"On Swearing" by Ben Rogers

Originally I did not intend to give this article a second thought but as time has passed sense I last read it I have found myself wanting to share about it in conversations. Being that it is difficult to sum up this article in conversations I will gratify myself by sharing it here,just click the tile. (I am not sure if clicking the title works from facebook. If that is the case then you'll simply have to visit my blog to follow the link.) It is yet another great reminder of “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

I'd like to add that I found this article to be profound in some ways but offensive in others. You might agree with me when I say that those things often go hand in hand . . . but still I woul like to say, read with caution.

To Make People Happy

It is an amazing thing to make someone happy. I guess I realized that again today as I drank coffee at the coffee shop I used to work at. I have been brewing my own coffee in our little household coffee maker in order to get my fix for the past few weeks. I have done so being that I no longer work at the coffee place and can’t have the stellar coffee that they serve there for free any longer. The coffee I made in that little pot is nothing shy of fantastic, don’t get me wrong at all, I love drip coffee from Mr. Coffee but I have to say that today I tasted something quite unlike my Mr. Coffee made drip coffee. I walked into the building I used to work in feeling ashamed for not stopping by ever sense I quit even though I said I would. I said I would be in often just to assuage the guilt I had for quitting. The truth is I am a people pleaser. The very idea of my coffee-making-co-workers being disappointed with me for leaving made me quite somber. So I said to them I would visit as if my company would make everyone feel better about the whole thing. Obviously, I was not shunned for failing to keep my word. I was greeted with open arms and free coffee, which acted only as a fan to the flame of guilt that I carry, but nonetheless, I could not refuse the free beverage. I put the tiny ceramic cup to my lips, which held the precious macchiato in its bowl and was greeted with some of the most amazing espresso I have yet tasted. I was happy.

I recalled the times of my own employment at that very coffee shop, handing a patron one of the same tiny ceramic cups filled with life giving espresso. Or maybe it was not life giving and maybe I am taking this a bit too far but the point is I made the individuals who frequented that coffee place happy. They would tell me so. Not incessantly by any means but enough so that I new the coffee I made was indeed some of the best coffee they had yet consumed. I credit this to the coffee roaster, God bless him but the fact remains that I was a part of the experience. I could have destroyed that espresso shot but I did not serve bad coffee, at least not often or with my knowledge.

But that was some time ago. It was probably around the time I stopped posting here in “Grace-to-upend.” I have found that not having the routine, that a schedule of college classes provides, I have not been disciplined in my posting. I am disappointed by the lack of posts but surprisingly not because of my desires “to make people happy” (I really don’t want to give my own writing that much credit). My posting in a blog serves as a means for me to write for myself. If others benefit from this blog then I am flattered.

Here’s to future posts.

If we can't be holy, shouldn't we be weird?

It’s not often that I talk about faith with someone who doesn’t share the same belief system I do. I guess I just feel like people don’t want to hear about it. But just the other night I did have a conversation about faith with a man a hardly know. He shared with me his perceptions about Christianity. He shared about a lack of love and the great amount of condemnation and how it’s time that Christians realized that they are on the way out of a position of power and are essentially a dying religion. It was as he shared that I realized the truth that Sheldon Vanauken stated when he wrote that the strongest argument for Christianity is Christians, when they are drawing life from God. The strongest argument against Christianity? Also Christians, when they become exclusive, self-righteous, and complacent.

I have known all my life that Christians are to “come out and be separate” from those who don’t share our beliefs. I understood that our spiritual commitment should make us different somehow. But I have noticed that if we are not marked by greater and greater amounts of love and joy, we will inevitably look for substitute ways of distinguishing ourselves from those who are not Christians. Essentially, if we can’t be holy then let's be different by finding external methods to satisfy our need to feel that we’re different from those outside the faith. If we cannot be transformed, we will settle for being informed or conformed. (John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted)

Jesus didn’t function like this. I wonder what my ever perceptive friend would have noticed had he had love demonstrated to him. Instead on focusing on boundaries Christ focused on the heart and identified Children of God by asking “Do they love God, and do they love the people who mean so much to him?” What if that is what my friend encountered? It is pretty obvious that he wouldn’t have such a crappy perception of Christianity. I think that would be nice.

I only point this out because I realize my own guilt. I tend to work harder at making people think I am a loving person than I do actually being a loving person. I do and I realize that I have contributed to a crappy perception of Christianity. I intend on working to change that by drawing life from God.

guffaw

It's possible that things of this nature are more entertaining to me than they are too others. Enough so that I almost didn't post this but I have posted it for your viewing enjoyment. Just click the "guffaw".

Adventures in Instant Gratification

I recently moved to Kansas City. After an amazing beautiful summer I was privileged enough to make the sojourn to the mid-west with my wife. In our vows we promised to go on adventures with one another and to take each other on adventures. Moving here is an adventure. Here we’re poor and unemployed. It is a beautiful reminder to me that there are people in this world who do not have the ability to be instantly gratified. Let me elaborate.

