The Future Soon...

A few weeks ago, our church had a talent show (an annual part of our culture, which is really cool). I had been told several times since I've been here that all of the pastor's participate. So I prepared something. I found out on the night, that I was the only pastor doing anything. I'm a sucker.

I sang a song called "The Future Soon" by Jonathan Coulton. It's really a funny song, essentially telling the inner thoughts of someone who is perhaps in 5th grade, having been rejected by a girl, and how he sees the future playing out. It's a really silly song that is funny and sweet.

I sang the song not in Jonathan Coulton's style, but in The Adventurers Club style (an amazing place in Walt Disney World that sadly is no longer there) which is far dorkier and sweeter. Whenever I get the chance, I'll post video of it. It was quite fun.

All of that is a long way to go to get to the notion of the song that intrigues me. The notion comes from the chorus, and got me going on a line of thought that was far more theologically probing than the song itself even begins to be. It is just a silly song. The chorus of the song goes like this:

It's gonna be the future soon.
I won't always be this way,
when the things that make me week and strange
get engineered away.
It's gonna be the future soon.
I can see it all so clear.
When my heart is breaking
I just close my eyes and it's already here.

I really like that phrase, "it's gonna be the future soon." It's so optimistic. It gets to this sense of looking beyond where we are and trying to strive for the "not yet." In that way, it's very similar to how Christians should look at the world. This notion that the thing that we are living for is not here yet, but it's coming. Not maybe, but definitely. If it's not hear yet, that doesn't mean that it's not coming, that just means that it's not "the future" yet.

God doesn't promise the world to be perfect life in the here and now. In fact, quite the oppisite. All too often though, I think that Christianity is sold as such. Prosperity gospel. Get saved and start rolling in the blessings. That's not how it works. But that doesn't change the promise. Yes, there are immediate blessings, but you still have to deal with crap and suffer, because we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a broken world, and we are still subject to the effects of that brokenness. But we don't follow Christ to get a reward. We follow Christ because Christ offers salvation - Christ offers a future. Without that future, all you have is this, and this isn't really all that great. It's broken. The future is fixed. The future is perfect.

In 1st Corinthians 13, Paul puts it this way:

8But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

The promise is that it's going to be the future soon, and things are all going to work out then. If everything isn't working out yet, than it's not the future yet.

...when my heart is breaking, I just close my eyes and it's already here.

Inspired by...

When my sister Tobyn and I were younger, we made a lot of videos that were rather pointless. At the time, we thought they were hilarious and ground breaking. They weren't really either. When I watch them now, I see that they now are hilarious again, yet for different reasons.

There is a weird kind of humor that kids age 5-10 have that is really intriguing. They are beginning to understand the elements of humor, but aren't quite adept yet at implementing it. Often times that results in jokes that make no sense or things being "funny" to them that aren't actually funny at all. Other times, though. It results in genius.

I would put this video in the latter category:


For my Facebook friends, this is the video that I'm talking about.

click here (Hulu) if the video didn't show up.

Two Blogs in One.

Two things:

1.
I have renamed the blog "blue percent." I like that better than the overly wordy previous title, so it's a bit easier to refer to. The name comes from my feelings about one of our American colloquialisms that annoys me to no end: "110%"

The notion of giving 110% of your effort to something is a notion that some coach somewhere came up with to emphasize that their players need to give all that they have, and even more than they think they have. I'm sure that coach thought he/she was clever. The real problem (where it becomes annoying to me) is that the notion of 110% has now become the new benchmark for how much effort is expected from coaches. For someone to be giving 100% effort is not good enough. I have even heard coaches sometimes one upping the 110% and going with 115% or even 120%. That's a lot of effort.

The problem with this whole thing is that it is 100% irrational (or 110% irrational). By definition, 100% of anything is the most one can give of something. if we are going to start requiring more than that scale, suddenly our the parameters that we are using to judge by make no more sense. Why not give 100,000,000% or even (wait for it)... blue %. The second we step outside of the mathematical limitations set by measuring something by percentage, we have eliminated all logical understanding of what is being asked of us, and by that standard, blue percent makes as much sense as 110 percent.

end diatribe.

2.
I was cleaning out the cat litter today (irrelevant to the point I'm about to make), and I started thinking about how much the younger generation is taught to view everything as have a subjective bias, and that there are little more vestiges for objectivity. I think the internet has a lot to do with this.

