me: What's that?
Charles: It's gonna cost exactly 1 arm and 1 leg to fix the dang thing.
Me: What?! An arm and a leg? I thought that was just a figure of speech!
Charles: Nope.
Me: That's a steep price, just to fix a blinker.
Charles: Listen, I'm willing to spot you an arm if you can come up with the leg.
Me: Meh.

Since we didn't want to fix it, and since it didn't seem like a good idea to drive around with no back left turn-signal (have you ever tried using the hand signals? It feels really stupid for some reason), we decided to just sell the car.

To be completely sincere for a moment, I felt like giving up at this point. Yeah, I get an "F" for Perseverance 101, I know. But I was so annoyed with the whole situation, and I just started to think it wasn't really worth it. The gas money, the insurance money, the have-to-fix-stuff-before-you-even-officially-own-the-freakin'-thing money. In fact, have you ever considered the undeniable, historical truth that 99.98% of the greatest people in the history of the world never owned a car or had a driver's license? Seriously. Moses, Gandhi, the Buddha, Jesus, the list goes on. I just wanted to be like Jesus.

As it turns out though, it's too late for me to give up now. (Sorry Jesus, but I'm going to have to trump you on this one.) Over the last few months, I've learned the truth of what Charles told me all those years ago. Whether I realize it or not, whether I admit it or not, I will probably never feel like a mature adult male in my society until I get that driver's license. Besides that, I've learned over the years to value the act of carrying out a goal to it's completion. When we give up, even though it may seem like the wise thing to do in the moment, we lose something. We can become habitual giver-uppers, who can never quite seem to finish a task. Well I don't want to be a giver-upper anymore, and I'm going to keep trying until I have that license in my hand, if for no other reason than my own dignity and self-respect.

And as always, the moral of the story: stay in school, kids!

P. S. I'm going to try to take the test again this Thursday. Pray for me. = )

Adventures in Learning to Drive, Part I

2010-03-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

I think I'm approximately 27 years old. (I'm pretty sure. But I really do forget sometimes. So let's just go with 27, give or take a year). Anyway, I'm somewhere between the ages of 26 and 28, and I don't have a driver's license. That's the point I'm getting at.

I recently embarked on a journey to obtain one of these things. And by recently I mean about 5 years ago. I want to tell you the story of this journey, but before I do, I should tell you some of the steps that led up to it.

If, as you and I have so far assumed, I am indeed most probably 27 years old, that means I am 11 years past the age at which most people get their licenses. The reason most people get their licenses at 16 is because that is the earliest age allowed by law, and most people want their license at the earliest possible age they can have it. This was not the case with me.

Call it weird, but I just didn't have that itch. Call it fear, more accurately. The thought of driving scared the piss out of me, which is a terrible thing to happen to you while you're driving because there isn't much you can do about it. Everyone seems to think a guy should drive a car so he can take girls on dates, but if you pee your pants on the way to pick her up, it automatically negates all other potential benefits.

What kept me from driving wasn't just the thought of my rampant absent-mindedness resulting in the death of one or more other human beings, including-but-not-limited-to myself. That was part of it, but I was also a very inert adolescent. I didn't do things that I didn't feel like doing, and most things happened to fall into that category of "Things I Don't Feel Like Doing."

I finished high school with no license. I entered college with no license. Didn't want one, didn't need one, didn't care. Charles Gravely and I had some conversations that went like this:

Charles: Ken, I think you should try to get your driver's license.
Me: Meh.
Charles: Seriously Ken, as your brother in Christ and as someone who you trust to challenge you and encourage you toward spiritual maturity, I think getting your driver's license would be an important step. It's like a rite of passage in our culture.
Me: I definitely see your point . . . but . . . meh.

Charles's prodding must've been somewhat effective though because a few summers later, I started learning how to drive. I drove my friend's truck, stick shift and all, up and down a long gravel road a few times and I thought I was ready. So then I went and took the test in my mom's van, and I failed. I kept turning into other lanes of traffic. The instructor was really friendly at first, so I thought I was doing well. She preceded to ask me kindly if I was nervous, and when I replied, "very," Satan entered her and she barked, "WELL YOU'RE ABOUT TO FAIL YOUR TEST!" And that would have helped me out a lot, except for the fact that it didn't.

She told me to turn left at the next light. So I put my left blinker on and waited for the light to turn green. When it did, I turned right. She said, "What are you doing? I told you to turn LEFT! Pull over into this parking lot. I'll drive us back to the DMV."

If my confidence could be compared to a baby bird in a jungle, fluttering it's little wings and hopping around on the ground, that experience was like a tree falling on top of the bird. And that instructor was the lumberjack that fell the freakin' thing. She fell the tree; she failed me.

So what do you do when you fall off a horse? Well, you get back on and try again, five years later. Charles Gravely (the same one I mentioned earlier) got married to another good friend of mine, Amanda J (btw, they have a blog, too). They recently decided to give me Amanda's old 1990 Chevy Lumina. Yes, you read that right, they GAVE it to me. They decided they didn't need the car, and though they very well could have sold it and used the money for their soon-coming stint as campus missionaries in Belgium, they determined in their godly, giant hearts to just bless me with it.

Before making it official though, we mutually agreed it would be best for me to obtain my license first. So, with my hand forced in the most gracious way, I got back on the horse. I got my permit renewed, and I started driving the Lumina everywhere. Most of the time I would get my licensed friends to ride shotgun, and on a few occasions I even drove it by myself (until Amanda found out one day and politely requested that I immediately cease and desist that particular habit).

For the first time in my life, I actually started to feel good about driving. I felt natural behind the wheel. Not to the point of arrogance; I just started to feel like I could react calmly and reasonably should something unexpected happen on the road. So, me and my most frequent traveling buddy, Lance Dunn, planned an excursion to the DMV. We went, waited for my number to be called, filled out the paper work, etc. I was a little nervous, but overall I had a pretty good feeling that I was about to finally get this thing over with. The instructor and I walked out to the car, and as she does the routine inspection of headlights and such, we discover, oops, my back left turn signal isn't working! I can't take the test!!!

I was overwhelmed with frustration and disappointment, but I felt better when Lance and I went to KFC and got some comfort food. I got a filet of fish, which actually tasted oddly similar to chicken, fried in fish fry. Oh well, meat is meat. I ate it, along with 3 biscuits and some potato wedges, washed it down with a Pepsi, then got up and ordered some fiery hot wings for dessert. Ah, much better.

So what happened next? And am I ever going to get my daggum license?!?! Hate to leave you on a cliffhanger, but I will answer those questions in the next installment, to be posted tomorrow. = )

On Memorizing Scripture

2010-03-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a book by Ed Dobson called The Year of Living Like Jesus (full review forthcoming at my book blog, kendlebooks.blogspot.com). Dobson, inspired by A. J. Jacobs and his Year of Living Biblically, decided to spend a year living as closely to the way Jesus lived as possible. He grows out his beard, observes Jewish customs, such as the Sabbath and the Passover, and tries to fully apply Jesus's teachings to his everyday life, among other things. Included in this project was lots of Scripture memorization, something Jesus surely would have done, just as any rabbi of his day was expected to. The book is inspiring me in several ways, including making me want to memorize Scripture.

What is the value of such a practice, you may ask? Well, I can think of many potential benefits, but I'll just say the one that has cropped up already as I've restarted this practice (I say restarted because I've done it a few times before. I've simply never been committed to it as regular and ongoing discipline). I decided to begin with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-10) and work my up to the whole Sermon on the Mount (Chpts. 5-7 of Matthew). So today, I just kept reading those 10 verses quietly to myself until I could recite them from memory (which isn't that difficult with these particular verses, due to their poetic structure).

Now, it just so happens that lust has been a major struggle for me recently. I won't go into detail here, but I've just been having a lot of trouble keeping my thoughts in check. So as I kept repeating Jesus's words, the ones that really stuck out to me the most were, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." At first, I wasn't quite sure why I was connecting with this verse the most, out of all the others, but it became obvious when I put 2 & 2 together. The living Word of God was speaking directly to me, the Double-Edged Sword cutting simultaneously into the lustful state of my mind and the rebellious state of my heart. Honestly, I may not have had that experience had I just read over the passage once and kept going.

And now I keep repeating these words, "Blessed are the pure in heart. For they will see God." I want to see God. And as I say these words, their force becomes almost tangible, like a breath of pure air, that I breathe right back in to myself. The temptations that I'm facing become weaker, and my desire for purity, stronger.

I'm definitely going to try to make Scripture memorization a long-term habit. I'll let you know where it takes me.

Some Moderate Thoughts on Global Warming

2010-02-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

Most of my friends and the people that I'm surrounded by on a daily basis are politically conservative. Most of them probably think I'm liberal, primarily because I often critique conservative perspectives. However, though I can't be sure, I get the feeling that I would do exactly the opposite if most of my friends happened to be liberal. I take it as a God-given gift that I am often able to help people see other perspectives. Socrates is a personal hero of mine.

And I have to admit, when it comes to politics, I tend to be extremely moderate, probably to a fault. I can't help it; I am thoroughly attracted to the idea that there must be some better way of framing most political issues than the tired old conservative vs. liberal paradigms.

Thus, when I approach the issue of global warming, I really want to find some middle ground between the conventional conservative and liberal positions. And maybe this desire colors my vision a little bit; maybe one of these sides really is 100% correct and the other is 100% wrong. I'm not ruling out the possibility. However, as long as I can reasonably do so, I will continue to try to consider the strengths and weaknesses of all the various arguments that are presented. (And yes, I do realize I'm speaking of global warming as a political issue, rather than a science issue. It's a sad but true fact that that's what it has become. More on that later.)

So here's my real thoughts on global warming:

1) The evidence is NOT conclusive. And, surprisingly enough to many of the skeptics, most scientists AREN'T claiming that it is. Science has learned its lessons over the years. It takes overwhelming, undeniable evidence for scientists to come to a consensus that a certain hypothesis is proven to be true. And with global warming, that just hasn't happened yet. It doesn't mean that evidence isn't there. It is. There is indeed a consensus that the evidence is currently pointing towards global warming being real, and that it is at least partly related to human activity. But there's more work to be done, more measuring, more testing, more debating. And contrary to popular misconception, most scientists simply AREN'T asserting that human-caused global warming is absolute fact. (Though, there are some people who are saying that, but I'll get to them in a second.)

A century or two ago, many scientists thought that there was little left in the world to discover. That Newton had pretty much mapped out the underlying fabric of the Universe, and all that was left to do was to make more precise measurements. Then Maxwell, Einstein, Heisenberg, et. al. came around and flipped that all upside-down. Scientists today know better. It's part of being a good scientist to know that any given hypothesis or theory can be seriously called into question by some new discovery or idea that no one had accounted for previously.