We moved into a great old Kansas City house. Washington doesn’t have many houses like this and they are missing out. It’s a fabulous old place except my wife and I were not very keen to the color of our walls. Not a big issue though. We can buy paint, we can visit Home Depot, pick out our favorite colors, buy that paint, paint those walls, and done. Not we have beautifully colored walls that match our comforter and curtains. I am gratified.

Now for phase two of the instantly gratifying story. We moved into a great old Kansas City house but oh wait, the bed we were told was a queen is in fact a full. Again I am not gratified so after the room is painted my wife and I head out to every mattress outlet in Kansas City, we visit Goodwill, we check the classifieds. I must say we found some incredible deals but once you get that frame, box spring, mattress, combo going there you might find that you don’t need an incredible deal but that you need an impossible deal. That’s how phase two of this story ended anyway.

I lay on my full sized bed next to my wife closer than before as space permitted as our postropedic mattress cover hung over the edges wondering if the bed was in fact a double or if a double and a full are not actually the same thing . . . I realized that I could not be instantly gratified. A fantastic revelation really. I have said in the past that I am not a material person. I have boasted about in but in reality in the past when a “have or have-not” situation arose you could count me on the “have” side. I realized on that full (possibly double) sized bed that I don’t want to “have,” I want to make myself contented with what I already have instead of purchasing objects to alleviate my neediness. I’ll be ok living without a microwave and I think I can take the bus to work everyday. It’s an adventure for me really.

Quote

"Seven hundred thousand out of a total Lebanese population of 3.5 million, 20 percent of the population, mostly Shiites, are now being cared for and given refuge by mostly Christian schools, churches, and other humanitarian organizations. This is the story of the Good Samaritan at a mega scale! And to think that this is the outcome of a strategy that meant to rouse anti-Hezbollah feelings among the Lebanese population and government. Talk about a failed strategy! Of course, this has happened so many times before that any thoughtful tactician would have learned the lesson by now, but military muscle is always too hedonistic and narcissistic to listen to the voice of reason and history."

- Dr. Martin Accad, academic dean of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary of Lebanon.

Donald Miller and Western Faith

In Donald Miller’s book Through Painted Deserts he writes about the “how” questions vs. the “why” questions. He refers to “how” questions as being less important than the “why” questions. To my friend Don “how” questions sound a bit like this; “How do I get money, how do I get laid, how do I become happy, how do I have fun?” But “why” questions seem to be much bigger. They are the questions that underlie existence, nagging at us as we stare back at the cosmos and wonder “why?”

I have been taking a religion class that I finished today actually. In the class we reviewed the “big boy” religions of the east and west, starting with western ones and moving on the eastern ones. I have written a few posts that I will just never publish about that class due to my stupid frustration with western religion and especially Christianity. When I was writing these posts my words got caught somewhere between my brain and my fingertips (clogging some major arteries) so I gave it up hoping that the unexpressed would never need an outlet. Then I read some of Mr. Miller’s words and it helped me understand a bit. Don says that “[Christianity] did seem to stem from something beautiful, for sure, but it had been dumbed down and Westernized. If it was a religious system that explained the human story, its adherents had lost the grandness of its explanation in exchange for its validation of their how lifestyles, to such a degree that the “why” questions seemed to be drowning in the drool of Pavlov’s dogs.”

As the course moved from western religions to eastern religions my frustration subsided, I stopped referring to my professor as a Nazi, and the blood began to course through my veins again. I studied the east and began to have strange thoughts about Christianity. Thoughts like, “I bet if Christianity had been an eastern religion then Christians would actually be able answer some ‘why’ questions and not be such a joke to scholars.” Religion and daily life in the east are joined together in inseparable beauty, a thing of beauty that another hero of mine, David Crowder, applied to Christianity in his book Praise Habit. Christians have their church life, their church friends, their church clothes, all of which they use to successfully to mask themselves. Westerners have a kind of commercial, American version of spirituality. Again, Donald Miller to the rescue with a great example; “’What is beauty?’ I would ask. ‘Here are the five keys to a successful marriage,’ I would be given as an answer.”

In my religions class I saw Christianity through the eyes of the world and it terrified me. I have found out that the world has no idea what Christianity is because it got buried in western commercialism. Western Christianity focuses on the “how’ questions threatening to swallow us all in a bottomless greedy pit. “I needed God to be larger than our free-market economy,” confesses Miller, “larger than our two-for-one coupons, larger than our religious ideas.”

Legalism Also or Grace Is For Freeloaders

When legalism is the motivation a person can get pretty self centered, being very concerned with what they are doing that is wrong or right and not so concerned with loving people. A different friend of mine (different from the last post) was telling me the other day about how he had been helping a lady clean up her yard, but all the while he had a bad attitude about it. But even still, he couldn’t say that Christ’s love wasn’t shared then. He told me that would just be giving himself to much credit. I’m like that. I can concern myself with questions of right and wrong all day long and get nothing accomplished. I am sick of "right and wrong" and I am sick of being concerned with myself. I want to look past myself.