I came to this conclusion when I was thinking of reading up more on the creationism/evolution debate. I have pretty comfortable conclusions on this (I don't think that the two need to be in competition, and that ultimately they are fairly symbiotic - God uses evolution as a means of creating things), but I was wanting to learn more about the arguments for both angles.

I first thought of getting some books on the subject, but then thought that I'm sure that the internet has some valid resources. The problem with the internet is that it is hard to discern whether a source is "valid" or not, meaning that internet sources often have dubious sources, or no sources at all. The material found therein is basically subjective to that particular person's point of view. It is all too easy to put material online (case in point - this blog).

Books always felt like they had to go through a more rigorous process to get published, that the "facts" in a book had to go through more people's scrutiny before they were printed. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe everything that I read in books, as I know that there are plenty of completely false things and shady facts printed in books. by and large, though, they felt more trustworthy.

As we as a society are becoming concurrently more paperless and more skeptical, and emphatically encouraged to be both, I wonder if we will ever be able to recapture that sense of validity and concreteness in the things that we learn.

Our inherent need to learn more and understand the things around us is being corroded by a doubt that has now been cast over any piece of information that we have been given. Perhaps nowhere is this more prevalent than in political media, where two people can argue diametrically opposing points, citing "hard facts" that are immediately dismissed without regard by the other side. No evidence is needed to dismiss said facts, we can just assume that there is a bias, and that's good enough for dismissal.

The whole thing is eroding our ability to communicate, to have any common ground, and ultimately, our ability to actually learn anything concretely. When everything is an abstract, how can you build any sort of foundation?

The X-Files perhaps summed the duality of this human nature struggling against our cultural conditioning in two of it's most notable catch phrases:

"I want to believe."
"Trust no one."

Mr. Moon Swam.

I think that Kate Micucci is one of my new favorite singers.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOUEjiE6-Hk



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZXANhfSn9A

25 Random Things

From Facebook:

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

For no real reason, here is a screencap of Michael Jackon's Moonwalker for Sega Genesis.

1. I now live in what is very clearly the South. Despite this, however, I can rest assured that my kids won't have southern accents. I have a number of students in my youth group who have lived here their whole lives who have not even a touch of a southern accent. This is not a slam against southern accents (I actually love the Carolina accent), it's just weird when kids have different accents than their parents. Unless the parents have British accents. Then it's cool.

2. I really like sports, but find myself easily able to not care about them. I wouldn't say that this makes me a "fair weather fan," as I still passionately love the Pittsburgh Pirates, who are working hard to make this season the official worst team in the history of professional sports. What I mean instead is that, when life steps in, I can remove myself from sports in a way that a lot of people cannot. I am not someone who gets burnt up about someone revealing a score to them prematurely, or that sort of thing.

3. I like to challenge myself sometimes to expose myself to new stuff. Right now, I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen's collected works. Not trying to make myself a Springsteen fanatic, per say, but trying to learn how to appreciate him. I think I'm almost there.

4. I miss snow in a way that probably makes people up north annoyed right now. I really do like the weather here, though, as it is cold in the winters (30's-40's - not snowy weather, but cold enough to know that it's winter). Much better than Florida's 360 days of summer and 5 days of spring/fall.

5. I love what I am doing (Youth Minister), and love where I am (Mooresville, NC). Five years ago, I would have never thought that I would either be living here or doing this, but I wasn't ready for either of them yet. It really helps me understand how God is always working in our lives to get us ready for what's coming next.

6. I genuinely love spending time with my wife. Pretty much every situation I can think of, I would prefer to have her there. She is the most fun person I know, and is truly my best friend. Things are more fun when she's there. I know that sounds sappy, but it's true.

7. I often get mad/envious at my cats for how comfortable that they look when when they are sleeping. Stupid lazy cats.

8. We have three cats, two snakes, and one dog. We take pride in naming pets. Cats: Akira, Truman, Schroeder. Snakes: Norton & Dinah. Dog: McFly.

9. I really like things to be clean, but I'm also a pile-maker. By that, I mean that I am often making piles of things that need to be put away. Soon those pile build and suddenly I have made a mess. This takes a good effort to organize and put away. Then everything is clean. Then I start making piles. Rinse and repeat.

10. I still consider myself a Mac person, though I have not owned one as my primary (or even my secondary or tertiary) computer for 5 years. Prior to that, though, every computer that I owned was an Apple (IIgs, Performa, iMac, iBook), so I think that gives me some credit. One day I will return.

11. I am not sure how long it will take living in the south before I start saying "soda" instead of "pop." Hopefully never.

