Incarnational Orthopraxy

Check this out!

2008-10-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

I've gotten so terrible about writing on this blog. But that's about to change. Ladies and gentlemen, if anyone is actually interested, I present Matt's Nerdy Book Blog. The site is still pretty basic, but I am already posting on it and plan to continue doing so on a much more regular basis. My goal is to write at least one post on every book I read, which means there should be one or two posts a week. See ya there!

M

Some Recent Books

2008-08-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

I now blog when I am not bike riding, watching my daughter, cleaning, or spending my blessed one hour per night with my wife when Eleanor is asleep. Which means, hardly ever. But here goes...

Lately I've managed to read a few good one:

1. I'm almost done with Thomas Pynchon's Slow Learner. It's obvious from the intro that he doesn't think much of the work, but it's an easier introduction to one of the most difficult writers alive today. I hadn't read a book of short stories for a while, so that's nice as well.

2. Last week I finished Sarah Vowell's Assasination Vacation. Great book, especially if you feel a little pathetic when it comes to knowing your U.S. history. Interestingly, Vowell spends the last few pages talking about faith, which has nothing to do with the rest of the book. I found this in Omnivores Dilemma as well; these strange endings having to do with God even thought the rest of the book is on a subject that is seemingly unrelated. I would love to blog about this, but probably won't have the time. Anyways, it was a fun, good book.

3. David Sedaris' new one, When You are Engulfed in Flames is fun, but definitely not his best book.

4. Falling Man by Don Delillo is brilliant. I'd been meaning to start reading his work, and happened upon this one as an intro. He is a genius, and it is a painful look into one family in the wake of 9/11.

5. I read Starlight and Storm by Gaston Rebuffat. It was fun, even though I am definitely not a mountain climber.

6. I am nearly done with Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire. What a wonderful book! I don't know why I'd never heard of it sooner...

7. Oh yeah, I also read Silences by Tillie Olson, and A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. They were both important books for their time, but not so fascinating to me to read now. But still, I don't regret looking into them.

Okay, I think that's it. Talk to you sometime in the far-off or near future.

Peace,
Matt

Oh yeah...

2008-07-03T20:33:00.000-07:00

...I forgot to blog for a few weeks. Oops.

The truth is that I am beginning to rethink how and why I blog. I was thinking of erasing it all together, but instead I might start to transform it. Okay, the reality is that it has slowly been changing for over a year anyways. I guess it just changes as I change.

Anywho, the content of this blog was originally 90% theology/church and 10% on life and books. Basically, I think I will be flipping these statistics around starting now. It's funny, but now that I am done working in a church I just don't care about a lot of the things I cared about at the time. I don't want to argue or gripe or feel let down about any of that any more. I want to focus on what is good and beautiful and true, so I'm going to spend a lot less time talking about the church (yes, that statement was meant to be provocative) and more time talking about life and books.

LIFE: I just finished week three of landscaping. It is hard work. Some days it's a lot of fun. Other days it makes me grumpy. But every day I go home feeling like I have accomplished something. And, to sound archaic, I feel like a man. It is refreshing to do manual labor rather than sit in an office all day staring at a computer. Nobody at work knows I have a masters degree either, which is especially fun to keep under my hat. I spend my days thinking about a variety of things, though two recurring themes are stewardship (I wonder if well manicured lawns are what Genesis was referring to...) and Karl Marx and the absurdity of class distinctions (working hard to take care of rich people's stuff, while they lay out in the sun and look at the ocean...I shouldn't have read Nickle and Dimed right before I started this job).

Being a dad keeps my non-work hours especially busy. I come home from work and parent for most of the evening until Eleanor goes down. After she's asleep we clean up the house a bit, and on a good night I may get a full hour with Effie before bed. I don't read as much anymore, or watch as many movies, and rarely call people back, but it is a blast. Parenting is amazing. I regret not starting earlier.

I've been riding my bike to work at least four days a week (25 miles round trip). Plus, I go on long rides every Saturday morning. Last Saturday I did the three steepest hills I know in Bellingham. By the third, my legs were shaking so bad I couldn't go any further. But I need to keep pushing, because I only have two months until the Baker Hill Climb. I just found out they planned it to have 10,000 feet of elevation gain. Which translates into: much suckiness. I can't wait.

BOOKS: I recently read The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis De Bernieres. He also wrote Corelli's Mandolin and is one of the best storytellers alive today. I think I might even put him in my top five favorite all-time writers. This story is amazing and tells the truth about South America in a completely fictional narrative. If you want to know what that means, read the book and be blow away.

Currently I am almost half through The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It is fabulous, especially for a former comic book enthusiast like myself (yes, I just admitted that I like to read comics). This is, quite frankly, a GOOD book. What more can I say?

Also, I am making my way through David Sedaris' new one, When You are Engulfed in Flames. Of course it's great; it's Sedaris! And lastly, I just started The Omnivore's Dilemma. I'm only 10 pages in, and it's already been quite thought-provoking.

That's it for now. I'll try to put something up again a little quicker than my current blogging rate.

Peace,
Matt

Matt News

2008-06-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I haven't really been posting much lately. The truth is that I've been job hunting, fathering, and not really putting much thought into anything else. But tonight while I have a few minutes, I'll share what's new with me:

I got a job. It starts next Tuesday. The only issue: it's landscaping and I have a back that likes to go out. This should be interesting.
Sunday will be my first father's day. Cool.
I wrote another article for the silhouette page, and it should be up by tomorrow.
I signed-up for the Mt Baker Hill Climb (Ride 542). It is a brutal hundred mile bike ride and I am pumped! I'm going to climb some hills outside of Yakima on Saturday to help me train.
I traded-in some books and got a stack of sweet used ones last week. I'll fill you in as I read them.
Yesterday I almost had a fateful meeting with Bill Lincoln, who founded and runs CRI. It didn't work out and we are now rescheduling, but I tell you: Google search CRI and see for yourself how cool this guy is.

That's the news from me. I'll try to blog something worthwhile soon.

Peace,

Matt

Kim and Kipling

2008-05-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

The other day I randomly picked up Rudyard's Kiplings somewhat famous book Kim. First of all, my copy happens to be an amazing hardback from 1901, with some beautiful artwork included within it and a very extraordinary cover. I bought it at a book sale for 25 cents a few years ago.

The story, at least 100 pages in, is about a young Indian boy named Kim who decides to join a Tibetan monk/yogi who is traveling through India on a pilgrimage of sorts. I am really, truly enjoying the story. Beyond the story itself, here are some of the things I have been thinking about as I read:

Kipling doesn't seem as racist as I had been told he was through the years. In fact, he seems far ahead of his time. There have hardly been any white characters at all!
It's so cool to see somebody writing about Tibetans at a time when few had heard or likely even cared about Tibet. There were no Brad Pitt movies about it yet, or Free Tibet stickers on the backs of cars. I can't help but think somebody like Kipling did a lot to open the eyes of people in the West to how vast our world really is.
There is an amazing sort of plurality in Kipling's India. Muslims and Hindus worship at the same shrines, and everybody is anxious to learn from a Tibetan holy man; especially the religious leaders! I'm fascinated by this, especially knowing how tensions have been high there for a number of years where divisions lie along religious grounds.
Last night an old friend was telling me how they are planning to go to India on a religious pilgrimage of sorts and it made me think of The Brothers K and The Darjeeling Limited, both of which bring up a lot of questions about spiritual seeking in India. I wonder if this book will do the same? I wonder what my friend will discover? I wonder what the Beatles really discovered when they went there?

I'll try to let you know what I think of the book when I finish... Maybe I'll read all the Mowgli stories afterwards.

Peace,
Matt

Martinson Church Tour '08 (2)

2008-05-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I finally bit the bullet and went to a Mennonite church service. Why am I saying "bit the bullet," you ask? I say that because I was very nervous that I would get together with my fellow Mennonites and discover that although I agree with them theologically, I feel weird or awkward around them. In a word, I was afraid of being let down.

Effie, Eleanor and I somehow managed to make it on time to Birch Bay Bible Church on Sunday for their one service. There were a lot of elderly people, but here's the thing: it actually had a fairly impressive mixture of young and old! Aaaaaaaand, the first thing they did was recognize a member of their congregation who was moving. She was not a pastor, elder or whatever, just a member of the family who apparently was worthwhile enough to stop the all-important Sunday service and recognize for who she was... What that told me: this church truly cares more about the people than the show.

The music, powerpoint and message were not as well produced as what I am used to, and I was thankful. The pastor who shared hit it on the head in his sermon: their priority is on following Christ, not entertaining themselves. Amen.

I really don't know if we'll find ourselves back there again, but either way I'm glad we checked-out our first Mennonite church. Who knows what next Sunday may hold...

Peace,
Matt

New Article By Me

2008-05-19T08:18:00.000-07:00

I posted a new article on the silhouette website. Check it out.

Peace,
Matt

Odd Jobs

2008-05-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

Being unemployed for more than two weeks now, I have started actually doing some bits of random work for friends. Last weekend I hosted at The Little Cheerful, an awesome little breakfast place in downtown B'ham, for one day. Today I sanded wood floors for my friend Colin, and am helping finish up tomorrow. I gotta say, I really enjoy this kind of living. These bits of work are a blast, and dare I say it, actual fun work! Too bad it probably won't pay for a house payment/insurinance for an infant. Alas.

Still...I am unemployed and loving it!

Peace,
Matt

Martinson Church Tour '08

2008-05-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Effie and I began our Church Tour '08. I decided just now (without consulting her first) that we needed to call it a tour, so it felt like we were cool rock stars rather than nerdy Christians. Anyways, for two Sundays in a row we have gone to church services in places that are not "our home church" as people would say, and it has been an thought-provoking experience already. Here's what I am discovering so far:

I love getting up in front of people and talking, but am annoyed when I have to listen to somebody else do it. What kind of messed-up stuff does this say about me? Honestly, I just want to push back a little when other people are talking, to ask questions, throw in my two cents, disagree, or whatever. But when I'm stuck in a seat as a listener, I get frustrated. Worst of all is that this is partly for my own learning, and partly me and my ego wanting attention. Sad, huh?
I am realizing that there is probably no church group that I agree with 100% theologically. Does this say something bad about me? About them? Or am I supposed to pull something else entirely from all of this? Or do theological opinions really even matter that much?
I like being anonymous. I slip in, talk to a few friends, and slip out, without having any responsibility or conversations with people who corner me and want to talk about nothing for 20 minutes. This is a horrible thing to say, but I'm being honest at least.
I really have no clue what the point of a Sunday gathering is! I am not bashing it, or even disagreeing with it, but honestly I am just kind of at a loss on the whole subject. I've heard the arguments (have taught them a million times), but am still a bit confused on all of this stuff.

I'll try to start giving weekly Church Tour updates, but no promises. And no, I will not be giving some sort of church review like somebody does for restraunts or movies. That is just wrong. This is more for me to explore my own experience and shifting views of Church as I visit different expressions of the Church throughout Whatcom County.

Oh, and PS, today I visited Ron's church (aka, the Brown Kid) and had some fun talking with him and a few other old friends. And last week we went to Oikos church, which was pretty cool, but is also an Acts 29 church, so I have a feeling I will not be calling it home.

Peace,
Matt

Current and Recent Reads

2008-04-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Although I have been trying to be more consistent with this blog over the course of the past few months, I realize that my posts can be somewhat sporadic. Although I now have more time on my hands (view last post if you don't know what I'm talking about), I will say as an excuse that my wife and I still live in the mid-90's, in other words...we use dial-up internet. Which keeps me off the "information superhighway" most days. But I do get on and do one thing all the time: I update the Current and Recent Reads section of this blog.

The CARR is meant to show you what is influencing me currently, to alert loyal blog readers/lurkers (you know who you are!) to books that they might find interesting, and maybe even to generate some discussion. Also, being the total spaz I am, it is there to give a shout-out (told you I'm stuck in the 90's) to some great titles and authors. Lastly, you might notice that there are always at least four books on the list. That's how I read. I love overlapping books and seeing the random interconnections between them. That is also why I read a wide variety of books.

Currently I am slowly moving through Prayer by Han Urs Von Balthasar. It is a profound work of spiritual contemplation by one the biggest Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. Eugene Peterson and Scot McKnight mentioned it at different points in their works, so I figured it was worth a read.

At the same time I continue to slowly press through Gerhard Von Rad's Old Testament Theology. I became interested in this work after realizing how often Walter Brueggemann cited it. It has been intense, but worth the effort (though it will ultimately only cause me to sound even more heretical when pushed on my view of scripture).

I am also reading Martin Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics. I found this book cheap and used, and nabbed it right away. I first read Heidegger in a class I took from Carl Raschke, and realized that I needed to know Heidegger if I was ever going to understand post-modern thinkers. I started into this book as my last Heidegger title before I get into his major work, Being and Time. Yes, I know he was a Nazi. I'm not saying I like the guy, just that I am trying to gain some understanding of what he was saying.

In my spare moments I am also working through Indian Killer, one of Sherman Alexie's least impressive books, but still a worthwhile read. As always, I would say that every PNW resident should read at least one Alexie book. He has shook my world and my understanding of the compexity of dealing with the Other.

Welcome to the Desert of the Real is the first Slavoj Zizek work I have read. I am half-way through and I am amazed by it and very interesting in Zizek's work. Great...another person to read...

Deadeye Dick...is one of two Kurt Vonnegut books I checked-out from the local library. Vonnegut is quite possibly the best author from the second half of the twentieth century. I am working on reading everything he ever wrote. I honestly suggest you being doing the same.

Peace,
Matt

Unemployment

2008-04-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

Today is day three of being without a job. The most commonly heard phrase in my house during those past three days: "this is great...we should never work again." I have gone for a long bike ride every day, went for long walks around Bellingham, watched two movies (including Juno, finally, which lived-up to it's praise), read, spent time with my wife and daughter, spent time with friends, rode my skateboard, taken both cars in for long overdue work, and did some bicycle repair as well. I feel as if I let go of the world and regained my soul. It is marvelous. Honestly I am tempted to get a part-time job, sell my house, and choose a life of freedom over work. It is great!

Peace,
Matt

Last Day

2008-04-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, today is officially my last day of work. It is weird. I am trying to finish cleaning out my office, write a truly inspiring final message, and somehow process the strange reality that the last decade of my life is coming to a very definite close, with no idea of what is next. Wow.

Peace,
Matt

Very Little, Very Late

2008-04-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

The theological implications of the two cartoons above may or may not be implying something from this blogger...
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In a typically *brilliant* move, W has proposed voluntary emission cuts by big businesses within the next 20 years as the way to really put a stop to global warming. Big business volunteering to do something for the rest of the world. Hmm. I'm sure they'll be all over that, since they are our friends and protectors. Sarcasm never comes out as well on a blog... To be fair, I am tainted, as I have always been anything but a fan of this particular person. In fact, he represents some of the worst things I see in everyday life. Nevertheless, vague goals about some far-off goal are not even worth bringing up in the first place. This is the political version of cheap grace, trying to promote change without sacrifice. Why is it that nobody in our nation wants to sacrifice a darn thing? Why is it that we continue to live within this reality and pretend that it doesn't matter how horrific our decisions and lifestyles really are for future generations? Will somebody please let my daughter know that I tried really hard to fight against the ignorant stupidity of this generation for her sake?
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Peace,
Matt
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P.S. - If there are any of those Christians reading this who think global warming is an Al Gore conspiracy, could you do me a favor and please not even bother leaving a comment? Thanks.