Legalism: harness the savage beast and go skinny dipping

I grew up with a legalist. That kind of implies that I was not buried in the confines of Christian legalism but you know, I was in it deep too. We were both in it deep so that escaping from it was just pure bliss. Older friends of ours who we looked up to in our young Christian faith started swearing, a Christian no-no, as a joke. Our rationale became; they swear so it’s ok just as long as non-Christians don’t hear us. So my legalistic friend and I would walk home from school cussing each other out with strings of swear words that didn’t make any sense together just to have a good laugh. My legalistic friend would laugh so hard at me that he wouldn’t even be able to stand up. I would try and keep a straight face while spitting out the nonsense swear words and he would pretty much fall over and pee his pants. I always admired him for that. I admired that he laughed harder than me. I got to the point where I may have been fake laughing a bit just to keep the game going because, hey, it feels good to make someone laugh so hard that they just pee everywhere. I’m pretty sure nothing else is better for one’s confidence levels.

My friend and I grew up some. We stopped swearing (I think it was because we got really convicted of it and not because it got old) and we started to drive cars around the age of 16. My friend had a beautiful heart and he still does. One of the reasons it was so beautiful then because of his stupid legalism and how it reared its ugly head when he drove. I say it was beautiful not because I appreciated it then, cause I hated it then. If the speed limit was 20 mph, he went just a hair under, so not to break the law. I mean he was 16 years old. He was supposed to be getting speeding tickets until they revoked his license. Now, I appreciate my friend and his legalism because he was doing what he thought was right no matter what. He was intensely doing something he believed in no matter what people thought about him and I think there is a beauty in that.

My favorite example of this was when four of us guys went out to the lake one night. It must have been about two o’clock AM and we are all jumping off the dock, naked, into duck poop pond, except my buddy. I remember being up on that dock, looking over at him and seeing his tears. Crying usually stops such fun being that crying means that someone probably stepped on a broken beer bottle or something else tragic had happened. My legalistic friend explained to us, the best he could through his sobs, that he was pretty much hating himself at that moment because we were all having such a good time and he was afraid he legalism was going to ruin it for us. See, the park we were in was closed after sunset, so we really weren’t allowed to be there and legalism was just destroying my buddy because he was there and yup, it was after sunset. We didn’t have to leave then but we did because it was obviously killing my buddy inside and since we wanted to be with my buddy we all left.

I don’t think I will ever forget that. It seems a pretty silly thing to remember; a guy crying, naked, on a dock, in the middle of the night looks pretty funny in hindsight. He tried to go against his legalistic nature and it just destroyed him. The guy couldn’t have fun the rest of the night.

That guy and I are still great friends but he isn’t legalist anymore and I am grateful for his sake. He is getting to taste freedom and grace and it is beautiful. He is an even more amazing guy because of it. Simply everybody wants to be friends with this guy. But something in me misses his legalism. I am the most tolerant I have ever been in my life right now. I am working for freedom from things that confine me and confine the work that I believe Christ is trying to do in me, and somehow I look back at my legalistic friend and I see a savage desire to do what is right that is attractive to me. I have lost that desire in my pursuit of grace. Sure, I want to do good still and to be good, I want it really quite badly, but “I want to really bad” just isn’t driving me like legalism drove my friend. My own past legalism and even the present legalism isn’t impressive to me and I am sure that my friends past legalism isn’t attractive to himself but I am just attracted to the degree of his desire. If I could just have that desire but somehow not be legalistic then I wouldn’t have to be sickened by my own selfishness so often.

The interesting thing is that my not-legalistic-anymore friend does even better at “doing good” now that he is not legalistic. In his freedom, he is awesome at loving people and it is because of a new “savage desire.” From somewhere, he got this crazy desire to love. It comes to him naturally. This new desire that my friend has harnessed quite unwittingly daunts me. It challenges me to love people like he does but I am afraid to try, I am afraid to fail, I am afraid of what people might think. I am stuck not wanting to challenge myself, always defending myself with the argument that if I challenge myself I’ll just fall back into that legalism.

The next season of my life will tell me a lot more about how I can reconcile all of this. This is just one of the reasons, reasons that keep popping up, for me to go and figure this stuff out. I am planning a move to Kansas City and when people ask why I give different answers depending on who is asking. Sometimes I say travel, sometimes I say to visit friends, to try something new. I think people label it as “He’s going to go and find himself.” Maybe that is true but more than anything I think I just want to go and learn and be a freak’n huge sponge to what’s out there. Hopefully, I learn a habit that I’ll never stop. Hopefully I learn to love people better. Hopefully I am on the right track.

-oholic

I used to get all offended about people smoking, especially as a kid. I was mean just like all kids (kids really say some of the most hurtful things, it’s true) and I would start to cough fairly obnoxiously when I smoker passed me by. I grew out of that. What developed though was a distain for people who smoked, and yes I was defiantly better than all smokers. My logic was undeniable. Smokers have this terribly weakness; they’re addicted, and the way I saw it I was not and therefore, I was better. It really makes sense if you look at it in that Aryan/white supremacy way.

Well, I got over that probably around the same time I found out that C.S. Lewis was a smoker. Who knew right? Or maybe it was around the time I started smoking cigars. I did that on and off for a few years until one made me puke like eleven times. What can I say; it was a memorable experience for all who were involved (the involved parties remind me of it incessantly).