12. I'm not sure that there is a movie that I wouldn't watch at least once (and given enough encouragement, twice - yeah, I'm talking about you, Armageddon!).

13. I have now, for the time being, stopped listening to Bruce.

14. I like to collect things, but not in any official way. More like a pack rat. I collect movies, books, and drinking glasses from the 80's. Like the ones that they used to give away at McDonald's that have The Muppets on them. I collect these things as though there will be a nuclear winter someday soon, and our new currency will be movies, books, & drinking glasses from the 80's

15. Two things make me realize that I am getting older: how often I think of what the world would be like if we still were without the internet & cell phones, and my inability to understand why America suddenly decided to love Lil Wayne.

16. Much of my time in my office, I am listening to background music from Disney parks. I love it. It's perfect to work to. Especially music from EPCOT. I don't know what this says about me, but it's true. When I switched from Bruce a few notes above, I put on the EPCOT opening medley from 1982. Hmm. (I don't get it either.)

17. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I'm not sure that I can legitimately claim to be someone who reads books, especially books that aren't commentaries or something directly pertaining to my job. I wish this wasn't true.

18. The two things that have changed a lot of how I organize my schedule in the past 7 years have been getting a cell phone & getting a DVR. I can't think of another thing that has so fundamentally changed the way I viewed that particular medium.

19. Each of my "random things" are way too long.

20. When I was a kid, I subconsciously gave personality traits to letters and numbers, traits that I have realized are still embedded in my brain. For instance 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, & 8 are all guys. 4, 6, & 9 are girls. I don't know why, but they just are. A, J, K, M, Q, U,V, W, & Y are also ladies. That's just the way that my brain has always seen it, as plain as day. Also, R is really cool, and S & T hang out with R to be cool, but they are not as cool as R. I know that this sounds like I'm making this up to try and sound quirky or clever, but it's absolutely true. X is the coolest letter, and he doesn't need to prove it by being in a lot of words. He and Z just hang out at the end being the coolest. I am kind of that way with months of the year, too. (example: April & May are girls).

21. I haven't thrown up in at least 8 years. My goal is to never throw up again. I have never thrown up from my own behavior (something I did, like eating or drinking), which I think is the dumbest reason to throw up.

22. I have long planned to buzz my head if I ever start going bald, though I have realized over the past few years that I have a very oddly shaped, bumpy skull, so hopefully it won't have to come to that.

23. It is very interesting now living at an age where it makes sense to start having kids, and not yet having any. I am very aware of that sense that someday, I will look back at where I am now, and think, "I can't remember exactly what it was like to not have had kids."

24. I really like the smell of Yankee candles and Bath & Bodyworks Hand Sanitizers, both of which are often seen as rather feminine, but I don't care. They smell good.

25. I always wish there were more time.

Now that you read it, you have to do it, too.

Them's the rules.

Tag me in it so I can read it.

Here We Go

They had a version of this song back in 1995 when the Steelers went to the Superbowl and Neil O'Donnell lost it for them. Adrien and I were talking recently about how this song is the perfect song to be sung in the Pittsburgh accent.

At any rate, here we go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3uiCRr3dGE

Last Year, round this time

This be that video.

Seeing God through the eyes of The Dark Knight

I started a new thing for our youth group this month that I'm calling "God Goes to the Movies" in which we watch a movie and then have a discussion about ways in which we can see/understand God in the midst of that movie. The key to it is not to watch "Christian" movies like Fireproof or End of the Spear - movies that few people would watch outside of the church, but actually stuff that people would go see in the theaters. The goal is to see that God is present in everything that we do, not just the "church" stuff, but the regular stuff, too.

While there are definitely differences in what motivates the secular and what motivates Christians, to draw the two as two separate worlds really puts God into a box and prevents us from believing that God can speak through anything that isn't inherently Christian. I think that's a poor understanding of both the nature of who God is, and of the world we live in. This is not a universalist "God is everything" kind of view, but rather an omnipresent understanding that God is reflected in some way in everything.


Sometimes we can even see God in the absence of God. The book of Ecclesiastes is essentially that.

For our first movie, we watched The Dark Knight (well on it's way to being the most successful movie of all time). It was a great movie (on many levels), but really gets into the nature of temptation, and the brokenness of humans. As the movie unfolds, you see the face of temptation toward sin (the Joker) as being at the same time horrifying, and yet he is the most interesting and exciting character in the movie. We know he is evil, yet we are drawn to and intrigued by him.

In the end, must chose to take on the sins of Harvey Dent, to become a criminal in the minds of the citizens of Gotham in order to save them... hmm.