Voltaire Quote

2008-04-16T10:14:00.001-07:00

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
-Voltaire

Book Review: The Writing Life

2008-04-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write this for over a week, but life has been extremely hectic (week long mission trip, quitting my job, and planning a massive 30th birthday extravaganza, among other things). But without further ado, I give you...another book review.

The Writing Life is typical Dillard. How so? Every line is a gem, but not in an easily definable, cliched way. She does not reduce life's complexity into naive, simplistic answers, and the same can be said for her description of the writing life in particular. The truth is, I am writing this review not because I want to review the book, but so I can convince you to literally read every single book Annie Dillard has ever written. If I had to read only one person's writings for my entire life, it would be hers. She is that good. If you have not read her already, you need to leave your computer right now and buy or check-out one of her books right now. If you have already read her, you know what I'm talking about.

Here's a couple of my favorite parts of this offering:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing... There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading - that is a good life.

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death catch us so by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking. We should amass half dressed in long lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other, to wake up; instead we watch television and miss the show... And if we are reading for these things, why would anyone read books with advertising slogans and brand names in them? Why would anyone write such books? Commercial intrusion has overrun and crushed, like the last glaciation, a humane landscape. The new landscape and its climate put metaphysics on the run.

Peace,

Matt

Book Review: A New Earth

2008-04-15T08:12:00.001-07:00

Somebody I know recently loaned me this book and asked me to read it and tell them what I think. So I did. And it turned out to be a very interesting experience that told me more about myself than I expected it to. Here's my thoughts:

A New Earth is Eckhart Tolle's follow-up to his book The Power of Now. The book has gotten a lot of press and is selling like crazy, thanks in large part to the power of the Oprah cult. But regardless of the how's, this is a book that has to be discussed and understood, because people all over our country are reading it, and I'm sure this includes a fair amount of church attenders.

A main focus of the book is the ego, and our self-obsession. So far so good. Much of the book focuses on this and for that I am thankful. Tolle is right that we, especially Westerners, are far too self-centered, if not self-obsessed. With a consistent mixture of misinterpretations of both Buddha and Jesus, Tolle tells his reader to let go of self, selfhood, etc. But this is the limit to the letting go for Tolle.

For Jesus, letting go of self was for the sake of grabbing hold of God and caring for our neighbor. For Tolle, letting go is for the self. In other words, it is still all about oneself and one's spiritual awakening. Tolle's premise is that if everybody does this, the world will be a better place, mankind will reach a new stage in its evolution, and we will enter into a new earth. Sounds nice.

So the big problems are these:

1. This is Platonic spirituality, where the forms rule and disembodied spirituality rules over here-and-now, Eugene Peterson types of spirituality. It is pie-in-the-sky, mixing religions, spirituality with no take home and no challenge for real selflessness that causes sacrifice in the here and now. In other words, it has to do with feeling good on the inside without having to neccesarily give up our possessions or our live for our God. It is gnosticism or zen, both of which Tolle even claims are the correct forms of Christianity and Buddhism, whereas the other ways are the results of people who "got it wrong."

2. This also screams out Nietzsche and his Darwin-inspired notion of the superman. I am no Nietzsche scholar, so I always tread lightly in this area, but the correlations seemed all too obvious. The letting go or twisting of old forms of morality and religion to make way for a highly evolved sort of person who looks a lot like the author. It is self-centered to the highest degree and causes us to see our selves as the highest thing to aspire to in this world.

3. This is a short-cut religion. That is always the most disturbing thing to me. Whereas real spirituality is slow, quiet, often taking a lifetime, this is basically your five steps to enlightenment (or 1-2-3 sanctification if you like). A person taking this book seriously could come to the end and declare themselves officially enlightened. But they are not. Not in any true sense. I'm sorry, but to be blunt, Oprah is not walking around showing-up the Buddha, Jesus and the Dalai Lama in the department of wisdom and sage-like abilities. Nor is Tolle or any of the Oprah-cult members of our sad nation. Why do we treat religion like we treat our food? Why do we want it our way, right away, without realizing the violence we do to our own faith traditions in the process?

4. Like I said earlier, this is disembodied spirituality. This is the return of Platonism and its surreal mix with Christianity (not to mention Buddhism). Honestly, what I would love to see at this point is Eugene Peterson writing a short, concise book that brings people into a here-and-now faith that is more faithful to the teachings of Christ. I guess I will just keep my fingers crossed and continue hoping that "the universe will open that path up."

Peace,

Matt

Matt 3.0

2008-04-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

[Imagine The Final Countdown playing right now, with Gob Bluth moonwalking across your computer screen...]

Yes folks, this is my last week working as a youth pastor. Do I have a job lined up for after this week? No. Am I concerned about that? Only occassionally. Am I excited? Yes. Am I sad to be leaving my students? Most definitely.

My plan is this... I am taking 10 whole days off to do whatever I want. I will spend time with my wife and daughter. I will go hiking and cycling. I will read and write. I will pray. I will sleep. I will (hopefully) recover from years of being mega-churched (yes I made a noun into a verb, be impressed).

For the future, I am looking into a job running heavy machinery, which is what I used to do. Honestly, it sounds a lot more rewarding to me right now than working in a church for one more day. Also, my wife and I are looking into the possibility of me going back to school for another Master's degree, this time in English Lit. So just so you know, it is a possibility. But of course, only a fool counts on any of his own plans. I will explore options, take some leaps, and try to trust God with Matt 3.0 (as in, I'm turning 30 and leaving a career on the same day, so I am moving into a new, different life).

But for now I have to try to finish strong. I'll tell you, it is a strange feeling to be leaving. I am trying to tie up loose ends, set volunteers up for success, meet with people one last time and clean out my office. It's a lot! But it is good. Bring on that third decade, I ain't scared!

Peace,
Matt

Book Review: The Corrections

2008-04-06T11:13:00.000-07:00

I am new to Jonathan Franzen, having unfortunately not yet read any of his other books. But I will say that The Corrections was an amazing introduction to a new-found favorite author! It is in these pages that Franzen tells the story of the Lambert family, but also the story of modern-day America in so many ways. Franzen deals both seriously and satirically with such issues as sexuality and repression, self-diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, hands-off parenting, and the continual issue of old-world ideals and modern morality. Oh, and there is also my favorite part, where American greed and pathetic understanding of third-world countries is put on display.

I will just say up-front that I loved this book. I love the way Franzen tells a story, going back and forth through time and characters in a way that brings both to life, similar to David James Duncan's The Brothers K. Also, I love satire, though I am always reminded that most people don't understand satire when it is aimed at them, unless it is even more blatant that Franzen's. Regardless, the mirror he holds up for us to look at is stupendous and timely. At the same time, it was sometimes hard for me to look at the satire in this book, as it adversely effected characters whom I had grown to love despite their perverse and selfish lives.

All I can say to finish this up is that this is a great book to read for understanding modern-day America, as well as for just getting into a great piece of fiction. Read it and enjoy it!

Peace,

Matt

Gone for the Week

2008-04-06T09:39:00.001-07:00

I am at a camp with my high schoolers this week. There is a chance that I'll get to see my site a couple of times, and a very small chance that I will update it, but most likely I will continue some form of silence for at least 5 more days. This ought to be a fun, but veryveryvery long week.

Peace,
Matt

It's Official

2008-03-31T09:00:00.001-07:00

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

My Roubaix

2008-03-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

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!

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.

Peace,

Matt

Book Review: Disturbing the Peace

2008-03-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

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:

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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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)

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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)

Peace,

Matt

Prince of Peace II(a): Jesus' Teachings

2008-03-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

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…
'
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

BTW, Silhouette is Back

2008-03-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

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

Prince of Peace I: Jesus Binoculars

2008-03-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

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

Books, Books, Books!

2008-03-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

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

Really?

2008-03-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

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

What's Next?

2008-03-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

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

Book Review: The Willow Field

2008-03-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

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).

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.

Peace,

Matt

Two Posts in One

2008-03-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2008-03-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

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.

War, Borders, Prisons, Torture and the Gospel

2008-03-06T09:57:00.000-08:00

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

The Darjeeling Limited

2008-03-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

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.

Peace,

Matt

Oh yeah, and the soundtrack was awesome. Again, not surprising. But still cool.

What I'm Excited About

2008-02-28T08:06:00.001-08:00

There is a lot coming up in my neck of the woods and I am getting excited to attend at least some of these events/lectures. Check these out!

March 1: Dr. Darrell Bock will be giving a free lecture at 7pm at Bellingham's Mt. Baker Theatre, put on by Logos Bible Software.

March 4: Metropolitan Kallistos (aka Kallistos Ware) will be speaking twice in Seattle, once at 9:30 am and again at 7:30 pm. I haven't quite figured out how to attend both, but I will. It is also free, put on by SPU, and hosted by First Free Methodist Church.

March 12-15: Trinity Western University is having a symposium titled Politics and Religion. It is free (yes!) and includes Richard Kearney, Simon Critchley and Paul Gottfried among the lecturers.

April 11-12: Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change Tour hits Seattle's First Free Methodist Church. Boy, that church sure hosts a lot of events. I won't be able to afford this one, though I am not opposed to sneaking in if I am in the area...

April 12-13: Seattle Green Festival. I think this would be awesome to attend. Nuff said.

Alright, those are my tips on what to do if you live in the PNW and want to have your world changed for the better. Hope it helps.

Peace,
Matt

Flannery O'Connor on Writing

2008-02-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

The following comes from a lecture Flannery O'Connor once gave titled The Fiction Writer & His Country. I liked it a lot:

“The writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and the wealthiest nation in the world doesn’t mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him.”

Peace,
Matt

Cornel West in Bellingham

2008-02-21T07:32:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday night I had the privilege to listen to a lecture (of sorts) from Dr. Cornel West hosted by Western Washington University. I had no idea what I was getting into. It's not often these days that we are allowed to hear from a prophet. Yet that is what it felt like to me.

West, in my opinion, explained Christianity and invited others into it, without hardly ever mentioning anything that sounded "religious." He stood before a packed house of professors and students, telling them they need to die to themselves or they will never live. He declared that our professions are not always our vocations, but that we need to seek out a vocation that looks out for the poor and marginalized and victimized in our world. He reminded us that violence and revenge never solve anything. He went back to the fear that enveloped us after 9/11 to state that terrorism is not new to our nation, but just new to the white people. He pointed out the sins of arrogance and structural violence and called for repentance. Like most prophets, the religious folks were just not there to listen, as they continue to bless the status quo, but I believe the folks who were there were changed and challenged in profound ways. In other words, it was freakin awesome. Thank-you Dr West, and WWU.

Peace,

Matt

Lent

2008-02-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

I guess since Ron and Brad both mentioned their Lenten decisions, I will follow their lead and say a word or two.

First of all, I decided to give up following politics for Lent. I know most people would gladly do so anyways, but I actually enjoy following what's going on and offering my two cents as they continually put their feet in their mouths. But for the next month and a half I will not seek out speeches or try to find out who is ahead, etc. I am taking a break. This should also help me become more positive for a while.

Second, I am picking something up during Lent. Specifically, I have begun fixed-hour prayers again, with the help of Phyllis Tickle's wonderful The Divine Hours. I plan to at least follow the prayers through Easter.

Third, I am teaching about Lent with my youth ministry, which I have never done before. I am using the Desert Fathers to guide us through it, which I at least will find enjoyable.

Peace,
Matt

Popalyptic VI: Choose Your Own Apocalyptic Adventure

2008-02-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

"To be human we need to experience the end of the world. We need to lose the world, to lose a world, and to discover that there is more than one world and that the world isn't what we think it is. Without that, we know nothing about the mortality and immortality we carry. We don't know we're alive as long as we haven't encountered death: these are banalities that have been erased. And it is an act of grace...loss brings as it takes away."
-Helen Cixous, Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing, p. 10

Adding to the last post, with the helpful thoughts coming from Helen Cixous above, I add a fifth thesis, which is that every person and culture needs some sort of belief concerning how it will all end. This will help lead us into today's post.

Part of the current issue in America is that there are competing eschatologies, with a lot of crossover between different camps. Nobody really knows what or how they believe, and there are a plurality of religious and secular options, many of which are mixed and mingled in a similar fashion as our creation narratives are mashed together.

One apocalyptic message I have been noticing tells us that things are coming to a cataclysmic end. This story is full of fascinating characters, strange events that are both natural and seemingly too fantastic for nature as we know it. There are truly ancient apocalyptic touches to these modern apocalypses, but with one large difference: human beings are in control of how things will end, or even if they will end. This takes us into some fictional worlds.

One of the worst movies I ever had the misfortune of seeing ends up being a good example of this: Armageddon. The name alone is meant to conjure images from Revelation. But it is a modern-day Americanized version. Yes there is the cosmic rock cruising towards earth, which seems very apocalyptic. But then things turn in a different way. With the help of technology and a lot of determination, a group of Americans (of course) are able to stop Armageddon and save the earth. Armageddon, in other words, is avoidable. And all it takes is us and our own strength and ingenuity.

The story lines of movies/books such as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Mad Max (all of them), and I am Legend are similar (though some are much better than others). We determine how or if things will end. For these storylines, though, the end comes. But not completely. There is a remnant left (we will wait for a later post to discuss the rapture and Mr. Lahaye) who have to survive in conditions that cause some to resort to animal-like behavior and others, like the father in The Road, to choose to be the "good guys."

Of course, we cannot end without also noting Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, as well as Ken Kesey's Sailor Song, which Kesey literally described as "post-apocalyptic" in an interview. This apocalyptic story-line, which I assume you are familiar with, tells us that the world is ending and we are causing it to do so. If we clean-up our act, perhaps we can still be saved. If not, many will die, and the world could revert in a Mad Max, The Road sort of way. Again, this is a story in which we are in control.

I bring up this variety hoping, beyond anything else, that they will bring out themes and ideas as to what sort of eschatology America is moving into and to decide if any of these stories can be referred to as modern-day apocalyptic literature. If so, our new version really does have very little to do with God and a lot more to do with ourselves. Although they differ as to how and when and if things will end, in all of these it is always about our strength, understanding, and technological powers. Seems very Modern, now that I think about it. I suppose all of this is leading us to the next post where we'll have to see what Tim Lahaye has to say about all of this. Oh boy.

Thoughts? Other titles? Disagreements? Is anybody reading these?

Peace,
Matt

Popalyptic V: Apocalypse Now

2008-02-04T08:27:00.000-08:00

Microsoft Word on my computer uses the Encarta dictionary. When asked to define apocalypse, it gives two definitions:
1. the destruction or devastation of something, or an instance of this
2. a revelation made concerning the future
The thesaurus goes on to list words such as disaster, catastrophe, day of reckoning, Judgment Day, end of the world, and destruction. Living in America at this time, I do not find this definition very surprising, though it is more than a little strange when compared to the historic usage of the word that we talked about two posts ago.

I believe a fundamental shift has occurred in how apocalypse is understood and defined in modern-day America. Consequently all apocalyptic literature is often read in a very different way than originally intended, depending upon the reader. The reader’s socio-economic standing, religion, era, and location all make a drastic difference as to how they will read and understand (or not understand) apocalyptic literature. Gadamer said “A person who is trying to understand a text is always projecting.” What is projected onto an apocalypse depends upon the reader. Or, to borrow from post II; when the soup is unveiled, each of us will try to add his or her own seasoning upon it. Some of us will change the taste a lot, while others will change the entire meal. Reading ancient apocalyptic literature across time, continents, and cultures causes us to read it entirely differently than how it was intended. Meanwhile, we begin to change it or even to create our own new stories.