Currently, I have a new reason not to look down upon someone for an addiction they may have. I don’t know too much about addictions or how they happen all I know is I have joined the ranks. I am not an addictive person, and by that I mean I don’t get addicted to things really, but the alternate meaning is probably true as well. But it appears I have become addicted to coffee. It caught me off guard really. I didn’t even think I drank all that much but man, if I don’t get a cup of joe in the morning I get a screaming headache and I get shaky. It's bad.

I don’t write this to say that I am above any other addiction, because I am told being addicted to coffee is kind of a minor thing. I write this to point out a lesson I am learning about myself: I am not above anything. I am finding I could probably be led to do just about anything. Present me with the right propaganda at the right time, or paint me that deceptive picture in my head and tell me it’s the truth and I’ll bite. I’m addicted to coffee and by becoming addicted I have realized I can become addicted to anything. God is teaching me that I am no better than the next guy.

Just hold my hand

When you wake up in the morning feeling vexed you can bet something is up. I’m struggling to recall the word that a friend so aptly called it . . . conflicted, that’s the word and that’s what I felt last night and this morning.

Media has that intriguing ability to take your emotions and run with them wherever. It doesn’t even have to make sense logically but media or, more specifically, a movie or television show can just run you through the gauntlet of emotionally messed up plots. The plot, the characters can be experiencing completely misguided, incomprehensible feelings or emotions and yet, we are right there with them, feeling the exact same way, buying into the whole thing. Somewhere in the depths of me I feel the discomfort as my better judgment screams “How can he be feeling any sense of loss right now!” And when it is all said and done I think, “That was a weird movie.”

I felt that way after I watched “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest” yesterday. In a way I felt cheap and easy for enjoying it, but, then again, I was entertained. Therein lies the reason for my confliction. I missed the characters from the last film in this film, not that I am a huge fan of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, and I am not really trying to write a review here, but if I were I would say that the plot was overloaded with a complicated plot that didn’t justify itself and that the characters could never justify their actions or feelings either. I lost all sense of the good in it. Good referring to the hero, or the romance, or just plain truth, anything virtuous at all. Thus, I was left trying to put the pieces together after, because I wanted to like this movie but in doing so I would feel used I guess.

The sad thing to me was as I walked to work this morning, trying still to put feelings into words (an important thing to me, I’m finding), I was picturing friends of mine liking it, not even recognizing that there is an absence of good, or I could imagine friends calling what exists in the movie “good.” It is a complicated feeling that I can’t currently articulate but it sure made me feel the weight of the distance between me and the next closest person. We are all so close to each other, believing that there is good out there. We wanted to look at each other and cry for help but we were to busy concealing our bleeding wounds to take the time.

It has something to do with a song by Bright Eyes that tells the story about how he ran into a doctor who was looking a little sick and when the doctor asked him for help he replied, or the song goes like this; “’There’s nothing that I can do for you you can’t do for yourself.’ He said, ‘Oh yes you can, just hold my hand, I think that that would help.’ So I sat with him a while and I asked him how he felt. He said ‘I think I’m cured . . .’”

Answer Me Buddha

I made yesterday's post in a hurry, in fact I had to go back and add some stuff later in the day because, upon reading it, I found that it really was incomplete and lacking something. Sense maybe? Not to surprising considering who wrote it. Anyway, I was checking the links and whatnot and in doing so delved deeper into the outrageous silliness of the Answer Me Jesus site. Thus, I was led to find Answer Me Buddha, who is equally entertaining if not more so (but only because it’s the fat Buddha.) I also found that I might have been misleading in my previous blog. Apparently, Answer Me Jesus doesn’t “say” things like “Ask again later.” His responses are basically church lingo. “Have Faith” and such. There is a trial page on the site where you can find out what Jesus would do to get the idea of how he might respond to your unyielding questions. So yeah, Answer Me Jesus and Answer Me Buddha, coming soon to dorm rooms everywhere.

Answer Me Jesus

If I were to write a youg adult novel, I might start it like this:

Krista Sheen is the girl next door. She epitomizes that image. Think Meg Ryan in junior high school and you have Krista Sheen. She’s the head of the seventh grade class at Bradley Junior High, she’s a popular cheerleader, a princes at all the school dances, and is dating the cutest boy in the whole school: Jarred Powers. However, that’s not her reality. All Krista has on her mind is her parent’s recent divorce and the malicious rumors that her “friends” have started about her. As she lies in her tear stained bed on a cold Thursday night she realizes that thins is in fact the end of her proverbial rope. “Can things get worse?” Krista questions the darkness. That’s when she looks up to her shelf to see “Answer Me Jesus”. The eight ball Jesus had been a joke given to her by her friend Macy for her last birthday. They had asked “Answer Me Jesus” questions about who liked who and if Teresa was ever going to get together with Taylor, but that had been the end of it. Now, in an act of desperation, Krista grabbed “Answer Me Jesus” from the shelf and shaking him wildly asked what she really needed to know in her time of need. She needed God more than ever as her world was obviously falling apart, or at least it was really bad. She heard the words slip past her lips “Do you really exist God?” She turned “Answer Me Jesus” over and the words slowly lifted themselves out of the blue; “Ask again later.”

