If Wishes Were Nuts...

I've recently been involved with a group that is trying to exert influence over Arizona's budgeting process. State budgets are deadly dull things, right up until we find out that our state is insolvent. Then it gets exciting.

Things have been very exciting in Arizona lately.

The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities released a report indicating that 46 of 50 states are facing insolvency. Not mere "budget crunches" - actual insolvency. Arizona leads the pack with a budget shortfall that totals almost 16% of the general fund.

We wish it were different.

We wish we had enough money to pay for everything people want from their government. We wish we didn't have to exercise fiscal restraint. We wish we didn't have to make hard choices. We wish we didn't have to work so hard and get so little in return. We wish greedy people wouldn't shove and grab. We wish lazy people would work hard. We wish sick people would get well, and poor people would get rich, and bad people would behave, and good people would be even better. We wish someone else would fix it. We wish someone else would sacrifice. We wish that wishing would change things. We wish for a fairy godmother instead of self-discipline. We wish for strokes of good fortune instead of years of diligent labor. We wish for Easy Street and Happy Days instead of "nose to the ground", "hand to the plow" and "shoulder to the wheel".

For a long time, we've inhabited a fantasy world where dollar bills were equated with wealth, credit was the same as money, and good intentions were the same as good works.

We wish lies were the truth.

But all of our wishes and all of our good intentions have amounted to less than nothing. When Fantasy Worlds collide with the Real World, the Real World always always always always always wins. Fantasy is fine, as long as it is never exposed to the harsh ways of reality.

We have fantasized since August 15, 1971 that printing money was the same as creating wealth. We managed to avoid reality for 38 years. That's really quite impressive. But we can't do it anymore. Reality is here. The fantasy is over.

Arizona will be bankrupt within 4 months, unless we stop fantasizing.

Sorry folks, it's time to live in the real world again.

VDH makes some good, if politically incorrect, points.

The (Near) Death of the State by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Yesterday was one of the worst days in decades for the power elite. It was one of the best for liberty.

I knew Tiger Woods was a terrific golfer, but this is ridiculous.

(I love it!)

Big Time Crooks

Somebody knew something in the days before the Bear Stearns debacle. This kind of behavior is criminal; it is theft on a grand scale, but I guarantee you that no one will go to prison for it. When it is bankers who rob the banks, and bankers who write the rules, you can be sure no bankers will ever serve time.

On Marriage

My (common law) wife and I have a marriage, but we have never had a wedding. In previous times, I might have said that we lack "the benefit of a wedding", but I no longer think a wedding confers any benefits. Here's why.

We each had previous weddings. We each had the official sanction of both church and state governments, and when push came to shove, neither the state nor the church did a thing to help us keep our original marriages intact. If there is some alleged benefit to having the official sanction of the government and/or the church in the initiation of marriage, we sure didn't see it.

Now the state - and some churches, including my denomination, the ECUSA - are granting the status of "marriage" to homosexual couples. If homosexuals want to make a commitment to one another, that's fine with me. I figure you take love where you can find it. But for the entire history of the human race, a "married couple" has had a male "husband" and a female "wife". Now the state has decided that "marriage" doesn't mean that at all. Now it just means, "Bruce and Steve want the legal right to file their taxes as if they were married." And if Bruce and Steve want to get a divorce, then the state grants them that as well, no questions asked. It won't be long before the state grants a marriage license to any conceivable combination of entities, sentient or not. If a guy wants to have a marriage contract with his Pepsi Machine and his pet hamster, the California Supreme Court will allow it and the rest of the moron governments will follow suit.

The churches are mostly toothless in the face of this debacle. The ones that just follow whatever the gubbmint says, like the idiot Episcopal Church of the USA, (I can call it idiotic 'cause it's my church), will not draw the line anywhere; they are clueless. Some of the more "conservative" churches, (I use scare quotes because the only thing they are conserving is their imaginations of the past), will fuss and fight and condemn the godlessness of the culture but will not do the one thing that will make a difference: quit getting in bed with the government.

The churches in America act as agents of the state when their ministers announce that the happy couple is now married "according to the authority vested in" the minister himself by the state. If the church has the authority to make a couple married, then that authority should be coming from God, not from the state. And if the church does indeed possess that authority, then she should exercise it without apology and without qualification.