One thesis I would throw out with these posts is that we are beginning to create our own modern American apocalyptic literature, and it is far different from what the ancients wrote, as are the reasons behind the writing. Past apocalypses were by oppressed peoples, with the intention of bringing hope and reminding the powerless that those who find comfort in thier oppresive ways now will find pain, suffering and judgement in the future. This is hard to deal with in a nation that is more often than not the cause of suffering and oppression. So we have simply redefined the word and begun coming up with our own versions.

I suppose a second thesis for these posts, then, is that we have redefined apocalypse in a way, to borrow from liberation theologians, that comforts the comfortable and forgets the afflicted. That means it forgets all about oppression and focuses on destruction and future-telling. Like the Israelites when they began following false prophets, we want to know the future, specifically the future that tells us how blessed we will be because God loves us so. The fact that we ignore what he asks us to do is inconsequential. How does this work? Like this: my third thesis is that we do this by eliminating God and the bible from our eschatology. Sometimes we do this literally, sometimes both make an appearance, but I believe they are more often than not forgotten. I think, for instance, of the man at church who told me how he looks forward to Heaven, where he will ride a Harley around all day, every day. Hmm. So (thesis four), instead of listening to the Bible or believing in God's power within our world, we are the ones who are in control of the future in modern American apocalyptic literature.

I will give some examples and add some meat to this in the next post(s). For now, I ask if there are any questions, clarifying thoughts, or contradictory opinions? Or even better, is there another thesis you would add to these? Please let me know!

Peace,

Matt

Popalyptic IV: Wind in the Fists

2008-01-31T11:40:00.000-08:00

Today, before we get to my next post, Apocalypse Now and Later, I want to visit a song I absolutely love from Neko Case. Case, if you don't know, is from The New Pornographers, a band I avoided for years because of its name. But it turns out I like them, love her, and really enjoy her song John Saw that Number (as a sidenote, I just found out she's from Tacoma, near where I grew up, and went to school in Vancouver, near where I went to school...maybe we can be friends). Anyways, here's the lyrics:

Old John the baptist, old John divine
Leather harness round his line
His meat was locust and honey
Wild honey lord, wild honey

John saw that number
Way in the middle of the air
Cryin' holy, holy to the Lord

Old John the baptist, old John divine
Frogs and snakes are gonna get John this time
God told the angel "go see about John"
So he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist
Gathered wind in his fists so the stars round his wrists
Cryin' holy, holy to the lord

Read the revelations, you'll find him there
Third chapter, fourth verse where he said unto me
"There's a beast that rose out of the sea"
Ten crowns, ten crowns
On his horns write "blasphemy"
John couldn't read it (John couldn't read it)
Get on repeat it
John couldn't read it
Holy, holy to the Lord

There was a man, a pharisee
Who came by night to meet him
Said "I know thy teacher came from God cause no man can do such miracles
Without the lord to entreat him

"God told the angel "go see about John"
So he flew from the pit with the moon round his waist
Gathered wind in his fists and the stars round his wrists
Cryin' holy, holy to the Lord
Holy, holy to the Lord
Holy, holy to the Lord...

Aside from her naming John the Baptist as the John of Revelation fame, I do think these lyrics have grasped onto another important part of apocalyptic literature. Case has worked herself into the style of apocalyptic! Listen to these amazing lyrics about "moon round his waist" and "stars round his wrists" and you are suddenly beginning to picture those images that we have let grow stale in books like Revelation and Daniel after too much literalist reading. This is imaginative, even psychadelic, imagery folks!

My desire with today's post was to share that the imagery of past apocalyptic literature can still be celebrated today. I hope lyrics like these brings helps to bring those ancient books back to life for you in the same way they have for me.

In his book In God's Time, Craig Hill brings up what is missing from a Neko Case apocalypse. He says that "Where there is an emperor with divine pretensions, there is need of an apocalypse." Case's apocalypse seems more historical than for the here and now but I'm getting way too far ahead of myself...

Have you seen apocalyptic imagery used or expanded upon anywhere?

Peace,
Matt

Popalyptic III: Dolorean

2008-01-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

I can't really contain myself any longer. I want to get into the "pop" part of these blog posts. There may not be a lot of order to them, but I'm going to start unloading some of these, and I don't know where we'll stop. For the moment I do not want to actually try to define pop culture because, honestly, I don't really know where to say it stops anymore. I do know that books, movies, music, and television fit into this category. This of course is what makes it so difficult; where doesn't TV go nowadays? Regardless, we're going to dive in and see where this takes us.

Dolorean

Last Spring I went on a long road trip with my parents and my little brother. He kept telling me to listen to this band on his iPod and I finally consented, and fell in love immediately with Dolorean. Maybe you don't know who they are, or maybe you just aren't into their music, but I really enjoy it. It's pretty mellow with somewhat strong lyrics. I was immediately struck by the obvious faith elements in the songs, though lyricist Al James does not claim to be a Christian. Today's song in particular shows obvious Christian roots, and provides an easy point to jump in to the mixture of pop culture and apocalyptic literature. It is called Violence in the Snowy Fields, and although you can't hear the song, hopefully you can still enjoy these lyrics:

"I’m quittin and givin' up on bein' good enough
My body is bones and blood, my heart is pure
And when the rider comes and tells what I have done
I’ll gladly sing along, won’t change my tune

And in the end St. John says all things shall be revealed
Like violence, like violence
Like violence in the snowy fields

And on a night like this when nothing stirs about
If I hear the hoof beat pounds I will not turn
I will not be afraid of how I spent my days
I may go down in flames but I shall not burn

And in the end St. John says all things shall be revealed
Like violence, like violence
Like violence in the snowy fields

And in the end St. Johns says all things shall be revealed
Like violence, like violence
Like violence in the snowy fields"

What I enjoy about this song, and why I chose to start with it, is that at least in a basic way, they get it! The first four lines are ambiguous, and can be taken a number of ways. Which I enjoy, considering final judgment is not as easily predicted as many in the evangelical world believe it to be. Beyond that, though, is the fact that Dolorean appears to realize that the end is a revealing, as is the book of Revelation in general. It is an unveiling, a show of reality as it really is.

The following comes from an interview done with frontman Al James. You can read the entire interview here. This is an entry point for understanding where he is coming from:

I think that a point of particular interest is your lyrics. You often refer to Biblical themes, and in general I feel a kind of spiritual mood in your words. What about it? How do you consider Christian religion in your life and in our present society?

I am a spiritual person and I was raised in the Christian faith. I don’t really know what I believe right now. I don’t attend church, but I still cling to the teachings of Christ – humility, kindness, love, patience, sacrifice, honesty and generosity. I fear that in general the essence of Christianity that I find in Christ’s teachings has been massively perverted by social-political organizations that claim to be churches. It makes me very, very sad, but I know that this has been happening throughout history. Since I am a spiritually complex person, it seems natural that those themes would appear in my music. I work to avoid alienating anyone by lyrics, but they may hit closer to home for some people. Ultimately I want to make music that connects with people, not divides folks.

What are your ideas about this presumed fight between Muslim culture and Catholic culture that also is generating the war in Iraq? Personally, I think that the only God that the West of the World is trying to safeguard is the Money...

I basically agree with you. I am disappointed by the West’s plans to “democratize” and “Christianize” other cultures. It’s utterly repulsive and makes me sad beyond belief. We’re living in dark times right now and I hope that change comes soon. I agree that money and power continues to be “God” in most cases. Self-righteous western leaders who occupy other countries and promote massive genocide will be accountable for their actions. If not in this lifetime, there will be some sort of spiritual accountability I am convinced of this.

Revealing, future accountability for the powers that be; I would say that Dolorean puts out some lyrics that mix pop and apocalypse, and fortunately, do so in a way that is true to the text.

Your thoughts?

Peace,
Matt

Popalyptic II: Apocalypse Then

2008-01-28T09:29:00.000-08:00

First things first, before this post really begins... Effie and I have been updating our daugter's blog if you are interested. She is now three months and cute as usual. Secondly, this strange new site called Bohemian Alien has published an aritle I wrote many months ago on Kafka. You can check that out here. I titled it A Kafka Kick to the Face, so you know it has to be good. Okay, now on to today's post...

Before we can get into the meat of where these posts are going, I feel the definite need to define our terms. Pop and the idea of pop culture will have to be fleshed out in future posts, but of course the most important thing to start with is apocalypse and apocalyptic literature. Although I am not a scholar on this, I do have some understanding that I would like to share and use to move us into the heart of this conversation.

The first for us to do, then is to find some definitions of “apocalypse.” I want to share a variety, look for themes, but leave it somewhat open as to exactly what it is, because I believe what it was historically and what it has become are not necessarily the same thing. Today we will look at apocalyptic literature from history, setting us up for the next post, which will (if all goes according to plan) focus on how our understanding of apocalypse has changed over time. So here goes…

In How to Read the Bible for All it’s Worth, Fee and Stuart list five common characteristics of Apocalyptic literature:
1. “Apocalyptic was born either in persecution or in a time of oppression [for the Bible, think how apocalypse is seen during the exile and during persecution of the early church]. Therefore, its great concern was no longer with God’s activity within history. The apocalyptists looked exclusively forward to a time when God would bring a violent, radical end to history, an end that would mean the triumph of right and the final judgement of evil.”
2. “Apocalypse is a form of literature. It has a particular written structure and form.”
3. “Most frequently the ‘stuff’ of apocalyptic is presented in the form of visions and dreams, and its language is cryptic (having hidden meanings) and symbolic.”
4. “The images of apocalyptic are often forms of fantasy, rather than of reality.”
5. “Because they were literary, most of the apocalypses were very formally stylized [think of the use of numbers, time, neat arrangements of these and more].”

Leland Ryken, in How to Read the Bible as Literature, calls this visionary literature, which “transforms the known world or the present state of things into a situation that at the time of writing is as yet only imagined.” The apocalyptic author writes in such a way because “visionary literature, with its arresting strangeness, breaks through our normal way of thinking and shocks us into seeing things are not as they appear.” Think of how awesome these combined statement are; an apocalyptic writer uses wild imagery for the sake of the readers, so they can have their eyes opened and realize the world is not as everybody around them assumes. As Bob Dylan sang, “There’s something happening here, but you don’t know what it is.” To have eyes opened, the jarring style of apocalypse becomes necessary.

The online etymology dictionary, one of my favorite places to dink around online, points out that the word apocalypse comes from a root that means “to uncover.” The way it was once described to me was that it is similar to coming into a room where somebody is cooking an amazing soup. You can smell it and you are desiring whatever it is that is setting your tastebuds off. Then, suddenly, the cook takes the lid off and lets you see what is inside and, BAM, apocalypse.

Last one, then we will move on. Craig Hill, in his book In God’s Time (which I consider the best book I have ever read about apocalyptic literature), lays out 12 characteristics of apocalyptic literature, which are as follows:
1. Division of History into Old and New Ages.
2. Dualism: full of good and evil, with little in between. Or, as Hill puts it, “short on grays but copiously supplied with black and white.”
3. Determinism: “history is moving forward to its inevitable conclusion.”
4. Exclusivism: there are “few insiders” and “many outsiders.” Guess who gets in.
5. Portrayals of Judgement.
6. Expectations of the End: “to such a mindset, bad news is good news.”
7. Code Words, Numerology, and Cryptic Symbols
8. Means of Revelation: visions, dreams, and archangels reveal God’s plan.
9. Transportation of the Visionary: author taken away, most often to heaven or the heavenly realm.
10. The Heavenly Realm: highly involved with what happens on earth.
11. Exhortations to Endurance.
12. Demonstrations of God’s Justice.

Okay, that’s a lot to ask blog readers, known for their short attention spans, to digest. I hope you can see that even when it comes to reading ancient apocalyptic literature, there is not perfect agreement as to what defines it. We can know what it is when we read it, but it is not so easy to define. Which is what makes it tricky, but also what makes it so wonderful. Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful commentary on Revelation, Reversed Thunder, says that the Christian community needs teachers, apologists and “masters of the imagination… [who] keep us awake and aware before the living God who speaks to us…to remind us that we are living beings who are being spoken to.”

We could go further today, especially to listen to some other scholars and their opinions on apocalyptic literature, but I’d rather let Peterson’s words ring out for us to end on. “We are living beings who are being spoken to.” Let us listen for those words.

Peace,

Matt

Popalyptic

2008-01-26T21:06:00.000-08:00

Over the course of a few blog posts I am going to try to do something I have never done before on this blog. First of all, I am planning to keep with one topic for more than one post, rather than commenting on random things from the news and current books I am reading. This will take more discipline than I am used to, but stranger things have happened. Please be reading regular and providing some feedback as I meander towards a point with this series.

So what am I planning on doing? Why, commenting on the popalysm going on today, and seeing where it takes us.

First things first: Popalyptic. Not necessarily the most clever or original combination of the words pop and apocalyptic, but it is functional and I thought of it, so we are going with this as a title. I want to spend some time examining the use of apocalyptic material in pop culture and measure it up against Biblical writings. This is not to point out which are “right” and which have it all “wrong.” It has much more to do with seeing what these movies, books, and songs are telling our society about “end times,” not to mention how God works. I really have no specific intention as far as where this ends up.

I will say right here, at the start of this, that I have my own beliefs about what apocalyptic literature is and have even stronger opinions about what it is not. If you have different ideas, that is fine. Hopefully this will still be interesting for you and the conversations (if any ensue from this) that come out of it will bless both of us greatly. On my next post, which should hopefully come tomorrow, I will write about my understanding of apocalyptic literature, the Apocalypse, End Times, and try to share my limited understanding of how this has been historically read, turning specifically to the U.S. We’ll see if I can do all of that in one post… After that, we’ll turn to the pop part of these posts, which should make all of you who read People and Us happy.

For now, I will leave with two questions that should help me get moving on this (if, that is, anybody responds):

What do you, without going to a theological dictionary or any other resource, think apocalyptic literature is? And why is it written?
Where have you seen intersections between pop culture and apocalyptic ideas?

Peace,
Matt

A Message from Haiti

2008-01-24T21:54:00.000-08:00

"...is every human being not a person?

Yes, all human beings are people. It is we, the afflicted, who speak now. We have come together...to discuss the great difficulties facing the sick. We've also brought some ideas of our own in our knapsacks; we would like to share them with you, the authorities, in the hope that you might do something to help resolve the health problems of the poor.

When we the sick, living with AIDS, speak to the subject of 'health and human rights,' we are aware of two rights that ought to be indivisible and inalienable. Those who are sick should have the right to health care. We who are already infected believe in prevention too. But prevention will not save those who are already ill. All people need treatment when we are sick, but for the poor there are no clinics, no doctors, no nurses, no health care.

Furthermore, the medications now available are too expensive. For HIV treatment, for example, we read in the newspapers that treatment costs less than $600 per year [in developing countries]. Although that is what is quoted in press releases, here in a poor, small country like Haiti, it costs more than twice that much.

The right to health is the right to life. Everyone has a right to live. If we were not living in misery, but rather in decent poverty, many of us would not be in this predicament today...

We have a message for the people who are here and for all those able to hear our plea. We are asking for your solidarity. The battle we're fighting - to find adequate care for those with AIDS, tuberculosis, and other illnesses - is the same as the combat that's long been waged by other oppressed people so that everyone can live as human beings."

-A Declaration made by a group of rural Haitians living with HIV, August 2001.

Links!

2008-01-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

Here's some random links for ya'll to check out:

*Larry Lessig has put his book out on the internet for free. It is called The Future of Ideas and I would highly recommend that you download and read it. To understand who he is and what he is about, you can check out his blog or watch his incredible presentation at ted.com.