Yeah, I guess it needs some work. There goes my career in writing teen literature. I had such high hopes too. Books like “Dragon Land Is No Democracy” and “Gossip Killed Mrs. Jones and Not actually A Meat Cleaver” will never be published now. But really my intension was to give Answer Me Jesus a little blog space. When I first saw him in Urban Outfitters the story above kinda popped into my head as a possible real life scenario. To me it’s one of those stories that edge on the side of either funny or sad. Oh, and I took a picture of him with my cell camera. The picture included here is infinitely better though.

The day after independence

It’s July 5, 2006, which can seem pretty humdrum being that it follows the excellent Independence Day USA. I was told that the spectacular holiday’s image is tainted by beer and fireworks but that really doesn’t bother me being that neither are particularly sentimental to me. What bothers me is that I did not get to be in Seward, AK for Mountain Marathon a fairly amazing race for the completely average citizen. So yes, today could seem dull, however, my encouragement is that this 5th day in July is not a boring day at all, even in lieu of yesterday’s fanaticism. Behold . . .

Live now France is playing Portugal for the chance to plat Italy for the World Cup. I must say that I am quite torn for whom to root for. Granted, it would just be neat to see Portugal win the World Cup and it would not be so neat for France to. I am told that it would give France even larger egos, and besides, they have other things going for them. On the other hand, the French players have fun names like “Henry.” Not that cool in America because we just shorten it to “Hank,” but say it in French and vous l'aimerez.

Almost as exciting is the "Running of the Nudes." I don’t know if that is so much exciting as it is intriguing. Essentially what happens is instead of running bulls around the Pamplona, Spain (because it’s mean, not to people but to the bull. I guess most people didn’t care about being chased by bulls so much) people run around naked for animal rights. The truth is I wonder about the integrity of it all. Nudity in public is something that I frown on, but I did read once about how nudity in public really isn't what you'd expect; it isn't sensual as much as it is silly but honestly i don't have that much experience with it.

The Boiler Room In Kansas City

It’s pretty ridiculously exciting for me that I finally discovered the Boiler Room in Kansas City. You know how you can search and search for something on the internet and not find it. It should be easy, you’re thinking, but this site is lost to you with no avail. I am currently planning a move to Kansas City, one of the main motivations of my sojourn is the Kansas City Boiler Room by 24-7 Prayer (the only Boiler Room in the nation I might add). It was distressing to me that the place I was headed appeared to have no web presence.
“What kind of place doesn’t have a website?” I think to myself.
“Could it be that I am heading to a land where no one will be able to discover the wonder of the Boiler Room though the lenses of the world wide web?”
Nay! I am please to announce that I have stumbled upon it quite stupidly. I figured out how to edit my links on this little “Grace to Upend” (great news) and upon finding some links to put in there I discovered it. The Boiler Room in Kansas City where I am headed.
Check it out

D*C Band

I was reading an interview with David Crowder and had to share part of it.

". . . we thought about how Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples before being crucified. They would have traditionally sung the Hallel as part of that—the Psalm with "His love endures forever"—before heading to [Gethsemane] and Jesus praying in agony.

"When that song was formed over years of Jewish tradition, part of me wonders whether God was orchestrating that to give his people something that he himself would need later on for comfort. Knowing that he would one day take human form, did he use this song to help gain confidence in God's love? Who knows, but I think it's really interesting how art and grief coexist and feed off each other like that."

If read this and said "I just can't get enough." here's the
Link
to get there.

Speaking of the David Crowder Band, I just got their new CD B Collision the other day and have been greatly enjoying it. Is it bluegrass? Maybe not as we know it but it is to Crowder and if you can see where he is coming from what might be perceived as idiosyncratic turns into something beautiful. It has something to do with worshiping to the tune of “Everybody wants to go to Heaven but nobody wants to die.”

Starbucks quotes

Part of me can’t stand the little quotes on the sides of the Starbucks to go cups that say things like; “A person must equip themselves with these three things to get through life: courage, hope, and family. With those they can achieve anything.” – a tennis player who I have never heard of. A quaint little Starbucks Bible verse to smile about.

No, I am being cynical on purpose. It’s true that I rarely enjoy the quote (I just can’t picture anyone being that cheesy out of context. They must all come from graduation speeches.) but I love that the quote is there. Something to look for when I get my coffee. Almost like looking to see if I got the guy shooting a bow-n-arrow at a star on the tootsie-pop wrapper . . .

K'ang-hsi

I really didn't expect to find Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-hsi all that intriguing. Really I am shocked this same way quite often. Books that I have to read for school are really not supposed to be interesting. They are for the most part though and I can't figure out why. It's like I am dreading reading and I start reading and I am dreading reading more then all of a sudden it is interesting. I think if I read it in any other context, say I bought the book in a one of those mini Borders that they have in airport and I read it on my flight to Anchorage I would find it quite dull. hm.