2) The scientific discussion of global warming has been co-opted by highly-influential, politically-motivated people. It's hardly possible anymore to have a discussion about global warming that isn't somehow tainted by the left or right leanings of the involved parties. Real scientists, unfortunately, don't have as prominent a role in the public forum as do pundits and politicians. The people who are influencing public opinion on the science of global warming the most are people who are . . . guess what . . . NOT SCIENTISTS! We are being "educated" about this subject by people on TV who have NO CREDENTIALS for such a task. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? Then again, why go and spend all the time required to read something academic when I can just have my pre-existing opinion affirmed by that really confident-sounding guy on TV?

This goes for both sides of the debate. As I was saying earlier, scientists are not overwhelmingly claiming that global warming is a scientifically airtight theory. However, there are SOME politicians and even SOME politically-motivated scientists who are. I, for one, do not believe that we should act in such a way as if the most alarming of the reports are true. Let's continue to fund research and act gradually as we get more information. The people who act as though there's simply not a single reason to doubt global warming are just as guilty of unwarranted extremism as those who act as though there's not a single reason to believe it and that it's a vast conspiracy.

3) The recent scandal involving certain scientists (actually, primarily just one scientist named Phil Jones) is not sufficient evidence that the whole thing is a hoax. For one thing, what the man said and did is being blown way out of proportion by the conservative media. Check out these 2 links here and here for two different sides of the issue.

Regardless, if a scandal regarding a single individual or a relatively small group of individuals is sufficient to discredit an entire idea or movement that has lots of other evidence for it, Christianity would have been discredited a LONG, LONG time ago, before it ever even reached Rome and Emperor Constantine. This is not a fair method of assessment.

4) Snowstorms are not evidence against global warming. Short-term fluctuations do not accurately represent long-term trends. I might as well trim my beard and then present its recent decrease in length as evidence that it's not growing.

5) Finally, while the jury is still out on global warming, I have trouble seeing how it could possibly be a bad thing for us to reduce carbon emissions, clean up our energy, etc. All the people with strong anti-environmental views still enjoy breathing clean air and drinking clean water. Of all people, Christians should be leading the way in this area. We are the ones who know that God gave man dominion over the Earth (Genesis 1). Dominion does not entail a right to use and abuse as we see fit. This kind of mentality is akin to sexual immorality--taking a gift that God has given and getting what we want from it, without any appreciation for the true purpose of the gift or its ultimate Source. The belief that the activity of the billions of human beings on our planet has absolutely zero negative effect on our environment is not only willfully ignorant, but also unbiblical. God gave us a job. He gave us a domain and set us up as rulers; inasmuch as we mishandle this responsibility, we have become tyrants.

BOTH AND

2009-11-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

The Word of God, but not His pen.
Not his ink but that of men.
Creation, yes, but not His hand.
Simple obeisance to his command:

"Let there be . . . "

And so he told the world to spin,
But I've often thought it may have been
The constant work of the musician
That makes it go round and round again.

What is a Christian Nation?

2009-08-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

Over the last 200+ years, many have claimed that America is a Christian nation, as many still do today. And yet, two centuries of lexicalization have done very little to clarify the meaning of this phrase. Thus, the titular question of this essay is just as relevant to us now as it would have been to 18th century colonists.

David Barton, a writer for an excellent website called Wallbuilders.com, defines "Christian nation" in a way that seems fairly uncontroversial. He says:

"A Christian nation as demonstrated by the American experience is a nation founded upon Christian and Biblical principles, whose values, society, and institutions have largely been shaped by those principles. This definition was reaffirmed by American legal scholars and historians for generations 12 but is widely ignored by today’s revisionists." (Is President Obama Correct:Is America No Longer a Christian Nation?, http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=23909) If this is the definition people are working with when they use that term, I can accept that. How could America not be shaped by Christian and Biblical principles when indeed Christianity had been the dominant cultural force of Western civilization for over a millenium prior to the formation of our Constitution? This much seems obvious and undeniable.

The problem that I have is that when people use this term, while they may indeed have a definition in mind similar to the one I just cited, they often have MUCH MORE in mind than just that. They seem to mean that America is a Christian nation in a way that, say, Great Britain is not, nor ever was, even though the Bible and Christianity most surely shaped its values, society, and institutions as well. They seem to mean that America is a Christian nation in a way that no other country ever will be. They seem to mean that the angels of the Lord's army lead the Americans to victory in the Revolution, that God himself ordained our laws on stone tablets for us, that Jesus Christ sat down on a mount with our Founding Fathers and taught them how to form a government, and that the Holy Spirit divinely inspired the Declaration of Independence.

These things I do not believe. And no matter how Christian or un-Christian our nation becomes, I will not waver in my belief that Israel and the Church are the only 2 institutions in history that God has sovereignly ordained in a special way (Romans 13 does teach that God establishes earthly authorities. So yes, in this sense, and only in the sense that God has established ALL authorities, God has indeed established the American ones). And while the Bible does teach that the nations are in God's hands and that he uses them to accomplish his purposes (Psalm 22:28), it also teaches that God does not show favoritism (Romans 2:11).

The penultimate line of our national anthem asks, "O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?" The answer is "no," as it is now the fashion to drape it over a wooden cross.

Do Pets Go to Heaven? Rethinking the Question

2009-07-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

You can tell a lot about a person based on how they answer this question. And I don't mean whether they say "yes" or "no," but rather in precisely how they formulate their answer.

I've been thinking about the question recently, and honestly, there are lots of sound, Biblical reasons to answer it in the negative. Biblically, there's no good reason to think that animals have the souls that we image-of-God-bearing human beings do.

That may all be true. However, in thinking about this whole question, I have come to a conclusion that has little to do with the "correct answer" to it. A lot of people who say "no," especially the people who just dismiss the whole idea of animals in Heaven as silly to begin with, do so based on a distorted view of the nature of God. In other words, even if they are technically correct in their answer to the question, they may have a shallow and cold understanding of who God is. (Please note that I said "a lot of people who say no," not "everyone who says no.")

In the same vein, many who believe that pets do go to Heaven, even if they are ultimately incorrect, do so out of a very good understanding of God. It's possible that bad eschatology can arise from good theology.

You know how in math classes the teacher always tells you to "show your work," and how that's usually more important than the answer itself? Yeah, I think when it's all said and done, God might want to see our work. In this and in everything else, let's make sure we're not consumed by simply having the right answer.

Thanks!

P. S., I would answer the question as "probably not," but I would definitely never say "absolutely not." None other than C. S. Lewis speculates in his book The Problem of Pain that just as Christ redeems human beings, it may be possible that human beings can, in turn, redeem our pets. God gave us dominion over the Earth and all the plants and animals in it. If the believer can be raised with Christ because we are under his Lordship, then perhaps our pets, under our lordship over them, can be raised with us.

Ode to the Moon

2009-07-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

I composed this in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Moon-Landing. When writing it, I was thinking about how all the star-gazers and astronomers throughout history must have felt, just dreaming about reaching the moon.

Ode to the Moon

Mystery in plain sight
Across a sea of space and light
Draws me to her every night.

Even when her back is turned
I hardly ever feel her spurn
I just embrace the dark nocturne.

When she’s new, still in my eye.
When she’s full, so am I.
The only thing between us: sky.

If I could see the mystery,
If I could sail the space-y sea,
I would, tonight, draw her to me.

In Praise of the Vibrate Setting

2009-07-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who is annoyed by today's cell phones. Aside from the fact that the pocket computers known as the iPhone and its ilk seems to me extremely luxurious and ostentatious, I mainly just get annoyed by the ringtones. Am I missing something or do most phones have 4 settings now: silent, vibrate, ring, and boombox? Seriously, I wonder, do you actually believe that everyone within a 50-foot radius wants to hear 10 seconds of the latest Miley Cyrus song every time someone calls you? Or, are you just utterly convinced that the one thing our world need right now is more noise and distractions?

I've actually had people get mad at me before because I keep my phone on vibrate and sometimes I don't notice it vibrating. Although, generally, a missed call won't go unnoticed for too long because I use my cellphone as a watch, and I like to check the time fairly frequently. But apparently, this is not good enough for some people. Apparently, they just NEED me to be accessible at an instant. Sorry, but I'm not a dog, so I prefer not to be on a leash.

I ain't turning Amish or nothing like that, but I do believe that the cellphone is one of the most obnoxious inventions of our day. Here's to reversing the trend.

P.S. While were on the subject of phones: If you and I are having a conversation, and you get a text, would it just ABSOLUTELY KILL YOU to actually WAIT until we finish our conversation to read and reply. I must confess that I've done this to people before, and I hereby repent.

Mission Missive

2009-06-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

"Slow and steady wins the race."
"Pace yourself."
I have believed this for a long time
and still do.

But, maybe, there are times,
special, specific, spaces of time,
when the pistol in the air
hits the pistons in your heart,
and you dart into to the distance.

Wisdom is like oil.
But a Psalm is like fuel
that launches
a massive, inert,
Earth-loving, ground-bound
missile like myself.

Pressure

2009-05-18T17:21:00.001-07:00

Living life surrounded by people that love you sounds like every decent human being's dream, doesn't it? I've been reading the Psalms lately, and it seems like the writer is constantly feeling the tension of being surrounded by people who wish him harm. When I read his fears and problems poured out on the page, I am suddenly grateful for the fact that I seem to be flanked by good friends who have a genuine desire to see me succeed and prosper.

While this is a most desirable position to be in, it has the unfortunate side effect of often being uncomfortable. It comes with its own tensions and anxieties, which can generally be boiled down to a single word: pressure. It doesn't sound like such a bad problem, considering the alternative: living a life that no one cares about. Regardless, there's an aspect of being loved and of people having high expectations of you that feels, at least to me, truly tragic. That is, I feel like I live my life in a perpetual and inescapable condition in which, in every action I take, I'm never quite sure whether I'm doing it for God, for myself, or for those people around me.

In other words, I live in a constant state of uncertainty regarding my motives. I'm not sure if this is unusual or not. I just have a sincere hunger in my heart that my motives would be pure. I hate doing good if I feel like I'm doing it to be seen or to fulfill others' expectations, almost to the point that I'd rather do nothing at all.

I guess the challenge is simply to find the will of God, obey, and be content in it. Easier said. But I'm learning. I know who I am in Christ. I know the gifts I've been given. I know the word of God and the will of God revealed therein. I'm going to try to set my eyes on those things and those things alone.

Forgetting Keys

2009-05-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

All our lives we look for keys,
sometimes overturning cushions,
other times giving up, in hope
we'll find it when we're not looking.

In all our searching we fail
to see: There's no locks.

No doors.
No wall-surrounded holes.

No combination of numbers
will open up love.
Left, right, right, left
is just a longer way
of going straight ahead.

This isn't cynicism though.
I like it.
Life is more
than a padlocked door.

The Trinity: Explanation?

2009-04-20T14:48:00.000-07:00

In a brief conversation with my friend Amanda J. Meadows this morning, I was inspired to think about the Holy Trinity. For those unfamiliar, one of the core doctrines of orthodox Christianity is that the God of the Bible expresses himself in three different persons: God the Father, God the Son (aka Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. This idea has been the subject of much controversy throughout the 2000-year history of the Christian church, and most consider it to be a profound mystery.