*Brian McLaren was recently interviewed by the Sierra Club. It's a great listen.

*I don't know if I ever put a link up for this or not, but it is a letter from local Catholic bishops written in 2000 to defend the Columbia River Watershed, which the PNW needs to start doing.

*Naomi Klein has a new book out titled The Shock Doctrine. The premise sounds amazing. There is also an awesome short video to go along with it that you can watch on her website.

*I have been listening to the mp3's of a class on Heidegger at Berkley. If you want to really get to know and understand one of the most important thinkers in the past 100 years, and you have a lot of time on your hand, start listening (and taking notes)!

*Arrested Development the movie?!

Peace,
Matt

B.S. and Politics

2008-01-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

Two interesting stories today from NPR:

*This one is about the brutal fight currently going on between Clinton and Obama, both of whom are making a lot of accusations towards the other.
*This one is about Robert Lewis and his compiling of every lie told by senior White House officials between Sept 11, 2001 and Sept 11, 2003.

What do these two stories have in common? They are both about political bullshit - this insane desire to get what is wanted no matter the cost to truth, integrity, self, or other.

Here's what Henry Frankfurt has to say about this in On Bullshit:

"When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyse of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

Ponder that, my friends.

Peace,
Matt

MLK II / Vincent Harding

2008-01-22T07:52:00.000-08:00

"We preachers have also been tempted by the enticing cult of conformity. Seduced by the success symbols of the world, we have measured our achievements by the size of our parsonage. We have become showmen to please the whims and caprices of the people. We preach comforting sermons and avoid saying anything from our pulpit which might disturb the respectable views of the comfortable members of our congregations. Have we ministers of Jesus Christ sacrificed truth on the altar of self-interest and, like Pilate, yielded our convictions to the demands of the crowd? We need to recapture the gospel glow of the early Christians, who were nonconformists in the truest sense of the word and refused to shape their witness according to the mundane patterns of the world."

-MLK, "Transformed Nonconformist"

Dr. Vincent Harding was in Bellingham over the weekend and I was fortunate enough to take 25 teens to an ecumenical discussion with him on Sunday afternoon along with teens from other churches in the county. It was great. Dr. Harding is a passionate man, but also a great teacher. He asked a lot of questions, remembered names, used multimedia, put us in break-out groups. He also said it how it is. He didn't let kids get off with the easy answers about who MLK was; he brought up King's fight against poverty and the war in Vietnam. I loved watching my kids squirm as Harding brought up the obvious parallels for today. It's always easier to admire a guy who is only remembered for the past. It's much harder when you imagine what they would say to us today. But kids did listen, and the highlight for me was watching one of my seniors go to Dr. Harding and ask him about non-violence and its biblical reasoning. Sure, I would have loved it if he asked me, but the fact that he asked at all was awesome. I think Martin Luther King would have been pleased to see such a small, but significant, interaction.

Peace,
Matt

Remembering MLK

2008-01-21T16:19:00.000-08:00

"We are gravely mistaken to think that Christianity protects us from the pain and agony of mortal existence. Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear. To be a Christian, one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tragedy-packed content, and carry it until that very cross leaves its mark upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering...

We must make a choice. Will we continue to march to the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds? Will we march only to the music of time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soul-saving music of eternity? More than ever before we are today challenged by the words of yesterday, 'Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.'"

-Martin Luther King Jr, from his sermon "Transformed Noncomformist."

Off the Trail

2008-01-18T22:42:00.000-08:00

Tonight, for some reason more than usual, I am missing my dad. The snow has been dumping in the mountains, and he he would have been twitching to get into the mountains for some skiing or snowshoeing. I look at these pictures and remain angry as I imagine a strong, energetic man wasted away until he looked like a holocaust survivor. I try to figure out how to be a dad and wich he were here to teach me. How do you let go of that kind of frustration?

...

Dad was never really into poetry, but this reminded me of him anyway. It is a Gary Snyder poem called Off the Trail. Maybe he would have liked it. Our hikes typically went that way sooner or later, especially once we were in goat, elk and deer country. He's off the trail now...

...

"We are free to find our own way
Over rocks - through the trees -
Where there are no trails. The ridge and the forest
Present themselves to our eyes and feet
Which decide for themselves
In their old learned wisdom of doing
Where the wild will take us. We have
Been here before. It's more intimate somehow
Than walking the paths that lay out some route
That you stick to,
All paths are possible, many will work,
Being blocked is its own kind of pleasure,
Getting through is a joy, the side-trips
And detours show down logs and flowers,
The deer paths straight up, the squirrel tracks
Across, the outcroppings lead us on over.
Resting on treetrunks,
Stepping out on the bedrock, angling and eyeing
Both making choices - now parting our ways -
And later rejoin; I'm right, you're right,
We come out together. Mattake, 'Pine Mushroom,'
Heaves at the base of a stump. The dense matted floor
Of Red Fir needles and twigs. This is wild!
We laugh, wild for sure,
Because no place is more than another,
All places total,
And our ankles, knees, shoulders &
Haunches know right where they are.
Recall how the Dao De
Jing puts it: the trail's not the way.
No path will get you there, we're off the trail,
You and I, and we chose it! Our trips out of doors
Through the years have been practice
For this ramble together,
Deep in the mountains
Side by side,
Over rocks, through the trees.

...

Peace,
Matt

Update on my Goals

2008-01-17T15:18:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote about some "2008 Goals" I had decided upon (scroll down if you are interested, because I'm not putting a link here to further your laziness). In the spirit of accountability (and no, I don't mean the typical evangelical kind that focuses in one sin...I think you know what I'm talking about), I thought I'd share on how I'm doing:

Riding my bike to work. Check. It is a blast, but it is also hell. Once I force myself out the door, I have so much fun. I feel like a little kid again! The only problem: it is definitely a Bellingham winter. EVERY SINGLE DAY I ride one or more of the following is happening: rain, wind, deep freeze, snow, dark. There was one day where the weather was actually above 32 degrees and nothing was falling from the sky...and I got a flat tire. Still, believe it or not, I am having fun, helping the environment, and losing weight. Kind of a win/win/win.
Run 30 miles on my 30th birthday. I haven't exactly put a schedule on paper, but I'm up to 15 miles already, with exactly 4 months left to train. I think I should not only be in good enough shape to run it, but hopefully even be able to run the distance with a fair amount of speed. Beats crawling to the finish line...
Finish Old Testament Theology and Truth and Method. Umm... I looked at them sitting on my bookshelf and didn't get much further. But luckily I still have 11 and 1/2 months left.
Write more. Crap. Why'd I have to give myself so many goals... I have written a few things, which will be mentioned later in this post. But they weren't really what I was thinking about when I wrote about writing. Still need to work on this one.
Stop wussing out. Been doing better...and it's been getting me into tough situations. Oh well, I guess that's part of the process. I've been causing drama. I guess that's kinda cool.
Start living out my convictions. I've been doing better at this, though it is definitely just a start. Again, it's also getting me into trouble.
Eat better. Check. Less sugar, beer, ice cream and smaller portions. Woo-hoo. I'm hungry...
Stop taking work home with me. Crap... I'm trying.
Be a better friend. Sorry Ron.
Spend more time in nature. Not really, but refer to my bike issues... I did go for a short hike a few days ago and saw some black-tail deer in the process.
Organized athletics. n/a. Bellingham hasn't really had any, at least that I've heard about at this time.

There ya go. I'm doing okay with my first ever New Years-type goals. Maybe my 3rd grade teacher was right when she put on my report card; "sets goals and strives to achieve them." Wow.

Peace,

Matt

Bellingham: America's first slave-free city

2008-01-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

Two nights ago I went to a community meeting featuring Kevin Bales. He is the president of Free the Slaves and author of multiple books, including Disposable People and Understanding Global Slavery. He shared for about 45 minutes on modern-day slavery and how Bellingham can become the nations first "slave-free city", something he hopes he Free the Slaves can convince every city/county in the country to become. Here's some things I wrote down while listening to his presentation:

There are over 27 million slaves in the world today. During the entire span of slavery in the United States, only 13 million were bought and sold.
The average cost of a slave is now at an all-time low. There are a lot of "disposable people" today; people who have absolutely nothing, including protection, options and money. They are "expendable." Comparatively speaking, a slave in the U.S. used to cost approximately $40,000 in today's currency. In other words, they were a big investment. Today, a slave can be bought for as low as $30. Let that one sink in. Think about how little a person would care about a slave if they could go out and buy another one for so little. Meanwhile, the slave holders make massive amounts of profit on the weak and marginalized of our world.
Three things are needed to fight global slavery: awareness, resources and commitment.
This one I found extremely interesting, though it is an idea that Bales is just beginning to work our for his next book: slavery and the destruction of nature are intertwined. They form a vicious circle and go hand-in-hand throughout the world.
How to become a slave-free city; 1. Community decides it wants to do it, 2. People learn how to identify a victim of slavery/human trafficking (similar to the pamphlets sent by the government post-9/11 on how to identify a terrorist), and 3. Trace product supply chains to make sure they weren't made with the help of slave labor.

So that's the run-down on Bales' message for my city. I am skeptical but hopeful when it comes to all of "us" (as in comfortable Americans sitting in our comfortable houses) actually helping. But you never know. For now, I am trying to figure out how I can be the change I want to see. You never know...

Peace,

Matt

My New Favorite Website

2008-01-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I am ahead or behind on this, but either way you must go to ted.com. Some of the most brilliant/important people in the world coming together to share their thoughts? Priceless. I just listened to two messages from the Steven Pinker and am going to listen to Isabel Allende after I'm done writing this entry. Check it out, listen to any of the speakers, and be blessed.

Peace,
Matt

Unorganized Goals For '08

2008-01-03T08:45:00.000-08:00

I've never been one to give a rip about New Year resolutions, or really making resolutions at all. But coming into 2008 I realized I had some goals in my head and decided this morning that I would write them out. Voicing my goals aloud helps me to actually work towards them, which is a good thing (thanks Martha). So, in no particular order, here they are:

Ride my bike to work at least four times per week. I did it this week. It would be five, but on Sundays I work until after 9pm, which is not a fun time to ride your bike, especially when you don't have any sort of light.
Run 30 miles on April 17th. That is the day I turn 30, and I want to run one mile for every year. It's kinda crazy, I know, but I hate aging and like running.
Finish reading Old Testament Theology and Truth and Method. Both of these massive books have dogged me for years, and I'm more than half-way through both. This is the year I'd like to finish reading both books.
Write more. That includes blogging, but also, and more importantly, articles and essays that I would like to try to start submitting to different magazines/journals to see if I can get them published.
Stop wussing out. I don't confront people when I should, whether it is a point of debate or an actual argument, I need to speak my mind in the real world and not just on the web. I was driving the other day and heard Tom Petty's song, I Won't Back Down, and realized that that is the kind of person I want to be, but have not been up to this point.
Start living out my convictions. My last blog entry was about this, so you can look at that for more info. I am passionate about justice and mercy and peace, but have been lazy about living these things out in the past two years.
Eat better. I'm not getting any younger, and I consume a lot of sugar, beer, coffee, ice cream, etc. Lo and behold, I'm also not getting any lighter. This isn't some massive diet plan, but just a desire to be smarter about what I eat, and better about stopping before I want to vomit.
Stop taking work problems home with me. A little thing goes wrong at work and I go home unable to talk or sleep or eat. It's lame and has to stop.
Be a better friend. I like my friends and typically wait for them to call me and make plans with me. That is not really what a friend does. I want to call more often, make plans more often, and ask better questions about their lives.
Spend more time in nature.
Participate in some organized bike rides and runs around Bellingham and even the great PNW. Oh boy, I'm going to regret that one.

There ya go. They've been voiced aloud.

Matt

Book Review: Ain't Too Proud to Beg

2007-12-31T15:45:00.000-08:00

I had promised the folks at Eerdmans that I would review some books for them. I reviewed The Luminous Dusk a few months ago and had planned on offering a similar review shortly thereafter on Telford Work’s Ain’t Too Proud to Beg: Living through the Lord’s prayer. But it didn’t happen. True, a lot came up, including my father’s passing and the birth of my daughter, but what kept me from reviewing this book for so long was that I just didn’t like it. It feels lame to say such a thing, but the truth is that it just isn’t a very interesting book. This seems like a disservice to say, since Work is a wise scholar and there are many great moments in this book. The problem for me was Work’s insistence on bad examples and going on for too long about subjects that I honestly was not expecting or interested in. But to try to do some honor to this work, I have decided not to do an actual review, but to share on some points that were illuminating for myself as I read. Also, you can go to Scot McKnight’s blog, where he has been writing about this exact work.

My favorite part of this book was located in a section titled The Woe of Sloth. It’s at this point, in my opinion, that Work writes the best, saying:

Sloth is certainly a sin I have struggled with lately. As I write, I am unproductive, burnt out, worried, numb. Despite outward health, I have not shaken a nagging feeling of massive failure. I spend way too much time in ways I regret even while I do them. I put off necessary duties with aimless diversions that quietly accrue into weeks of life simply surrendered to the void.

“That sounds like depression,” the clinically savvy will say; “you should seek professional counseling.” Even if the diagnosis fits (and it probably does, though only in a very mild form), this response just means that psychology would prefer to use a different word with merely medical rather than fully moral connotations, as if I need only to be treated rather than saved…

Sloth is a far more demanding and satisfying diagnosis. It tells me that I am distancing myself from my sources of life. I am salt that is losing its saltiness and light that is hiding out of sight…

Modern depression and mid-life crises are, at least in some cases, the cognitive dissonance between our crumbling sense of obligation to fix everything and our building sense of ineptitude and impotence. Apathy, burnout, inactivity, and hopelessness shrivel childhoods of pride into adulthoods of sloth. Once our resignation finally breaks through our messianism, there is finally nothing to do but retire as comfortably as possible and wait for the end to come. (pp 185, 6)

This passage resonated with me in an amazing way. I have felt burnt-out for years and I know, especially after reading this passage, that I went from a self-messianic wanting to fix everything and everybody to a nihilistic despair as I realized my own impotence to produce the kinds of changes I long to see in my world. Why is it so hard to find that middle ground where we rely on God. Why can’t I live out Augustine’s words and act as if everything depended on me but trust as if everything depended on God?

My other favorite passage is found on page 101. It is about how some churches work in the U.S., and I will not comment on it, but let you read and think your own thoughts about it (he writes about four different kinds of American Christians, but this is what I have experienced the most, so I found it noteworthy):

It is when she breaks [this particular type of Christian’s] code rather than, say, the Bible’s moral standards that the community of faith demands contrition and repentance and offers forgiveness and restoration. Sexual offenders need to repent, as well as disloyal children, blasphemers, abusive parents, liars, thieves, swindlers, backstabbers, and substance abusers. However, Christian businessmen do not need to repent of lives driven by greed. Overachievers do not need to repent of consuming competitiveness. Conspicuous consumers do not need to repent of how they handle their prosperity as long as it has not endangered their children. Soldiers do not need to repent of fighting unjust wars, let alone just ones. Politicians do not need to repent of working the system (so long as they have done it legally). Wage earners do not need to repent of exploiting the tax code or America’s retirement system (though welfare patients might). Heretics do not need to repent of their theological mistakes. Parents and children do not need to repent of putting their families before their church communities. Teens do not need to repent of their popularity or longings for it. When some of them do, fellow congregants react with amusement, puzzlement, discomfort, or resentment: we have a zealot in our ranks!...

