2010.

It's almost February and I am just now going to post about resolutions.

It's a little strange because I was traveling on New Years Eve and then celebrated Christmas on January 4, so it didn't really seem like the new year. But now that I have had a few weeks to sink in to a new decade I've got some resolutions. (Mostly inspired by the article in Relevant Magazine.)

Here's my list:

1. I'm going to run the Pittsburgh half marathon in May and possibly the Indianapolis one in the fall. This may not seem like a big deal because I love to run, but I have been struggling with doing anything let alone getting out to the gym or running in the park. So I'm hoping this will give me a goal to look forward to.

2. Memorize a chapter of the bible, not sure which one yet.

3. Learn to pray in a new way.

4. Create.

5. Be more intentional about my relationships.

6. Do something that freaks me out. That was a Relevant suggestion and I think it's great. I'm considering flying to somewhere random because I've never flown and it really freaks me out. Or sky diving or something of that nature.

7. Donate or volunteer with a cause that I care about. I've really wanted to be part of Kiva but have never done it so that is a priority this year as well.

That's it, short and to the point. I suppose I could resolve to blog more, but I doubt that will happen. :)

They don't have to understand you... be still.

Things I'm in to lately:

Cereal - a mixture of corn chex, granola and raisins, practically every meal.

postsecretcommunity

not working out :)

Nonfat unsweetened vanilla rooibos tea lattes.

fantasy basketball

Music: Flyleaf, Mute Math - Armistice, Snow Patrol "Hands Open"

making my own clothes

the television show Fringe - JJ Abrams is a genius

Acedia & Me - Kathleen Norris

It feels like a brand new day. Open your eyes!

Uh oh, two days in a row!!! Now we're talkin'! Or blogging rather. Anyway. 

My friend Jess loves to take pictures. Recently her camera was broken and she needed to send it in to the manufacturer to get fixed. Then we went to the beach this past weekend and she took an absurd amount of pictures!! 

Here's one of them: 

In the car the next day I popped in the new Jars of Clay album and when the song "Two Hands" started playing I just kept thinking about standing there on that rock. Here are the lyrics: 

"I've been living out of sanity

I've been splitting hairs and blurring lines

I am a house that is divided 

In my heart and in my mind

I have a broken disposition 

I'm a liar who thirsts for the truth

And while I ache for faith to hold me

I need to feel the scars and see the proof

And if we just keep digging we can reach the foundation 

Of our souls

And if we just keep cutting all the chains from our hearts 

We'll lose control

And it feels like giving in

It feels like starting over

It feels like waking up, and you know it's coming

It feels like a brand new day

Open your eyes

I use one hand to pull you closer
The other to push you away
If I had two hands doing the same thing
Lifted high, lifted high"

I find in my life that I am continually in that struggle. On the rollercoaster of righteousness. Even with my best intentions I fall short. And I may not glorify God every day, in everything that I do, most times I long for just the opposite. But it is refreshing on those days where I am consumed by grace with both hands lifted high. 

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.

It's been almost a year since my last post. Let's see if I remember how to do this. 

Watch this clip from Pretty Woman. We've seen this movie, we know what it's about. Vivian is a prostitute, Edward comes to L.A. and decides to hire a prostitute. That's how they meet. Surprise, surprise they fall for each other. But what we see through the movie is how Edward treats Vivian. She does not feel like she deserves anything better than what she is doing. She has accepted that all she will ever be is a prostitute. Edward comes along and changes that and by the end of the movie he treats her less and less like a prostitute and more like a woman. Through the course of the movie she goes from being a product to being a person. From being bought and sold to being loved and cherished. 

Can a fresh word be spoken about me? Can a new word be spoken about me? Or am I defined by what I've done? By who I've been involved with? By my failures, short comings, missteps? Do my sins determine who I am? Or can a fresh new word be spoken about me? 

Very often we carry all the words we hear with us. We become worthless, meaningless, stupid, useless, mediocre, fat, weird, insufficient, lazy, unworthy. We carry all of the bad experiences we have had with us. We personify ugliness, evil, destruction, disaster, hate, failure. Over and over we hear and recreate the things in our head. We begin to think maybe all these words are true, that they are all we will ever be. The things that have happened to us begin to own us. We desire for a fresh, new word to be spoken about us. 

In Matthew 9, A man comes to Jesus begging him to go see his daughter, who is supposedly already dead. While he's on his way: "A woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, "If only I touch his cloak, I will be healed." Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter, " he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment. 

In the time of Jesus this woman would have been labeled unclean. No one would have wanted to be around her. She was looked down upon, ridiculed, made fun of, given dirty looks. She was not allowed to go into the temple, to worship God, because of her uncleanliness. She was an outcast. She had been pushed out of society, kicked to the edge, not welcome. 

Then she has the audacity to go up and try to touch Jesus. And of course Jesus responds in a way that no one else ever would have. He looks down at this woman. With all her filthiness and shame. He looks at her and calls her daughter. 

So may we come to see that the words we say are important. May we see that the way we talk to people matters. May we be able to reach into people's lives and speak rejuvenation. But may we also see that all those words we have heard, all those things we have felt are old and stale. Jesus longs to speak a fresh, new word about us. "Take heart, daughter."