The Bible has a lot to say about how a couple should treat one another if they are married, but it is utterly silent on how a couple goes about becoming married. When a man and woman choose to live together as if they were married, then the only biblical response is to hold them to scriptural principals of behavior towards one another. If the church is going to claim the authority to marry people, then they better come up with a good explanation for how they gained that authority. Otherwise, please just shut up.

Those who spend much time around me know that I have a deep interest in matters economic and financial. In fact, I know enough economics to truly understand why it is known as "the dismal science". Nevertheless...

This presentation is well worth your time. Since we are in an election year, we'll have the candidates and the talking heads in the media telling us what is going on. Do yourself a favor: instead of listening to them, (let alone believing them), educate yourself. This presentation tells exactly where we are financially, how we got there, and what will happen in the future without some significant changes.

I repeat - take the time to educate yourself. Don't depend on someone else to tell you.

This is hysterically funny if you take the point of view that our country is totally screwed - which I do. Not so funny if you harbor any hope of us getting out of this mess with our freedoms or our constitution intact.

A bill winding its way through the Congress, (the so-called Dodd-Shelby Bill, also known as HR3221), is supposed to help "troubled homeowners" keep their homes. The reality is that the bill will use $300 billion in taxpayer money to bail out banks that made stupid loans.

Oh, and the bill was basically written by Bank of America.
And BofA is trying to buy Countrywide, but doesn't want to be responsible for all the bad loans Countrywide wrote.
And Countrywide made an extra-special, super-duper home loan to a guy by the name of Christopher Dodd, who just happens to be the sponsor of the "Dodd-Shelby" bill.

Ain't that just a knee-slapper?

Here's the actual BofA presentation from March 11 of this year proposing what is now the Dodd-Shelby bill.

When the revolution comes, the first people up against the wall are going to be the bankers.

I've retired from the Boar's Head Tavern, (thanks for six great years, Michael), but I guess I still need a place to talk about what's on my mind. So R/A is back in business.

When my marriage broke up several years ago, Mary Gauthier's CD Mercy Now, served as the soundtrack for the dissolution of my life. I queued it up today for the first time in several years, and I must say it has aged very well. IN other words, I like it because it's good, not just because it made me feel good back then.

Arthur Robinson has written a terrific article on the politicization of science for Human Events. We are teetering on the edge of a return to the dark ages when the UN decides that scientific fact can be better determined by polling and politics than by the scientific method.

If you haven't discovered it yet, Gary North's website is well worth at least a weekly visit. He updates it daily, and I almost always find something worthwhile there.

Hit 'Em Where It Hurts

As most of you know, I traveled to New York last month to protest the bailout of Bear Stearns by you, the taxpayer. Perhaps you pay no attention tpo what is happening with our country's finances, and if so, that is fine. The short version of the story is that speculators made spectacular bets that they could rich with mortgages. It turns out they were wrong, and now they have gone to the government and asked to be bailed out. They are going to raise YOUR taxes to do it.

Do you like paying for other people's mistakes?

Would you like to do something about it?

There is something VERY powerful and VERY simply you can do about it.

(I like simple and powerful.)

Here's the what you do: Between June 5 and June 15 this year, pull all your cash out of the bank. All of it. For those who want to know more, here's a website describing it. In short, what will happen when you pull your cash out of your bank is that the banks are forced to lend less money. Since the bankers are the ones who made the bad bets, lost a ton of money and are now asking Congress to make good all their bad bets with YOUR tax money, it only makes sense to hit them where it hurts.

Let's do this together.

Ruminations on Baptism

If you were baptised as an infant, then someone made a decision to do something good for you, a decision that you were incapable of making for yourself. In baptism, the child is welcomed into the household of faith and accepted as a part of the community of faith - all very good things indeed. But the best part is that the "good thing" of infant baptism occurs not by an act of the child's will, but by the will of another who is wiser, more loving, and far less self-centered than the child.

We baptise babies who know nothing about what we are doing or why we are doing it. They neither ask for it nor want it nor - in many cases - welcome it, but it is a very good thing we do for them, and we do it because we love them.

Infant baptism is a vivid picture of the work Christ did on our behalf. I am aware that much of Christendom prefers believers baptism and I respect their opinions, but the picture presented to us in infant baptism is profound, and we would do well to meditate on it.

The scriptures tell us that even though we were "dead in our trespasses and sins", Christ made us alive. Note that it does not say say we were sick, or weak, or disabled - it says we were dead.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions... Eph 2:4-5

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. Col 2:13

The scriptures tells us that we were sinners and enemies of God, but in spite of that fact, Christ reconciled us to God through His own self-sacrificing death.

