Of Gods and Men

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.