This perpetuates a folk Christianity that rewards social conformity, punishes radical obedience, distorts the faith through peer pressure, and is suspicious and dismissive of outsiders.

Peace,
Matt

Yet Another Quote

2007-12-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

I know I just keep posting quotes and links, but I just can't help it. Today's comes from Wendell Berry:

Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.

Peace,
Matt

Have Yourselves a Jacques Derrida Christmas

2007-12-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

From Derrida's The Gift of Death:

“On what condition does goodness exist beyond all calculation? On the condition that goodness forget itself, that the movement be a movement of the gift that renounces itself, hence a movement of infinite love. Only infinite love can renounce itself and, in order to become finite, become incarnated in order to love the other, to love the other as a finite other. This gift of infinite love comes from someone and is addressed to someone; responsibility demands irreplacable singularity.”

Merry Christmas, and Peace on Earth!

Matt

Americanized Christmas Rants

2007-12-16T09:44:00.000-08:00

A person I work with sent out an all-staff e-mail today to tell us to go to this site. To be absolutely blunt this morning...this is stupid. What is stupid is that whoever made this video is trying to put the Christ back in consumerism. But there is no Christ in consumerism, just the functional savior that we continually make our stuff into. They are upset that this holiday season, when Americans spend enough money to end world poverty but buy gifts instead, stores are not calling it Christmas but "holidays".

What if Jesus is pleased not to have his name mingled with such blind greed and selfishness?

What if this is itself a small act of God?

God bless America...right?

Peace,
Matt

"Progress" in Ferndale

2007-12-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

I went for a long run this morning throughout Ferndale, the town in which I currently reside. I went out merely with the desire to move and feel healthy. But I got much more than I was looking for. On my run, I received a view of the progress of Ferndale. The truth is, I moved here knowing that it is growing, and thinking that my house had a lot of potential to sell for more someday, as the town grew. But honestly, I never thought about what it really means when we talk about a town growing.

There used to be two different ponds that I ran by when I first moved here three years ago. Both are now gone. One has a housing development on top of it, and the other has been covered in gravel and mud, and the small bit that was left was fenced-in and has literally been filled with scrap wood and debris, making it a sick cesspool with no natural inhabitants. Ironically, as I ran today, three different massive groups of geese flew over me. None of them flew in their usual "V" formation, and I realized that they were swooping and circling overhead because they were looking for a place to land and rest. They were looking for the places they have always rested in. As I ran through the typically wet December streets, with rain pouring down, I had to watch and think about how we no longer have wetlands. Not even Western Washington has wetlands! And so the birds circle and circle, and I ultimately see some land in a sick drainage ditch outside a housing development. The water was less than three inches deep, and the birds sat silently in it, and I swear they were looking at me with eyes that said something along the lines of "What the hell?"

Ah, but it gets even better. Directly outside this particular housing development has always been one of my favorite secrets. Surrounded by housing development literally on all sides, there was this one (maybe two?) acre of land, with shrubs and small trees and tall grass that everybody always drives quickly by without looking. Fortunately, I always looked. And what I see is two doe deer, occasionally with young ones. Perfectly camouflage, they have hidden in the heart of Ferndale for who knows how long, and may have continued on just as long as the geese migrated through that same region. Instead, in the four months since my last run through the neighborhood, two monstrous steel frames have gone up for a new school. Don't get me wrong, I strongly support schools. But I wonder if anybody ever asked about those deer. Where did they go? Where could they go? Is this right? Why can't we have undeveloped places in our cities and towns that aren't parks? Is it not a real community until everything has been paved and "developed" so that anything that is unknown, such as animals and nature itself has been pushed out?

Honestly, I'm just really sad about all of this. I wish we would ask better questions before we do what we do. I do not want to "progress" in the way our society progresses. I do not want to "develop" in the way our culture chooses to develop.

Peace,
Matt

Today is Human Rights Day

2007-12-10T15:48:00.000-08:00

Check it out here. And try to find a small way to live-out such a great day today. Or everyday.

And if you are really looking to have some fun, go through the universal declaration of human rights and try to figure out how many our country breaks on a regular basis. What fun!

Peace,
Matt

Grassley vs. the Megachurch

2007-12-05T08:39:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard already, Senator Charles Grassley is taking on the biggest churches in the US, asking probing questions about their finances and whether these megachurches should be allowed to retain their non-profit status. I rejoice in this in one way, though it's a sad day when a government has to hold the church morally accountable. Is this just a case of poor leadership, gullible congregations, or is the problem all of us who have not done a good enough job holding our brothers and sisters accountable?

Either way, NPR has a good write-up about the whole story, as well as their usual audio. Listen and enjoy.

Peace,
Matt

James Baldwin on Ministry

2007-11-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

I read this early this morning. It's from James Baldwin, talking about his time as a teen preacher in Harlem:

"Being in the pulpit was like being in the theatre; I was behind the scenes and knew how the illusion worked. I knew the other ministers and knew the quality of their lives... I knew how to work on a congregation until the last dime was surrendered-it was not hard to do-and I knew where the money for 'the Lord's work' went. I knew, though I did not wish to know it, that I had no respect for the people with whom I worked. I could not have said it then, but I also knew that if I continued I would soon have no respect for myself... I was even lonelier and more vulnerable than I had been before. And the blood of the Lamb had not cleansed me in any way whatever. I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born. Therefore, when I faced a congregation, it began to take all the strength I had not to stammer, not to curse, not to tell them to throw away their Bibles and get off their knees and go home and organize, for example, a rent strike... But I had been in the pulpit too long and I had seen too many monstrous things. I don't refer merely to the glaring fact that the minister eventually acquires houses and Cadillacs while the faithful continue to scrub floors and drop their dimes and quarters and dollars into the plate. I really mean that there was no love in the church. It was a mask for self-hatred and despair. The transfiguring power of the Holy Ghost ended when the service ended, and salvation stopped at the church door. When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did..."

Peace,
Matt

Christmas in America

2007-11-27T10:10:00.000-08:00

This is so important, every American should get to see it for free. Now if only somebody would care enough to do something...

Peace,
Matt

Prayer in a Time of War

2007-11-26T09:25:00.000-08:00

I read this great quote from Wendell Berry this morning while reading Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community. He wrote it with the first Iraq war in mind, though it is just as relevant today:

"We can come to peace by being peacable. That possibility, though little honored, is well known; its most famous statement is: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.' I did not include this idea as a precious possession of our civilization because it is not one. It is an idea given to our civilization but so far not accepted.

In times of war, our leaders always speak of their prayers. They wish us to know that they say prayers because they wish us to believe that they are deeply worried and that they take their responsibilities seriously. Perhaps they believe or hope that prayer will help. But within the circumstances of war, prayer becomes a word as befuddled in meaning as liberate or order or victory or peace. These prayers are usually understood to be Christian prayers. But Christian prayers are made to or in the name of Jesus, who loved, prayed for, and forgave his enemies and who instructed his followers to do likewise. A Christian supplicant, therefore, who has resolved to kill those whom he is enjoined to love, to bless, to do good to, to pray for, and to forgive as he hopes to to be forgiven is not conceivably in a situation in which he can be at peace with himself. Anyone who has tried to apply this doctrine to a merely personal enmity will be aware of the enormous anguish that it could cause a national leader in wartime. No wonder that national leaders have ignored it for nearly two thousand years."

pp. 84-85

Peace,
Matt

Hoorah for Sherman Alexie!

2007-11-17T10:09:00.000-08:00

In case you didn't hear already, Sherman Alexie won the National Book Award for his book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. All I can say is, if you have never read anything by Alexie, today is a great day to start.

Peace,
Matt

So Many Good Links!

2007-11-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing and reading so much cool stuff lately, which is a very nice change from a lot of the garbage I'd been seeing. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are your links!

Amazon has put up its Best Books of 2007. Its a great resource for any other book nerds out there.

Greg Boyd has been blogging about heresy, and asking whether the greatest heresy is to believe the wrong things, or to live the gospel out in the wrong way. You can see his thoughts on this subject here, here, and here.

David Fitch has totally ripped into Willow Creek's Reveal research. It is a bit more blunt than I am used to scholars being, but it is well worth the read.

Jurgen Moltmann was just in Seattle for a few lectures. I unfortunately missed it, as my child was being born at the same time. But, SPU has posted some helpful stuff online for those of us who could not attend. They have created a sweet Moltmann bibliography, a short write-up in the school newspaper, and an iTunes link so you can hear Moltmann lecture on The Vital Power of Hope.

This is an old article that I just read for the first time. It is by Phyllis Trible (one of my heroes), is a great introduction to her way of reading and writing about scripture, and is titled Feminist Hermeneutics and Biblical Studies.

A friend gave me a copy of an article from Radiant magazine that I enjoyed by Sara Groves, but I cannot find it online anywhere. I don't know anything about Sara Groves, but I like these lyrics she wrote and the fact that this is all based on Paul Farmer, another one of my heroes. Who knows, even though I am so frugal/cheap, I might even download the song...

Okay, that's all of the links I can think of putting up today. I hope you check them out and enjoy and/or are challenged.

Peace,

Matt

The Real Sin of Halloween

2007-11-05T09:11:00.000-08:00

I remember as a child, even being as self-centered and oblivious as I was, all the controversy surrounding Halloween every year. It was always a matter of discussion in church and even made it into the news. People were afraid that we might be promoting witchcraft or devil worship or some other form of pagan evil into our children. And perhaps these are good concerns for parents to contemplate. But on October 31st of this year, I witnessed the real sin and evil of modern-day Halloween.

It goes like this; my wife and I had taken our daughter out on her first outing. It was Halloween night. On the way home, she informed me that there was something she needed to buy, and it could only be purchased at Target. So we went. And it was PACKED. The entire mall was packed! It looked like December 23rd! And of course it didn't take me long to realize that it was packed because the people of our community were taking their children to the mall to trick or treat.

That night we did not have a single trick or treater come to our door. Not one.

Did I mention I live on Main St. of my small town!

We worry about kidnappers, child molesters, razorblade implanters, poisoners, satan worshipers and a host of other kinds of people who are meant to stir fear in our hearts. But what worries me is that when we feel afraid, we go to the mall. What frustrates me is that we apparently trust places with commercial interests more than our own neighbors. What saddens me is that the church is so afraid of satanic influnces in things like Halloween or Harry Potter, never noticing that the antichrist himself hides in our shopping malls influencing our kids (and us) towards the gods of consumerism and capitalism. That is the real sin of Halloween.

Peace,
Matt

Preaching, Practice and Participation

2007-10-22T22:53:00.000-07:00

I read this amazing post on Jordan Cooper's blog today, which Len Hjalmarson also took some time to write about on his own blog. Cooper starts with preaching, the church's continual idol. He brings up the painful truth that we listen to sermon after sermon for year after year, but can remember very few and are arguably changed by even fewer. So why do we continue on in such a preposterous way? Of course there are the obvious answers; we are afraid to change, we have elevated one element of the faith above others, and we continue to falsely believe that the transfer of more knowledge equals spiritual growth. But none of these are my biggest issues with preaching.

My issue comes with the help of Paul Tillich. Tillich, whenever he discusses discipleship, describes it as participation. For him, following Christ means taking part in what God is doing in creation. The modern, preaching-obsessed church asks its members to show up consistently on the weekends and hear a talking head that is supposedly going to lead them towards transformation. Obviously there is a place for this, but it is a lie for any church not to claim that this is where it believes 90% of its transformation is going to occur. Why do I say this? Look at any church and how much of its budget and employee time go into its weekend services and tell me I am wrong. Besides the fact that this is the usual sad fact that the majority of church budgets go back into the church, it also points out that churches, especially "outreach churches" are self-centered and are not asking their population to do anything with their faith.

Jordan Cooper ends his post by claiming that this has a lot to do with preachers not living it out, so they are not asking church-goers to do so. I think there is a lot of truth to this. But that's only half of what is going on here. The other half, I believe, goes with a post I did last week. For most churches, attendance is an idol. If we call people to higher, tougher standards (think of Jesus and the rich young ruler), if we spent a Sunday morning praying for our cities, if we took an hour of a service time to brainstorm how God might use us in our neighborhoods for his glory, basically if we did anything that called all of our "attendees" to become participants in the Kingdom of God who actually practice what they supposedly believe, our attendence would most likely drop, especially at first. And if our attendance dropped, we would lose our beloved idol, the functional savior of most pastors. How could we measure our impact if not by numerical growth, I ask with sarcasm. But wow, how great would it be if we became truly missional, and began to participate with our Lord and put our faith into practice.

Peace,
Matt

Evan Almighty: A Half-Review

2007-10-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

I finally sat down and watched Evan Almighty. Most likely I am the last person in the country to watch it who was at all interested to begin with. Regardless, I would like to share my humble, quick response to the movie, a half-review of sorts, since first of all I believe you have already seen it, and second, my thoughts on the movie are not fully thought-out, and I will most likely never finish putting them together.

While the acting, writing, and cinematography were nothing to write home about, this film had something to offer that few ever do. I honestly believe that it preached a better message than most of our churches. The message was something like this; God is about more than just sin managment. He is a God of justice, compassion, and care of the creation. The parallels between John Goodman's character and many modern-day political leaders was obvious, and the implications equally so. What a great reminder to Chrisitans that voting involves more than listening to ignorant-but-popular preachers and only voting against abortion and gay marriage. What about environmental destruction, unjust leaders, and rampant exploitation of the world's poor and lower middle classes? I guess what I'm saying is that behind the corny jokes regarding patriarchs and the way God uses his power, there was enough theological thinking, especially in showing how God interacts with his creation, to make this movie a fascinating watch for me. I hope we can all watch it with the desire for more than just being entertained.

Peace,
Matt

Stephen Kinzer Interviews

2007-10-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

This morning I've been listening to some great interviews with Stephen Kinzer on Democracy Now! You can hear them here and here. Enjoy!

Peace,
Matt

Martinson Baby Blog

2007-10-15T08:26:00.001-07:00

Effie, my wife, is officially due tomorrow with our first child. We don't know the baby's gender (trust me, we tried, but it's not as exact of a science as everyone seems to think), and it looks like it will probably be late. We have a doctor's appt today, which will hopefully shed some light on where we are at right now.

We will be baby blogging in the coming days, months, and possibly years. You can check it out here. I suppose it goes without saying, but my blogging may be a bit more sporadic in the coming days. But keep looking, because Baby Martinson will be here soon!

Peace,
Matt

The Face of American Church Idolatry

2007-10-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have used this blog to rant before, and have been trying for a long while to stop doing so. Unfortunately, today I cannot hold it in, so here's some idolatrous actions I have been seeing in the church lately and am no longer able to keep silent about.

Modern idolatry can look like this, based on some ludicrous belief in the American church that we need more and more and more people in our buildings. It is the idol of success, and causes churches to sell the gospel short. This most often results in finding business strategies that churches attempt to then use for their "business" with no theological questioning as to whether or not what they are doing is actually glorifying to God. It is the need to pull more people into the church building with the underlying assumption that God is not doing his end so we need to. In the process, the church spends all or most of its money on itself and builds larger and larger buildings while completely neglecting its biblical calling. It is not a church of prayer, discipleship or justice. It is a church of large numbers. This is the idol of attendance.

As always, there's those who would just sell out the gospel completely, either for finanical gain or the unending desire for more people in their buidlings. These people look like this or this. These are the preachers who tickle the ears without ever challenging their listeners to take up their cross and die to themselves. They worship the idol of money and preach to worshippers of self, who only want more of themselves, improved, better looking and richer, but never more of Jesus.