But God shows and clearly proves His love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us... For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more certain, now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved through His life. Rom 5:8,10

He did all these things because He loved us, not because we loved Him. Christ found us in a state where we were incapable of helping ourselves, incapable of asking for help and incapable of even knowing that we needed help. And yet, in just such a state, He saved us because He loves us.

As men, we are geared to performing, to working, to earning everything we get. We are constantly evaluated on the quality of our work - at home, in the workplace, in the church, on the athletic fields and courts - and we are all very aware of how well or how poorly we measure up. At work, when we perform well we get raises and promotions. When we perform poorly, we suffer. At home, when we work to our mate's satisfaction, we are rewarded in ways both overt and subtle. When we perform poorly, we pay the price. On the playing fields, the winners survive to play another day, but the losers go home.

The whole world operates under this paradigm. It is so deeply imbedded in our individual and collective psyches that we are offended when anyone suggests that maybe, just maybe, God does not operate by the same set of rules we do. We believe with every fiber of our being that God rewards those who do good and punishes those who do evil, because everything in our lives works that way. We are offended when the evildoer "gets off", (think OJ Simpson) and we cheer when the bad guy "gets what’s coming to him", (think Saddam Hussein).

It is little wonder that we men think God plays by the same rules. But baptism clearly shows us that God plays by an altogether different set of rules. Our baptism shows us that God extends His love, mercy and fatherhood to us regardless of our performance, and regardless of the quality of our choices and decisions. In fact, He made us alive when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, and He rescued us even when we were His enemies. If that wasn't enough, (and to me that is plenty!), He promises that just as He was responsible for starting this "good work" in us, He will take responsibility for completing it.

...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Phil 1:6

Furthermore, He has already planned the good works that He intends for "us" to "perform".

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Eph 2:10

Imagine! God not only plans the work we will do, but promises that He Himself will be responsible for making sure the work gets done.

We live in a world where those who perform are rewarded, and those who fail to perform are punished. There is Good and there is Evil and the two are locked in constant war. The world must be run according to Good/Bad dichotomies, else how would we function? If you are on the right side and do the right thing, you will be rewarded, but step across the line and you should expect to pay the price.

But the scriptures tell us clearly that God doesn't follow that set of rules. In fact, He "justifies the ungodly" (Rom 4:5).

In the creation story of Genesis, God offers Man free rein in the garden, with one minor prohibition. God forbids Man, (in the person of Adam and Eve), to eat from one particular tree. It is important that we understand what happened there, and particularly, to understand the name of the tree.

Many people seem to think that the prohibited tree was called "The Tree of Evil." They believe that if they avoid evil they will avoid the sin of Adam. Some think it was called "The Tree of the Knowledge of Evil." You shouldn't merely avoid doing evil, you should avoid even knowing about it. But both points of view share the mistaken belief that God intends us to both know and do Good.

Both views are mistaken. The tree God forbade was called The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God never intended for man to have the power to discriminate between "good" and "evil". Rather, He intended us to "walk with Him in the cool of the day" and take all our cues - about everything - from Him. But ever since we learned about Good and Evil, we have chosen to depend upon our own ability to "Do Good" and to "Avoid Evil" rather than find our life in God Himself.

Most people recognize that our sins separate us from God, but what few recognize is that our righteousness separates us from Him as well.

...all our righteous acts are like filthy rags... Isa 64:6

We demand "righteous behavior" from ourselves and from one another, never realizing that God is as unimpressed with our righteousness as with our sin. In fact, is this not the whole point of The Parable of the Tax Collector?

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

The tax collector went home justified, not because of his deeds, but because of who he trusted: God. Contrariwise, the Pharisee went home condemned, not because of his deeds but because of who he trusted: himself. Living in the realm of "Good vs. Evil" and "Right vs. Wrong" places our trust in ourselves and our own deeds. When we do poorly, we condemn ourselves. When we do well, we congratulate ourselves. But in both instances, we are failing to trust God.

In His divine wisdom, God has chosen to accept us in Christ, not because we do well or because we do poorly, but simply because He has made as an object of His love. If we place our trust in Him, and in His love, then we too will "go home justified". But if we place our trust in our own works, whether they are "Good" or "Evil", we will surely go home condemned.

God's love is a free gift given to us without regard to our performance, worthiness or gratitude. It is truly free - just as our baptism was. We can choose to enjoy it, or we can choose to ignore it, but nothing we do can change the power or the graciousness of that gift.