In staff meeting this morning, Amanda remarked that she looked forward to finally understanding the Trinity when she gets to Heaven. The idea that we will understand the Trinity when we are with God for eternity, and that it will no longer be a mystery, makes perfect sense. Even Paul seems to assert that our knowledge will be made complete when we behold God face to face (1 Corinthians 13).

However, for whatever reason, the thought immediately occurred to me that maybe we never will understand the Trinity. Maybe there is no explanation. And I don't think that would be so bad because there's something beautiful about mystery.

Throughout the centuries people have used various analogies as a way of feebly attempting to wrap our brains around the idea. One common one I've heard is an egg (shell, white, yolk, but all one egg). While this makes some amount of sense, it's overall a fairly poor analogy. While all those are parts of an egg, none of them are the egg. Also, the shell is not the white. The white is not the yolk. The yolk is not the shell.

There are two basic ways of not understanding something. One way is incomplete understanding. We're on the right track, but there's some key information missing. If we obtain that information, we can complete our understanding. The second way has not so much to do with lack of information as it does with some fundamental error in the way we approach an idea. We're not even on the right track. A good example of this second way is found in the way physicists discovered that Newtonian laws of physics were practically useless for describing the behaviors of subatomic particles.

I'm thinking that all of our groping around for an explanation of the Trinity is probably along the lines of this second way. And I'm willing to entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, our attempts at explanation are so frequently frustrated because there actually is no explanation. That God simply is who he is, and that no explanation is necessary. Oddly, I find this idea more attractive than the idea that God is mostly like an egg, except with more complexity that we don't understand yet but will one day.

Fish Thoughts

2009-03-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

I have lots of thoughts in my head, swimming around like a school of minnows in a pond. Each of them are things I've considered writing full blogs about, but I can't seem to settle on one. So, I figured I'd just get em all out at once, in brief, and then if anyone wants me to expound on any of them, let me know.

I don't know why more Christians don't read poetry. There's some GREAT Christian poets out there. My favorite is Luci Shaw. Reading her poems draws me closer to God.

I've been wanting to write a blog about the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and how it's about eternal life. It's weird because it holds three contrasting views in tension: resurrection, reincarnation, and worldy fame.

If you haven't yet seen Gran Torino, you REALLY REALLY need to. I'm not sure if it's still in theaters, but at least rent it when it comes out.

One of my pet peeves is when people look down their noses at me because of my love for pro wrestling. It's so judgmental and almost always hypocritical.

Lately my sense of awe about God and who He is has been increasing. He gives a deep and beautiful meaning to the word wonderful.

Maybe it's because of my own insecurities, but I usually have trouble worshiping God when the lyrics of a worship song are all about how I am going to worship God. That might sound weird, but it seems like drawing attention to the act of worship takes my attention off of God.

Speaking of worship, I try to ignore the worship leader when he/she says, "Close your eyes and focus on God. It's just you and Him right now." No. It's not just me and him. It's me and him and the rest of my family of believers. If I wanted it to be just me and God, I could've stayed home.

I love communion. I always feel overwhelmed by the thought of Jesus's body and blood being given for me. And not just that but the fact that believers all over the world are celebrating that in the same way, because he did it for all of us.

I'm rediscovering my love for science. I might go for another Master's some day in the near future, but this time in physics or something like that. I had a chemistry set when I was a kid, and I loved it. I think God created my brain the way it is for a reason, and I think he has great plans for it.

Show holy undue take noon fro, and show holy under ups rue?

Communion Poem

2009-03-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

Communion Poem

The God of man

became Man-God

and bought men for God

with his own man-blood.

Flesh AND blood

got caught

on a nail.

Man knew not what sin had wrought

in God until

Wooden, man-built thing

sandwiched between

Creator and creation.

Earth wine-tasting by driplets dropped and

when the sips had stopped,

the cave mouth spread

open then shut to

consume the bread.

Righteous indigestion.

And the throat that had swallowed

kings, priests, and prophets

had to vomit

at the mere thought it had

eaten God.

And yet . . . we may partake.

In Defense of Being a Good Person

2009-01-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote:

In times of established order, when the law rules supreme and the transgressor of the law is disgraced and ostracized, it is in relation to the tax-gatherer and the prostitute that the gospel of Jesus Christ discloses itself most clearly to men . . . In times which are out of joint, in times when lawlessness and wickedness triumph in complete unrestraint, it is rather in relation to the few remaining just, truthful, and human men that the gospel will make itself known. (Ethics)

This makes immediate sense to me, though I somehow had failed to grasp it before encountering this text. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been, since the beginning, counter-cultural. So, in times of great moral decay, it seems natural that Christ would find allies in all who do good, whether they are believers or not (see Mark 9:40). After all, everything good rightfully belongs to Christ in the first place. Thus, times of wickedness provide the church with the opportunity to reclaim for herself and for God that which is hers by nature. And God can receive glory in this way, as the church, as his ambassadors, represents him as the original do-gooder, the one who created things and "saw that it was good" (Genesis 1).

This truth that Bonhoeffer so eloquently articulated more than 50 years ago seems particularly relevant today. In this world of ours, rife with corporate greed, irresponsible use of resources, religious terrorism, political chaos, genocide, slave-trading, and so on, it is indeed becoming almost trendy to care for the environment, to consume ethically, to be a voice for the voiceless, and to even be a sort of civilian diplomat in world affairs. (The word "trendy" may be an unfortunate one here, but one need only look to the recent proliferation of celebrity philanthropists, such as Brangelina, to get the point.) Sadly, the church of Jesus Christ often seems to be (slowly) following the trends, rather than leading the way. And what is even more discouraging is that many leaders within the church are resisting the trends, even denouncing them, in the belief that the true, Christ-crucified Gospel is being compromised for the sake of making the church more attractive to the world. What we are frequently missing out on is the opportunity to point the increasing number of "do-gooders" in our world towards Christ by showing how every good and perfect gift has its true origins in our Father in Heaven. The ultimate motivations for living green is knowing God as the benevolent Creator of every green thing on Earth. The ultimate motivation for trying to stop war and genocide comes from knowing how God became a part of his Creation, a human being, and died so that we might have life.

And I say, so what if the church wants to correct her public relations problems? Is that really such a bad thing? Yes, if we water down the message of Christ, then it is. We must preach Christ and him crucified. But, I would challenge anyone to demonstrate to me how promoting good environmental stewardship is in anyway antithetical to that message. Yes, Jesus did warn us to exercise caution regarding our motivations, that we should not do things for the sake of praise from men. But do take note that he was primarily referring to seeking the praise of the RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. He talks about doing our fasting, praying, and giving in secret. Who do we try to impress with those sorts of activities? Not the world so much as fellow believers! In regard to the world, he actually said that we should let them see our good deeds, that they might praise our Father in Heaven! (See Matthew 5 & 6).

In the passage where Jesus says to let people see our "good deeds" (Matthew 5:16), the Greek word for "deeds" is etymogically related to the English word "work," and just like the word "work" in English, when used as a noun, it tends to emphasize a sense of labor or of something requiring signicant, repeated effort. By using this word, Jesus is not so much emphasizing individual acts as he is talking about being in the habit of doing good and having the character of one who consistently labors for good. Meanwhile, when Jesus warns us about doing our "acts of righteousness" to be seen by men (Matthew 6:1), the Greek behind that phrase emphasizes single acts or concrete expressions of goodness, something visible, tangible. For example, Paul uses the same word when referring to the one "righteous act" of Jesus, his Death, which reversed the curse brought on by the one transgression of Adam. So we see that what Jesus cautions against is doing good things for the sake of being seen by men, but he affirms having the kind of character that cause one to constantly labor for good. In other words, being a good person.

And so I write this essay in defense of being a good person. I defend goodness against two forces: one that denounces goodness simply because it's not what saves us (and I whole-heartedly agree that it is grace, and not works, that saves us), and another which treats goodness as though it were simply a lack of explicit badness. Being a good person requires extraordinary effort, taking a pro-active stance towards the evil that exists in our world, and the church should NOT regard it as a waste of time or a division of our allegiances. Bonhoeffer and Jesus both affirm that it is not simply grace that speaks to our world. The goodness of God's people is a significant element of our witness. Of course we are sinners, saved by grace; of course, as the bumper stickers have it, we are "not perfect, just forgiven." But if it' s only our status as being either condemned or forgiven that matters, then where is the transforming power of the Gospel? What does Jesus mean when he says to "let your light shine"? And to all who are skeptical about the value of social justice, environmentalism, and the like, I would ask, what are your good deeds? If your religious activities, like praying, fasting, and giving, are supposed to be done in secret, as Jesus says, what good deeds are your neighbors seeing in you that would cause them to glorify God?

10 Reasons Why I'm Not Voting

2008-10-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

Here's 10 reasons why I'll be exercising my right to NOT vote in this year's presidential election:

1. Politicians are corrupt.
2. John McCain is corrupt.
3. Barack Obama is corrupt.
4. Sarah Palin is corrupt.
5. Joe Biden is corrupt.
6. The American voting system is corrupt.
7. The political campaign system is corrupt.
8. The media is corrupt.
9. I hate how things have gone so far.
10. McCain and Obama might as well duke it out in a steel-cage match. That would be much more civilized than the current campaign has been.

"Better a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to take warning. The youth may have come from prison to the kingship, or he may have been born in poverty within his kingdom. I saw that all who lived and walked under the sun followed the youth, the king's successor. There was no end to all the people who were before them. But those who came later were not pleased with the successor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." Ecclesiastes 4:13-16

Reflecting at 26

2008-09-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

It's the eve of my 26th birthday. By my standards, that's still pretty young. I still have yet to get to that point where I'm self-conscious about my age. Though I must admit, 26 feels a whole lot closer to 30 than 25 does, and 30 does seem kinda, sorta old. Anywho, I had the sudden urge to make a list of things I would like to do before I'm 30. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Teach myself calculus and physics.

2. Take a summer trip to Alaska.

3. Enroll in some business classes (In case I decide to pursue one my dreams to own my own coffee shop/bookstore.)

4. Marry an intelligent, joyful, Christian woman.

5. Get a decent start on writing a book.

6. Establish a healthy diet and regular exercise routine.

7. Learn how to spend less money than I make.

8. Attend WrestleMania XXVI, XXVII, or XXVIII

9. Make volunteering for community projects, relief efforts, etc. a regular part of my life.

10. Get a driver's license and a car. Btw, if anyone would like to help me with this one, I need some free driving lessons. ; )

Evolution, Creation, and the Irresistible Urge to Exist

2008-07-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

Any biologists will tell you that it is quite astonishing how life can exist in the most extreme conditions. It's everywhere. From scorching hot geysers to Earth's frigid poles to the deepest parts of the oceans, life somehow finds a way to spring up and survive. We have found living organisms in places we never thought we would.

