Last night I stood up in front of my students and leaders and let them know that I will be done being a youth pastor on April 20th. It was extremely difficult to say, and the shocked looks didn't help either. But it also felt good to get it out there.
Please be praying for me. I spent my whole adult life wanting to be a youth pastor, but now that I realize it's not where I belong, or even want to be, it leaves me kinda hanging.
Peace,
Matt
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
My Roubaix
Above is a picture of the Specialized Roubaix, the bicycle I now ride. I know this will interest few if any of my blog readers, but it's my blog and I'm excited, so I'm telling you about it!
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The Roubaix gets its name from the French town of Roubaix, located in the North of the country. More specifically though, it gets its name, as well as its reason for being created, from the Paris-Roubaix race, also known as The Hell of the North. This is a race over cobblestones that break bones, puncture tires, and make even the best racers throw in the towel. This bike helps by eliminating a lot of shock from the road. And its light, fast, and freakin' awesome. I went on my maiden outing with it today, riding 25 miles to Birch Bay in near-freezing rain and it was tremendous! I have never rode a bike that was even half as good as this one. I went up hills as if they weren't even there. I went so fast down some larger hills that I was actually frightened (especially when I started catching up with traffic)! All I can say is that I have never been into having the best stuff, but am learning that quality really does make a difference. Not to sound totally materialistic, but I love it. This is a great bike!
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On a side note, I will say that I got this bike from my mom. It was my dad's. I had a series of weird feelings taking it, but now, when I ride it, I just think of him constantly and it feels good. I feel like we can share this connection and it is awesome.
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Peace,
Matt
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Book Review: Disturbing the Peace
I recently finished devouring Disturbing the Peace, a book that is really an extended interview with Vaclav Havel. If you don't know who Havel is, read the wikipedia link that goes with his name, or else you will never believe how incredible he really is. An artist turned president is slightly uncommon in any age, yet that is exactly who we are talking about. I first ran into him reading The Truth about the Truth, but knew I needed more. Fortunately this book happened to make an appearance at the local Goodwill and I snatched it up. I've decided it is too brilliant to have me actually review it, and instead am going to share my favorite quotes. Do yourself a favor and read all of them:
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The period you grow up in and mature in always influences your thinking. This in itself requires no self-criticism. What is more important is how you have allowed yourself to be influenced, whether by good or by evil. (8)
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I’m a writer, and I’ve always understood y mission to be to speak the truth about the world I live in, to bear witness to its terrors and its miseries – in other words, to warn rather than hand out prescriptions for change. (8)
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I too feel that somewhere here there is a basic tension out of which the present global crisis has grown. At the same time, I’m persuaded that this conflict – and the increasingly hypertrophic impersonal power itself – is directly related to the spiritual condition of modern civilization. This condition is characterized by loss: the loss of metaphysical certainties, of an experience of the transcendental, of any superpersonal moral authority, and of any kind of higher horizon. It is strange but ultimately quite logical: as soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it
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I’m a writer, and I’ve always understood y mission to be to speak the truth about the world I live in, to bear witness to its terrors and its miseries – in other words, to warn rather than hand out prescriptions for change. (8)
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I too feel that somewhere here there is a basic tension out of which the present global crisis has grown. At the same time, I’m persuaded that this conflict – and the increasingly hypertrophic impersonal power itself – is directly related to the spiritual condition of modern civilization. This condition is characterized by loss: the loss of metaphysical certainties, of an experience of the transcendental, of any superpersonal moral authority, and of any kind of higher horizon. It is strange but ultimately quite logical: as soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it
.
We are going through a great departure from God which has no parallel in history. As far as I know, we are living in the middle of the first atheistic civilization… [M]odern man, who is convinced he can know everything and bring everything under his control, is somewhere in the background of the present crisis. It seems to me that if the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.
Man must in some way come to his senses. He must extricate himself from this terrible involvement in both the obvious and the hidden mechanisms of totality, from consumption to repression, from advertising to manipulation through television. He must rebel against his role as a helpless cog in the gigantic and enormous machinery hurtling God knows where. He must discover again, within himself, a deeper sense of responsibility toward the world, which means responsibility toward something higher than himself. (10-11)
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The most important thing is that man should be the measure of all structures, including economic structures, and not that man be made to measure for those structures. The most important thing is not to lose sight of personal relationships – i.e., the relationships between man and his co-workers, between subordinates and their superiors, between man and his work, between this work and its consequences, and so on. (13)
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[Answering the question: What exactly is absurd theatre? How would you define it?]