OK, I had to read it for the intro to Asian studies class I am taking (bad that I have to take two more gen-ed classes to graduate after summer session, good that I can take classes I am actually interested in). I knew that this would be the kind of class in which there is more reading assigned than there are hours in the day. If professors really wanted students to read then they would not assign so much reading. The way I see it is that profs assign more reading then there are hours in a day. That's problematic for two reasons 1) It is impossible to read it all and 2) sense it is impossible to read it all I feel that if I attempt to read then I am bound to fail because it’s impossible right? Being that I don't want to fail then I won't ever start, thus avoiding failure. I seriously think this way without even noticing it. I would read if there was a manageable amount to read but sense the amount is impossible then I won't read at all.

Before summer session even began I was well aware of the fact that there would be a significant amount of reading to be done. In order get ahead start I went a head and started to read one of the books entitled First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung. I guess I chose the wrong book to start. The prof told me to have this other book, Emperor of China, read by Friday. At first I was disappointed, being that I was enthralled by Ung’s book and being that the first bit of Emperor of China starts fairly bland. But as I read the book I found K’ang-hsi to be the King Solomon I always wanted, or somewhat that way. Being that it is K’ang-hsi words and that is has been translated it has that Proverbs/Song of Solomon feel but better. It’s not like I am going to be able to describe it very well here but let me share my favorite part.

So Kang-hsi gets a visit from de Tournon, a kind of ambassador sent by the Pope. I really start to like the conversation that’s going on between them when K’ang-hsi gets flustered with de Tournon’s ramblings and presumably his avoidance of the heart of the matter, what K’ang-hsi is getting at so K’ang-hsi says to him out right, “Exactly why have you come here?” Just out of no where and then he goes on, “I have asked you several times already through intermediaries, and have not forgotten your replies. But now that you are here in person, you may have something in your heart to say that goes beyond these replies. Don’t worry about your eloquence – speak and act freely, keep nothing back.” I love that “Don’t worry about eloquence.” He is an emperor for crying out loud and this poor guy, from western civilization is thinking, “Hmmm, I don’t know that I am quite able to do that.”

De Tournon does end up telling the emperor that the pope would like to have contacts with China set up in form of someone who is in the popes confidence, someone who has the proper “inside” knowledge of the Papal Court, while K’ang-hsi tells him that there are plenty of Westerners who have been involved in the courts of china for forty years. He says, “and they are still lacking in knowledge of imperial affairs, how could someone just transplanted from the West do better?” The way I see it, they both have the same problem. Later K’ang-hsi dismisses de Tournon and the matter but there is a very humorous, underlying banter going on all the while. I guess I admire K’ang-hsi in that he was able to recreate that banter in his documentation of the manner. Even if it didn’t happen exactly like that it is an amusing and also thought provoking interchange. More on the thought provoking part in a later blog.

Underwear and why people like me

Underwear has trends. There is fashion when it comes to the things that no one sees but you. I have heard girls say that they feel cuter when they are wearing cute underwear. Now there is something I can understand about women. At first I pretended that I couldn’t but now I think men in general understand this desire for "cute" underwear that women have, otherwise we wouldn’t see one hundred different prints of unddies for men when we go to the Gap. Guys understand this feeling cute in cute underwear business. Boxers or briefs of many a different assortment may be found at the Gap.
Oh and think about the locker room around sixth or seventh grade. Not that I was looking around but you have to notice that the cool guys aren’t wearing their whitey-tighties anymore. Boxers were the thing. You didn’t even have to go to the locker room if you wanted to see them. Some guys were so proud of the move from brief to boxers that they had to pull down their pants a little to show everybody.
I started thinking about this when reading Donald Miller’s book, Searching For God Knows What. It isn’t his most recent book but I am a little behind and am just now getting to it. In Searching For God Knows What Miller tells a story about sideshows. You know, the women with beards and men who swallow swords. Apparently, there were efforts to protest the sideshows, claiming that the deformed were being exploited. However, the acts disagreed saying that they were paid well plus they had their own community of people who understood each other. I though that this sounded fairly beautiful. A community that is not based on appearance at all. No hierarchy right? Actually, a hierarchy did emerge. A three legged man had a lucky break. I guess he was pretty intimidating in his act, so much so that a man attacked him. The attack made the papers making the three legged man a celebrity among misfits. Forget the days of comparing the three legged man to the woman with a beard. He was in a league of his own and thus there he was better.
This made me better realize how arbitrary the hierarchy is. Underwear for crying out loud! It’s either hilarious or very sad. Think about it this way; who is a roll model for you? If not a roll model, who is ahead of you in the hierarchy? In your hierarchy? In my hierarchy there are a lot of musicians. I act like a lot of them. I dress like a lot of them. Or there is my “the great outdoorsies” hierarchy where I have to shop at REI to feel validated. Or the Goodwill shopper hierarchy. Or maybe all of a sudden I decide I want to join the more metro/urban crowd. My wardrobe gets pretty confused because of this lack of divisiveness. The thing is is that I know how to join these hierarchies. I know what to do in order to join these ranks or how to just participate in them. I just have to be more like the person ahead of me. So go ahead a think about the person in front of you. Give yourself a second. Once you have pictured that person ask yourself “What kind of underwear to they have on?” You know don’t you. Not because you have seen that person in their underwear but because you can just imagine what kind of underwear they would wear based entirely on what kind of person they are. Sure you have some crazies out there who just shock you once you find out what they wear. “YOU WEAR A THONG!!” or maybe nothing comes between them and their Levi's. That sort of thing. If your still not sure you buy into this then try to picture someone like the president wearing anything but whitey-tighties. He’s just a whitey-tighties guy, is he not?
OK, now imagine this: the guy in front of you in the hierarchy is wearing bikini briefs. In fact, everyone in front of you is. You start thinking “I am the only guy in the locker room who wears boxers. I am so lame.” So you switch to bikini briefs. Just like that you become a bikini briefs guy. Well, maybe not “just like that.” You buy one pair at first because you’re apprehensive. You put them on. You wear them for a day. You think to yourself, “This isn’t to bad.” Then you buy a pack of them. Before long you are tossing your boxers out and filling that uns-drawer with bikini briefs.
The point is that we are not very independent people. What is the basic motivation for doing what you do? I write in this blog for several reasons but what it boils down to is I want people to like me. That’s why I say a lot of the things I say in conversations. I want to fit in and I want people to like me. Someone out there please like me. Most of us are like that.
“Why did you write this book?”
“Basically because I wanted something out there that people could see, like, then come back and affirm me. It is the motivation behind most all things I do.”
By reading Searching For God Knows What I am finding out some great stuff about this hierarchy. Don Miller calls it “the lifeboat” or “the circus.” He offers insights that are far more interesting than underwear so maybe if you read all of this you should read it.