I had my own little revelation regarding this fact today. Vines and branches were beginning to overtake the XA House recently, so I started chopping and snipping away at them, just a little each day for the past week or so. It left a few nice little compost piles of dead leaves and wood, which I decided to rake up and put in garbage bags today. As I was raking up one particular pile, mostly leaves and wet soil from all the rain we've gotten in the last week, I discovered an entire little ecosystem that had developed there. As I tore the brushed away at the canopy of this makeshift biosphere, little creatures scattered in every direction. Rolly pollies, worms, and all sorts of bugs ran off, presumably to find new shelter. I was amazed at how quickly this miniature world had become inhabited.

Many people, including both people of faith and people of science, are unable to see anything but conflict when looking at the ideas behind Evolution and Creation. Many others however, (including myself) look at these two ways of accounting for existence, and, far from seeing inherent conflict, we see two complementary Truths. Evolution is a story about the complexity of life developing from an odd, irresistible urge in every living thing, from single-celled organisms to homo sapiens, to live and to reproduce. The Biblical account of creation is a story about a God who creates life by the mere act of saying, "Let there be." I find it quite compelling to think that perhaps this urge to live that Darwin taught us about can be explained as a near-obsessive obedience to the diving command that Genesis teaches us about.

Read Genesis 1 again and notice that it is not a story of God crafting every plant and animal individually and micromanaging their existence. God actually commands the Earth itself to bring forth these creatures, and the Earth, of course, obeyed. The way I see it, Evolution is simply what happened when Creation listened to God's voice saying, "Let there be."

On the "Anti-naturalist"

2008-06-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

One of the most basic foundations for a person's worldview depends on what kind of thoughts the words "natural" and "supernatural" bring to mind. A naturalist can be defined as someone who believes that the methods of science are sufficient to explain everything that exists. At the other end of the spectrum is the supernaturalist, who believes that there are things that exist that are beyond "nature." In other words, that there are phenomena that we experience that originate from somewhere beyond the material world, and are thus beyond the scope of the types of explanations that science offers.

Something I've observed recently is that there would seem to be a third category, (or maybe a sub-category of supernaturalist) that I would call anti-naturalism. (That word already has a certain meaning in the philosophy world, but I'm "re-coining" it here for a different purpose.) The anti-naturalist could be described as a supernaturalist who gives special favor or status to the supernatural phenomena, while thinking of natural phenomena as mundane or somehow less special than supernatural phenomena.

I find anti-naturalist tendencies to be fairly prevalent among Christians, and this, to me, is disheartening. I can understand it somewhat. It's quite thrilling to experience things that seem to have no possible natural explanation (i. e., miraculous healing, meaningful coincidences, etc.), and I believe that God likes to show his might and good will through such things. However, to look down our noses at the natural world is to deny the simple and essential notion that God created it all. We tend to have this fetish for the supernatural because then we know that "God did that," but dare we deny (whether explicitly or implicitly) that God also provided the meal that we ate for lunch. Or that he created the ground we walk on, the oxygen we breathe, the friends and family we love so much, etc.

Perhaps this is why Jesus said that it's a "perverse generation" who looks for a sign. I don't think he said that to condemn us when we desire to see God's hand reach out to us in a special way. I think the perversion is simply failing to recognize that the whole universe is a sign, and that the invisible qualities of God are made known to us by that which he has created. Sure, a miraculous healing is quite a marvel, but the Universe ain't nothing to scoff at either.

Destiny and Romance

2007-12-30T22:21:00.000-08:00

There's a part of me, a part of my mind, or my heart, or my soul (or maybe all 3, I'm not sure), a part of me that was alive when I was younger. It's been dead, or at least sleeping, for the past few years. It is just now being awaken again.

When I was younger, I dreamed. I thought that there was some things in life that I was destined to do, that I could do whatever I set my heart on, that the passions that I felt in my soul would inevitably, unavoidably come to fulfillment in an awesome, world-changing way.

I also thought that one day I might find some dream girl, a "soulmate," if you will. A smart, funny, fun, exciting, beautiful young lady with sparkling eyes, whom I would gladly spend my life with.

Somehow, at some point, I started believing that such things were just childish fantasies, cultivated by fairy tales and movies meant to deceive us with false hope. I became convinced that most good decisions involved doing precisely the opposite of what my heart told me. Emotion = bad, reason = good.

But I'm changing. Again. Maybe, just maybe, there's good reasons why our hearts thirst for such things, why our souls respond to stories of destiny and romance.

I believe in free will, but I also believe in listening to one's heart. And our hearts, unfortunately, don't always let us choose what it wants. There are some things that God himself placed in our hearts, and he is trying to use our hearts to speak to us.

According to Scripture, there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. I believe that it's time for me to start following my heart.

Reflecting at 25

2007-09-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

I'm 25 yrs. old now. That's a quarter of a century! It's funny because I'm in a position where some of my friends think that's fairly old and others think it's pretty young. I have very few "true peers" right now as far as age goes.

As I'm reflecting on my life right now, there's one word that comes to mind: uncertainty. Don't get me wrong; I'm not having some "quarter-life crisis" or anything, but I am wrestling with a number of things as far as where my life is headed.

One of the main things is marriage. For the past 4 or 5 years, I have enjoyed my singlehood a lot, and I've usually been fairly certain that I want to remain single for a while, but every now and then I waver a little bit. I've been doing quite a bit of wavering lately. As much as I really do enjoy being single, it's hard to ignore the fact that girls are stinkin' awesome.

Occupation-wise, I love what I'm doing right now, and I'm trying to stay focused on it, but at the same time I do need to be thinking about what I'm going to do next. I know the passions and gifts God has given me, but I haven't quite figured out what will be the best way to use them.

Above all, I am quite uncertain about where I'm headed spiritually. I'm kinda in the midst of switching churches right now after realizing that the church I've going to for the past 6 years doesn't at all fit with what I believe a church should be like. I'm also wrestling with my identity as a Christian and how I fit in with the "culture" of Christianity. There's so much about the Christian culture in America that I am ashamed to be associated with, but at the same time I know that God doesn't call anyone to be a loner and forge their own path. I certainly don't want to be unorthodox, but I am definitely questioning what exactly is entailed by orthodoxy.

Anywho, that's a summary of where I stand as I approach the big Two Five. I don't know if it sounds depressing or what, but I actually find it fairly exciting. I know that if I love and serve God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, he will ensure that my life will have meaning and fulfillment.

Love and Miracles

2007-07-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

I've butted heads on several occasions recently with friends who have a somewhat different vision of spirituality than I do. Our discussions have caused me to wrestle with myself and what I really believe. Before I explain though, a disclaimer: the purpose of this blog is not to criticize my friends, but rather to talk about how these disagreements have challenged me and caused me to think more carefully about what I believe. Also, I don't express anything here that I have not (or would not) express in a face-to-face conversation.

These differences I've had with my friends involve the nature and purpose of miracles, spiritual gifts, signs, and wonders. I believe that God is all about the miraculous, and that he uses supernatural means to edify the church body, to display his power, and to express his love. I've heard countless stories. I've seen it. I've experienced it. Miraculous healing. Deliverance. Supernatural wisdom and knowledge. I don't at all dispute that God does this things and that he's wanting to do them more and more. I also believe that he wants us to desire and seek these things.

The problem then, at least as I perceive it, is that it often seems that people who really actively seek these things lose sight of what's ultimately important, i. e. "Love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." Love is our highest calling, and as we know from 1 Corinthians 13, spiritual gifts are meaningless with out love. Not that we should altogether forget about the supernatural aspects of our faith, but to me it would seem better to redirect the passion that people have for wanting to see miracles towards loving our neighbor. Perhaps if we did this, miracles would just be a natural outflow or result. Sometimes it seems like people just want to see God do cool little magic tricks just for the wonder of it.

I can see why this might be the case. A supernatural sign is much more tangible than an act of love. A miracle is more readily taken as a confirmation of faith than, say, someone washing another person's feet. I guess an act of subservient, selfless love is more explainable by natural means than a sick person being made suddenly well.

But even as I say such things, I'm wrestling with myself, wondering if there's some other motivation for the way I feel about these things. Miracles were obviously a very important part of Jesus's ministry, and they have been important to the church since the very beginning. Is this all just a lack of faith on my part? Or maybe I'm just clinging to a watered-down, unimposing, safe version of Christianity. Is it possible perhaps that while I claim to be all about the supernatural, I actually don't want to see those kinds of things happen out of fear for what they will bring about. I don't know. I think my motives here are at least somewhat good, but I have to consider the possibilities.

On the Tragic Incidents Involving Chris Benoit

2007-06-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

Chris Benoit was one of my favorite wrestlers. Other than The Undertaker and Kurt Angle, there was no one else I enjoyed seeing in the ring more than Benoit. When I heard the news last night of the death of he and his wife and son, I was shocked and saddened. As I watched the WWE's tribute to him last night, I had no idea what the cause of the deaths were. My sadness only grew throughout the night as I watched his peers talk about how he was such a stand-up guy, one they could trust, and how he loved his son so much. My thoughts were that we truly lost one of the best, inside and outside the ring.

As I'm learning more details about the circumstances of the death, that in all likelihood Benoit murdered his wife and kid and then hung himself, I'm struggling with waning sympathy. The ironic thing is that this is all happening as I'm working on a sermon about refraining from judging people. No doubt what Benoit has done is terrible, and I wouldn't at all try to say it's okay. But it's important to remember in a situation like this that only God is fit to judge. Our knowledge is extremely limited, but God knows people's hearts. Let's leave judgment to Him. It's not our place.

There's a part in the Gospels where Jesus looks out over a huge crowd of people and it says he had compassion on them because to him they were "like sheep without a shepherd." There were probably some thieves in that crowd. Probably some adulterers, too, and maybe even some murderers. And Jesus knew. Just like the Samaritan woman at the well, he knew all about those people. But it did not invoke judgment, but rather compassion. Let us be more like Jesus. It's hard, I know, but condemnation helps no one.

Judgment and Fault-Bound Perception

2007-06-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

I had written in a post several months ago about how every time we judge someone we are assuming a role that was never intended for us and belongs to God alone. I'm reading a book now that has been giving me even more insights into this topic. It's called Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God, and it's written by Gregory Boyd. To give credit where credit is due, a lot of what I will say here is inspired by this book.

One of the things that's extremely important to remember in considering Jesus's command to "Judge not" is the fault-bound nature of our own perception of things. It is extremely rare, if it ever happens at all, that the reality of something matches up 100 % with the way things appear to us. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 13:12, "we see in a mirror dimly." At the time he wrote this, mirrors we're not clear glass like we have now. They were made of steel, and so the reflection was somewhat dark and distorted. According to Paul then, the way we see and understand things now is obscured. Even when it seems like we have enough evidence to have it all figured out, our eyes and our brains our imperfect, and we can never trust that we have the whole truth.

Unfortunately, it seems that we often make judgments even when we are not even close to knowing the full story. For one simple example, say you're eating in the mall, and a very obese man sits down at the table next to you. He weighs about 300 lbs., and he has a big, greasy supersized meal from McDonald's. You notice all of these things, and you think to yourself, with a bit of disdain, "Man, this guy needs to change his diet."