Of course, there is also one of my classic favorites, the 10-10-80 plan. This is the age old idol of wealth and I have heard it preached more times than I care to admit. It is the strategy to invest ten percent, tithe ten percent, and live off of eighty percent. The justification I hear for it typically comes from Proverbs. If pastors were thinkers at all they might ask questions about this plan. Questions like: Don't I believe Proverbs is written by Solomon, a man whose wealth caused him to fall far away from God? Or, Isn't the reason I am preaching only out of Proverbs because Jesus' financial plan was to sell all my possessions, give the money to the poor, and trust him for my food and clothes? But sadly neither question seems to be asked. This is the idol of wealth, and it has corrupted the American church to the point where it sometimes seems there is not even one who remains faithful.

Lastly, there is the idol of country. Some of my students just the other day were telling me how they had to explain to their teacher that America is a Christian nation. The debates rage on about the same thing all over the country. The problem, of course, is that after Jesus, following YHWH became international, and our citizenship became that of the Kingdom of God. Yet so many seem to forget that and still display corny bumper stickers relating faith and country, not realizing that they cannot have both. The idol of America continues to put country ahead of faith, and trivializes the gospel.

I wish this were the twighlight of the idols, but the church seems intent on its idolatry and I do not think it is going to change anytime soon. It is a time for prayer.

Peace,
Matt

Book Review: The Religious Roots of Rebellion

2007-10-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

I began Phillip Berryman's The Religious Roots of Rebellion a very long time ago, but only recently finished. For the past few years, thanks no doubt to my friend Kelly, I have become very interested in Central American history. I also have become fascinated, like so many others before me, with liberation theology. Berryman give a detailed history of three of the most turbulent countries in the region and shows how both the actions and the thinking of Christians in these countries changed as the peoples situation worsened.

Berryman's goal is to explain how it is that Christians began to play significant roles in Marxist-led, Central American revolutions, and the theology that has formed around these situations.

The three countries discussed in detail are Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The writing in these sections is far from gripping, but the content makes up for the style. If you are at all like me and feel robbed because of poor history classes growing up, this type of book will make up for much. Berryman writes detailed histories of class struggle and repression in all three countries. So often the case is one in which a wealthy minority rule the country, imposing a right wing dictatorship. The people rise up to fight, but it is a long, hard battle, especially when the government and its troops are supported by U.S. money and guns (and even CIA helicopters!). I am not really sure how anybody could read this book and still think highly of Ronald Reagan's presidency.

I had read a little about El Salvador and Guatemala, but this history is specifically focused on the 20th century and spends much time viewing it through a Christian (Catholic, specifically) lens. I found this approach fascinating and eye-opening. It gave a context for liberation theology that I never had before. In that sense, then, I wish all students who read or are in interested in liberation theology would take the time to read this book or one like it. I fear that too often we are merely having our ears tickled if we cannot even know why we are reading a fascinating book of theology (and yes, I am pointing the finger at myself first in this comment).

After producing these histories, as well as giving a more detailed account of Christians in Sandinista Nicaragua, Berryman goes into the theological side of his history. To be honest, I had a much harder time agreeing with this half of the book. Berryman believes that there are times when a democracy is not best, but instead a unmovable leader who can make the tough choices. Although I see where he is coming from, absolute power never seems to work out very well, historically speaking. He also chooses to write about violence in the revolutions, something that is often not discussed, he claims, by liberation theologians. His claim is that violence by the people, for the sake of the people and their freedom, is sometimes necessary. I will not try to pretend that I don't come into this biased, but my questions remain the same as usual; doesn't that put them on the same plane as their oppressors? Are you really capable of loving your enemies, even as you put a bullet through them?

The book goes on to its last two chapters, Becoming the Church of the Poor and The God of Life. God being a God of life rings true to me, being the Moltmann fan that I am. Being the church of the poor also seems great, but I worry that sometimes that gets taken too far. Liberation theology has the ability to go too far towards the poor, in that it alienates others rather than welcoming the wealthy and middle class into its struggle. After all, invitation and acceptance are also markers of the Church.

This book was far from perfect. I often found myself question Berryman's arguements and theology. I also sometimes found his attempts at being a white, American, male liberation theologian questionable. Nonetheless, the book as a whole was well worth the time to learn some detailed history of Central America and to finally gain a bit of framework for where liberation theology comes from in the first place. I highly recommend this book.

Peace,
Matt

Teenage Affluenza

2007-10-04T10:14:00.001-07:00

Watch this video. It's an amazing, satiric view of our world and our priorities.

Peace,
Matt

The World We Live In...

2007-10-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

...is totally messed-up. Apparently the horrors of the 20th century are still holding on into the 21st.

Article and Future Book Reviews

2007-10-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

Len Hjalmarson had a link to this article about Jacques Ellul's contributions to biblical hermeneutics and I thought it would be good to share. I've been dying to read Ellul's books, but have yet to come accross any at used book stores or thrift stores. Here's to hoping!

Also, I'm considering future book reviews. I really enjoy writing them, but don't know if they are really helpful to anybody. Regardless, the books I am planning to write about include: Ain't Too Proud to Beg, The Religious Roots of Rebellion, Florence of Arabia, and The Return of the Prodigal Son. Let me know if you've ever noticed me reading a different book that you would like to hear more about. I want to start writing these on a regular basis, both to force myself to reflect on what I read, as well as inform others of good/bad/ugly books that are available for their enjoyment. Anyways, look forward to some more reviews in the near future.

Peace,
Matt

Book Review: The Way of Man

2007-09-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I ran into a couple of books by Martin Buber at the thrift store. To top it off, they were 60% off! So I purchased both, along with a small library of fiction books, and yesterday finished Buber's short work, The Way of Man. Buber is, of course, most well known (and rightfully so) for his monumental I and Thou. The issue with his popularity being based specifically on one (fantastic) book is that we forget his other works, which turn out to often be just as, or nearly as, brilliant. And we forget Buber's Zionist beliefs, as well as never even hearing his extrapolations on earlier Hasidic practitioners. The Way of Man is a brief entrance into that world.

In The Way of Man, Buber uses six short essays, each starting with stories and teachings from great Hasidic rabbis of the past, to give a framework for the way man should live according to Hasidism (or at least, his definition of Hasidism).

A (far less profound than the book) summary: living the Hasidic lifestyle starts with self reflection, to realize that one has hidden himself (I use "he" following Buber) from God and must admit and repent of this to begin. It is subjective, involving a realization of who one is, where one is at, and living out one's faith in a way specific to the individual. In other words, there is no universal way to live the Hasidic life, but it depends on the individual, his relationship to God, and the place and personality he has been given. Although this is the starting point, it is not the endpoint. The endpoint is to let go of not only past sins, but past repentances, and to move forward into doing good. In his specific context, both in time and place, the specific individual who has his own relationship with his Lord and his own personhood which sets him apart from any other person, a man lives the Hasidic life right where he is located.

Perhaps it is only because I just reread the last four chapters of MacIntyre's monumental work this morning, but The Way of Man truly reminded me, and even seems to proceed, After Virtue. It involves a continuity with the past and its moral and lifestyle teachings. Although Buber begins with the individual, part of his goal is to rediscover tradition and a form of community-living that can be practiced healthily. In its own way, it calls a specific group of people back to a morality (virtues) that works for them in a time when morality has/had become a joke.

As a Christian, I read this book with a sense of awe and wonder. There is so much in Buber that I commend and am challenged by. So much of it sounds like the teachings of the early desert Christians, not to mention the Acts church itself, that I would declare we are simply saying the same thing, if only Jesus were a part of Buber's thought. Buber writes of living out the way. Maybe this is a good reminder to myself (and perhaps you as well), that there is a way that seems right to a man, but Christ is the way. Do you live in such a way that shows you believe this to be true?

One final quote from the book, which I shall not expand upon, but leave you to wrestle with:

"One of the main points in which Christianity differs from Judaism is that it makes each man's salvation his highest aim. Judaism regards each man's soul as a serving member of God's Creation which, by man's work, is to become the Kingdom of God; thus no soul has its object in itself, in its own salvation. True, each is to know itself, purify itself, perfect itself, but not for its own sake-neither for the sake of its temporal happiness nor for that of its eternal bliss-but for the sake of the work which it is destined to perform upon the world."

Peace,
Matt

Book Review: The Luminous Dusk

2007-09-24T07:52:00.000-07:00

I am an obsessive reader and have decided to finally start writing reviews of some of the books I read. Today, we start with Dale C. Allison Jr.'s The Luminous Dusk.

The Luminous Dusk is, in many ways, a lament. Allison laments the modern way of living, along with Modernity as a whole. He points out how we have lost contact with our true nature, not just our spiritual nature but our human nature, which of course has a drastic effect on our spirituality. This book smells of great thinkers like Wendell Berry (getting away from technology and its grasp on our lives), Eugene Peterson (finding God in the everyday) and Richard Foster (in about every way possible). I see this book as divided into two halves, with the first half being more of a lament than the second, which brings up some ideas and thoughts to move us towards more holistic, healthy ways of living out faith. Although both sections contain both lament and remedy, Allison seems to move toward a more hopeful tone as the Dusk moves towards its conclusion..

The first two chapters, along with the introduction, are gems. I was pleasantly shocked to read a New Testament scholar who sounded more like a poet than a scholar. Allison decries our world and ways of living; our noisy world that leaves us out of touch with nature and ultimately with our true selves. As he writes, "Christians may claim that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But the rest of us are not." We are, he claims, being changed to fit the environment that we have created for ourselves. We stay indoors more and more often, causing us to ask less cosmological questions (pondering the stars, nature, etc). We live in unnatural worlds full of artificial light and noise. In all of this, not surprisingly, our senses of awe and wonder are diminished, if not eliminated. Allison, again not surprisingly, suggests that we seek out silence, our natural rhythms, and even darkness. As he says it, "the way to achieve this, as we instinctively know, is to dampen the senses and quiet thoughts, treating everything as a diversion to be avoided." Although there was little that I would consider profoundly new in these three chapters, these were well-written, thought-provoking, soul-shaping chapters.

Chapter three, The Ascetic Imagination, is a fitting chapter for Allison to write, as it feels much like a defense of the early Christian mystics, especially the desert fathers. It is in many ways the centerpiece of Dusk. He argues that men like Origen, Anthony and Simeon "write a still-valid prescription for fortifying the imagination. It has" he goes on, "three parts: (1) extended reflection upon transcendent realities, (2) prolonged experience of the natural world, and (3) stillness without and within." Although we are not asked to follow these men literally, Allison is telling us to learn from these men (and women, I hope) and follow their wise guidance, which challenges our easy ways of living that leave us not needing God or even being in places where we may see or hear him. Their choice in living with ascetic imaginations caused them to grow closer to God and bring others into similar ways of living. They were strange to many, but we could also say that they were too good for this world. They chose to remake their environments and ways of life to bring themselves into deeper relationship with the Lord. He writes, "but if the desert Christians wisely remade their environments so as to free their internal senses, we seem foolishly to be doing just the opposite." We remake our environment as they did, only our remaking, though not intentional, is done to get us away from those things that would bring us closer to God.

Allison spends the last third of the book prescribing remedies to our Modernistic maladies. These come with further dissections of our modern world, but they are well spoken and too true for me to complain that he is being overly critical of Western culture. To begin to find wholeness we need to (besides finding quiet, darkness, and an ascetic imagination), rediscover reading, heroes and saints, and the transforming power of prayer.

Allison calls us back to the Bible, saying, "when I push its pages apart, I lay my finger on God's heart." He laments the way we have substituted reading with radio, TV and internet. He challenges us to find heroes to emulate rather than celebrities; to know more about Athanasius that Angelina Jolie (my example, not his). And he challenges us to pray in ways that are Biblical rather than treating God like Santa Claus. By imitating the heroes of the faith that have gone before us (think of Hebrews 11), both Biblical and beyond, by letting scripture speak into our lives and transform us, and by praying to YHWH in ways that really are saying "your will be done," we can begin to contend against the false gods and idols that Modernity has set us up to worship.

The Luminous Dusk is a great, thought-provoking read. There were times where Allison seemed to offer a lot of critique with little in the way of alternatives. And his complete lack of footnotes/citations was bothersome throughout. Nevertheless, I celebrate Allison's call for us to rediscover natural rhythms as well as nature in general. I love his challenge to our modern ways of living. He may be a voice calling in the wilderness, but, as we learn from the desert Christians, some, if not many, will come out to the desert when the hear that voice.

A Letter

2007-09-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

For those of you who read my last post, I simply cannot get my computer to let me put up a PDF file that works, so I have decided to just put my whole letter to my dad in this one. It's long, but I'm glad to share. Read it if you want...

Dad,

For months I have struggled to come up with what I could ever possibly write to you. My actions typically show my heart more than my words, which is something I believe I learned from you. Nonetheless, I have tried to put down on paper some of the stories and thoughts that will hopefully show what you mean to me.

For most of my life, you have been like a mythic hero. You were like the men from old tales, half man and half god. Like Hercules invading Troy or even Paul Bunyon chopping down trees with one swing of his axe. To this day, you are still that man to me.

I remember the first time I ever went up Norse Peak. You woke us up early and I sat in sleepy silence as you drove us up to the mountains. When I emerged from the car, my eyes still blurry with the last night’s dreams, I recall looking up Norse Peak and wondering if maybe I had made a mistake. After all, we may have some Norwegian in us, but this Norse thing sounded like the real deal. Not to mention that anything with the word “peak” in its title is probably not messing around. I mean, the name alone has some very intimidating qualities. The unwarned hiker with a loose imagination could easily find himself trudging up the long switchbacks with nothing in his head but fearful curiosity, wondering whether or not bloodthirsty Vikings are waiting at the top.

It was a fitting place for you to take us, I suppose. That hike turned out to be as mythic as you have always been for me. As we ascended the mountain, I was continually given new views of the places you had raised us in. Crystal Mountain, the cabin area, Mount Rainier, they were all there as usual, only different. I was looking from a different direction, but it was more than that; it was the first time in my life I was able to start seeing things from your angle. Those old stories you had told me growing up were becoming my own. I was entering into the mythic land and tales in which I could never tell where fact ended and fiction began.

The mythology my mind had created around you only grew when we came over the crest and onto Norse Peak. You had taken us into a hidden Eden, where deer, elk and mountain goats run through the forests and camp robbers will eat from your hands! I half expected you to begin jumping from peak to peak or chase an elk down on foot. After all, I had no notion of your limits. You had carried more on your back than the rest of us, but it didn’t seem to faze you. You had taken us into a foreign wilderness, yet you could continually point out all the sights; Government Meadow, where the Tin Shack was, the Crow’s Nest, the old man on the hill, Martinson Gap. I had trespassed onto Mount Olympus, but the gods would not send their lightening bolts down when one of their own was my guide. So we pressed on.

That night we stayed at the Crow’s Nest. Who would have imagined our family having a hidden cabin in the middle of a wilderness area? You showed us the enormous claw marks from when a bear had gotten inside one winter. You told us stories of friends shooting mice from their bunks. And that night we walked down to the outskirts of the meadow and watched an enormous bull elk graze. How is it that you could always find elk? I began to wonder if the animals knew you by name. I half-expected you to sneak out and have a talk with them later in the evening.

Maybe you did.

The imaginary world I created around you began early. Your cement business, with all of its big rigs and big talking employees, sealed the deal for me at a young age. Don’t think for one second I will ever forget the days you would pay me to come “work for you for the day.” As I recall, this “work” consisted in me sitting around outside, breaking apart rocks with a hammer to see if there were fossils inside. I loved it. But I loved riding in the trucks even more.