[I]t demonstrates modern humanity in a “state of crisis,” as it were. That is, it shows man having lost his fundamental metaphysical certainty, the experience of the absolute, his relationship to eternity, the sensation of meaning – in other words, having lost the ground under his feet. This is a man for whom everything is coming apart, whose world is collapsing, who senses that he has irrevocably lost something but is unable to admit this to himself and therefore hides from it. (53)
We are going through a great departure from God which has no parallel in history. As far as I know, we are living in the middle of the first atheistic civilization… [M]odern man, who is convinced he can know everything and bring everything under his control, is somewhere in the background of the present crisis. It seems to me that if the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.
Man must in some way come to his senses. He must extricate himself from this terrible involvement in both the obvious and the hidden mechanisms of totality, from consumption to repression, from advertising to manipulation through television. He must rebel against his role as a helpless cog in the gigantic and enormous machinery hurtling God knows where. He must discover again, within himself, a deeper sense of responsibility toward the world, which means responsibility toward something higher than himself. (10-11)
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The most important thing is that man should be the measure of all structures, including economic structures, and not that man be made to measure for those structures. The most important thing is not to lose sight of personal relationships – i.e., the relationships between man and his co-workers, between subordinates and their superiors, between man and his work, between this work and its consequences, and so on. (13)
.
[Answering the question: What exactly is absurd theatre? How would you define it?]
[I]t demonstrates modern humanity in a “state of crisis,” as it were. That is, it shows man having lost his fundamental metaphysical certainty, the experience of the absolute, his relationship to eternity, the sensation of meaning – in other words, having lost the ground under his feet. This is a man for whom everything is coming apart, whose world is collapsing, who senses that he has irrevocably lost something but is unable to admit this to himself and therefore hides from it. (53)
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A play is bound, to a far greater extent, to the “here” and a “now.” It is always born out of a particular social and spiritual climate, and it is directed at that climate. (68)
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The abyss between life and the system grew deeper. (94)
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They [the bureaucrats] wanted reform, but only within the limits of their limited imaginations. (95)
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[S]ociety is a very mysterious animal with many hidden faces and hidden potentialities, and…it’s exremely short-sighted to believe that the face society happens to be presenting to you at a given moment is its only true face. None of us know the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events, both visible and invisible…one must be careful about coming to any conclusions about the way we are, or what can be expected of us. (109)
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[A] purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance. (115)
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Here [a series of unjust arrests] power had unintentionally revealed its own most proper intention: to make life entirely the same, to surgically remove from it everything that was even slightly different, everything that was highly individual, everything that stood out, that was independent and unclassifiable. (129)
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By the “self-momentum” of a power or a system I mean the blind, unconscious, irresponsible, uncontrollable, and unchecked momentum that is no longer the work of people, but which drags people along with it and therefore manipulates them. It’s obvious that this self-momentum is in fact the momentum of the impersonal power that Belohradsky talks about. (166)
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Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately exerienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons…Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as our do, here and now. (181-182)
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Every work of art points somewhere beyond itself; it transcends itself and its author; it creates a specific force field around itself that moves the human mind and the human nervous system in a way that its author could scarcely have planned ahead of time. (198)
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Our [playwrites] mission is to warn, to predict horrors, to see clearly what is evil. Face to face with a distillation of evil, man might well recognize what is good. By showing good on the stage, we ultimately rob him of the possibility of making such a recognition himself – as his own existential act. (199)
A play is bound, to a far greater extent, to the “here” and a “now.” It is always born out of a particular social and spiritual climate, and it is directed at that climate. (68)
.
The abyss between life and the system grew deeper. (94)
.
They [the bureaucrats] wanted reform, but only within the limits of their limited imaginations. (95)
.
[S]ociety is a very mysterious animal with many hidden faces and hidden potentialities, and…it’s exremely short-sighted to believe that the face society happens to be presenting to you at a given moment is its only true face. None of us know the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events, both visible and invisible…one must be careful about coming to any conclusions about the way we are, or what can be expected of us. (109)
.
[A] purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance. (115)
.
Here [a series of unjust arrests] power had unintentionally revealed its own most proper intention: to make life entirely the same, to surgically remove from it everything that was even slightly different, everything that was highly individual, everything that stood out, that was independent and unclassifiable. (129)
.