That is what you see, your perception. Potentially, this could be the reality: yes, he weighs 300 lbs., but 6 months ago he weighed 350 lbs. He's been keeping a strict diet and exercising regularly. Part of his diet is that once a month he gets to eat whatever he wants, and McDonald's is his favorite place to eat. You happened to catch him on the one day a month that he gets to indulge, and then you judged him based on that one, single encounter.

This is just one imaginary scenario of a type of thing that actually happens all the time. Constantly we (and I use we to include myself) judge people based on things that are really not our business in the first place. Even for people we know well, we usually don't know all of the various factors, circumstances, and motivations that influence their actions. The Bible is clear that only God can fully know the heart of a person, so not only is he the only one with the right to judge, he is the only one fit to judge. Who the heck are we? Who appointed us judges? Who told us that we get to separate the wheat from the chaff? It is my understanding that only God can do that.

If this subject challenges you and interests you, I strongly recommend Boyd's book. He goes much deeper on a topic that I just touch the surface of here.

Why the Blood Kid is My Hero.

2007-06-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this video yet, watch it now. It's hiii-larious. (If you're reading this from facebook, I have the video in my posted items).

I've watched this clip many times now and laughed at it over and over again, especially when showing it to friends. But I've realized recently that in addition to the humor of it, there's something quite admirable about this kid. He sees the blood on his baby brother's lip, and in his little heart all he knows is that it's not right. Blood = bad. He cries out to his dad for justice--implicitly pleading with him to DO SOMETHING.

Of course, Dad knows it's not so bad, and thus the situation appears quite humorous to him. But for all Blood Kid knows, his brother is in great danger, and his dad's laughter appals him. "NOT FUNNY!" he screams, "NOT FUUU-NYYYY!" Despite the laughter, despite not being taken seriously, he stands up for what he believes is right, and against what he believes is wrong. He doesn't care what anyone else thinks of him.

It's a complete inversion of the Cain and Abel story; Blood Kid is his brother's keeper. When God confronts Cain about murdering Abel, he tells him, "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground" (Genesis 4:10). Cain tried to hide his actions from God, but he couldn't. Blood Kid, on the other hand, hides nothing. He himself cries out for his brother, emphatically and defiantly. Let us follow the way of Blood Kid and not Cain. Let us be our brother's keeper. When our brother is hurting, let us cry out to our Father: BLOOOOOD!

Friends XIV: Lane Trahan

2007-06-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in my recliner at the Chi Alpha house. It's 11:00 on a regular ol' weekday night, and school is in session. Class is at 8:00 am. I need to be in my office for 7:15 to do some last minute prep for class. I'm planning to set my alarm for 6. This means I'm already getting less sleep than I'd like, and every minute that I sit there on that recliner is even less. There's one reason why I don't get up and go to bed: Lane Ferdinand Nathanael Trahan.

I love just hangin' out with this guy because I know when we do I'm either going to laugh my butt off or have a good, meaningful conversation of the type that I can't have with most people without someone getting angry or tuning me out. Some of my fondest memories in the XA House are just sitting around with Lane watching funny videos on youtube (such as Frank Caliendo's John Madden Popcorn Popper commercial), or listening to Roll Out by Ludacris and laughing at the ludicrous lyrics.

One thing that's been really cool this past year is seeing Lane exercise his God-given leadership skills. It's been observed by many people that Lane has the ability to get people to do anything. If Lane says, "We should go shoot some pool at White Diamond tonight," chances are that White Diamond will be getting some pretty good business that night. In thepast few months, he has used this gift in spiritual matters as well, rallying people in order to deal with a pressing spiritual issue.

Whether through laughing, debating, or witnessing spiritual growth, getting to know Lane has been one of the best and most unexpected pleasures of my experiences in the Chi Alpha house.

In the Land of the Greeks, Part I

2007-05-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of big cities. The noise, the traffic, the horns, the people--I usually find it all just a little too much to bear. But as I sit back and reflect on the amazing trip that I just returned from, I can honestly say that I miss being in Athens.

We were 11 students (okay, technically Amanda and I are both no longer students. Close enough), there for 11 days. We did some sight-seeing during a couple of those days (and definitely saw some breath-taking sights), but primarily we were there to spend our days at the University of Athens, talking to and making friends with the Greek students. The hospitality they showed to us far exceeded my expectations. We talked, sometimes for hours, while sipping down frappes in cafes. Some of us were invited to their homes. Some of the students even came to our place of lodging and allowed us to show them a true Cajun dish: red beans and rice. (Though we may have made it a little too spicy for them.)

We discovered that many, many of the Greek students are spiritually hungry. Conversations often very naturally turned towards church and God and Jesus, and students were frequently curious about our team and our purpose for being in Athens. It seems that a large number of the students are disappointed with the Orthodox Church but are, potentially, willing to take a second look at Jesus Christ.

The hospitality and spiritual hunger of the students are only a couple of the many reasons I miss Athens. I will discuss more in future posts. Yassas (Greek word for "hello" or "goodbye" plural).

~Ken, Born of Fire

Let's Get Real

2007-04-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process right now of "taking ownership" of my faith/my religion/my walk with God/however you want to phrase it. Or maybe I should say that I'm letting God take ownership of it. Whatever the case, I'm certain that in the past, neither of us have owned it. You know who has? The preachers, the pastors, the authors, the mentors, the peers--pretty much everyone but God and me.

I'm by no means "rebelling" against the godly people in my life or anyone else. I thank God so much for the people that have reached out to me, befriended me, and discipled me. I'm just realizing that for the past few years, I've been doing a lot of assuming, accepting, believing and not enough questioning, rejecting, and doubting. I've been trying to fit into other people's moulds instead of creating one for myself.

I want to know who God is. Really, who is he? How much of what I think about God has simply been transmitted to me by others? How much have I discovered and known myself, by reading the Bible and really experiencing Him?

I know that God loves me. Or do I? Do I really? I know the that Bible says it's true, and that I've experienced his love, but I also know that this is what I've been taught for the last 6 1/2 years. So what's the real reason that I believe God loves me? Have I truly discovered it for myself? Or have I only accepted what I've been taught?

I've always thought these verses were cheesy:
Jesus loves me, this I know
Because the Bible tells me so.
But they're actually starting to mean something to me now.

When I first heard and read that "God so loved the world," it wasn't very surprising to me. It just seemed like a confirmation of what I had already figured was true. But I'm trying to "un-assume" things like that now. I want to let God teach me his love instead of presuming to have known it already.

~Born of Fire

Friends XIII: Kelsey Tomes

2007-04-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

Kelsey Tomes, aka the Tomesinator. Her last name means "Voluminous Books," which is entirely fitting because if I could describe Ms. Tomes in one word, it would be "fun." I've never experienced a dull moment reading a big book, and I've never experienced a dull moment around Kelsey.

I think I've discovered one of the sources of her fun-ness: it's simply that she just jumps right in to whatever is going on at the moment. Let me explain with some examples:

A few years ago I got on this kick where I would just randomly tell someone, "Hey, do you remember that time when you punched me in the stomach and told me I was ugly and I can't read good?" Most people would just laugh, or say something like, "No, when did I do that!" Kelsey, on the other hand, would retort with something like, "Yeah, I remember that. And do you remember that time when you kicked me in the shins and told me I had dandruff and I smell funny."

Example 2: Another thing I had started doing recently was approaching friends when they were talking to someone else or a group of people and say something to the effect of, "Hey, So-and-So, I found that lice shampoo that you were looking for at Wal-Mart the other day. It's on aisle 5." Most people didn't quite know how to react to it, but the Tomesinator did. It eventually became a game of one-up-manship. The game culminated with Kelsey besting me, announcing on a microphone in a conference room in a hotel, in front of tons of people, that she had found my Preparation-H on the floor and needed to return it to me.

There are many other great things about this young lady; this is just the one I wanted to highlight. Kelsey Tomes truly lives in the moment, and seems to enjoy life in a way that makes everyone around enjoy it more, too. Thanks Kels.

~Ken, Born of Fire

Friends, Part XII: Stacey Labit

2007-03-22T14:41:00.000-07:00

It's pretty much impossible to not like someone who makes you laugh, and Stacey has been making me laugh since almost the very first time I met her.

I have to admit, Stacey (or Stace, as many call her), took me off guard at first. When I moved into the Chi Alpha house this past summer, I knew all of the people who were going to be my housemates pretty well, but Stacey was the one unknown. I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least. Her willingness to speak her mind, and to vocalize whatever [crazy] thoughts might find themselves there, have almost made me fall out of my chair laughing on several occasions (and I mean that literally. That recliner in the xa house is a little unstable, and of some of Stacey's outbursts have sent me tipping backwards.)

Not that her humor is her only good quality. I've had numerous intelligent conversations with Stacey in which she said things that really challenged me and made me think. To this day, I still ponder a comment she made about morality, and how it's usually nothing more than a way for us to say we're better than someone else.

Long story short, Stacey has very quickly become one of my favorite people. Up until last summer, I only had big sisters. Now I'm very glad to have a little one, too!

~Ken, Born of Fire

A New Wave of Friends

2007-03-20T07:22:00.001-07:00

I recently did Part XI in my ever-expanding Friends series, the subject of which was Josh Manning. As I was typing it up, I realized that over the past semester or two, I've made new friends and gotten closer to a whole butt-load of people. It'll probably take a while, but over the course of next few months, you will see blogs dedicated to the likes of:

Stacey Labit, Kelsey Tomes, Lane Trahan, Clint Larson, Bonnie Hippler, Ciji Taylor, Carly Guidry, Josh Higgins, Michele DeClouet, Janna Mahoney, and quite possibly a few more. I hope you'll enjoy them!

~Ken, Born of Fire

A New Wave of Friends

2007-03-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

Friends XI: Josh Manning

2007-03-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

This installment of the Friends is about Josh Manning, aka the J-Mann, aka Big Sexy. Okay, I made up that last one. No one actually calls him that. Well, I can think of one person that might, but I don't know for sure. I usually include a picture in these things, but Blogger isn't letting me right now, so I'll add one later. Anywho, the J-Mann and I became friends when he was an intern with Chi Alpha here at UL during the 2005-2006 school year. If there's one thing I can say about him, it's that there is definitely only one Josh Manning. Well, actually, there are lots of Josh Mannings, and he's friends with all of them on Facebook, but I'm willing to bet that none of them are remotely like him.

Josh is the kind of guy that it's hard not to be friends with, even if you try not to. Not that I ever tried not to. I'm just saying, he's easy to befriend. In any given social context, it seems that Josh's number one priority is to make people laugh, and he has about a 50% success rate, which is pretty good. And when he does succeed, he REALLY succeeds. Though Josh was only here at UL for a year, and even though he's been gone now for almost a year, many of his jokes are still told to this today, and his legacy is kept alive by those who loved to laugh at them. Like the one where you take a saltshaker and a steak knife, and say "What's this? A salt with a deadly weapon!"