Medicine & Terror - Two Approaches

My buddy Michael Spencer and I have a long-running disagreement about the role of the government in fighting terror. Michael is, by his own admission, terrified that someone is going to smuggle a suitcase nuke into a crowded location and kill a whole lot of people, (a la this season's paean to fear on 24). He is in favor of most any steps the government can take to prevent such an occurrence.

I, on the other hand, argue that the powers of the government should and must continue to be limited to those explicitly enumerated by the Constitution, regardless of threats. I contend that the extreme steps taken by the government, (suspension of habeus corpus, national IDs, airport "security" and the like), are a bigger threat to our freedom than anything Islamic terrorists can accomplish.

Are either of us right? Or wrong? Or are we perhaps not even talking about the same issue?

To Michael's point, the mere idea of a nuclear detonation on American soil, (or any soil for that matter), is unthinkable. Michael and I both have children, and both wish to live in a world where those children are safe. Neither of us want to live in a world where criminals are able to deliver and detonate suitcase nukes with impunity.

I think the difference in our views is analagous to two different approaches to medical care.

Modern western medicine, when confronted with an infection in the body, takes an aggressive "kill the intruder" approach. This involves the use of some sort of chemical or mechanical process designed to kill the offending germs, virus or cancerous cells. The problem with such approaches is that they kill without discrimination. Antibiotics destroy not only the "bad" germs, but also the benign and helpful germs the body requires to maintain health. Most forms of surgery require general anesthestics that induce a near-death state in the patient. Chemotherapy introduces toxins into the body in doses that are near-fatal. The toxin is so dangerous that it would be lethal if continued, but the plan and hope is that before the chemo kils the patient, the chemo will kill the cancer.

This approach to medical "care" creates an environment of ever more powerful bugs adapting to ever more powerful drugs. For every "win" the doctors enjoy, they also create an environment where superbugs are forced to evolve to survive. It's the medical equivalent of the Cold War policy of Mutually Assured Destruction. There is no end to the escalation in sight.

There is another approach to medicine: the naturopathic approach. Naturopaths tend to have a much more humble philosophy of health care than do MDs. naturopaths perceive the body as a complex "system of systems" and believe that they cannot upset one of those systems through direct intervention without upsetting them all. Naturopathy seeks to influence the body in the direction of health, rather than attack the disease itself and in the process inflict all sorts of unsuspected "collateral damage".

In other words, a naturopath does not try to kill the bug. Rather, he works to create an environment in the body that is simply inhospitable to the growth or even existence of an offending organism. If, for example, the pH of the body is too acid, (an environment that is conducive to infection), naturopathy will work the change the pH of the body to a more alkaline balance. The change in the environment forces the offending parasite out of the body because it cannot thrive or even survive in such an environment. The best part about this approach to medicine is that it is not dangerous to the body. In fact, naturopathic medicine assumes that the reason the body is sick is because it was previously an attractive environment for sickness to invade. Modern western medicine, in contrast, neither knows nor cares about the state of the body prior to the onset of disease. It simply seeks to eradicate the disease and has as a target end-state for the body the body "as it is now, only without the disease". In other words, modern medicine does not look at the underlying reason for sickness to be in the body. It restricts its attention to the bug itself, rather than the environment in which the bug has come to exert influence. Naturopathy believes that a healthy body is able - in most cases - to maintain health without "outside" interference such as antibiotics.

Just as an MD assures us that western medicine is the only effective tactics for dealing with infection, the government assures us that their current tactics for rooting out terrorists are the only effective ways to deal with them. An MD uses ever more invasive and destructive methods to eradicate infection and disease from the body, and the government tries to use anything within their power to find and stop the people who want to use a suitcase nuke. But just as the MD approach to medical care destroys healthy cells in the pursuit of malignant ones, the government's terror-fighting tactics kill and/or maim many innocent people in pursuit of the few malignant ones. The government's method for pursuing and apprehending terrorists requires the abridgment of many fundamental rights and freedoms. In their view, in the pursuit of terrorists, there are going to be collateral damages; that is simply the price of eradicating the disease in the body politic.

But what if the root of the problem is that the body itself has become a hospitable host to these invading organisms? Or worse, what if the governments tactics for eradication actually create in the body politic an environment that is ever more hospitable to infection or invasion? Would it not make more sense to approach the problem as a naturopath approaches the problem of disease in the body?