We approached the movie thinking that it might be a stretch to find God in The Dark Knight, but the more I watched it, the more the parallels began to clearly emerge.

God is not relegated to Sunday morning worship or church sponsored fellowship, nor is God only apparent in some of the lackluster "Christian entertainment" that is marketed by people who are trying just as hard to make money as anyone in Hollywood. As I said earlier, in one way or another, God is reflected in everything in one way or another.

When you turn out the lights to a room, that doesn't mean that the things in that room disappear, it's just that the light isn't bouncing off of them, giving them a visible appearance. They are still physically there. God can be seen in sort of the same way.

Just because we are living with the lights off most of the time doesn't mean that we are in an empty room.

9

Adrien sent this to me, and her brother had sent it to her.

Good for 10 minutes of wonder.

A full length movie based on this will be coming out 9/9/09.

(click the "HQ" at the bottom of the viewer to see it in a higher quality)

9 Nine Shane Acker Short Animation
Uploaded by FrFKmeron

This kinda feels like it is to Wall-E what 2001: A Space Odyssey was to Star Wars.

When you are done watching the above video, watch the trailer for the movie here (but not until you have watched the video above! You don't want to spoil the surprise).

Merry Christmas...now what? (Sermon from 12-28-08)

There are a lot of weird things going on in Christmas carols. Some of them are just confusing: How does one go “a wassailing”? What is “figgy pudding” and why do we want it?
Many carols use words that we don’t even really understand anymore: How many times does the phrase, “haste, haste to bring him laud” come up in normal conversation nowadays?

Some of them are even rather creepy. The fourth verse of We Three Kings, the hymn we are closing with today is one of the creepiest, so much so that we usually just skip it an pretend it’s not there.

Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume breathes a live of gathering gloom; sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb...

Merry Christmas!

That sounds like something out of a Vincent Price movie.

The line is referring to the fact that Myrrh was used as an embalming ointment in the preparation of bodies for burial, a gift for Jesus that prefigured his own death, but it's still weird to sing about it.

A lot of carols reflect masculine language that we are told to shy away from now. "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is therefore lost from our hymn book, as "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlepeople" doesn’t have the same ring. It’s also one of the few Christmas carols to mention Satan by name: “remember Christ our savior was born on Christmas day, to save us all from Satan’s power, when we were gone astray.”

One of the silliest carols to me is The 12 Days of Christmas.

We’re so far removed from this one that it makes no sense to us in our culture anymore. Christians used to celebrate Christmas from December 25th until the Epiphany, on January 6th (which makes 12 days), hence the title.

Even so, this is a song that’s purely about one thing: getting presents. It represents a lot of what Christmas has come to mean to our culture now, which might be one of the reasons that we like it so much.

It’s also a fun one to sing.

We love to sing this song. People go crazy for this song. The funny thing though is that most people only actually know one or two of the days. Everyone knows the first day – a partridge in a pear tree, and then we get a bit scattered over the next few days. Until the fifth day… EVERYONE knows the fifth day.

There is a British comedian named Eddie Izzard who talks of how astonished he was watching Americans sing this song, and how people seemed to run into the room from all parts of the house just to shout “FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!”

It’s as though we sing that song just so that we can sing that line. Who knows what the gifts are on the other days? What is day 9? Maids a milking? Jumpers Jumping? Plumbers plumbing? We don’t care so long as we get to sing five golden rings again.

Whenever they broke the group up into specific days, it was always a drag if you got stuck with one of the higher days, like day 12. You only get to sing once or twice, and half the time you aren’t even sure what it is that you are singing – what is it, bikers biking? But it always seemed like everyone, regardless of their group would jump back in for “five gold rings” – we love it.

Despite all that, by now, Christmas for us is more or less over.

We live in a culture that has “the one day of Christmas.”

We’ve had a glorious time of advent, getting ourselves prepared, we had a beautiful Christmas Eve service, and now it’s all done. Most of us have already started mapping out 2009. We’re ready to move on.

In a lot of ways, we move on in the church, too. We celebrate Jesus’ birth, and then we are happy to jump right from Jesus as a baby to 30 years later when Jesus begins his ministry. We don’t focus much on those 30 years. We don’t think about them much.

Sometimes, it seems as if we think of Jesus having gone from baby to man in about two weeks. It’s understandable that we overlook the bulk of Jesus’ early life as that is exactly what the Bible does. Luke is the only Gospel with any information about Jesus life in between infancy and adulthood, with a small episode of a 12 year old Jesus going to the temple to question the local teachers of the law.