Josh is also a great man of God who is enlisted in active service in the Kingdom of God.

Finally, Josh also has a great, highly entertaining website, www.joshmanning.com, which you can check out for a peek into his life. Whether you know Josh or not, I'm pretty sure you'll be at least mildly amused by this site.

~Ken, Born of Fire

Canelope

2007-03-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

I eloped this weekend.
I went away and didn't tell nobody.
It was just me and the air
me and the wind
me and you
everybody
anybody
me.

Cake, wrestling, God, money.
The Earth is my dowry.

And now I'm committed,
though divorce is an option.

Insight from the Ecosystem

2007-02-27T17:58:00.000-08:00

What is the definition of community?

I was looking through a few dictionary entries, and the best one I could find is actually the ecological definition from the American Heritage Science Dictionary. It reads:

"A group of organisms or populations living and interacting with one another in a particular environment. The organisms in a community affect each other's abundance, distribution, and evolutionary adaptation."

That second sentence is what really strikes me.

Think about your community:

How much do you affect the other members?
How much do the other members affect you?

I think we can measure true community by looking at how consequential each individual's actions are to the rest of the members.

What do you think?

The Restful Student

2007-02-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

As the amount of responsibilities I have mount and mount over the years, I have found rest to be an essential part of my life as a student. I mean essential in the most serious sense of the word. Without rest, I cannot function. And I don't think you can either. In case it's any help to you, here is how I try to stay rested (try being an important word here).

1. Daily rest is important. At least 7 hours of sleep a day is always my goal. When I don't, I feel it.

Besides sleep though, I also need rest in the daylight hours. Maybe a nap, but not usually. Just a point in the day where I can relax a little bit. These can take a number of forms: sitting down with a cup of coffee, talking to people in the cafe, reclining in the recliner, quiet time with God, walking around campus, facebooking, blogging, etc. What I'm doing isn't important, as long as it relaxes me.

2. Weekly rest is not only important but commanded by God. The whole Sabbath thing. I try to honor it. The key is to not get tripped up by days or times. Do it whenever you can. I usually stop working Fridays at noon and resume Saturday after lunch. During that 24 hr. period, I don't do any work. I'm also flexible though. If something comes up, I might shift the time a little bit.

And most of it's just relaxing: video games, TV, reading, hanging out with friends, whatever. But I also try to have some version of an extended quiet time during this period.

3. Beyond daily and weekly rest, an occassional extended rest is often vital. Luckily for me, as a student, the university takes care of this one for me. I just try to make the most of my holidays.

4. Lastly, I have what I guess you could call "Spirit-led rest." There are certain times that I'm just doing homework or something like that, and my mind will wander off into thinking about something I've been dealing with or thinking about lately. Usually this is just daydreaming, but occassionally I find that God is speaking to me about something or giving me some clarity about something I've been thinking about. At this point I'll stop whatever work I'm doing, if possible, and allow God to speak to me, and then I'll write about it in my journal or on a spare sheet of paper. If it's not possible for me to drop what I'm doing, I'll make some time later in the day to get alone and reflect.

Anywho, that's I how I rest, and thus how I keep my mind awake and productive. I hope it benefits you in some way. Sometimes I feel like we live in a world of sleepwalkers. Let's make sure that our work and routines don't lull us into such a state.

2007-02-16T08:45:00.000-08:00

I just read a good article on relevantmagazine.com. It was about people leaving or switching churches and claiming they weren't "being fed." The author suggests that perhaps we're not fed because we don't pick up our fork and eat. The idea is that you can have a great meal set before you on a table, but if you don't pick up your fork and eat, the food is not going to jump into your mouth. Thus, the responsibility falls not just on the pastor et al to provide the food but also on us to be active in eating and digesting it.

I like the analogy. I think there's some truth in it. What do you think?

I would also like to extend the analogy by adding that if this is true, then our own studying of the Bible would be our spiritual Metamucil Crackers, so to speak. This gives new meaning to the idea of having a regular habit of reading God's Word.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha . . . no, but seriously, what do you think? Chew on that for a minute and let me know how it tastes. Peace.

Born of Fire

A Note I Received

2007-02-12T15:22:00.000-08:00

I got an unexpected surprise today. I found an envelope with my name on it at the Chi Alpha house. I opened it and there was a little card inside. On the front it said:

Thank You

". . .he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed" (Proverbs 11:25, NIV).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I opened the card and the inside read:

"The pleasantness of a friend springs from

their heartfelt advice" - Prov. 27:9

(You are loved)

Ken,

You are a great Man of God and true friend for everyone in the house. Your jokes, light humor, and kind presence always bring warmth and peace to a room. You are always ready to listen and offer advice . . . always thinking before you speak. You are a great teacher and allow God to use you to impact so many students' lives. You are appreciated more than you know!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wow. The reason something like this means so much is because we tend to be pretty critical of ourselves. Even when things are going relatively well, we often have this nagging sense that we could be doing better, that we're not meeting expectations, whether they be God's, someone else's, or our own. So to suddenly run into a note like this is just overwhelmingly comforting. It's nice to know that you may actually be doing something right.

Anywho, the point is, when you see someone doing something good, be sure to tell them. It makes a difference. A big one, as vast as the universe itself.

A Brief Encouragement

2007-01-31T06:44:00.000-08:00

Peace. Peace be with you. May the peace of Jesus Christ be with you. May the peace of Jesus Christ find a way to nudge itself into your busy heart. And there may it burst and spread and overtake every fiber and nerve of your being.

Clarification

2007-01-30T15:15:00.000-08:00

To all who were disturbed by the poem from my previous post, I apologize. And no, I'm definitely not contemplating suicide, just in case you were wondering.

I guess I didn't think about it quite enough, but the poem was actually meant to be funny. How, you ask? So I had all this stuff about my eulogy and love and Jesus, but then my final and most passionate plea was that I wouldn't be dressed up in a suit and tie! Anywho, it was funny to me.

Oh, and be on the lookout. I think I'm gonna get a haircut soon. You may not recognize me.

Born of Fire

About My Funeral

2007-01-28T12:31:00.000-08:00

Here's a poem I'm working on:

About My Funeral

To whomever will care for me
When I die:

Please tell everyone
how much I loved them.

Don't spend too much time
going on about me.
I'm not a great person now,
and I never will be.

Tell them all
about how Christ died for them.
I'll finally have a captive audience.
Use it
to say the things
that I like to say.

And PLEASE,
for GOD's SAKE,
don't dress me up
in one of those stupid monkey suits!
They do not suit me in life,
so I do not expect them to in death.

Remember me
just how I am.

A Little Historical Fiction

2007-01-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

I've got a fun little story to tell.

So we all know that when God made Adam and Eve, he told them to be fruitful and multiply. And they had some other tasks too, like tending the garden, naming the animals, etc. But did you know that there was one task he gave them that wasn't recorded in the Bible? Yep.

Originally, God had also appointed them judges on the Earth. He said, "Be fruitful, multiply, and judge all that walketh upon the face of the Earth. Watch all they do, and based on their actions, decide and record whether each one is a good person or a bad person. And you are to determine how much love and affection each one deserves to receive, and mete it out accordingly."

And this all went fine at first. But as people kept following that commandment to multiply, and the population increased, it started to get a little burdensome. They were going through piles and piles of paperwork everyday. Meanwhile, the garden was getting overgrown and unkempt, and new species of animals were forming that they didn't have time to name. It was chaos.

So the overworked couple went to God and told him of their dilemma. And of course, God was very understanding and compassionate. He said, "You guys just go back to the garden, and I'll take care of this judging business." And Adam and Eve were very relieved, and they went back to the garden happy that they no longer had to carry out that wearisome job.

On Being Born Again

2006-12-17T15:34:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be born again.

For many people, Christians and non-Christians included, born-again seems like it has become a term nearly synonymous with evangelical. That is, to say that yourself or someone else is a "born-again Christian" describes a certain set of beliefs that they have, or the type of Christian they are.

Christians should be especially careful not to use the term that way. When Jesus introduces the term in the Gospel of John, his point is that being born again is NOT about having a certain set of beliefs. A man named Nicodemus comes to him telling him that he believes Jesus is from God, and that it is evident from all the miracles he has performed. But Jesus doesn't accept this "confession of faith" from Nicodemus. Why? Jesus responds by saying, "I tell you truth, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God."

Jesus said this to show that being a part of his Kingdom is something radically different and more than having certain beliefs. Belief is essential, but it is not the whole. Something must happen so deep and so real that Jesus likens it to being born a second time. Total surrender. To be born again, your life must be essentially replaced by the one Jesus offers.

Friends X: Lance Dunn

2006-11-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

This is Lance Dunn. He's a limosine-ridin', jet-flyin', wheelin'-dealin', kiss-stealin' son-of-a-gun! Okay, so he doesn't really do all those things, but he could easily pull it off if he let how cool he is go to his head. And that's one of the best ways I can describe this man. He's comparable to a Ric Flair, or a Jack Bauer, or some A-list celebrity, but without the arrogance.

Lance has become one of my best friends this semester. One of the primary ways our friendship has taken off is that we've watched wrestling in his room nearly every Monday night this semester. That's bonding right there. And I can't wait for January 22nd, when we will have the ultimate bonding experience: attending Monday Night Raw LIVE at the Cajun Dome!! Woooooooo!

To summarize, a megastar personality, a blue-collar ethic, and a love for pro wrestling equal to my own--what more could I ask for?

Me, Me, Me

2006-11-14T19:49:00.000-08:00

I don't have any kind of cohesive thing to write right now, so I'll just try something slightly random. Here's some things you may or may not know about me:

I have a fear of choking due to some childhood experiences. To this day, if a situation arises in which I really need to take a pill, I crush it up and mix it up with some water. Yes, the taste is horrendous, but it's better than slowly dying from an inability to take in oxygen.

I used to go to bed early and wake up early. Now I go to bed a little later and I still wake up early. (I gotta work of fixing that).

A discouragingly (if that's a word) large portion of my disposable income goes towards fast food (especially McDonald's) and coffee.

Even though I like to think I don't really care much about my physical appearance, style, etc., I surprise myself with how sensitive I become when people make comments about it.

I think curse words are often hilarious, and it sometimes takes all of my will power to not use them when the opportunity presents itself.

Well, that's all you need to know for now. Maybe for my next post I'll stop this recent trend of writing about myself. Peace.

PMS in Men

2006-11-08T21:04:00.000-08:00

That title might throw you for a loop and have you guessing, but don't adjust your monitor. That's exactly what this blog is about. I'm thinking about doing some research on the topic because I don't how to explain some of things I experience otherwise.

I'm not trying to discount the discoveries of the biological sciences or anything. I just know that every once in a while (not once a month; maybe 3 or 4 times a year) I get pretty emotional for a few days. And for no apparent reason. Little things will make me cry (sad or happy, either way).

Just the other day, I went from feeling pretty down (which is not a frequent occurrence for me) to inexplicably exuberant in a matter of minutes (seconds maybe).