My symptoms were fatigue, poor concentration, general malaise and stomach acid. The MD I visited gave me proton pump inhibitors to reduce the acid in my stomach and told me to reduce my cholesterol. If my cholesterol did not come down, he would have put me on Lipitor. Neither of these pills would have solved the problem, but they would have reduced the syptoms. In other words, the western medical approach would make the problem less painful, but would not actually eliminate the underlying bad health.

(In contrast, my naturopath has given me supplements to strengthen my pancreas and to help my stomach with digestion. My chiropractor found that my thoracic vertebrae were misaligned in the region that feeds the adrenal glands. He is adjusting accordingly. I have seen my health improve significantly.)

The western medical mind sees symptoms as the disease and therefore assumes that elimination of the symptoms equals elimination of the disease. This is not only wrong, it is dangerous. If an underlying disease that has not manifested symptoms still exists after eradication of the symptoms, it will inevitably manifest sooner or later somewhere else. And since the western modern approach is to treat the symptoms, it will result in an upward spiral of drug use and medical intervention.

This is exactly analogous to the current situation with terror and terrorists in America. Terrorism is a disease in the body politic, but the traditional military/interventionist approach treats the symptoms of terrorism as the disease. Without getting into the politics of the situation, my suggestion is that we think about the end game for the terrorists. Assume for a moment that the scenario played on 24 this season is real and that some group of disgruntled terrorists have 5 suitcase nukes they are ready and able to deploy. Worse yet, assume that they actually detonate these nukes and kill 100,000 people.

Then what?

They do not have an inexhaustible supply of nukes. They do not have an army to invade us with or an air force to control our skies or a navy to control our ports. They cannot land an army of Islamic invaders on the Atlantic and Pacific shores. They cannot take over our governments and force us to live the way they want us to live. They do not have the power to destroy us, they do not have the power to invade us and they do not have the power to occupy us. So what exactly are we afraid of from these terrorists?

I don't think we know. These radical Islamists no doubt have a political agenda that they would love to foist upon the whole earth, but the reality is that they simply do not have the power to obtain military or political goals in America unless we give them that power.

What might the islamic radicals really want? Well, we know that they believe that the whole world should be under the rule of Shari'a law as interpreted and administered by Ayatollahs. This is basically the form of government operating in Iran since 1979. What would that look like?
Discrimination on the basis of sex and religion would be mandated rather than prohibited. Muslims men would have full rights under the law, Muslim women would have few rights. Non-muslims of all varieties would have minimal rights. Freedom of worship would be banned. Freedom of speech would be banned. The right to free assembly would be banned. The religious authorities would hold the power to imprison and/or punish you without the right of appeal. Religious apostasy would be punishable by death.

In other words, the fundamental rights ascribed to all men and enumerated in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights would be utterly overthrown.

Do we fear that Islamic terrorists are going to take over our government and suspend the Constitution and Bill of Rights?

The government itself is saying that in order to combat terrorism, they need to suspend the rights recognized in the Bill of Rights and need to take up powers explicitly denied the government in the Constitution.

Or to say it another way, the government is telling us that in order to protect us from the terrorists end game, (an end the terrorists do not have the power to achieve), they need to take from us the rights the terrorists would take from us if the terrorists won. Does that make sense? This would be like the doctor saying that in order to keep your bronchitis from turning into pneumonia, he is going to remove your lung. It is an effective approach to eliminating bronchitis, but it completely misses the point of treatment in the first place.

I have watched (my sisters) strive to achieve that elusive and self-defined thing called "perfection," just as I have. As we age, I find we are all a little more weary because of the fight and a little less sure of the definition.

Amen.

I found this little gem hiding in a blog called "chick truths - the worldview of a woman with unrealistic expectations".

Subject Predicate Object

A young friend of mine is struggling mightily to overcome a particular behavior that he considers sin. I don't say right out that it is sin because I know that he has a little confusion about the difference between "temptation" and "sin", and of course, if he is hoping to overcome temptation, then he is doomed to disappointment. But that is a subject for another day.

My purpose in writing this piece is to explore what I believe is a common mistake on his part, common because most believers make the same mistake - he has focused his attention and his efforts on obeying Christ rather than focusing on Christ Himself. The difference is subtle, but important.

My friend believes that by focusing on obeying Christ, he is focusing on Christ. I argue that focusing on obedience is self-centered, not Christ-centered.

And how do I justify my point of view? For some reason, I ended up thinking about language. We use language to express our beliefs about ourselves and about God. My young friend is determined to obey God, so his thoughts about the subject at hand could be expressed as:

I will obey God.