By the “self-momentum” of a power or a system I mean the blind, unconscious, irresponsible, uncontrollable, and unchecked momentum that is no longer the work of people, but which drags people along with it and therefore manipulates them. It’s obvious that this self-momentum is in fact the momentum of the impersonal power that Belohradsky talks about. (166)
.
Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately exerienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons…Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as our do, here and now. (181-182)
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Every work of art points somewhere beyond itself; it transcends itself and its author; it creates a specific force field around itself that moves the human mind and the human nervous system in a way that its author could scarcely have planned ahead of time. (198)
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Our [playwrites] mission is to warn, to predict horrors, to see clearly what is evil. Face to face with a distillation of evil, man might well recognize what is good. By showing good on the stage, we ultimately rob him of the possibility of making such a recognition himself – as his own existential act. (199)
Peace,
Matt
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Prince of Peace II(a): Jesus' Teachings
To understand Jesus, I want to take the two-track approach and look at his teachings, then examine his life and how he lived-out what he taught. I have no idea how many posts it will take to move through his teachings, which is why I have included an (a) to the title of this post. Let’s see where this takes us…
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The first teaching from Jesus I would like to examine is his command to love our enemies. We find him saying this in Matthew 5:44 as well Luke 6:27 (the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, respectively). Simply put, to understand this we need to seek some idea of what Jesus means by love and what he means by enemies. Both of these seem like silly notions, like revisiting the lessons one might have heard in Sunday school. Yet I think the results of such a project are potentially mind-blowing, so will shamelessly move forward with my study.
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First of all, let’s look at love as Jesus might have understood it. The word for love in both passages is the Greek word agape, a word used in countless sermons and focused on by such great teachers as C.S. Lewis or even Martin Luther King Jr. To this day it is a word with power and emotion behind it, and here we find it in the Sermon on the Mount/Plain. Dallas Willard says of Matthew 5; “in this crucial passage, where the rightness of the kingdom is most fully displayed, there is a sequence of contrasts between the older teaching about what the good person would do – for example, not murder – and Jesus’ picture of the kingdom heart. That heart would live with full tenderness toward everyone it deals with. This passage in Matthew 5 moves from the deepest roots of human evil, burning anger and obsessive desire, to the pinnacle of human fulfillment in agape, or divine love. In this way the entire edifice of human corruption is undermined by eliminating its foundations in human personality” (The Divine Conspiracy, 137). Willard describes the love we are called to have for our enemies as divine love!
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The love we are called upon to have for our enemies is a divine love, a love that comes from God and was displayed by God in the flesh. After all, it was agape love that caused God to send his son to earth (John 3:16), and the Bible tells us that we know what love is because Jesus gave his life for his enemies (1 John 3:16). So we know that this love is the same kind of love God showed us, people who deserve death but were instead given life.
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As for enemies, the word Jesus uses is echthros, a Greek word for an enemy, hostile neighbors or individuals, the hated or hateful, those who hate or oppose God, or even the devil himself (see Luke 10:19 or Acts 13:10, for example)! This is not a gentle word. This is not describing the person who cuts you off in the parking lot or gossips behind your back. We are looking at a word that describes the people we fear the most, those who wish to take our lives or even destroy our very souls! This is the other at his/her worst, the epitome of all that is evil and bad and wrong in your world. Jesus says this is the person you must love with a divine love.
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I do believe that this is a love that can only come from God, that we cannot love our enemies without the Holy Spirit moving in our hearts and transforming us into the likeness of Christ. It is divine love in this respect most of all: that is must come from God because we are incapable of loving in this way on our own. Yet it is what we must do. We must love our enemies in the way God loves, which involves giving our own life rather than taking theirs. But we’ll get to that later. For now, take some time to think on these things and meditate on the pictures below, which came from here.
'
The first teaching from Jesus I would like to examine is his command to love our enemies. We find him saying this in Matthew 5:44 as well Luke 6:27 (the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain, respectively). Simply put, to understand this we need to seek some idea of what Jesus means by love and what he means by enemies. Both of these seem like silly notions, like revisiting the lessons one might have heard in Sunday school. Yet I think the results of such a project are potentially mind-blowing, so will shamelessly move forward with my study.