I hate my PMS days. And I really want to know why they happen. Any other men out there experience this? Or is it just me? (Please don't let it be just me, or this post will turn out to be quite embarrassing).

The Dark Side of Me

2006-10-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

You may be asking yourself who this scary-looking guy is. There's a number of possible answers to that question. I could say he's a professional wrestler known as "The Undertaker." However, for the purpose of this blog, a more appropriate answer would be that he's one of my childhood heroes.

A conversation that I had with Amanda J and Jacob D'Avy recently got me thinking about this. I was explaining to them that I used to be sorta obsessed with him. Most people who know me know I'm a huge pro wrestling fan, and The Undertaker has always been my favorite wrestler. I had posters in my room, videos that I would watch all the time, etc. As I was thinking about this conversation, I started to reflect a little bit, and I asked myself why this was so. What is it about me that drew me to such a mysterious, ghoulish figure?

Despite how it might appear in this picture, The Undertaker was actually one of the "good guys" of wrestling for the majority of his career, especially during the time that I started to become a fan. He was often referred to as "the conscience of the WWF." I think that was one of the main things that drew my admiration. But I think it was more than that. There were plenty of other "good guys" in wrestling, so why him?

Well, not only was he a moral figure, but he had his own way of going about it. He did morality with his own style, and for his own reasons. He had a personal vendetta with evil, and he battled it by himself. He answered to no one. Essentially, he was his own master. His own God.

So in answering why I was drawn to the Undertaker, I think it reveals two desires in me: one for morality, and another for autonomy. While the former is perfectly good and noble, the latter is essentially evil. Now that I'm a Christian, I've had to learn that morality is not "mine." It belongs to God. It was his idea from the beginning. For me to have a morality like the Undertaker's, which I did, only glorified myself. A Christian morality is supposed to glorify God.

It's such a huge change! All of my righteous acts that I was so proud of as a young man, I now consider rubbish. God doesn't look at the acts, he looks at my heart. And the truth is, my Undertaker-righteousness was really not righteousness at all because it was usually done in my own self-interests. As a Christian, I now have to deal with the fact that true morality begins with a fear of God and submission to his will.

Wow. Writing this has really helped me understand a lot about myself. Thanks for reading.

Thoughts on Being a Jerk

2006-10-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

A speaker I heard recently helped me realize that I'm a jerk. I found out a few years ago that I'm a sinner, but some how a full knowledge of my jerkhood didn't come with the package.

One might want to say that jerk and sinner are synonymous, but how can they be if one helped me understand something that the other didn't? And it's not that jerk can replace sinner; it just relieves it of some of the weight that it carries, so that it doesn't have to do all the work on its own. Sinner has religion attached to it. Jerk strips that off and helps you realize that you are, plainly and simply, a selfish human being.

For the unbeliever, sinner sounds so foreign. For the believer, it's almost too familiar, and it's impact is softened from hearing years of sermons on mercy and forgiveness. Jerk helps out in both of these areas.

And for the unbeliever, that's the first step to Jesus. If you grow up without religion, realizing you're a sinner can't be the first step because you don't know what sin is yet. (Actually, I think everyone knows what sin is, essentially. It's just the word that throws people off). But if you realize you're a jerk, Jesus can work with that until you understand the full depth and consequences of your jerkiness, which is what sin means.

Sin means that your jerkitude has some serious consequences, among them that it's gotten you into major debt with your creator. That's why Jesus died. Not to make us better people, but to literally save us from those consequences. He paid the debt with his own life.

The Brilliant Shades of Morality

2006-09-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

When people talk about moral choices, they often describe things as being a "black or white" issue, (basically meaning something is clearly right or clearly wrong), or they talk about "grey areas," where there's no clear right and no clear wrong.

As useful as these terms are, I think they can, excuse the pun, color our view of morality. Black, white, and grey are precisely the colors that characterize the view we often have of morality: drab. Bland. Boring. Etc.

To me, morality can potentially be so much more, and should be so much more, especially when you introduce Jesus into the picture. When the light of Jesus's teachings illuminate that picture of morality, I find it full of the most brilliant colors. Morality can then be all sorts of different shades of green and blue and red and orange and purple and yellow and everything in between.

What I'm saying is, morality need not be dull. It only seems that way because we force it into rules, lessons, tracts, and 3-point sermons, and we hardly see it played out in real circumstances. Ask William Wallace if fighting for the freedom of his people was boring. Ask Martin Luther King if he was bored when he was battling racial injustice. Ask Mother Theresa if dedicating her life to the poor and oppressed was dull.

If morality conjures up bland, grey images in our minds, it's only because we don't understand it's true power.

Friends IX

2006-09-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog of Fire faithful. Welcome to the 9th installment of my Friends series. The subject today is (though I unfortunately don't have access to any pictures of him) one of my bestest friends, Ryan Theriot. Now, since a good majority of my readers are people who know me from UL, I guess a lot of you don't know who Ryan Theriot is. Well let me introduce him to you:

Ryan and I's friendship stretches back over 15 years! We became friends in the 4th grade at Berwick Elementary school, and we've been best of buds ever since. To this day, Ryan is the friend that I always make an effort to see every time I go home.

There's so many memories, I couldn't possibly touch the surface of them here. I remember just staying up all night playing basketball. Or staying up all night playing video games. Or staying up all night watching TV and movies. Or staying up all night playing Magic: the Gathering. As you can see, whatever we did, it usually involved staying up all night.

Now Ryan is married to a cool young lady named Christina, and they even have a little one on the way. I still hang out with them whenever I go home, though we're unfortunately too old to stay up all night anymore. : ( But we still love to play games and/or watch movies. And that, in a nutshell, is my friendship with Ryan Theriot.

~Ken, Born of Fire

A Sneak Peek

2006-08-29T17:40:00.000-07:00

I want to give you guys a little bit of a teaser for future blogs. I've got another round of Friends posts coming up really soon. I'll just go ahead and announce the subjects now. Ryan Theriot, Lance Dunn, and Josh Manning will be the respective subjects of Friends IX, X, and XI. Also, I might be changing the format for those a little bit. Instead of sharing a specific memory, I may try more of a "profile" kind of style. We'll see how that works.

I think I figured out a good explanation for why this life can't be taken too seriously. The statement that "life is short" has become cliche, but it is no less true than the day it was first uttered. Some might say that that's a sad fact, and while it is in a way, it's also what makes life so darn funny sometimes.

Have you ever seen the effect when an playwrite take some classic Greek or Shakespearean tragedy and shortens it? The result is that it becomes funny. All the plot events stay the same, but somehow if they are all condensed into a single act, presented at hyper-speed, they become comic. Well, in light of eternity, the life that we are given here on Earth is comparable to a one-act, super-fast play. Terrible things happen, but overall it's just too quick and too temporal to be truly tragic. Real tragedy is only possible in eternity, where eternal souls are destined for one fate or another. Everything else is relatively comic.

~Ken, Born of Fire

50th Post!

2006-08-24T15:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 50th post of the Blog of Fire!

Wow. This is such a milestone. When I first started doing this thing, I didn't think I'd actually keep up with it. It's a good feeling to start doing something and to see yourself remain committed to it.

The Fall semester here at the University of Louisiana is officially back in full gear. I'm teaching two sections of English 101 this semester, as well as taking 3 classes. What this probably means is that I'll be learning things that I want to share with you on this blog. Just today in my Medieval Literature class I learned something quite fascinating that I would like to share with you now. Have you ever noticed that we have different words for the animals that we eat, depending on if we are referring to them as animals or as food:

chicken - poultry
cow - beef
calf - veal
pig - pork
sheep - mutton

Have you ever wondered why this is? I found out today. Before I tell you though, you need to know just a little bit about the history of England. (If you know all this already, I apologize for insulting your intelligence).

A long time ago there was a people group living in France called the Normans. They were originally of Scandinavian descent, but after settling in France they were pretty much assimilated into French culture. In the year 1066, these Normans, led by William the Conqueror, invaded England and conquered it. So for a number of centuries, England was essentially ruled by the French.

Thus, the French language became the language of the nobility, the upper classes, politics, academics, etc. Now, going back to that list of words above, all the animal words on the left come from Old English, while the food words on the right come from French. This is because at that time, only the upper classes ever got to eat meat. The lower classes would be lucky to eat meat once a year. Thus, the words that the French-speaking nobles used for those meats were the ones that stuck.

Pretty interesting, huh? I think so.

~Ken, Born of Fire

The Hardness of God

2006-08-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

C. S. Lewis, fairly soon after his conversion to Christianity, stated that "the hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and his compulsion is our liberation."

I had to meditate on that for awhile before I was finally able to grasp it. But I have found it to be so true in my own life. The same God who pursues us relentlessly nevertheless refuses to force us to himself.

Sometimes I find that his pursuit of me is so relentless, that I question how free my will truly is. Other times, his call to me is so gentle that I am almost scared by the freedom that I really do have to say "no." It seems like because of my rebellious nature, the mere fact of choice can often in and of itself turn into temptation.

Am I making sense? I'm finding these ideas hard to express because the only real sense I have of them is from personal experience. When I find better words, I'll post them. For now I'll just say this: I'm sure that God is not a tyrant in any sense of that word, nor does he just "let me be." In this regard, it's easy to describe what he doesn't do. As far as what he does do, I haven't quite found the words for it yet.

~Ken, Born of Fire

Friends, Part VIII

2006-08-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Friends, Part VIII:. The subject today is the young lady in the middle of this picture, Sally D'Avy, younger sister to Kelly and Molly, the subjects of those last two blogs.

Sally is a good bit younger than Kelly and Molly. She's not in college yet, thus I don't really have the opportunity to see her very often, except for when she comes to Lafayette to visit her siblings. Despite the infrequency of our meetings, I feel a unique kinship with Sally. I often find myself unusually excited to see her and inexplicably exuberant in her presence. I think I can pinpoint the precise moment when this began, in a memory labeled "I'm SERIOUS!"

I forget exactly what the occasion was, but a bunch of us were eating dinner at some restaurant in Lafayette. Sally was in town, so she joined us. And at the time, I had lately been in the habit of doing this thing where I would be pretending to laugh at something, and then I would suddenly sober my expression, rip my glasses from my face, and say "I'm SERIOUS!" People would usually laugh a good bit, so I would jump at the chance to do it around anyone who hadn't seen it yet. Sally hadn't seen it yet, so I did it to her. She began laughing so much that tears began rolling down her face!

I would later learn that Sally's laugh-tears weren't an infrequent occurrence for her. Regardless, in that moment, it felt quite special for someone to laugh so much at my antics. The bond was forged.

Of course, I don't think that's the whole reason of why I've come to like Sally so much, but that was certainly the beginning of it.

Friends, Part VII

2006-08-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Friends, Part VII, (I figured I've done enough of these now to warrant using Roman numerals). The young lady you see on the right (surrounded by all of her adoring admirers, or should I say "holla-ers") is Molly D'Avy, the subject of today's blog.

