Burn After Reading

Man, I love the Coen Brothers, and their new movie looks great.

Tappers

Speaking of meaningful discourse, check out this blog from my friend, Ryan Young, on tappers.

Tappers

Check out this post on tappers from my friend Ryan Young. Then check out Made To Stick. It's an amazing book.

Meaningful Discourse

Last night I went to see Art for the second time and enjoyed it as much, if not more, than the first time. It is a story of three friends, one of whom pays 200 grand for a painting that another hates and the way that their friendship begins to unravel.

A group of us were discussing the play afterwards and someone commented that they don't have many friendships that go deep enough to have the sort of real and raw conversations that come about in the play.

Both in Immanuel house churches and at Austin Inklings, we place meaningful discourse as one of our goals. Why is it that meaningful discourse is so hard to find? Can you have meaningful discourse without first having meaningful friendships? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

I'll Give Them That

It's a rare thing for me to agree with much coming out of the current White House, but I agreed with them on something today.

Today is the day that I saw the official White House response to the McClellan book, which states that the war in Iraq was a huge misstep and that the White House made a choice against candor and honesty.

I don't disagree with McClellan one bit. The White House, as you'd expect, disagrees with McClellan. I disagree with the White House.

McClellan goes on to say that he was in a constant state of righteous indignation and suffered constant attacks of conscience. The White House asks, "then why are we just hearing about this in a published book after you were asked to leave?"

And I have to agree with the White House. Much as we needed McLellan to speak out, we really needed him to do it years ago. It's a lot easier to shout "shame on you" once you have more to gain than lose. 

I can't give the White House much, but I'll give them that.

Franciscan Blessing

May God bless you with discomfort

at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships

so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger

at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people

so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with foolishness

to believe that you can make a difference in the world

so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

"Last Best Hope For Mankind"

Yesterday, President Bush described America as the "last best hope for mankind."

I simply don't see how, as a Christian, he can make this statement.

Connecting Over BRUUUUUUUUCE!

So, Harry (my 3 year old son) has started shouting BRUUUUUCE anytime he hears music by or sees an image of Bruce Springsteen. You might find this annoying, but I never get tired of it. I am a huge Bruce Springsteen fan.

This week, Harry and his mom are away in Arkansas. It is the longest that Harry and I have ever been apart. Yesterday I talked to Rachel and she shared with me that, when asked if he wanted to listen to dinosaur songs or wiggleworms, Harry responded, "I want Bruce. I miss my daddy."

Question for the day: What's a song or artist that you share with someone else? Tell us about the person and the music that bonds you.

How To Manufacture Authenticity

Authenticity. It is the buzzword of new and emerging churches. Even more established churches have caught on to it and are tossing it about at leadership meetings and in sermons. And the big question on everyone's mind seems to be this:

How do you manufacture authenticity?

How can we contrive an experience that feels raw and real and transparent?

Here's the answer. First you need a high end power point projector and a well paid worship leader.

Kidding. The fact is, you can't manufacture authenticity any more than you can script reality. All attempts to script reality have been met by discerning folks with scorn. We might like "The Real World", but don't try and tell us it IS the real world.

All attempts to manufacture authenticity ought to be met in a similar fashion. If you're trying to "keep it real" without being real, it isn't going to work. You can't sustain it. It might be as entertaining as "The Real World", but it won't be any less fake.

Real is hard. Authentic is hard. It's hard to simply open up and be honest about your thoughts and feelings and sins and struggles.

But that's the only way to be an authentic church. Simply by being one. Somebody has to go first and say, "my marriage is in trouble" or "I'm a bad father" or "I don't believe in God anymore." Not all admissions and insights will be that profound or dramatic and we shouldn't force them to be. But they should always be that real.

Church needs to be the place where I can encounter Christ and His followers as my real self, warts and all. Christ is ready for that. I'm not sure His followers are. I'm not sure I am.

Are you?

Or are we all just playing at being real?

Here's What I've Got

I got to hear a local pastor speak last night about the good their church is doing in the community. This isn't a guy planning big events or raising lots of money. This is a guy whose family takes in addicts and abused kids into their double wide trailer when they have nowhere else to go. He kept saying that we're all waiting for some big thing we can do before we do anything. He said, "I know a guy who says, 'We're trying to purchase 10 acres to build housing for the homeless.' I told him, "Have you got a spare bedroom? Why wait?'" At one point he said this of our responsibilities:

"Our job is to say, 'Here's what I've got. I can give this.' Then we put it all in the pot and see what God does with it."