'
First of all, let’s look at love as Jesus might have understood it. The word for love in both passages is the Greek word agape, a word used in countless sermons and focused on by such great teachers as C.S. Lewis or even Martin Luther King Jr. To this day it is a word with power and emotion behind it, and here we find it in the Sermon on the Mount/Plain. Dallas Willard says of Matthew 5; “in this crucial passage, where the rightness of the kingdom is most fully displayed, there is a sequence of contrasts between the older teaching about what the good person would do – for example, not murder – and Jesus’ picture of the kingdom heart. That heart would live with full tenderness toward everyone it deals with. This passage in Matthew 5 moves from the deepest roots of human evil, burning anger and obsessive desire, to the pinnacle of human fulfillment in agape, or divine love. In this way the entire edifice of human corruption is undermined by eliminating its foundations in human personality” (The Divine Conspiracy, 137). Willard describes the love we are called to have for our enemies as divine love!
'
The love we are called upon to have for our enemies is a divine love, a love that comes from God and was displayed by God in the flesh. After all, it was agape love that caused God to send his son to earth (John 3:16), and the Bible tells us that we know what love is because Jesus gave his life for his enemies (1 John 3:16). So we know that this love is the same kind of love God showed us, people who deserve death but were instead given life.
'
As for enemies, the word Jesus uses is echthros, a Greek word for an enemy, hostile neighbors or individuals, the hated or hateful, those who hate or oppose God, or even the devil himself (see Luke 10:19 or Acts 13:10, for example)! This is not a gentle word. This is not describing the person who cuts you off in the parking lot or gossips behind your back. We are looking at a word that describes the people we fear the most, those who wish to take our lives or even destroy our very souls! This is the other at his/her worst, the epitome of all that is evil and bad and wrong in your world. Jesus says this is the person you must love with a divine love.
'
I do believe that this is a love that can only come from God, that we cannot love our enemies without the Holy Spirit moving in our hearts and transforming us into the likeness of Christ. It is divine love in this respect most of all: that is must come from God because we are incapable of loving in this way on our own. Yet it is what we must do. We must love our enemies in the way God loves, which involves giving our own life rather than taking theirs. But we’ll get to that later. For now, take some time to think on these things and meditate on the pictures below, which came from here.
Peace,
Matt
Matt
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
BTW, Silhouette is Back
How do you like my trendy use of btw? Pretty hip, right?
Seriously though, Silhouette is back in action and I totally forgot to mention it. Silhouette is a site my friend Justin put together where a group of folks could share essays, stories, artwork, poetry, etc and get feedback. Also, he submits them to different websites, which is how I've gotten put into Bohemian Alien and Relevant, as I am too much of a wuss to ever try to publish something on my own. But check out the site and read a little. This month I stepped out from my usual form (essays) and wrote my first short story. I'm no Flannery O'Connor, but I'm practicing.
Peace,
Matt
Seriously though, Silhouette is back in action and I totally forgot to mention it. Silhouette is a site my friend Justin put together where a group of folks could share essays, stories, artwork, poetry, etc and get feedback. Also, he submits them to different websites, which is how I've gotten put into Bohemian Alien and Relevant, as I am too much of a wuss to ever try to publish something on my own. But check out the site and read a little. This month I stepped out from my usual form (essays) and wrote my first short story. I'm no Flannery O'Connor, but I'm practicing.
Peace,
Matt
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Prince of Peace I: Jesus Binoculars
I have been delaying the writing of these posts as I tried to systematize my thoughts before spewing them out. Unfortunately I’m not sure I am up to it still, but am going to attempt it anyways. For who knows how long, with an unknown amount of posts and words and hopefully many generous exchanges with you, I am going to share why I believe in nonviolence and why I believe this is the only course of action for anybody who wants to follow Jesus.
The first premise I would lay out for this discussion is that a follower of Jesus has to begin their understanding of following Jesus by listening to Jesus first. This sounds obvious, if not absurd, but regardless it is necessary to say. This means we read and interpret Paul, Revelation, the prophets, Moses, the taking of the Promised Land, exile, etc, through the lens of Jesus and his revelation of the Father.
The way I can best describe why this is important is to liken our Biblical hermeneutics to binoculars. Growing up I loved to play with my dad’s binoculars. It was fun to spy on my brothers or try to spot animals from great distances away. It was even more fun to turn them around and make things feel smaller and further away.
What I see in the church far too often is a spinning of the binoculars. We interpret Jesus through the Old Testament and Paul, shrinking Jesus in the process. If we try to disregard something Jesus says or does in the New Testament by saying “but the in the Old Testament…” we are forgetting that Jesus has fulfilled and expanded the Law. That is why he came teaching “You have heard it said…but I tell you…” The same goes with Paul (or any other NT writer for that matter), who was interpreting Jesus’ teachings for specific situations, but was nonetheless trying to follow Jesus.