Every properly constructed English sentence has at minimum a subject, (the Actor), a predicate, (the Act), and an object, (the recipient of the action). So the sentence "I will obey God" can be parsed like this:

I: the Actor
will obey: the Action
God: the object of the Action performed by the Actor.

In this sentence, the Actor, (my friend) performs the Action and God is the passive recipient of that Action. In contrast, consider these sentences.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.


The difference between the two sentences is that "I" am the actor in the first sentence and "God" is the actor in the second. Another way to describe the contrast would be "Law" and "Grace". Under Grace, God is the Actor and I am the passive recipients of His action. Under The Law it is just the opposite, I Act and God is passive.

While we are certainly free as Xians to attempt to obey The Law, we are doomed to be disappointed by our efforts. The Law is spiritual, but we are made of flesh and blood. The Law, though it is perfect, holy and good, kills us. That's why God is no longer playing that game, (and we would do well to quit it, too.)

I know my friend is concerned about being holy, and I guess he believes that unless he gives it everything he's got, God is not going to be able to do His work. This approach to God is known as "Grace plus something else". It has the advantage of making us feel like we are contributing something to God's work, but it has the disadvantage of being utterly ineffective.

I guess some Xians believe that God lowers His standards for behavior once they become believers. They act like they believe that even though they occasionally lust or gossip or engage in gluttony or unrighteous anger, God is cool with that as long as they say "I'm sorry" and promise to try extra-special hard the next time around.

Jesus said that the entire Law was summed up in these two commands:
Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
Love your neighbor as yourself.

I know absolutely no one who manages to obey those two laws perfectly, yet they are very simple. Worse, we cannot WILL ourselves to obey because the command is to LOVE, and LOVE is something that cannot be coerced, it can only exist in an environment where it is freely given. My young friend tries to obey God because He fears what will happen if He does not, yet in His fearing, He is failing to obey. How in the world can we escape from this dilemma?

Through Christ.

Jesus was asked once, "what must I do to do the works of God" and His explicit answer was, "believe on the One whom God has sent."

God is not now, and never has been, impressed with our efforts. Our righteousness is as filthy rags to him. Our job is not to work hard. Our job is to trust Christ - trust Him in spite of our sins, trust Him in spite of our successful attempts at righteousness. Trust Him in spite of our fear. Trust Him to do what He said He would do. Trust Him to act on our behalf. Trust Him.

End of the Road?

Today is the end of a journey that started on August 8 last year - the JDA/Mervyns project. The time was exactly seven months after the end of my marriage, and I was still in the just-slightly-better-than-catatonic stage. The demands of the project were rigorous: travel every week for over a year, fly out early Monday morning, fly back late Thursday night. But I needed it. I needed something that was as absorbing and as demanding as this project to get me through the coming months.

Divorce, by the way, is the most fun you can have short of self-flaggelation. Inexpressible pain wrapped around loss, confusion, grief, fear, anger, hopelessness and ultimately, acceptance. I had everything I loved wrenched from me and had to start a brand new life, pretty much from scratch. The only constant was my job, and I think it went a long way towards helping me maintain my somewhat-tenuous hold on sanity during those days.

I've recovered a lot in the 14 months since the project started, and have actually reached the point where I am ready to move on. I have a new life - not the life I dreamed of, but a life for which I am grateful nonetheless. I survived the worst I could imagine and am now full of hope for the future.

Hope, by the way, is something I could not begin to conceive I might have 14 months ago. But time heals all wounds, and also - apparently - wounds all heels.

I don't know what comes next, but I do know that it is time to steer my own boat. The world looks so much different through these eyes. Not bad, just different.

I can hardly wait to see what comes next....

Random Shots

In spite of my utter lack of campaigning, I still managed to garner sufficient votes in the September 12 primary to make it onto the ballot for the general election in November. I suspect vote fraud...

What am I running for? Would you believe the Arizona House of Representatives? (Yeah, me neither...)

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I ordered a pile of stuff from The Teaching Company last week and am eager to commence my long-neglected liberal arts education. Having said that, I am also very aware that an awful lot of intellectual activity is little more than mental masturbation.

I shall try to avoid such self-abuse.

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I finish the Mervyns project this week. 14 consecutive months on the road. Over 200,000 Marriott points. 4 free round-trip tickets on Southwest. Executive Elite status at National.

Whoop-ti-doo.