It was one of the better definitions of church that I had ever heard.

How To Manufacture Authenticity

Authenticity. It is the buzzword of new and emerging churches. Even more established churches have caught on to it and are tossing it about at leadership meetings and in sermons. And the big question on everyone's mind seems to be this:

How do you manufacture authenticity?

How can we create and contrive an experience that feels real and raw and transparent?

Here's the answer. First, you need a high end power point projector and a well paid worship leader.

I'm kidding. The fact is, you can't manufacture authenticity any more than you can script reality. All attempts to script reality have been met by discerning folks with scorn. We might like "The Real World", but don't try and tell us it IS the real world.

All attempts to manufacture authenticity ought to be met in a similar fashion. If you're trying to "keep it real" without being real, it isn't going to work. You can't sustain it. It might be as entertaining as "The Real World", but it won't be any less fake.

Real is hard. Authentic is hard. It's hard to simply open up and be honest about your thoughts and feelings and sins and struggles. 

But that's the only way to be an authentic church. Simply by being one. Somebody has to go first and say, "my marriage is in trouble" or "I'm a bad father" or "I'm not sure I believe in God anymore." Not all our insights will be that dramatic and we shouldn't try and force them to be. 

Church needs to be the place where I can encounter Christ as my real self. And I think Christ is ready for that. But I'm not sure the church is. I'm not sure I am.

Are you?

Or are we all just playing at being real?

They Wait Their Turn To Speak

A friend of a friend has tattoo that reads: They Wait Their Turn To Speak. I'm not so sure who "they" are, except to say that "they" is me.

I want to be someone who really listens. I want to be someone who really cares. I want to be someone who really loves their neighbor as they love themselves.

But it seems like most times I don't listen so much as wait to speak. I've already moved past the point that the person is making and onto the one I'm about to make.

What about you? Do you listen or just wait your turn to speak?

The Meek

Preaching on meekness and gentleness this week. Bonhoeffer defines the meek this way:

"They renounce every right of their own and live for the sake of Christ."

Does this describe Christians as you see them today?

Hate To Say "I Told You So"

"The cynics dismissed us as a lot of hype and a little too much hope." -Barack Obama

Home by Marilynne Robinson

Today I got one of those unexpected surprises that comes with working in a bookstore. One of our buyers called to let me know that she had an advanced reader set aside with me in mind.

That reader is Home by Marilynne Robinson. This may not be very exciting for you, but it is for me. I discovered Robinson in 2004, when she wrote her Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead, which quickly became one of my favorite works of fiction ever written.

I quickly sought out all that Robinson had written, only to discover that there wasn't much. Besides one other brilliant novel (Housekeeping), Robinson has also written a few collections of essays, also brilliant.

Still, Housekeeping was written in 1980, and I figured I'd be reading Robinson's next novel around the time I was sending Harry to college. 

All that to say...I'm excited.

Question for today: what's a book you discovered that changed your life?

A Great Man

When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
As his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.

Self-Control

During recent discussions about self-control, this question has come up:

What are the similarities/differences between self-control and stoicism?

Christians Without Christ

"They want to show they can be Christians without Christ. They are the worst; they have the cruelty of doctrine without the poetic grace." -from Fifth Business

Art

So, here's a plug for a play that opened last night at the City Theatre Austin. It is called Art, and was not only one of the most enjoyable nights out I've spent in awhile, but also one of the most thought provoking (a few of us stood in the parking lot afterwards discussing it). I plan to see it again on May 29th (every Thursday of the run is "pay what you can"), and would love to take a group of Inklings along. Details for the show can be found here

To begin a conversation that I hope to continue there, I ask this question: How would you define art?

Spiritual Not Religious

I get why this is appealing. I do. I get that religious means "close minded" and "ritualistic" and "traditional" and that spiritual means "open" and "free" and "exploring".

But here's my beef. Saying you're spiritual is like saying you're sexual. It can be a good or bad thing. It doesn't really say anything about you.

I'm a spiritual person, but I think that spirit has to have specificity. Even if you and I don't agree on what specific spirit we've decided to get on board with, shouldn't we have some idea which one each of us has chosen?

I'm a sexual person, but only when it comes to Rachel. Expressing my sexuality with her is all kinds of good. Expressing it in some vague and general fashion isn't "open" or "freeing", even if I am "exploring". The less specific I am in my sexuality, the less pleasure it brings me.

Same with spirituality. If you believe in spirits that exist beyond humanity, then why would you leave yourself "open" to whomever and whatever shows up? 