If we flip our hermeneutical binocular, starting with Jesus, the Old Testament comes into focus, the epistles of the New Testament are read with more understanding, etc. What I am saying is that we have to start with Jesus not just with lip-service, but truly interpret who God is and what the Bible teaches through Jesus. If we cannot start with this common assumption, I cannot move on.
Agree? Disagree?
Peace,
Matt
The first premise I would lay out for this discussion is that a follower of Jesus has to begin their understanding of following Jesus by listening to Jesus first. This sounds obvious, if not absurd, but regardless it is necessary to say. This means we read and interpret Paul, Revelation, the prophets, Moses, the taking of the Promised Land, exile, etc, through the lens of Jesus and his revelation of the Father.
The way I can best describe why this is important is to liken our Biblical hermeneutics to binoculars. Growing up I loved to play with my dad’s binoculars. It was fun to spy on my brothers or try to spot animals from great distances away. It was even more fun to turn them around and make things feel smaller and further away.
What I see in the church far too often is a spinning of the binoculars. We interpret Jesus through the Old Testament and Paul, shrinking Jesus in the process. If we try to disregard something Jesus says or does in the New Testament by saying “but the in the Old Testament…” we are forgetting that Jesus has fulfilled and expanded the Law. That is why he came teaching “You have heard it said…but I tell you…” The same goes with Paul (or any other NT writer for that matter), who was interpreting Jesus’ teachings for specific situations, but was nonetheless trying to follow Jesus.
If we flip our hermeneutical binocular, starting with Jesus, the Old Testament comes into focus, the epistles of the New Testament are read with more understanding, etc. What I am saying is that we have to start with Jesus not just with lip-service, but truly interpret who God is and what the Bible teaches through Jesus. If we cannot start with this common assumption, I cannot move on.
Agree? Disagree?
Peace,
Matt
Books, Books, Books!
Yesterday morning I met Wayne for coffee in downtown Bellingham (thanks for meeting up Wayne!). Walking to my car I passed a local used book store and decided to dig through their free book boxes out front. Usually I can find a book or two I like on a good day. Instead, I discovered that they had decided to dump piles of amazing books! I left with a good 20 to 30 books! Here are some of the titles I picked-up that I can remember right now:
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantakis
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A'Kempis
Principles of Sacred Theology by Abraham Kuyper
Basic Writings of Jonathan Edwards
Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner
Christianity through the Centuries by Cairns
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (already own, giving away as a gift)
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (already own, giving away)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Best Known works of Flaubert
A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Selected Poems of Robert Browning
The Aeneid by Virgil
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
China's Cultural Revolution: not a dinner party
White Man, Listen! by Richard Wright
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
There were more, but my memory is not that swell. That my friends is what I call a productive morning!
Peace,
Matt
The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantakis
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A'Kempis
Principles of Sacred Theology by Abraham Kuyper
Basic Writings of Jonathan Edwards
Listening to Your Life by Frederick Buechner
Christianity through the Centuries by Cairns
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (already own, giving away as a gift)
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (already own, giving away)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Best Known works of Flaubert
A Preface to Paradise Lost by C.S. Lewis
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Selected Poems of Robert Browning
The Aeneid by Virgil
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
China's Cultural Revolution: not a dinner party
White Man, Listen! by Richard Wright
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
There were more, but my memory is not that swell. That my friends is what I call a productive morning!
Peace,
Matt
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Really?
Apparently Seattle is one of the greenest cities in the U.S. That's cool, and gives me some pride in the area in which I live, but I have to ask; really? I mean, there are some people working hard and doing some cool stuff for the environment here in the northwest, but whenever I drive south I avoid Seattle because the traffic is so bad. And if traffic is bad, that means emissions are not pretty. Which means, if a gridlocked city like Seattle is #3 on the list, how bad are the other cities in the US? Ouch.
Just a thought/question...
Peace,
Matt
Just a thought/question...
Peace,
Matt
What's Next?
When I first started getting involved in the church, it seemed like everybody was talking about how to reach the Gen Xers. It was all anybody seemed to be talking about in the church. There was a new "must-read" book put out daily, along with a monthly conference on how to reach Generation X people.
Funny how we don't really hear about Gen Xers anymore.