So why is this left out? Is it not important? And if Jesus life isn’t important until he begins his ministry, why did he even come as a baby? Why didn’t he just show up as a full grown adult, ready to be baptized by John the Baptist? The answer is both simple and complex: while Jesus main purpose in coming to earth was to die for us, he also came to live for us.

Paul gets at this in Philippians 2:5-13

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Paul is telling us here the core of his understanding of Jesus Christ.

He describes Jesus as God having clothed himself in human form, lowering himself to connect to us, and to save us.

To Paul, the act of the incarnation, of God actually becoming human flesh, is the key to it all.

Jesus understands us because he became one of us.

He didn’t take any short cuts. He doesn’t spend just a day as a human, or even a year.

Jesus lived a full human life, understanding the hardships, the frustrations and temptations that we all experience, as well as the joys.

In becoming Immanuel (God with us), Christ is not simply a God who saves us, or a God who loves us, but a God who is among us, who becomes one of us, that there would be no boundaries.
To do that, though, Jesus had to humble himself, as Paul puts it, to become obedient to a human life, a life that had been bound by death.

Jesus came here to destroy that power that death held, to save us.

Or to put it more bluntly, Jesus came to earth to save you.

Not simply "you" meaning the whole human race, or "you" meaning all the Christians, but you as an individual.

St. Augustine put it this way, “God loves each of us as though there were only one of us.”

Or to put it in even simpler terms, Jesus would have come to earth and died for your sins even if you were the only person on earth.

Think about that.

God became human, lived a full life to connect with you specifically, and then died to save you.

Christmas marks that beginning of that.

So now what? What are we going to do about it?

The Philippians passage and this passage in Isaiah give us some ideas:

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

Humble yourself.

Be one with Christ in having the humility to empty yourself of your own selfishness and stubbornness, and to be open and willing before God. As creepy We Three Kings reminds us, on our own, we are all destined for a “stone cold tomb.”

God’s plan is better than that, and he promises us salvation, a future that doesn’t end in a creepy tomb, but in heaven. Our response to that salvation should be humble service, just as Christ show us.

Work out your salvation according to God’s good purpose.

A better translation of this would be make your salvation mean something according to God’s purpose.

This isn’t about us earning salvation, as we see over and over that we can’t do that on our own.

We need Christ’s saving acts.

Our work is merely a response to salvation, not a means of our salvation.

But as a sign of our humility, we should respond to God’s offer of salvation with a willingness to serve, just as Christ showed us. Remember that we are a saved people, that God came here to save us, and that everything we do is a response to that.

As "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" tells us, we are to remember at Christmas that our Savior came to us, to save us from power that we cannot resist on our own. In Christ, we are changed, to the degree that we have nothing to dismay, nothing to fear.

Both Isaiah and Philippians give us an imagery of this change, of putting on a new garment, of being given a new name by the Lord, of God working in us to make us something that we cannot be on our own, just as a seed sprouts up from the ground.

Do not be silent.

The passage in Isaiah gives us this direct command. More than anything, this is both Isaiah and Paul are urging. You are a saved people. Christ came to save YOU. Don’t just sit there in the midst of that gift and remain unchanged.

If we are to be moved by this salvation, the best way to show it is to NOT BE SILENT, that we should confess that Jesus is Lord.

Are we doing this in our lives?

Do our lives show someone who is proclaiming Christ as Lord, not just in our words, but in our actions - in everything that we do?

Think of how crazy people get to sing the line “five golden rings.”

Are we that excited about our faith, that we are willing to run into rooms and proclaim it, or are we living like the people who got stuck with day eleven or day seven, not really sure what we are singing, and with no enthusiasm or passion?

Are you silent?

If you are proclaiming Christ in your life, are shouting, or are you just mumbling.

Hear this:

Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger… Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Jesus Christ was born for you.

Jesus Christ lived for you.

Jesus Christ died for you, and through his resurrection, destroyed the power of death.

What are you doing with that knowledge?

How are you letting that change you?

How does Christmas help you grow?

Are you willing to humble yourself, to let God work through you, and to serve as a reflection of God’s love and grace in your daily life?

Are you being silent?

Has Christmas changed you?

What are you going to do about it?

Merry Christmas…

...now what?

What we did during Christmas vacation.

Here is a video that we made that my sister Addie edited together.

On one of the shots, I ran into a tree and really hurt my arm. Heehee.

There you are!