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I filled out one of my candidate surveys and indicated that one of my priorities was the enforcement of property rights by changing the police culture from "crime-solving" to "crime prevention".

Here's an example of one Florida community that is actually doing that.

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Animal rights advocacy would be more aptly named "idiocy". I question whether these people are capable of rational thought, and I fear they are not to be trusted with anything more dangerous than a plastic spoon. Here's more proof.

Pray to God that they don't decide that your children need to be "rescued" some day.

Do you know what today is?

It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Why live your life in the fear of some Victorian prude clucking her tongue at you in disapproval, when you can be a pirate instead?

Holiness, Happiness and "Bowing the Knee"

Inspired by anonymous commenters...

As best as I can figure, we humans have two possible ways of relating to God:

1. A business relationship
2. A family relationship

A family relationship is based upon the the nature of the persons in the relationship. A business relationship is based upon the quality of the transactions between the parties, without regard to the nature of the persons on either side of the transaction.

As I understand it, God intends a family relationship with people, but people seem to prefer a business relationship with God. Why? I think it has to do with pride and control. In a business relationship, we can maintain both our pride and our sense of control, but in a family relationship, there is no place for pride or control.

If the nature of our relationship with Him is transactional - in other words, a business relationship - then we can maintain control of the relationship by trading value for value with Him; our inate inferiority to Him is a non-issue in the relationship as long as our transactions are evenly balanced.

But if the nature of our relationship to Him is familial, then the difference between Him and us is fundamental to our relationship; His superiority to us in every way puts Him in complete control of the relationship. He is forever Father and we are forever children.

In a business relationship, whatever inequalities may exist between "buyer" and "seller" are immaterial, as long as each party trades value for value. In a family relationship, the weaker party is dependent upon the stronger; the child is dependent upon the parent.

A business relationship evens the playing field between both parties in the transaction, a familial relationship highlights the inequalities between the parties. A business relationship is maintained by the fidelity of both parties to the standard of "value for value". A familial relationship is sustained by love.

In a business relationship, as soon as one party ceases to offer value for value, the relationship is over. In a familial relationship, no action or lack of action can change the fundamental reality of shared blood, shared bone, shared flesh.

---

In general, people don't like having their inferiority and dependence spotlighted. That's why they prefer a business relationship with God. And that's why every religion in the world exists - to manage and control the relationship with God

In my experience, most Christians operate a business relationship with God. Though they may protest, their language betrays their core beliefs about the relationship. For example, here's a quote from an anonymous commenter:

You could become a great man if you would bow your knee and yield to the One who made you - because after your short years here you will face Him. Fall on the Rock before the Rock falls on you.

Implicit in this comment is the belief that God is Gonna Get You! You're gonna PAY!

Oddly, people seem to like this message. Do good, and all will be well with you. Do bad, and He will come down on you like a ton of bricks. In fact, the reason you are not getting blessed by God is that you are not making the payments God demands in exchange for His blessings.

An appealing message - but it's not the Gospel.

Here's another example:

From where does the idea come that God's will is for any of us to be happy? He wants us to be holy. Happiness can be a byproduct of holiness, but holiness will not come as a result of seeking happiness.

Apparently, in this commenter's religion, God doesn't value Happiness, but does value Holiness. Therefore, He'll trade us something of lesser value to Him - Happiness - if we will pay Him something of lesser value to us - Holiness. In other words, the reason you are not Happy is because you have not paid the price that God puts on Happiness. Happy people have paid the price; UnHappy people have not.

This position appeals to our sense of pride and control, and we jump up and applaud wildly: Yes! Yes! Preach it!

But it's not the Gospel.

---

This is how religion operates, and it is why the early Christians were so frequently ignored, marginalized or martyred. Their message was simple...God is out of the accounting business - permanently. From now on, God is gonna think of you as His own child, not as a servant. ...but it thoroughly destroyed the very premises of religion. It really pissed-off the religious people, (and make no mistake - everyone is religious), so they tried to silence and/or kill those foolish believers who were spreading it.

What's the point of following rules and sacrificing animals and paying tithes and doing deeds of penance if God doesn't value all my hard work? I pour an awful lot of effort into proving to God that I am good enough and holy enough and righteous enough and committed enough and serious enough, and then these yahoos come along and say that God simply isn't interested in what I am trying to pay?