Of course, it then became the Postmoderns. It took me a bit of time before I realized I had been sucked into a marketing scheme. What finally tipped me off was when I was reading a particular book and it kept talking about what Postmoderns believe, what they want, etc, without really producing any evidence as to how these conclusions were reached. That's when I realized Postmoderns were the new Gen Xers for the church, which means the new way for twenty somethings to feel cool and trendy within the church as they talk about what their church is doing on Sunday mornings.
Lately I've noticed a decrease in the amount of Christian books being published with the word postmodern anywhere on the cover. Which is great, but feels like the calm before the storm. Right now I am wondering what is replacing postmodernism for the cool thing for churches to talk about. Do you have any ideas? Have you seen anything trend-wise going on? I don't want to be caught off-guard again and so would love your input!
Peace,
Matt
Funny how we don't really hear about Gen Xers anymore.
Of course, it then became the Postmoderns. It took me a bit of time before I realized I had been sucked into a marketing scheme. What finally tipped me off was when I was reading a particular book and it kept talking about what Postmoderns believe, what they want, etc, without really producing any evidence as to how these conclusions were reached. That's when I realized Postmoderns were the new Gen Xers for the church, which means the new way for twenty somethings to feel cool and trendy within the church as they talk about what their church is doing on Sunday mornings.
Lately I've noticed a decrease in the amount of Christian books being published with the word postmodern anywhere on the cover. Which is great, but feels like the calm before the storm. Right now I am wondering what is replacing postmodernism for the cool thing for churches to talk about. Do you have any ideas? Have you seen anything trend-wise going on? I don't want to be caught off-guard again and so would love your input!
Peace,
Matt
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Book Review: The Willow Field
My goal for a very long time has been to review every book I read on this blog. But I have not even come close. Regardless, I still try to add one here or there, and today I happen to have some strange desire to do so with William Kittredge's The Willow Field.
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First, a few facts that you may or may not know. I grew up reading a lot of Western books, especially Louis Lamour paperbacks. Also, as an English Lit major at Western Washington University my culminating class and thesis was on literature of the American West. I focused specifically on A.B. Guthrie Jr's The Big Sky. Since that time I have spent a lot of time with my nose in books based in the American West, especially when written by folks like Wallace Stegner, David James Duncan, Norman Maclean, Sherman Alexie, Jim Welch, or even Ken Kesey, Raymond Carver or Douglas Coupland. Although we don't seem to have the same recognition as Southern Gothic, the writers of the West have made a name for themselves and I include my name on the list of their followers.
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The Willow Field, though Kittredge's first novel, fits right into the genre of modern Western literature. It deals openly and honestly with the violence, contradictions, and evolution of life in the West. Rossie, the story's protagonist, begins the book as a hard-headed young man out to make a living riding horses and being a good ol' fashioned cowboy. In other words, the story begins and the reader quickly falls into a panic, thinking this is going to be a cliched Western with quick-draw cowboys, hard drinking, tough talking, and big brawls. But Kittredge honors the American West. Rossie's life mirrors the times and locations in which he lives. He starts wanting to be a classic, cliched cowboy, but he matures and changes with experience and with the help of varied relationships. He becomes the classic Western sage; practical, independent, stubborn, opinionated, and displaying a strange mixture of book-knowledge and everyday wisdom. As his life progresses, he changes and grows. Some of the people around him do the same and others do not. Which is what I think this book is about: change and how to adapt and respond to it in the West. The kind of changes I am talking about have to do with outsiders coming in, the West's correspondence with the larger world, land use versus exploitation and conservation, public lands, private lands, big and small governments, race, etc. Kittredge presents these issues and more with only one or two soap box messages (having to do especially with mines, which if you've never read about mining in Montana, you should know that somebody definitely needs to get on a gigantic soap box to talk about it).
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Here's my issue, and it really has little to do with Kittredge or The Willow Field, at least directly. Why does Western Literature always seem to be based in Montana and Wyoming? I'm a bit confused as to how places like Western Washington and Western Oregon fit into this genre, because supposedly our literature fits into this category as well. So often I read books like this and I feel forgotten, poorly represented. I wonder if we should have our own genre, maybe call it Far-Western Literature or something of that sort. Because honestly, a story like Snow Falling on Cedars or Sometimes a Great Notion speaks about this region in a much better fashion, yet seems to have little to do with books like The Willow Field. Just a thought.
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Peace,
Matt
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Two Posts in One
These two things on my mind are really quite connected, so I am making the blog version of a run-on paragraph...