Like it like a hole in my head

When I am alone for an extended period of time I try to drown it out. What an amazing fear it is. I start to think about a all the movies I could watch even before I am alone. Or I get inspired to write a song. I’ll start to write the first half of the song then decide it sucks and give up on it forever. I’m like that. I do it all the time.

I feel like when I am alone I should just start to delight in God and his nearness and just take advantage of the great opportunity I have to spend time with just Him. I feel obligated to have a good prayer time and maybe lie on the floor and have a good cry to the latest worship CD I got. I feel the obligation of silence and solitude in these times. All the discipline. I can’t deny that I have been avoiding silence and solitude to some extent. I want them but they are just so uncomfortable that I try to escape them.

I want silence and solitude in the same way I want to be an “independent music guy” or like emo.” I want to listen to all theses obscure artists and wear the kind of clothes that the obscure people who listen to the obscure artists wear. And I don’t want to try to do it. You can tell which people are trying to be obscure and which people are . . . or maybe you can’t.

Just the same I can’t be obscure because I like the clothes at the Gap and American Eagle and I like to many Christian bands like the David Crowder Band or Jars of Clay. It’s the same reason I can’t be vegan. I like hamburgers and frozen burritos. It’s pretty hard being me.

This relates to silence and solitude in that I want it and admire the people who practice it but I can’t do it because I just can’t seem to make the sacrifice. I don’t know anybody who does. Maybe that’s part of the problem.

Why you came to my house

That’s great and all but tell me about you. Tell me how your heart is. Not your physical heart and no, it’s not such a weird thing to say. The people I love the most ask me that in the form of a question. They ask “How’s your heart?” If you don’t know what I mean then tell me this; what has God been teaching you lately? Has He been teaching you? Does Jesus try and tell you about who He is in your day to day life, in your waking and sleeping, coming and going? If He isn’t then you shouldn’t be talking to me right now in this context. And here is the strange part; if He is you shouldn’t be talking to me. The reason I say all this is because I have a really hard time believing that God wants me to walk around this town, or any town for that matter, knock on a complete stranger’s door and when someone answers to start to tell people about Him. I really do not think he wants me to do that. Those people behind those doors that I am supposed to knock on, they don’t even know me and therefore, I can’t go and start to tell them how they should be living their life. What a nuisance I would be to those poor people behind those doors that I am supposed to knock on. God can ask some pretty crazy things sometimes but I am pretty sure that is not one of them.
So instead I look to Jesus. I read about it in the Bible. There I find that Jesus hangs out with people. He hangs out with crazy people like tax collectors and prostitutes. He hangs out with very real people in a very real ways. He eats meals with them just like we are eating together now. He got to know people not because of any reason except love. He loved people and after a while they just started listening to him and then they started coming to him, just to hear him talk. They wanted him to tell them how to live.
I invited you here to eat to make this point: I think your going about all this missionary business all wrong. I could try to figure out why you came to my door and knocked on it with the intention of telling me I need to change my life, but I would probably be wrong. I like to give you the benefit of the doubt that it is because you love me and want the very best for my life. The other part of me thinks that you’re just here because this is all you know and that someone told you that you have to do this for one reason or another.
Do you love me? Do you want to get to know me because of that love? If so then we can talk because you know, that is what I am looking for. So is the rest of the world. So stop being a missionary and go be someone’s friend for awhile.