I feel as though I lost this blog behind the couch about three weeks ago, and went to move the couch when the remote fell back there, and found my blog, covered in dust and cat hair, waiting to be put back into use.

Hello, old friend.

Today, I realized that on my drive into work (a rollicking two mile journey), there was a surprising amount of glass broken along the road. I was rather surprised, lamenting the new spike in hoodlumism (or would it be "hoodling"?) in the ville of Moore. "The nihilism of our culture has finally taken grasp of our town," I rued as I drove serpentine all across the road, wanting to not damage my car's tires, which are less than a year old.

It wasn't until I went back later in the morning to meet the man who was reappraising our house that I realized that Mooresville had not been attacked by disaffected youth bent on random and apathetic destruction, but rather that winter had come. What I have been so wildly maneuvering around was not glass, but rather ice.

I have been living in North Carolina now for six months, and have yet to grasp the degree to which we have seasons. I guess I had just assumed that since Saturday the temperature outside was flirting with a balmy 70 degrees, it would be ludicrous to think that three days later we would be in a clime that was accommodating to frozen things.

The dumbest part of all of this is that I knew it was cold enough to put on a coat and use my defroster in my car this morning.

I'm confused.

What Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown

If Linus was Irish, and had a bit more time, this is what he would have likely said:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKKPVJ4FYDM

It's that time of year again.

So today marks the official start of the Christmas season, or more to my point today - the Christmas movie season.

Adrien and I are very seasonal with our movie watching, so today is the day when it becomes officially acceptable to begin watching Christmas stuff. In order to qualify, it must at least be set during Christmas. So, for example, under this criterion, Lethal Weapon is a Christmas movie. Yesterday we watched Ghostbusters II, which is more of a New Year's setting, but we hadn't officially started anyway.

In light of all this Christmas television theming, I again am challenging myself to the "25 Days of Scrooged" gauntlet that I attempted last year. For those who aren't in the know, Scrooged is a 1989 classic starring Bill Murray, retelling the story of a Christmas carol (as to about 89% of all Christmas movies). It is one of those movies that, to me, gets a little better each time I see it, which makes it perfect for this type of challenge.

The qualification for the marathon is that the movie must be on at some point in the day - like I can fall asleep to it, or do the dishes with it on - a reasonable amount of movie, like 30 minutes or so. Most days will likely be the movie in it's entirety, but for it to be official, I'm posting a 30 minute minimum.

This started two years ago when we realized that we had, without planning it, watched Scrooged every day for a week. We had it in the VCR in our kitchen on a TV that didn't have cable, so every time we were working in the kitchen, we simply flipped on Scrooged. It was glorious.

Apparently, the moral of the story is that Adrien and I watch a lot of TV, and Christmas feeds that...

I'll keep you aware of our "playlist" if you want to play along.

Today will obviously be at least Scrooged...



p.s. if you haven't watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog yet, do it now. You really should.

A Fanksgiving Treat for You!

Greetings to you on this Fanksgiving day.

As most of us probably have today and tomorrow off, I present you with this:

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.

It's hard to explain, but you want to watch it. Trust me. It will take about 45 minutes, but it is 45 minutes well spent, and you are on vacation anyway.

It is a wee bit PG-13 in some points, just so you know.

enjoy.

Fanksgiving.

As I have already declared on my Facebook page, I am trying to only call it Fanksgiving this year. That has drawn the occasional odd look here an there, but most of the time people then simply shrug it off as though they simply misheard me.

A & I are going to Wallace, NC to visit my sister Tobyn & brother-in-law Ben. Tobyn is a great cook and cooks a lot, so I'm excited to eat a lot of food (though I'm realizing that I need to soon stop eating so much food, or at the very least stop being so excited about it).

I have also given myself until December 31st to read The Brothers Karamazov. There is no specific reason to have that book done by that date, I have just realized that I barely read books to simply read book anymore, and I have far too many books if I'm not going to read them. This particular book is a daunting feat, but one that should test my resolve to become a "reader" (700+ pages in just over a month). Hopefully I see it through.

Beyonce walks it out.

On Saturday Night Live last week, they showed a sketch with Beyonce making a video for her new song, "Single Ladies." The sketch featured male back up dancers dancing like ladies. It was silly and hilarious, and against my own wishes, I now love this song.

I realized that many of the moves in the sketch were similar to a video that was on YouTube a while back. The video is of a dancer named Gwen Verdon dancing on The Lawrence Welk Show. Beyonce uses the same moves in the actual video for her song.