First off, a friend (thanks Shauna!) was listening to a Rob Bell sermon and heard him mention Banksy. She looked him up, then convinced me to do the same. Spend at least twenty minutes on his site. Then check him out on youtube. This guy is awesome. I want to be him. But instead I'll just continue to look at his artwork and be glad.
Randomly enough, "Banksy" did a series of images on the wall put up by Israel to keep the West Bank out of sight, along with the Palestinians living there. This of course continues to prove why the nation of Israel is one of the worst in the world, and doesn't make us look good supporting it. But I digress. The fascinating thing was one particular image shown below, which is Mt Shuksan (at least I'm 90% sure it is) randomly enough, painted in Palestine.
First off, a friend (thanks Shauna!) was listening to a Rob Bell sermon and heard him mention Banksy. She looked him up, then convinced me to do the same. Spend at least twenty minutes on his site. Then check him out on youtube. This guy is awesome. I want to be him. But instead I'll just continue to look at his artwork and be glad.
Randomly enough, "Banksy" did a series of images on the wall put up by Israel to keep the West Bank out of sight, along with the Palestinians living there. This of course continues to prove why the nation of Israel is one of the worst in the world, and doesn't make us look good supporting it. But I digress. The fascinating thing was one particular image shown below, which is Mt Shuksan (at least I'm 90% sure it is) randomly enough, painted in Palestine.
This becomes two posts in one because the image within an image seen above is where I spent last weekend. I was up in the mountains and it was BEAUTIFUL! I was the Northern Lights for the first time in my life and all I can say is that I was reminded once again that the PNW truly is the most beautiful place in the world. End of story.
I took some teens up there on a retreat. I am thinking that sooner or later I am going to have to do some writing/thinking about what a retreat is and why we have them. But that's for another day.
Peace,
Matt
Six Months
It was six months ago today that my dad passed away. He fought so hard right up to the very end. The only person I knew who had died from cancer had finally ended up in a drug-induced coma for over a month. Dad hated taking any of the drugs and chose to fight to the end instead. And he did it.
I told Effie this morning that time just feels like a growing band-aid. It covers the wound more and more each day, but that doesn't mean it has actually healed at all. Until you see somebody go through that much crap you just can't understand how hard life can be. Seriously messed-up stuff.
Miss you dad.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
War, Borders, Prisons, Torture and the Gospel
I have been trying not to rant lately, and overall have done very well, especially because I have stuck to my Lenten fast from political campaigns. But today too much is in my head and heart and I have to let a little bit out or I will explode.
A few days ago I had lunch with a person from my church, who I had a nagging suspicion was a neo-con. Truthfully, I think a majority of my brothers and sisters who I attend church with fall into this camp, but I try not to think about it or engage in any sort of discourse that relates directly to politics (though I am consistently subversive on matters). At my lunch, though, my fellow diner brought up his love for Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. Oy. I am a calm person, and tried to remain so as I asked a few probing questions, such as: "Doesn't O'Reilly support slaughtering innocent Iraqi's by the truckload?" or "Isn't he a big fan of torture?" or "Is it true that he wants to force illegal immigrants out of the country?" The truth is that I really don't know, as I don't have a television and if I did, I would never watch a moment of his show, after once seeing 3/4 of an episode. But apparently I had opened the floodgates. My fellow diner gave strong reasons why everything O'Reilly says is true and good. It was hard to listen to him.
The problem is that none of his reasons were supported by the Gospel. I'm sorry, but I am just plain sick of this. You cannot follow Jesus and say that it is okay to kill people. You simply cannot do it! You cannot love your enemy while blowing him to bits or torturing him. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself when you are killing innocent civilians so you can feel safer at night. You cannot force people back into their impoverished countries, chanting all the while "it's illegal for them to be here," and claim to love your neighbor. If you are willing to punish these men and women just because of where they are born, I have little doubt what you would have done with Jews in Germany in the 40's or escaped slaves in the U.S. After all, it was illegal to hide them as well. And don't get me started on prisons, which were initially meant to house people as we get them on the right track, but are now meant to punish, punish, punish. Should we be at all surprised at what happens when the average prisoner is released?
The Gospel of Jesus is impractical. It does not provide earthly safety. It does not punish but forgives. It is gentle and kind and forgiving and full of mercy and love. I see few fruits of the spirit showing when a neo-conservative talks about living in America. It saddens me. How about a consistent ethic of human life, where we care about all people and are concerned about nothing other than their complete salvation? Salvation in the Bible is not just about eternity after you die, but about how you live right now. How you are cared for and care for others. All others! This requires forgiveness, hospitality, gentleness and understanding. And it is desperately needed in this country today. No more hate. Please!