And now the stocking begins

I listen to songs by a guy who has the power to glue me to my couch with his lyrics. Tears inevitably ensue. I wrote tears stained lyric guy an email today and told him all about the affect he has on me and am hoping he writes back. Like I’m a 12-year-old girl I am hoping. This guy who writes the tears songs got me into trouble today. I was walking from my house to campus, singing some “tears lyrics” that went something like this; “For the love of God and in the name of Jesus, the groom who gave his life to love his bride.” It was these lyrics that drove me to what I did next. I gave my name and address to Elder Johnson and Elder Meeks. I don’t know why they called themselves elders because I am betting they are younger than me. It was probably a tough call though being that there was a chance that they were older. Maybe they call themselves “elder” until the person looks about 30 or 40, like asking for someones ID at the liquor store rule. Anyway, the elders wanted to talk to me on my walk about missionary business, I assume of the LDS nature, and of course I didn’t have the time to, so they are coming over to my house some time. Here’s the deal: every Christian tells you “DON’T give your name to THEM! They keep track of these meetings and they’ll stock you the rest of your days!” I think I buy into that; I really do as much as I don’t want to. I would email the guy who writes tear lyrics to blame him for all this but I am way to embarrassed. He’ll start thinking “AH you DORK! They’ll stock you the rest of your days!”
Now for the other hand. The other hand reminds me of what really motivated me. The love of God and the name of Jesus! Does it matter that I am now cursed? It could be that nothing good will come of this. It could be that way. However, it seems to me that good came when I gave the elder boys my name and address. I am convinced that God smiles when someone does something in his love, for his name. It’s like God’s love doesn’t extend to Mormon missionaries. So we’ll see how this goes. For the love of God and the name of Jesus we will.

say sorry

It’s inconvenient but I have started student teaching which takes up more time than I thought it would. It’s to bad because I really wanted to dedicate some time to this blog being that I just started it. Needless to say blogs will be few and far between.

Expectations are like socks

Having a direction in life can make all the difference. I found an incredible peace while flying home from Kansas City because I have direction. Expectations are terrible things when placed on another person. They are just terribly confining, much like the socks I am wearing right now. I don’t like socks at all but I really do like warm feet. Some people don’t like socks or shoes and they just go barefoot but I find that if I do that I think about my feet a lot more than if I was just wearing socks, and who wants to be thinking about feet all the time, so I wear the socks, preferably non-cotton ones.

Expectations though, they really are a curse. Your career, for example. That’s a hefty one. I find that there is an expectation for me to have a career. Being that I graduate soon people just kind of expect me to start “my career.” I am not really a career kind of a guy. I want to go a work at a bookstore that has a little café in it that my wife makes the best coffee on the planet in. I know I can’t work at a bookstore, drinking my wife’s coffee, for the rest of my life but I can figure out what I am going to do for the rest of my life while I am there. Sure as hell I can. And I can learn how to live my non-career life for the kingdom (as they say) and while my heart is nourished because hey, I want to be sanctified. Doing that would not be fulfilling the expectations that a feel over me but, it sure would give me joy. I know it sounds a lot like “Do what feels good” but I assure you it is much more healthy than that. It’s that I want to be apart of this world that is trying to give care to all the other parts of the world. I plan on taking some time to learn how to do that and the word “career” just isn’t a part of that plan.

Mother Teresa

Most recently my epiphany is a quote by mother Teresa directed at Mr Nouwen. As Nouwen describes it: "When I first visited Mother Teresa of Calcutta a few years ago and asked her how to live my vocation as a priest, she simply said: 'Spend one hour a day in adoration of your Lord and never do anything you know is wrong and you will be alright.'" That's fairly beautiful I think. Both encouraging and still challenging.

I'm like a junior high school student

It's pretty weird how something can inteste me. I am like a junior high schooler. A ton of things intrest me but nothing very much. That isn't entirely true but in the case of Johnny Cash maybe. I watched "Walk the Line" ya know and ever sence then I have needed to know the facts from the fiction. If you have seen the movie you may know what I mean. I was whatching it and thinking "He did THAT! How come I don't know about this?" The man had an amazing story. So I have been reading a bit about him and really find his faith intreging. I don't even own an album by him (though I had a roommate that claimed Johnny Cash as his best friend, so I listened to his music, whether it was a recording of Cash or Jacob singing a Cash song). Anyway, read this (unless you don't want to know about the movie at all): "His favorite verse, he often said, was Romans 8:13: 'For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.'A paradox? Not to Cash, who encountered death shortly before accepting an altar call. His brother Jack, two years his senior, fell on a table saw, cut from ribs to groin. 'Mama, don't cry over me,' he said, as Johnny and the rest of the family stood by. 'I was going down a river, and there was a fire on one side and heaven on the other. I was crying, 'God, I'm supposed to go to heaven. Don't you remember? Don't take me to the fire.' All of a sudden, I turned, and now, mama, can you hear the angels singing?'She said that she couldn't, and Jack squeezed her hand.'Oh, mama, I wish you could hear the angels singing,' he said, and died."I got that from http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/011/4.60.html so maybe read it if you are at all interested.