As a child, especially a young child, anything that sets you apart and draws attention to you feels good. Take, for instance, the occurrence when I was in preschool and you dropped me off in your cement truck. I remember to this day all of those little hands and faces pushed up against the glass, looking at us. I was glad for the attention, as most kids would be. But I was even more thrilled with the knowledge that other kids were able to see my dad. They were getting a small glimpse of something that I was able to experience every day; a dad who could continually make you stop and press your dirty little face and hands to the window and say “Wow”. That’s what heroes cause us to do. When they show up, everyone stops to take notice.

Loving the Lord your God…

The worst moment of my life took place on a dark, rainy night in Marysville. I called Mom right after she found out you had cancer. That word. I never imagined we would say it in our household. It was never even on the radar. It’s for smokers and drinkers, or people who breathe in bad chemicals at work. It’s for people, not demi-gods and heroes. You don’t read of one of Zeus’ children needing to drive down to the nearest city for radiation treatments. It doesn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen.

But it did.

Everything we had taken for granted was now going to be put to the test. Even more frightening was the realization that you were going to be pushed like never before, and we were going to see who you really were. The strongest man I have ever known was about to be challenged in ways that Norse Peak could not begin to measure up to.

Ten days later, it was Easter. You were supposed to come up to Bellingham, but were just too tired, so we came down. They had given you your first dose of chemo, a wonderful drug that would simultaneously kill you and the cancer, but hopefully the cancer would go quicker. What a terrible day. It was Resurrection Day, but death’s sting was everywhere. When you weren’t upstairs in bed, you sat outside with your head in your hands, too tired to even lift your head and talk.

How could Easter ever be the same again?

Not long before the original Easter occurred, Jesus was asked a question often asked of religious leaders of his time; “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment.” The text makes it seem as if Jesus doesn’t hesitate before answering, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, will all your mind, and with all your soul.” I have to be honest here; I never really got this passage. I mean, does he really need to stretch this out, or could he have cut a couple of these different ways of loving?

Slowly, coming out of your bad Easter, you began to show me the truth of this passage, and why Jesus needed to include four different ways of loving God.

They gave you chemotherapy for a short amount of time, just to make sure it would work. Then they cut. And they cut big. A long, deep slice down your chest. Along with a massive tumor and a chunk of lung, they took some of your heart. How could you continue to love the Lord your God with all your heart when you no longer had all your heart? Not to sound greedy, but how could you love me with all your heart when it was not all there anymore? Yes, I know love does not literally come from the organ we call the heart, yet it’s hard not to believe that our metaphorical heart will be changed when a surgeon is cutting up our literal heart like a Thanksgiving turkey.

When you went in for your first appointment after being found cancer-free, for some reason I wasn’t worried. And everything turned out fine. But that second time, nothing felt right. I didn’t sleep right for days. I worried too much, and didn’t pray enough. Sure enough, the cancer was back. And it was, among other places, in your brain. Soon, they were shaving your head, cutting into your scalp and skull. Brain surgery; on a different day, under a different set of circumstances, it might have been humorous. Actually, with the way our family works, we still made it humorous. But it was different. We still found joy in strange places like only our family can, but now it had an edge to it. I wondered how you could love the Lord your God with all your mind, when they had sliced into your brain and tried to steal some of it from you.

I began to long for you to just have peace. My secret desire had been to escape with you up Norse Peak and to hide out at Martinson Gap, where they couldn’t give you any more bad news and things could just go back to the way they were. It still is.

Instead, they took away your strength. I like to say “they” as if doctors and nurses did all this bad stuff to you. Yes, it was the cancer, along with chemo and radiation, but it just feels better to have people to blame rather than something inside of you. I have watched you get skinnier as muscles are replaced with skin and bone. I’ve seen you get frustrated over all of it. I would gladly give you every ounce of muscle and fat in my body, but instead I get to helplessly watch you and only wish to have something adequate to offer. And I wonder if my dad can love the Lord with all his strength, when he no longer has all of his strength.

And I get mad. And sad. And I go for weeks refusing to pray because I hate all of this and don’t feel like it is too much to ask for health and life and for a good man to be restored to all of us. But I can’t stay angry. I can’t be angry, because you aren’t angry.

The truth is, for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m seeing your soul. I never knew how great it was until now. Your soul is kind and generous. It was your soul that made the meadows and hills of the Norse Peak wilderness magical for me. The way you spoke and looked and loved made it something greater than it would have been without you there. It is your soul that would cause you to seek out people who have recently been diagnosed with cancer so you can encourage them to not give up. It is your soul that causes you to look to God when so many would choose to be bitter with Him. When I began to understand this, everything else started falling into place.

I realize now that no surgeon’s scalpel could ever diminish the love in your heart. You came out of that surgery talkative and smiling and being kind to all the nurses, doctors and family member you saw. Watching you hobble around that hospital to play with your brother right after your surgery brought to light just how amazing your heart really is. You brought joy to a sad place. Christ’s love shines through you in ways that no average person could create without Him living within them.

The Bible describes God’s love like a refining fire. When we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, as Paul writes, this happens because God helps us along through the refining process of transformation. In other words, God has to lead us through that rough road because there is no way we would choose to go down it on our own. I’ve seen evidence of your journey down that road in the way your mind now works. All of the same stuff was there before, but now it’s more obvious; the way you love your family, how much you care and are thankful for the people who stop by to visit you. It’s as if when they cut into your brain, they left it open so your mind would be on display for all of us to see. You have a mind for others, a desire to follow Jesus’ second command to love your neighbor as yourself.

Which brings me back to your strength; a good way to end, since I had this all wrong for most of my life. You see, the truth is that you were a mythic being to me because of your strength. You could hike for hours, work long weeks, ride the Ramrod race, bench press the entire stack of weights on the machine while Adam stood on them. I thought this proved that you were strong. I was wrong. You are strong, but it turns out your physical strength has nothing to do with any of it. You have shown your strength in your courage. You have shown it in the way you never give up. You have shown it in the way you continue to fight back; going for walks, doing small exercises, forcing yourself to get up rather than have somebody get something for you. Most of all, though, it is in the way you have let Christ be strong where you are weak. That is what makes you stronger than any man I have ever met.

Since I shared my worst life moment in this letter, I’ll end by sharing one of the best moments of my life. It was Christmas of last year. As usual Mom had made a massive Christmas breakfast. The tree was packed with gifts, but not even your grandkids seemed to notice. This was a time for all of us as a family to be together. It felt hopeful and happy.

Do you remember what happened next? You tried to pray for our meal, but you couldn’t do it. At that moment I learned many things. It suddenly felt okay for my tears to be my prayers. What else can I say to God these days? It was also the first time when all of this started coming together for me and I could see just what God has used these trials to shape you into. Not that I believe He wanted you to go through all of this, but I think that He did want you to grow closer to Him during these terrible times. And you have.

On that Christmas day, the day we celebrate the greatest gift of all, I saw how blessed I have been. You are a gift to my life. You have loved the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, will all your mind, and with all your soul. And that love has spilled out into your life, making your love for the rest of us so obvious. As it turns out, that is what makes you my hero.

I love you Dad. Thank-you for the gift that is you.

Your Son,

Matt

Losing My Dad

2007-09-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

My dad passed away four days ago, on September 13th. It is an awe-inspiring event to be on the family side of a memorial and see how many people have come to remember and pay their respects to your father.

Thank-you to all of you who have offerred your prayers and support over the past few years as he fought and fought some more against cancer. He never gave up and fought until the end. I hope I can become that good of a man.

Some friends and family asked, so I have attached a letter I had written to him just a day before he passed. It sums him up rather well. You can read it here. And below is the video I made with my brothers for the memorial service.

Peace,

Matt

Madeleine L'Engle Dies

2007-09-10T08:43:00.000-07:00

I just read this morning that Madeleine L'Engle passed away last Friday, September 7th. Her book, Walking on Water was not only life changing for me, but is probably the main reason why I remain in youth ministry. She wrote things like this:

"God is constantly creating, in us, through us, with us, and to co-create with God is our human calling."

"All life is story, story unravelling and revealing meaning."

"When I am grappling with ideas which are radical enough to upset grown-ups, then I am likely to put these ideas into a story which will be marketed for children, because children understand what their parents have rejected and forgotten."

"Each time an unexpected discovery is made in the world of knowledge, it shakes the religious establishment of the day. Now, we are often taught that it is unfaithful to question traditional religious beliefs, but I believe that we must question them continually - not God, not Christ, who are at the center of our lives as believers and creators - but what human beings say about God and about Christ; otherwise, like those of the church establishment of Galileo's day, we truly become God's frozen people. Galileo's discoveries did nothing whatsoever to change the nature of God; they threatened only man's rigid ideas of the nature of God. We must constantly be open to new revelation, which is another way of hearing God, with loving obedience."

"Success is one of the dirtiest temptations of the devil."

"Despite all our technology there is far more that we do not know than that we know, and the most terrible defect is our inability to tell right from wrong, to do horrible things for all the right reasons, and then to blunder inadvertently into doing something which turns out to be good. We try to make the loving, the creative decision, but we cannot know whether or not we are right."

What most inpired me in this particular book, but does not lend itself to a direct quote, is L'Engle describing how she wrote A Wrinkle in Time: to write her "children's book" she had to learn quantum physics and a load of theology. For a children's book? Yes. Because, as she wrote, a good children's book takes these very real, very deep realities and without boiling them down, puts them into a child's language. Yes! So this is what I try to do with youth ministry. I share what I'm learning with them. Kids have been changed and challenged by Miroslav Volf, NT Wright, Walter Brueggemann and more. The get it and want more of it! How great is that?

Thank-you Madeleine L'Engele for your contribution to our world and to my life and faith.

Peace,
Matt

Read My Article at Relevant!

2007-09-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

Relevant just published an article I wrote on their website. It's not that amazing, but it's the first time anybody has ever taken an interest in my writing, so I'm excited. Anyways, if you want to check it out, go here.

Show me the love!

Sidenote: first, it's lame to see that they misspelled my name. Seriously, who has the last name "Martinso"? Second, when I read it online yesterday, I realized that it could have definitely used a little polishing-up. Note to self; have somebody proof read what you write.

Peace,
Matt

Roommates for a Married Couple

2007-09-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

Three days ago my sister-in-law moved in with us. She definitely isn't our first roommate. In fact, she's our fifth. Which doesn't seem like much to me, but I have begun to realize that this seems strange to some people. So I thought today would be as good of time as any to explain why we consistently have people living in our home.

First, it is a justice issue for me. The people who live with us are always in their early twenties, in that strange place where they are no longer kids but not making enough money to feel like an adult in American culture. In other words, they are struggling to keep their car running, afford health care, and figure out who they are while doing everything in their power to only have to work one job. So we try to help by offering extremely low rent and roommates that treat them like family rather than an annoying roommate.

Which brings me to the second reason; hospitality. My understanding of hospitality is that it is an opening of oneself. I believe this involves both the physical (a room to stay in) as well as the metaphysical (letting them into my family and my life). I believe our culture has led us to close ourselves off in ways that make scripture's call to hospitality nearly unintelligible. In her book High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver tells the story of her time in Spain, where strangers never act like strangers. If your child fell in the playground, they would come pick up the child and comfort it as if it were their own (Try doing this at your local playground and see what happens). We are moving into a hell of our own making, similar to the Hell painted by C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce, in which everybody lives in self-inflicted isolation, continually striving to move further and further away from one another. But there is another way. This is what hospitality leads us against. We are trying to paint our marriage in the image of God. How cool is that?

Third, having a roommate changes me. It holds me accountable for what I say when I'm at home. It brings different perspectives into our house that I don't hear as often (my last roommate, for instance, was engaged to a nice guy who is also in the National Guard). I get the opportunity to speak into another persons life, and the opportunity to have them speak into mine. It is honestly a great opportunity.

And lastly, I am a homeowner. I struggled long and hard with this theologically. I still do, actually. But the one thing I knew right away was that if we were going to own something this expensive, it had better be used for the glory of God. This has turned us into constant hosts (when we're home, which is not too often, our house very often has guests), as well as an ever-expanding family with each new roommate.

It is great, and I highly recommend it.

Peace,
Matt

Check Out these Bloggers!

2007-08-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

Some of my students have started blogging and I think it's pretty darn cool. Check these out:

Karly's Blog

Elissa's Blog

Lorraine's Blog

Olivia's Blog

That's enough to make any youth pastor proud, I would think.

Peace,
Matt

Blogging Break

2007-07-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything this month. The truth is that I've been on two "mission trips" (I hate that term) this month with my students, my wife is in her third trimester of pregnancy, and my dad's cancer has gotten much worse recently. Honestly, I don't think I'll be blogging much, if at all, until the fall or winter. Blessings to those of you who read this, and please be praying for me and my family.

Matt

Tony Jones on Orthodoxy

2007-07-05T12:54:00.000-07:00

Tony Jones recently blogged about a paper he wrote and its response at Wheaton. I would highly recommend clicking this link and going to the bottom, where you can download the paper. It is short and thought-provoking. Please read it!

Orwell, in 1984, says "Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." Now obviously this is in the context of the book, but it remains a thought provoking statement. I guess the other quote I could share comes from Heidegger, who said (I'm paraphrasing from my memory, but hopefully will be somewhat close), "The most thought provoking thing in this, the most thought provoking age, is that we are still not thinking." No wonder he seems to stand at the starting-point of postmodernity and the end (hopefully) of orthodoxy as we have known it.

Sorry for the random, off-beat quotes, but they were on my mind and I hoped they might add something to your enjoyment of Jones' article.

Peace,
Matt

Current Book Wish List

2007-06-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

My book-love has gotten out of control lately. Unfortunately for me I buy 90% of my books at the thrift store and none of these ever seems to make it there. So in no particular order, here are some books that I am currently desiring in a covetous manner:

So why am I telling you this? Just in case you feel like buying something for me, I guess. There ya' go!

Peace,

Matt

Eastern Washington

2007-06-21T14:09:00.000-07:00

Read this article I wrote...

2007-06-14T15:01:00.000-07:00

I just posted a new blog article on the Silhouette page about Franz Kafka, and you should read it! I'd love comments, thoughts, questions, etc. I'm thinking of trying to write a few extended essays based on this shorter one, so feedback is especially nice this time around. And I think you might just find it fascinating.

Peace,
Matt

Church Irony

2007-06-07T13:16:00.000-07:00

The Free Dictionary defines irony as follows: "Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs." Today I want to share a few ironic incidents I have been a part of in the past few weeks. I hope you find these entertaining. I really hope you can see what makes them ironic in the first place.

I went to a church service recently where the pastor stood before us and said he was going to begin a new series on The Kingdom of God. I was a bit excited about this, especially because I did not expect it at all from this pastor. He taught how the Kingdom of God is different than the kingdoms of this world. Then, because it was Memorial Day, we closed by with a patriotic song and a time of remembrance for fallen American soldiers. I am definitely not against honoring people who sacrifice themselves for my country, but found it more than a bit ironic to do so after a sermon on the Kingdom of God. I tried to imagine Jesus taking a moment to thank the Father for the Roman soldiers and their hard work. It just seemed a bit strange...
I have witnessed on more than one occassion this week the giving of a certain test at my church. It was a test to see if the test-takers knew their Ten Commandments. The test literally said that the 10 are just as important now as they were when they were given. Is it just me, or did Jesus teach something deeper? Isn't it ironic that we stick with the Old Testament when Jesus gave us something new that was supposed to move us past the Law? I wonder why we want people to memorize the Ten Commandments, but never quiz each other about the Sermon on the Mount... I'd blog on that one, but I'm sure you already know what I'd say.