Whatever baggage the term religion holds, its definition is simply a set of specific beliefs. 

So, let's say I'm spiritual and religious. And happy to be. I think one makes the other better.

Christian Existentialist

Lately I've been getting comments on the fact that I have Christian Existentialist as my Religious Views on facebook. Kierkegaard is my guide on this, so let me sum up some of his thought on this specifically.

Christianity contains eternal truths that are objectively true. Things that don't change based upon a specific person's believing them or not. I believe this.

Existentialism speaks to the importance of subjective truths, that until something is true for you, it might as well not be true.

Christian Existentialism insists that no amount of objective belief about Christ having risen from the dead matters if Christ is still dead in you.

And that's what I believe. My refusing to call Jesus Lord doesn't make Him less of a Lord, except in terms of my own life, in which I can decide whether to make Him Lord or not.

Too many people want to believe in Christ objectively, but not subjectively. They proclaim His Lordship as true, but not in a way that it effects them directly.

A Mighty Wind

Went to see Jim Wallis (author of God's Politics and The Great Awakening) give a great speech last night at First United Methodist. Liked a lot of what he had to say, but especially his challenge to those of us who think that the right candidate can change everything. As someone who lives in Washington and spends time on the Hill, Jim described the posture of most politicians as one wet finger in the air, testing to see which way the wind is blowing. "You don't make change by replacing one wet fingered politician with another one," he said, "you change which way the wind is blowing."

His point is right on and I'm not here to dispute it, just to refine it. The word used for the Spirit of God in the Bible can be translated as Spirit or breath or wind. I believe that the Spirit of God moves like the wind. I don't believe that we can change it as much as we are called to move along with it and be changed by it. Our job, as Christians, is to discern which way God's wind is blowing, to be caught up in it, and blown away. 

When WWJD Gets Difficult

I don't struggle with loving my enemies. Or, I do struggle with loving my enemies, except that I don't think of my enemies very often or even have enemies in any traditional sense. I struggle to love people who abuse children or blow up buildings or drop bombs, but not with loving any specific people who do these things just because I don't really know them.

I don't struggle with loving my neighbor. Whether my neighbor is your average Joe on the street or my literal neighbor, this isn't a problem. My neighbor is easy to get along with and loving him comes easy too.

I struggle to love the guy who talks during the movie. I struggle to love the guy who keeps trying to draw attention to himself throughout last night's Wilco show. I struggle to love the guy who walks into BookPeople talking on his cell phone and doesn't stop just because we're there.

These are the times when being a Christian becomes real for me. As important as those epic moments of reconciliation and forgiveness are, these are the moments when I most need to ask myself "what would Jesus do?"

Jesus wouldn't force that guy to eat his cell phone or strangle a rabid fan with his own Wilco banner or even get movie guy thrown out of movie theatre. Jesus would be patient and kind and self-controlled. Which is hard for me.

Assuming you'd like to be more like Jesus, what are the ways in which you find this the hardest to do?

Mother's Day

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world, a mother's love is not.

-James Joyce

Mother's Day

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. -Spanish Proverb

Not to go all Freud on the group, but... tell me about your mother.

...But God Intended It For Good

Many of us know the story of Joseph and his brothers. How his brothers, jealous of him, sold him into slavery in Egypt. How Joseph went through a series of hardships before being made second in command to the ruler of Egypt. How his position allowed him to provide for the Egyptians and their neighbors during a time of famine. And how the famine forced Joseph's own brothers to go seek help in Egypt, only to discover their brother alive and powerful. They are fearful of what Joseph might do, but he is gracious and declares, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good." It is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament and proof that God is good in spite of when men are evil.

A year ago today, my dad was sold out by men who he considered to be brothers. He has gone through his share of hardships during this past year, but is coming out the other side of those hardships to discover himself in a position to help others in need. His future in doing God's work is as bright as it has ever been.

So I am here to declare to those men this truth; you intended to harm him, but God intended it for good. 

When Values Fall Flat

I'm not a fan of most modern art. I'm not a fan of the idea that is seemingly espoused by modern art that anyone is an artist and anything is art, but I've never been able to succinctly say what it is that I dislike in modern art. However, I have been reading Barrett's Irrational Man and, in his explanation as to what modern art does, he explains my dislike quite handily.

Barrett writes about how modern art is a flattening. Modern art, he writes, is a flattening of planes (near and far are brought together and perspective loses its importance), a flattening of climaxes (the is no big event or main focus), and a flattening of values (everything is equal to everything else).