Check it out. (if you watch the first 30-45 seconds of each video, you will get the point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REHbgBPkvEE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfACM-xB904


I think that's funny.

Nothing False About Hope.

This one is a bit long, but here is the sermon that I preached this past Sunday. If it sounds a bit more preachy than usual, that is why.

read and discuss.

Isaiah 40:26-31

26 Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.

27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God"?

28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Romans 8:18-28

18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. 28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Over the past year, we have been held captive. Politics have taken control of us on a level that many of us have never experienced before. Not only were there 24 hour news channels for news junkies, but there also ads on regular television, robo-calls, and placards and signs all over the place. You couldn’t get away from it even if you wanted to. Politics took over and seemed as if it was never going to let go. It even changed the way that we think about certain words: RED; BLUE; LIPSTICK; PLUMBER; CHANGE; HOPE. If you are like me, you are probably tired of hearing most of these words by this point. One of these words, though, is a word that we hear a lot in the church, a word that we shouldn’t grow tired of – HOPE.

Way back in January, at the beginning of the primary season, when there were still dozens of potential candidates for president, one of them said an interesting thing that caught my ear: "We have been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope...but in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope." Now again, in the months since then, the word “hope” has become a buzz word tossed about in all directions, so much that it seemed to lose nearly all its meaning, but that last bit of the quote still sticks with me: there is nothing false about hope.

What is hope? What are we saying when we “hope” for something? Often times, we use it as we would the word “want” or “wish”: I hope that is doesn’t rain today. I hope that we have steak for dinner tonight. I hope that I don’t get a ticket for driving too fast.

That isn’t hope; that is desire – this is how I would like things to be. Hope is something grander than that. Hope is more like “trust,” but even greater than that, it is complete and utter trust, to fully put yourself into something. The passage in Isaiah points to this. For Isaiah, hope is not an uncertain word, it is a firm word, a word that gives us both confidence and comfort. In a more basic sense, hope is the horse you hitch your cart to.

The Apostle Paul sees hope in this same way. In Romans, Paul is writing a letter of great comfort and joy. He has so much hope that he cannot stop saying it. In the book of Romans alone, he mentions the word “hope” over a dozen times.

Paul is excited for the future, not lamenting in the “present sufferings” that he mentions in verse 18. He does not fear the present because he trusts in something better. His hope is not in his own ability to save himself, but in God’s ability to make everything work out in the end. To understand what Paul means, it helps us to look at another one of his letters, 1st Corinthians, when he is talking about our present state or understanding. He says, “when I was a child, I thought like a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I became a man, I put childish ways behind me,” and “now we see dimly, as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face.” What Paul is saying here is that we don’t get it yet. We can’t see the whole picture, we can’t yet see the great things that God has for us in his salvation, and that all things are working toward that end – for good.

It’s almost as if we went to a movie with Paul, and half way through the movie, we start leaning over to him and saying, “this movie is confusing, and to hard to understand.” Paul is saying, wait until you see the ending, it will all make sense, and it will be worth it. Trusting in that, that things will make sense, that the ending will be worth it, requires hope in God’s plan, and trust that God is in control and knows what he’s doing.

Having hope means something more than just believing, though. The word hope is forever connected to the word faith. We often tend to use the two words as synonyms, though – to have hope in God, the kind of hope that we have been talking about, is the same as having faith in God, right? Not quite. In youth group over the last few months, we have been talking about what faith means. In the language that Paul was writing in, the word faith wasn’t a noun, it wasn’t something that you could have or achieve, it wasn’t a goal to attain. It was a verb, it’s something that you do. You don’t “have faith,” or “get faith,” you do it. In a sense, you “faith” something.

Confusing isn’t it? Here is a story that we told in youth group that I think makes it a bit easier to grasp:

There was a world famous tight rope walker who claims that he is going to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. No one can believe that he will actually be able to do it, so the go out to watch, partly expecting to see a tragedy. After all, it's so misty up there that the tightrope is bound to get precariously slippery.

Much to everyone's surprise, he is able to go back and forth with ease. Everyone is amazed and claims that sure the man was lucky. He then says that he will go back and forth along the tightrope pushing an empty wheelbarrow. The crown urges him not to do it, shouting that it is too hard, and that he shouldn't press his luck, that the wheelbarrow will throw off his balance. The man ignores their calls, and calmly and confidently pushes the wheelbarrow across the tightrope, and then back.

Again, the crowd is amazed. Then the man says that he can cross the tightrope again with the wheelbarrow, but this time with 150 pounds worth of stones in the wheelbarrow. Again, everyone warns him not to attempt it again, saying that surely his luck will run out. Again, he rebuffs their comments, and calmly and confidently strides across with the full wheelbarrow, and safely back.