How about you? Have you seen any classic church irony lately?

Peace,

Matt

Hans Kung and the Role of the Bible

2007-06-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

After a discussion with a friend where he mentioned the book, I recently started back into Hans Kung' Theology for the Third Millennium, which I had somehow put down a few pages in and never picked back up until now. It's a great read and I thought I'd share some out-of-context quotes this morning so you could catch a small glimpse for yourself. You'll notice these are about the Bible and it's authority, which is something I'm currently re-working through:

"A Yes to the Bible, then, but - along with many Protestant theologians - an equally decisive No to the sort of biblicism that makes an idol of the literal text and rejects all criticism of the Bible as unevangelical, for the sake of a supposedly Protestant orthodoxy. The Protestant theologian too has not only the right but the duty to distinguish between testimonies that are clear and less clear, stronger and weaker, original and derivative, central and peripheral, lucid and obscure, testimonies that for all they have in common can diverge, contrast, and partially contradict one another.
Protestant theologians too - but others as well - thus have the right and the duty to do conscientious biblical criticism: textual and literary criticism, historical and theological criticism. This will not weaken the authority of the Bible, but make its light shine out anew."
(page 61)

"The writings collected in the New Testament canon do not form any sort of 'doctrinal unit.' It was not the Reformers but only the Lutheran and Reformed denominational churches, that taught the doctrinal unity of Scripture, a doctrinal system of statements from Scripture; plucked, that is, from the whole Scripture, whether in a more biblicist or more dogmatic fashion."
(page 69)

"He [Jesus] in person is the 'canon before the canon,' the 'center of Scripture,' the 'Gospel' itself... Every new age can tell the good news about this Christ in an irreducibly new way, so that in principle no one may deny the Christian character of an epoch in church history - neither of the Middle Ages, nor of the present. In these complete processes of life in the church and of the history of theology, hard and fast positions have been broken open from His side, corections have managed to become necessary and possible, now once more in the upheaval of an epoch the origins of faith can speak to us in new immediacy, the challenging primal shape of Christian faith unexpectedly becomes more lucid to us today than the ways by which it was mediated over its long history. All of these things surely belong to the healthy and happy surprises of our time."
(page 99)

"In first-and-final human questions...the special Christian experiences or, rather, the Christian message, the Gospel, Jesus Christ himself, acquires a normative meaning... The center of Scripture, the Christian message, the Gospel is he himself in person, the one who was experienced by the first Christian community as the Christ and was originally attested to in the New Testament - the living Jesus as he stands for God and man. And that is why for Christians the original testimony of this Christ, the New Testament in other words, is and remains the norma normans for all postbiblical tradition."
(page 122)

A Better Mix of Jesus and Politics

2007-06-05T08:28:00.000-07:00

Last night Sojourners had a candidates forum in which they grilled the Democratic presidential hopefuls about areas that matter to people of faith; specifically poverty and poverty-related issues. I don't have CNN, but watched the highlights on Jim Wallis' blog. What I love about this is, 1. it spreads the debate beyond the Iraq war and fear of otherness (terrorism, immigrants, etc), 2. it is the church attempting to care for the least of these rather than the status quo, and 3. it seems less like the church going partisan and more like the church saying it cares about the Kingdom of God and it will vote accordingly.*

*Yes, there are problems when you talk about the Kingdom of God and politics in the same sentence. But some days I'll take what I can get. And in case you are wondering and don't follow Sojourners, they desire to do a similar event with the Republican candidates, which is why I feel like this is not a partisan deal.

Peace,
Matt

Abercrombie Priests and Hollister Gods

2007-05-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

Last night I read Prof. John Pahl's article The Desire to Acquire: Or, Why Shopping Malls are Sites of Religious Violence. It's a great read, full of great photos and citations, encapsulated by a great quote from Slavoj Zizek that basically makes the claim that as the gap between beauty and trash diminishes, what we view as holy or good will ultimately be revealed "to be nothing but a piece of shit" (Gotta love that line). Pahl goes on to convincingly argue how shopping malls have become modern day religious sites, making shoppers into postmodern pilgrims. The problem, of course, is that their god is not only an idol (my words), but is worthless garbage.

So what's the problem?

"Matter is evacuated of its materiality and desire displaced onto and condensed within an object contained within the confines of the mall."
"The mall thus becomes a parody or exaggeration of real presence, a hyper-real compression of the spontaneity and contingency that any real presence suggests, in what is in fact a micro-managed and carefully controlled utopian project.
"Malls disorient visitors to trigger desire, using natural and religious symbols to effect the function of a labyrinth, and then reorient pilgrims toward the fulfillment of desire through the acquisition of an enchanted commodity or experience."

In other words, the mall is a utopia just like the utopias you read about in books likeThe Giver, Animal Farm, 1984, or see in our own world history constantly. Something temporary, that will soon break or become obsolete, is given spiritual status. Clothes, video games, etc become gods, while mall employees and models become our priests. The only problem, of course, is that none of this provides any real fulfillment.

If truth is now nothing but a commodity, we as the church have a lot to figure out. And if we have commodified Jesus to make him into just another product, we have even more to figure out! I'm not just talking about cheap products that are sold to make a buck off of the living Christ, but about those of us who try to get others to buy into the happy-Jesus who does lots of neat stuff for you (fixes your problems, gets you into heaven) but never calls anybody to die to themselves. Jesus has become for us just one more god among the gods. No wonder, then, we see so many people in our country who say the prayer and get excited about their faith, only to fade in the coming days, weeks, or months. Like any product, we get bored with our commodified Jesus when he is surpassed by new, shinier products.

The typical answer that the Western church has provided up to this point has been to advertise harder, to prove that this product is worth keeping around by constantly repackaging it. We get the rebel Jesus, the cool Jesus, the Republican Jesus, etc. We advertise him on billboards, put his face on toys, talk about him on TV. All of this work has, of course, done nothing but devalue Jesus. He is now, in America, another commodity, thrown into the garbage pile of everything else worshipped in our McChurches.

So what's to be done? Here's some ideas I had while reading and writing and they are purely practical rather than theoretical. They are things I would like to do with my youth ministry students, or even just any American who I could get to come along:

I would love to have my students walk a labyrinth that was full of verses, prayers and questions based on what Jesus and the rest of the Bible said about money and possessions. Then I would have them follow a mapped-out course through the mall that was very labryinth-like, and have to think through those same prayers, verses and questions.
Have all of my students write a list (like a birthday/Christmas list) of things they want. Then I give them a second piece of paper and they spend one hour walking the mall and writing down everything they want. Afterwards, we meet and debrief the differences between the two lists.
Walk with a homeless man through the mall and get his feedback on what he thinks when he sees the people, the stores, the advertising, etc. Also, they would get to see how quickly the man gets kicked-out of the mall, hopefully alerting them to the fact that there are no homeless people in malls because malls are private property and they do discriminate.
Take students through the mall and interview them in front of different posters with models on them and ask them how they feel about themselves at that moment.

May the Abercrombie priests be exposed as the idolatrous liars they are, and may the Hollister gods be cast down from on high.

Peace,

Matt

Isaiah 5:8 and Us

2007-05-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

"Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land."
-Isaiah 5:8

Isn't it fascinating to read this passage in a series of woes having to do with personal sins like drunkeness, lying and bribery? We'd preach the last three any given day, but it's rare to hear a sermon or even a church discussion on Isaiah 5:8 and it's implications for Western Christians.

Sometimes I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but today I just feel like I need to ask the same questions that I've asked a million times before:

How can we continue to bless wealth when scripture continually points out how wealth brings about peoples' (and nations) downfall, while poverty is blessed by the Lord?
When will we recognize that God is on the side of the oppressed?
When will we recognize who the oppressed really are?
If God supports the weak and opposes the strong, what does that mean for us?
Does might ever make right?
What sort of future does God have in store for us? I mean this in a dual sense, as in, what sort of future does God desire to provide for us, and what sort of a future judgment can we look forward to, considering our actions as a people?

Sorry for the half-rant. I've been reading about Central American revolutions, the church, and American responses and I'm just a bit more frustrated than usual.

Peace,

Matt

New Article by...well, by me of course.

2007-05-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

I just added my monthly "column" to the silhouette blog. It's an extension of a post I put on this blog a few days ago concerning mental health and ministry. Check it out. I'd love to get your feedback. It's right here if you are interested.

Peace,
Matt

Leonardo Boff on NPR?! Awesome.

2007-05-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I turned on NPR and heard Leonardo Boff taking on the Pope. What could be cooler than that? I've been pleasantly surprised more than once by Benedict, but am still more than a little suspicious of him and wonder what he might say when he's in Brazil this week. Some of his criticisms of liberation theology are worth listening to, but the options he offers instead seem to be disconnected from the people who are suffering.

Anyways, that's enough from me; listen to this and let me know what you think.

Peace,
Matt

Coupla Links You NEED to See

2007-04-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

My friend Justin recently pulled a bunch of randoms, including myself, to start a blog where each of us contributes a monthly article. I published mine a few days ago, and although I wanted to say more, go deeper, and spend some time cleaning up the writing style, I'm pretty excited about what I wrote. Anyways, you can check it out here, and I'd love to get your feedback.

In other news, my good friend Kelly has recently started blogging. He is a genius and you should check out his blog for great photos, cultural critique, travelogues, historical musings, book reviews, or whatever else he throws out there. Also, if you can help him find a job as a high school history teacher next year, I think he'd greatly appreciate it...

Adding one more, since I don't think anybody has read this post yet... Check out this post by Jordan Cooper. It's some excerpts from Eugene Peterson's new book. First of all I didn't even know he had a new book out, and second of all, he is implying some pretty tough but cool food-for-thought for pastors and church-goers. I like it.

Peace,
Matt

Ministry and Mental Health Work

2007-04-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

I have done very little thinking on this subject, and even less reading, so I write the following blog with the intent of getting any sort of feedback and support I can.

1 Samuel has a very fascinating story-line that is rarely discussed, at least in the circles I run in/read within. It is the story of Saul. Saul acts as the first king of Israel, which is a tenous position at best. He rules God's chosen people, and God himself chose him for the job. But he also is acting as king of Israel, a job that was reserved solely for God. Yet he begins as a man of both physical and spiritual strength. And everything is going well. Until David shows up. But what really happens at this point? Does Saul turn evil, or is something else going on? There are multiple times where Saul repents, prophecies, seeks out the Lord, prays, etc in this narrative. But he also tries to kill his son-in-law, visits a witch in Endor to speak with the dead, and eventually kills himself. His actions are inconsistent, and point towards some form of mental illness. Which is why I don't think we ever really talk about him in church. Was he a good man or a bad man? I don't think he was either; he was a complicated man. And so he is too difficult to preach or teach about. Yet maybe that makes him a much better subject for study and Bible-wrestling than David, Solomon, etc.

In the few years I have been involved in paid ministry I have dealt with more people with some sort of mental health issue than I ever expected. As a minister with a strong passion for social justice, as well as being the husband of a special-education teacher, I welcome these interactions and am overjoyed that people who have aspberger's, bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, or just IQ's that are very low, find refuge and acceptance within our church. Amen, and I hope that it only continues.

My problem is how to be a shepherd for somebody who is so other from me. How do I talk to a high school student about cleaning up his life, not fighting or drinking anymore, and getting back on track with Christ when he's also talking about government conspiracies and his bipolar disorder is taking him places that I can't even begin to understand? How do I respond to a mom calling me because she's worried that her son listens to Tool too much, but the truth is that his schizophrenia causes him to be irrational and nearly impossible for me to reason with? Or yesterday when a man comes to me for spiritual guidance but then rants for 75 minutes with no coherence between stories, thoughts, prayer requests or anything else?

Here are some of the questions that arise for me because of these questions:

What sort of healing should we look to Christ to provide for somebody like the people described above? Especially when we want to respect them just as they are and as the person God made them to be? Should we pray for mental healing like we would for physical healing?
What does spiritual growth look like for somebody with aspberger's? Or, to make it even more day-to-day, what should I expect from a teen with severe ADHD?
Does/should any of this make a difference in their walk with God?

Those are the questions rolling around in my head. Answer if you wish. Please don't look down on me or talk down to me on these, as I'm only struggling to figure out how to minister to every person God puts in my path.

Peace,

Matt

[WWFS: What Would Foucault/Freud Say?]

Sherman Alexie Lecture in Bellingham

2007-04-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

Two days ago I took some high school seniors to hear Sherman Alexie speak at a local high school. If you don't recognize his name, you might remember a certain movie called Smoke Signals that was based on one of his books. Alexie, if you weren't aware, just realeased a new book called Flight. It turned out to be an amazing, fun evening.

Alexie is not only a great fiction writer, but he is also an accomplished poet and even a stand-up comedian! And he put all of his talent out there for us to enjoy. A local professor interviewed him, he read from his new book, he recited some poetry, and ended the night with a 20 minute monologue that felt like a mixture of a modern-day comedy act and ancient Indian story-telling.

As for Alexie's new book, all I can tell you is that you need to read it! Beyond the references to Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse Five, there is a strong story about justice and how complicated it is to find in either the past or the present. There is one chapter that absolutely blew my mind: it involves a drunken, dying Indian wandering Tacoma. He gets into it with a guy on the street, continually yelling "I want some respect!" Finally the man asks, "How do I do that?" At first the Indian doesn't know how to reply, but then he says "Tell me a story." And the man does. And it is a heartbreaking, true story. And in his comedically tragic way Alexie shows how the sharing of a story opens up a tough white guy and a broken Indian guy and they can find a way to respect each other. I would like to write more about it, but all I'll say before I end is that this book is hilarious, painful, beautiful and well worth reading if you are at all literate and/or caring.

Peace,
Matt

I Got Robbed

2007-04-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

It's true. Yesterday I had one of those classic, "Why the crap am I still doing ministry and does what I do even matter?" moments. Here's the Reader's Digest Condensed version of what happened:

I have local high school students to my house every Wednesday for free lunch. It's a great way for me to meet local teens outside of a church building. They love the food, and I love meeting kids who don't try to put on the religious show for me. Yesterday a student who was there for only the second time ever stole a book off one of my bookshelves. It was Douglas Coupland's Generation X, which I absolutely love, but also only paid $3 for. The loss of the book in itself was no big deal, considering 1/2 of the books I loan out to friends I know I will never get back. What bothered me was the betrayal. It hurt. And it made me angry. And sad.

Last night I sat up in bed thinking. And thinking some more. I thought about stopping my Wednesday lunches. I thought about finding this kid and confronting him in a less-than-kind manner...

Then I thought of that scene in Les Miserables when Jean Val Jean (sorry for spelling errors) is caught with the stolen candlesticks and the priest not only refuses to press charges on the guilty man, but gives him much, much more than he had originally stolen. So I decided that I will carry with me, whenever possible, another Coupland book titled Life After God, so if I ever see this young man again and can give him the rest of his book set. The book, if you haven't read it, ends with a statement that in truth, even the devout atheist narrator needs God.

So that's my plan, unless I hear of something better. So what would you do if you were in my shoes?

Peace,
Matt

Back With Pictures!

2007-04-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

I took these in Oregon. Read closely and ask yourself if you would really feel comfortable being led anywhere in this particular church.

On a serious note, my vacation was wonderful. I spent a lot of time in Bend, OR, and made it down to Redding, where it was in the 90's! Pretty darn good compared to the PNW and its never-ending winter. And I also read a lot of books. Surprise, surprise.

Peace,
Matt