I remember the first time I met Molly, at a Freshmen Jumpstart, I knew immediately that she was a pretty cool person. First of all, she was a D'Avy, so that always counts for something. But I soon discovered that she was quite the talker, but in the fun way, rather than the annoying way. Over the past few years, Molly's penchant for verbage has led to some very memorable lines, including many almost random outbursts that come seemingly out of nowhere. I'll share two of favorites from Molly's "Random Outbursts" file.

One was when Molly, Kelly, and I were studying at Guillory. Of course you recall from the last blog that Kelly and Molly are sisters, and it's often very funny to watch them interact. They make each other laugh a lot, and you can't help but laugh with them. In this particular instance, they were going back and forth about something (I don't even remember what), then there was a brief silence, until Molly suddenly exlaimed to her sister, "WHY DON'T YOU GO SUCK ON A CHOCOLATE TOOTSIE POP!"

Another good one is from an incident at Cafe XA, where Molly and I are the Dynamic Duo of baristas. Molly was closing up the coffee bar and I was sitting on one of the couches, reading or something. I guess she was sweeping and there was an area of the floor that was wet and it was hard to sweep, or something like that. I could be way off. That's not important though. All I remember is, I'm reading my book, and all of a sudden Molly bursts out with, "Darn . . . cohesive . . . properties of water!" Yeah, that was definitely the first time I had heard anyone curse the bonding tendencies of H20.

Oh, and one more thing you should know about Molly. There's never a moment in her life in which she's not looking good. If you don't believe me, just ask her.

~Ken, Born of Fire

Friends, Part 6

2006-08-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

I hope I don't overload anyone by posting 2 blogs in 1 day. I'm just in a blogging mood I guess. Anywho, you are now reading Part 6 of my Friends series. Parts 7 and 8 will soon follow. The subjects of these 3 blogs will be the 3 young ladies you see on your right, known to many as the D'Avy Sisters.

I'll start with Kelly. She is the oldest of the 3, the one of the left in the picture. As I was rummaging through the old memory vault, I found a file labeled "HAVE A GOOD NIGHT!" Ah, yes, that'll be a good one to share. It's one of my favorites.

Kelly and I became good friends primarily by studying together. We discovered that we were among the more studious students in Chi Alpha, so we were great study partners. On many days, we would be studying till after dark, so I would often walk her back to her apartment.

Well, on one particular night, it was already well after dark when we started, and Kelly had the great idea of going to CC's and getting a Mochassippi beforehand. Let's just say that Kelly + late night + caffeine = CRAZY! The funniest thing was when I was walking her home that night, we passed up a random guy that neither of us knew, and as we passed him up, Kelly suddenly turned and blurted out, "HAVE A GOOD NIGHT!" I laughed until we got to her apartment, and then I laughed some more until I got back to my room. That was awesome.

Well, stay tuned to the Blog of Fire. Next will be Friends, Part 7: Molly D'Avy.

~Ken, Born of Fire

I Love This Poem

2006-08-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

A while back, I was at a Half-Price Books in Texas, and I bought a book called A Treasury of Christian Poetry. I want to share with you one of my favorite poems that I've read so far in the book. It's by Stewart Henderson.

Pentecost is Every Day

I share and share and share again
sometimes with a new language
which, if you are so open
will take you behind the sky
and award you cartwheels across the sun
I give and give and give again
not restricted by the church calendar nor concocted ritual
for I have no need of anniversaries
for I have always been
I speak and speak and speak again
with the sting of purity
that can only be Me
causing joyous earthquakes in the mourning soul of man
I am and am and am again

Where's God?

2006-08-01T17:33:00.000-07:00

Let's play a game. Consider it a literary version of "Where's Waldo?," but this version is called "Where's God?" I'll give you a sequence of events, and you tell me where you see God in these situations:

I realized recently that I completely forgot to fill out a housing application for the Fall semester, and that the only applications being taken for men at the time are for a waiting list.

I go fill out an application to get on the waiting list, and when I go to make the pre-payment, my debit card is declined. This is odd because it's been a full 24 hours since I deposited my paycheck.

At this time, I also find out that the tuition waiver that I thought I had for the summer didn't come. I later find out that it's because I only had 3 hours, and I'm supposed to have 6 to qualify. Whoops. I owe the university some money.

So now, not only are my chances slim of getting into the dorms, but even if a room opens up, it's looking like I won't have the money to do pay for it.

On this same day, only hours later, I find out about a few other alternatives that I may have to staying in the dorms.

So the question is, again, where's God in this whole situation? Is it likely that he's directing all of this, and wants me to live somewhere besides the dorms for some reason? It doesn't seem likely at all that he would cause me to forget to fill out my housing application, but it does seem more than coincidental that all of these things happened like this. Did he cause my debit card to decline?

I'm asking all this because I usually use a lot of caution in saying "God did this" or "God did that." I think Christians say that all too quickly sometimes. Sometimes. Other times, I think God really is working for some specific purpose, and I'm wondering if this is one of those times, or if it is all a simple result of my forgetfulness and ignorance. Any thoughts?

2006-07-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

I just got through with a fun evening of grading! Now I just feel like writing as a way of relaxing. Yes, in a very weird way, writing is relaxing for me. The only way I can explain it is that when I get my thoughts on paper, they aren't in my head quite as much.

I kinda wanted to write something thought-provoking again, but I think I'm not mentally capable of that at the moment. So, this blog is going to take a "Random Thoughts" format:

I don't think anyone makes me laugh as much as Jacob. Except maybe for Clint. But it's in two very different ways. Comparing Jacob and Clint is like comparing apples and anything not remotely like apples.

Clint loves Skittles. You should buy him some.

I don't see Amanda J enough anymore since she moved out of the house.

I need a new journal.

People whose recent (though only temporary) departure from Lafayette makes it not quite as enjoyable here as it could be: Stacey, Kelly, Molly, and Alyce.

Civilian losses in Lebanon are very sad, but I can't say that I blame Israel. If it's indeed true that Hezbollah is firing missiles from Lebanese villages, then it's pretty much Hezbollah's fault.

It greatly boosts my self-esteem when Ciji laughs at every little attempt I make to be funny.

What?

The complex narrative elements of a good wrestling match is something few people understand.

Pandora.com is pretty much the most awesome music-related technology since the iPod.

Okay, that's enough for now I guess. It feels good to get those thoughts out of my head and into my blog. Oh, and be on the lookout for more Friends installments. I have so many more I want to do. I like spacing them out though, rather than doing them back to back. And per the request of Molly, I'll try some more thought-provoking posts this week, too. Peace.

Thinking About Arguments

2006-07-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

First of all, I would just like to thank Molly for providing a thoughtful and substantial response to the question I posed in my previous post. As for the rest of you: what are you waiting for? Get on the ball!

I have a new observation to make today, which is also about arguments, but not gender this time. Something I've noticed and been thinking about lately is that in my classes and just in general, people seem to be scared to voice their opinions about things, especially important world issues. My professor asked us in class recently why that is, and I couldn't think of an answer at the time. However, now that I've given it more thought, I've come up with a theory.

First of all, I think the question is actually misleading. To say that people are scared to voice their opinion would assume that people even have an opinion in the first place, and I don't think that's a safe assumption to make. It seems like a lot of people are apathetic or confused or ambivalent about many of the issues, and they don't formulate an opinion one way or another. So the question then becomes, instead of why are they scared to voice their opinion, why do they not have an opinion?

I think it's partly due to the failure of our education system, but moreso than that, I think the media gets a big chunk of the blame for this one, mainly in the way argument is presented on talk shows, news shows, etc. If you flip through the channels every now and then, you're bound to see people yelling at each other and really "fighting" with their words. They get emotional and upset, and often even resort to name-calling and insults. Let me ask this: have you ever met someone who talks a lot, and very loudly and assertively, and you rarely say anything to them because you simply don't feel like raising your voice to talk over them. I think this is what a lot of my generation is like. Everyone we see on TV has their snotty, stinky, loud opinion, and they're yelling it at us, and we just don't feel like thinking over the noise, so we turn our backs instead. It's not that we truly don't care what's going on in the world, it's just that the forum in which people express their opinions about those things is like nails on a chalkboard to our ears.

I don't know, what do you think? I'm mainly thinking about this for myself, trying to figure out why I've been so apathetic about politics and global issues for the majority of my life. And I'm not trying to fix all the blame onto something else. I blame myself, too. But I'm thinking that maybe the reason why I struggle to form opinions about such things is partly that I've rarely had a good way to do it modeled to me. Maybe.

~Ken, Born of Fire

An Observation

2006-07-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

It starts at a fairly young age: we start noticing differences between ourselves and members of the opposite sex. It continues throughout the rest of our lives. Here's one I've noticed recently.

There's a big difference between the way men and women have discussions/arguments/debates. Men appear to be much more aggressive or assertive or blunt or something like that. I'm not exactly sure what it is. I've simply noticed that when I'm arguing something with another man, women often misinterpret the spirit of it. They think we are angry or upset or that something is wrong, when that's usually not the case.

I can explain it in terms of wrestling. Guys wrestle not to hurt each other or because they're mad, but for the sport of it. When we're wrestling, we're not "fighting." In the same way, when we're debating, we're not "arguing," per se, though it may appear that way on the surface. In the end, we're not mad, nor are our feelings hurt.

I'm not exactly sure what women do when they disagree about something, but I know it's fairly different from what guys do. I think this is a major cause of the "gender gap." When a man and a woman disagree with each other, it's harder to come to terms on the content of the disagreement because even the form of the disagreement is so different. In fact, I believe that it is frequently the case that the form is in reality the only disagreement, and prevents the two parties from seeing that they don't actually disagree. Of course, there is often real disagreement, but perhaps not as much as we think. That's just my theory.

Anywho, just some insight for the ladies. When you see us men disagree, just know that we're not "arguing," (in the negative sense of that term), and just let men be men.

What do you think?

Friends, Part 5 (For Real This Time)

2006-07-22T19:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the long-delayed return of the Friends series. The person you see in that picture with me is my good friend Kevin Guillory. Yep, Kevin's my token black friend. ; ) Just kidding. I'm looking in the memory vault, and . . . ah yes, here's a good one: a file labeled "Late Night Rants."

Even though Kevin and I were roomates for a year back in 2004-2005, I never got to know him as well as have during this most recent school year. We both went through our fair share of drama, and whenever we needed to just talk to each other about any of it, I would often get a phone call that usually went something like this:

Kevin: "Hey, whatcha doin'?"
Me: "Not much, just readin'."
Kevin: "You about to go to bed?"
Me: "Yeah, but you can come up if you want."
Kevin: "Alright, I'll be there in a minute."

We'd end up talking fairly late, but I never regretted it. He definitely helped me out by lending his ear, and I was always glad to be an ear for him when he needed one.

Kevin graduated this past May and is getting ready to do a Chi Alpha internship at Sam Houston University! If there's one thing I'll miss about Kevin more than anything else, it's definitely "Late Night Rants." I do have a cell phone now though, so I guess we can still have the occassional Rant.