Lemon out...

(Adapted from a Rob Bell sermon called "New Skirts".)

The summit doesn't differ from the deep, dark valley...

There is this new website RethinkChristianity, it's a site trying to promote a new way of looking at Christianity, part of the Emerging Church movement. Anyway, the guys that run the site post a question every week (they just started a couple of weeks ago) and open up the question for folks to send in videos of their answers to the question.

Last week the question was: Why do you think so many people are questioning the traditional ways of doing church?

Go to the site. Check out some of the videos. Let me know what you think about what these folks have to say about this question.

I'm not going to put my opinion out there quite yet. I will say that I agree with some of what is said, and don't agree with some of it too.

I am on the fence when it comes to the Emergent Church, but I think that these guys, Mark Scandrette, Tony Jones, and Doug Pagitt, have some good things to offer and I think the questions that they are posing are very relevant to Christians today and need to be addressed. So, I hope that this website takes off....

Let me know what you've got.







... and the valley doesn't differ from the kitchen sink.

What I'm reading now...

I'm not much of a reader. I'm slow, for some reason I can't skim, I have to take in every word that's on the page. I also don't like fiction or anything that I won't learn something from, so the books that I read are sort of heavy and I have to underline and write in them - which takes me even longer to get through. However, recently I have had this craving to learn and read more about all sorts of things. I have found myself randomly buying books (I don't ever buy a book unless I know for sure it is good) and checking out lots of books from the library.

I wanted to share what I have been reading recently:

Jesus For President - Shane Claiborne
Eat Well: A Spiritual Road Map - Various Contributors, published by Culture Is Not Optional
Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century - Walter Rauschenbusch (The 100th anniversary edition has commentary at the end of each chapter by folks such as Tony Campolo and Jim Wallis for how what Rauschenbusch said in 1907 still relates to us now.)
Red Letter Christians - Tony Campolo

and...

I just recently picked up the Archaeological Study Bible - it's pretty much amazing and offers archaeological, cultural and historical background throughout. It's pretty interesting stuff and offers a new spin on some of the bible's familiar stories.


That's my two cents for the day...

Food Sacrificed to Idols

I've been reading this book lately called Eat Well: A Food Road Map. It is published by an organization called Culture is Not Optional. It is a pretty good read; the compile a bunch of essays, art, poems and book recommendations that all have to do with how we eat. There are some that have to do with sustainability, others about the way we eat and the biblical basis for how we should, others about eating locally, etc.

Yesterday I was reading one titled "Food Sacrificed to Idols". It was taking a look at the passage in 1 Corinthians where Paul addresses that exact issue, which was raised by the people of Corinth. In this letter we see Paul responding to the questions of the people about whether they should eat meat that has been sacrificed by pagans to their idols in the temple. When I first read this part of Corinthians I thought: If they think eating that meat is that big a deal then why don't they just not eat the meat from the temple? But it is not that easy. The temple was one of the main sources of meat for the city. The temple was the restaurant, the butcher in Corinth. So Paul warns the people not to be a Christian and go into the temple and take part of eating that meat which they know was just sacrificed to pagan idols.

However, Paul does not tell the people of Corinth to become vegetarians. He simply says there are some people that cannot get over the fact that the meat was sacrificed to an idol and that mind set defiles the meat for them. But then he says that there are some where that is not an issue for them, they know that food "does not bring them closer to God, no worse if we do not eat, no better if we do."

Paul doesn't want the folks who get it to influence the others to just go around eating the meat in the temple. He ends the section by saying: "Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall."

I think this is a chapter that can be over looked. It is so easy to just look at it and say okay, don't eat meat sacrificed to idols or don't influence those that don't have as much knowledge as you do to sin.

In the Eat Well book there was a lot of focus on Paul talking about knowledge. Paul starts off the chapter by saying: "We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." In some ways it is hard to even see how this relates to sacrificing food to idols. Paul just rambles on a little bit about knowledge and love before he goes on to address what the Corinthians were really asking. But it is amazing to see how in those two sentences he sets up the whole passage.

Paul tells us that we are not to lord our knowledge over other people and use that as a way of telling them what to do. In order for us to really help, to really show those who are "weaker" sometimes we have to put aside all the knowledge that we have about something and show them the way through love.

In the book there was an example about a couple and their young son. The son was convinced that there was a boar that lived in his room. Every night the boar would come out and keep the kid from being able to go to sleep. So his parents would come into the kids room and check out the situation until he was able to fall back asleep. Instead of the parents getting up every night and telling the kid that the boar did not exist they would chase him around the house until he left, they would capture him and toss him out the window, and then finally they drew a lifesize picture of it and burned the picture in the backyard getting rid of the boar for good. If the parents had gotten up every night and insisted that the boar was imaginary, or did not exist or tried to rationalize with the child, the boar would have still been a reality to the kid every night.

In this story the parents did not try to hold their knowledge over their son, but instead loved him and gave into his reality in order show him the truth. That is what Paul asks us to do, it may have to do with food here in 1 Corinthians, but can easily be applied to every part of life. We are inpatient and try to use our knowledge to tell them all in one time, thinking they will get it. But knowledge puffs up while love builds up....