I guess I like some things to be more valuable than others. I don't like the idea that my random scribble and Caravaggio's Doubting Thomas are of equal value. Thoughts?

One Thing

"Purity of heart is to will one thing." -Kierkegaard

"One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean shit." -Curly

Discuss.

Elvis Costello's Momofuku

I was right to be excited.

Elvis made me wait this go 'round, but it was worth it. The wait came by virtue of the fact that EC first released this album on vinyl, which only helps me if I'm looking to decorate. The CD release came weeks later.

Turns out the choice to begin with a vinyl only release wasn't an arbitrary one. This was EC's less than subtle promise of a classic.

He delivers. Upon just a few listens, I'm ready to call this one of the best Costello albums ever recorded. It's frantic and fun and loose and lively. It's ironic and iconic and witty and wise. It is all that you hope for from an Elvis Costello album and it includes one of my favorite EC lines to date ("she wishes he were mute and not just dumb"). For those who wondered if his aim was still true, he recorded a collection of songs that could have featured alongside that particular hit.

And, in case you're concerned that this is just a rehash on tired themes, this old dog still does new tricks, including a song featuring Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley. It's as effective a pairing as his work with Aimee Mann a decade ago.

All that to say, EC's still got it. This could very well turn out to be my favorite album of 2008.

Living The Dream

Last night was one of our best Inklings gatherings to date. So much good stuff shared and discussed, it's difficult to pick just one for continued online discussion, but here goes...

We are a people who learn by doing. If you want to teach us something in a way that sticks, you have to give us opportunities to live out what we've learned. Some discussion was given to how the Christian narrative and the American narrative aren't as compatible as we might like to think and that we tend to, as American Christians, teach the Christian narrative and live out the American one.

So, how to stop this? Assuming that you accept the basic premise (that the Christian story of mercy and sacrifice is at odds with the American dream power and security), what's one way in which we can begin to live out the narrative we teach?

Elvis Costello Release

I am crazy excited to hear the new EC & the Imposters album. That is all.

Great Friends and Great Discoveries

I've been meaning to have an entry that took a lighter note, given that an eclectic mix of topics is more indicative of our Tuesday gatherings. Given that today marks the release of Elvis Costello's newest album, I thought this was as good a time as any.

Oftentimes we make great discoveries our own. I'm big into music, so most of the new stuff I come across is because I stumbled across it myself, but I also depend on friends to point out someone I might have missed.

Somehow I made it a good ways into my life without having given Elvis Costello a close look. That is, until Mark Love made me a mix that changed my musical life. Now EC makes the list of my top 5 singer/songwriters ever. 

So, here's today's topic: share a movie/music/book/etc. favorite that you didn't discover on your own and who shared it with you.

Bind Us Together

There's a hymn that I've sung in church since I was a kid which asks, "bind us together, Lord, bind us together, with cords that cannot be broken" (some versions replace "cords" with "chains", but that seems a rather depressing view of community). I have always appreciated the image and was reminded of it when I read this quote from Richard Foster:

"Think of the misery that comes into our lives by our restless gnawing greed. We plunge ourselves into enormous debt and then take two and three jobs to stay afloat. We uproot our families with unnecessary moves just so we can have a more prestigious house. We grasp and grab and never have enough. And most destructive of all, our flashy cars and sport spectaculars and backyard pools have a way of crowding out much interest in civil rights or inner city poverty or the starved masses of India. Greed has a way of severing the cords of compassion."

My question is this: Can we ask God to bind us with cords that we have every intention of severing through our own greed?

Silence

I've just finished re-reading the novel Silence by Susaku Endo. The silence that the title addresses is mainly the silence of God and the struggle many followers face when faced with that silence.

What do you do with the silence of God? If you believe in God, how much more difficult does silence make it to believe? If you don't believe, is this a major factor is explaining why?

Next Wave Article

http://the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue112/index.cfm?id=35&ref=ARTICLES%5FKINGDOM%20LIVING%5F513

The Hardest Part

Tom Petty says "the waiting is the hardest part" and I would tend to agree. And yet the old adage goes that "the best things come to those who wait." Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote the famous "Why We Can't Wait."

How are you at waiting? How long will you wait? What does waiting look like for you (is it stillness?)? When is it time to stop waiting and just do something?

Kester On KUT Radio

http://kut/org/items/show/12477

White Tiger Recommendation -KUT Radio

http://kut.org/items/show/12477