Now the people are truly amazed. The man empties out the wheelbarrow and says that he can do the same feat with a person in the wheelbarrow instead of rocks. This time, the crowd finally agrees with him. They have seen him go back and forth numerous times, and figure that he knows what he is doing, and that there would be little difference between a 150 pound person and 150 pounds worth of rocks. Everyone is certain that he can do it.

"Okay," said the man, "I need a volunteer."

Hope is believing that the man can get across the tightrope safely with the person in the wheelbarrow. Faith is actually getting in the wheelbarrow.

In that sense, hope is what you firmly believe, faith is what you do because of it. You need to have hope in order to have faith. The two go hand in hand. All too often, though, it becomes easy to put our hope in the wrong thing, which makes it harder to actually live our faith.

What is it that we are hoping for? A nice house? More time off? Less work? More stuff? Paul tells us that this is not what the limit of what our hope should be. If we all that we care about is simply the here and now, to stop our present sufferings and replace them with simple comforts, Paul says that we are missing the point.

We should hope for something much bigger than that. God has promised us something MUCH bigger than that.

If we simply put our hope in our own human abilities to make everything turn up alright, we will fail. We cannot do it on our own. As the hymn says, “our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” We need to put our hope in Christ, who worked out our salvation on the cross. Not in political leaders, denominational leaders, or even ourselves. Our human nature means that we are bond to screw up somewhere along the way, that we won’t be able to make it on our own. The good news that Paul is telling us, though, is that God works IN SPITE OF all our failings. Even in the midst of tragedy and suffering, in the midst of all the brokenness of this world, God is working all these things to an eventual good.

As we look out at the world, we can see a lot of uncertainty. The economic break down; energy crisis; health care costs; war and terrorism; cultural and moral disputes. In the midst of all this, who do we put our hope in to make it all turn out well in the end? In leaders? In denominations? In our own hard work? Or in God? Again, our hope should be built on nothing less.

But what if in the face of all that hardship, we still struggle to completely have hope? What if we can’t get in the wheelbarrow, because we aren’t sure if we will make it? Paul again gives us comfort, that in our weakness, when we struggle to find hope, we should pray. Prayer is a sign of our humility. It’s our way of saying that we can’t do this on our own. Prayer in and of itself is a sign of our hope in God, of our willingness to ask for God to help us in ways that we cannot help ourselves. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit will help us in our weakness, even to the point of helping us to pray when we don’t know how.

The greatest thing about hope is that it points us to God. It helps us to look beyond ourselves and our failings, and the failings of those around us, and to see God’s providence working through everything. As Isaiah said:

Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

If we truly are to believe in the power of God, we have to have hope that God is in control and working for good in all things. As Paul says, in this hope we are saved.

Someone told me once that, “part of being a Christian, of trusting in God, means believing that everything will turn out well in the end. If things aren’t well yet, than it’s not the end.” That is a statement of hope. Not of false hope or mere words to comfort us in our troubles, but of a true hope that points to God’s promised intention of good. Our hope leads us to this conclusion, to turn everything over to God and trust in his promise for us. Our hope makes us recognize that we can’t fix things on our own. Our hope makes us realize that if we are going to get across that tightrope, we are going to need help. More than that, though, our hope give us faith to act on it. We can’t get into the wheelbarrow if we aren’t confident we will make it safely to the other side. Why would we get in the wheelbarrow if we don’t have faith that we are going to be safe? Why would we surrender our lives to Christ if we didn’t have a true hope that Christ is the way to salvation? How can we have faith if we don’t first have hope?

Hope is a humbling thing. It puts us in the hands of something greater than ourselves. It points us to God. When we see hope this way, the way that Paul sees it, hope is not a gamble – it is a comfort, a gift from the Holy Spirit. And in that sense, there is nothing false about hope.

Maybe it's the mountain air.

I'm in Estes Park, Colorado, which is in the midst of the Rockies.

It is beautiful.

I am here for the Company of New Pastors Gathering - a group made up of new pastors in the Presbyterian Church who are meeting together a few times a year to support each other and stay spiritually enriched. It's funded by a grant to the church, so it ends up costing me nothing. That and it's a good help in the ministry.

The week thus far has consisted of a lot of introspection and thoughts about "providence," the notion that God is in control of everything.

It's good to have that reminder every once in a while.

It's easy to sense that in the midst of these mountains.