That's my rant. It was written on the fly, with little in the way of systematic thought, so I hope you can forgive me. I needed to get all of that off my chest.
Peace (and I really mean it!),
Matt
A few days ago I had lunch with a person from my church, who I had a nagging suspicion was a neo-con. Truthfully, I think a majority of my brothers and sisters who I attend church with fall into this camp, but I try not to think about it or engage in any sort of discourse that relates directly to politics (though I am consistently subversive on matters). At my lunch, though, my fellow diner brought up his love for Bill O'Reilly and Fox News. Oy. I am a calm person, and tried to remain so as I asked a few probing questions, such as: "Doesn't O'Reilly support slaughtering innocent Iraqi's by the truckload?" or "Isn't he a big fan of torture?" or "Is it true that he wants to force illegal immigrants out of the country?" The truth is that I really don't know, as I don't have a television and if I did, I would never watch a moment of his show, after once seeing 3/4 of an episode. But apparently I had opened the floodgates. My fellow diner gave strong reasons why everything O'Reilly says is true and good. It was hard to listen to him.
The problem is that none of his reasons were supported by the Gospel. I'm sorry, but I am just plain sick of this. You cannot follow Jesus and say that it is okay to kill people. You simply cannot do it! You cannot love your enemy while blowing him to bits or torturing him. You cannot love your neighbor as yourself when you are killing innocent civilians so you can feel safer at night. You cannot force people back into their impoverished countries, chanting all the while "it's illegal for them to be here," and claim to love your neighbor. If you are willing to punish these men and women just because of where they are born, I have little doubt what you would have done with Jews in Germany in the 40's or escaped slaves in the U.S. After all, it was illegal to hide them as well. And don't get me started on prisons, which were initially meant to house people as we get them on the right track, but are now meant to punish, punish, punish. Should we be at all surprised at what happens when the average prisoner is released?
The Gospel of Jesus is impractical. It does not provide earthly safety. It does not punish but forgives. It is gentle and kind and forgiving and full of mercy and love. I see few fruits of the spirit showing when a neo-conservative talks about living in America. It saddens me. How about a consistent ethic of human life, where we care about all people and are concerned about nothing other than their complete salvation? Salvation in the Bible is not just about eternity after you die, but about how you live right now. How you are cared for and care for others. All others! This requires forgiveness, hospitality, gentleness and understanding. And it is desperately needed in this country today. No more hate. Please!
That's my rant. It was written on the fly, with little in the way of systematic thought, so I hope you can forgive me. I needed to get all of that off my chest.
Peace (and I really mean it!),
Matt
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
The Darjeeling Limited
Last night I finally watched The Darjeeling Limited. If you haven't seen this, you should at least have a good idea whether or not you will like it...all you have to do is look back on every other Wes Anderson movie you have seen, and you will like it as much as you like those.
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This is Anderson's best movie yet, in my humble opinion. Beyond the fact that I truly enjoyed this movie soley for the sake of the story it told, I also loved the message it conveyed. Three brothers traveling through India looking for a "life-changing experience," trying to find something powerfully "spiritual." Not surprisingly, they fail. I won't give away what happens next, but I will say that as they move away from their desperate attempt to experience the profound, the profound finds them. It reminds me in many ways of Eugene Peterson's writings on spirituality, where he reminds us that the spiritual is rooted deeply into the everyday. It is in relationships, both new and old, and in the everyday world around us.
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Last note on the movie, then I will shut up. Two of my favorite images in the movie are the train and the baggage. The train is where everybody is, searching for something more without seeming to really be looking. When the brothers finally leave the train, while everybody else remains, they finally begin to find answers, or at least better questions, as well as themselves and a way to be brothers and friends once again. The bags seem to be representative of past baggage (maybe a bit of a cliched read, so I apologize), as the brothers attempt to hold onto the past. Holding onto the past keeps them out of the present, and when they finally toss the bags on their way back to the train at the end of the movie I wanted to stand up and cheer! They were back on the train, but they were not the same people anymore, nor was their relationship the same. Hallelujah. Perfect movie.
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Peace,
Matt
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Oh yeah, and the soundtrack was awesome. Again, not surprising. But still cool.
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