This Gospel of the Kingdom, carried by early believers to the uttermost parts of the earth, proclaimed that God had decided to throw open the Divine Party to anyone who wanted to come in and partake of it. He was giving away the riches of His table - for free. All you had to do was take Him at His word. All you had to do was show up. (See, for example, the parables of the Great Banquet, the Prodigal, the Pharisee and the Publican, the Talents.)

For some reason, the religious folks thought this was Bad News, and they've spent the last 2000 years trying to convince everyone that God Still Demands Payment! The only reason I can imagine for such foolishness is because most people were (and are) addicted to their own sense of worthiness and control vis-a-vis God. They want a business relationship with God, not a family relationship.

Oh, and they also realize that people who are no longer living in fear can be awfully hard to control.

Me? I'm completely convinced that I have absolutely nothing of value to offer God. Therefore, a business relationship with Him is not even a remote possibility for me. If I have any chance at all of being in a relationship with God, it's gonna hafta be because He Loves Me.

You know - as if I were His own child or something...

Dreck and Piddle

If writing is God's way of showing me how sloppy my thinking is, then what in the world does it say about my thinking when I don't write? I suspect it says exactly what you would think it says - that by not writing I have ceased thinking.

I wrote for years. Years and years and years. Reams and reams of dreck and piddle. And what did it get me?

Squat.

So I quit writing. And now when I do write, perhaps it will still be dreck and piddle, but at least I am not attaching any salvific attributes to the act itself.

I subscirbe to an newsletter called Monday Morning Memo - highly recommended by the way - that is the marketing piece for a man who calls himself the Wizard of Ads. (No links provided - feel free to google it yourself.) I recall a piece he sent out a while back that was a eulogy for his father. Lemme see if I can find it....

Yep - here it is. (You're welcome.)

Anyway, as I read it, and read the tombstone, and imagined the man about whom that eulogy was written, I thought to myself, "wow - he lived a life, didn't he?" And I realized that I am living a life, too. Not exactly the life I wanted, but closer now than I was before.

Conscience makes cowards of us all. I believe that was Hamlet, a coward if ever there was one. It was that quote that came to me when I made a choice that my background and culture told me I should regret, but which hindsight tells me set me free finally to be who I wanted to be and to live the life I wanted to live.

Fear has kept me bound for a very long time, but I have slowly and certainly begun to shake it's gnarly bonds. Each day gets me closer to living the life I have imagined; each day leads to me to stare my fear full in the face and say "what the hell..."

No one gets out alive. Hamlet eventually learned that. I do not intend to die young, but neither do I intend to die without living. I have finally - finally - started to live. And I'll be damned if I am going to give it all up for some bastardized version of puritanical morality masquerading as "What God Wants...."

No one but me knows what this means, but everyone can benefit by clicking on the link referenced above.

Eye Contact

Don't say I never point you to anything useful.

The Real Fight Club

The article linked here is a typical example of the cluelessness that pervades public consciousness in our culture. If you are too lazy to click the link, I will summarize: shocked police and school officials have discovered that teens are engaging in organized fights in Fight Clubs, apparently inspired by the book and movie of the same name.

If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, (and it is obvious that the writer of the article has not), then you might not recognize how completely wrong the story gets the fundamental issue here.

A similar story can be found here.

I am not remotely surprised that Fight Clubs are popular amongst adolescent boys and white-collar 20-somethings, nor am I surprised that the egg-headed professors quoted in the story place the blame on video games.

In our public culture, we Americans have utterly abandoned the idea of anything transcendent, with the possible exception of the state. I'm pretty sure most of these kids involved in fight clubs have fully imbibed at the well of nihilism, moral relativism, and consumerism and they simply are looking for something that is real.

Pain is real.

Flesh is real. Bone is real. Blood is real.

They are tapping into something visceral and latent in every man. They are no doubt rebelling, (subconscious though their rebellion may be), against the intense feminization of their entire culture - school, work, public debate - all of it intensely anti-male. Through the machinery of state-funded education, they find themselves mechanized, industrialized, systematized and finally traumatized by the sheer banality of the modern secular state.

I can't blame them at all.

Irrelevant Minutiae

Atticus lives in a hotel in Pleasanton, California, but his stuff lives in a house in Chandler, Az. He visits his stuff on the weekends.

He is the father of four beautiful, intelligent, creative, charming, independent and free-thinking children, ages 16, 19, 21 & 23, and father-in-law to one beautiful, charming, creative, intelligent and feisty daughter-in-law. He also fills the position of concierge and Butler for two cats, Sam & Hobbes. (You know the story: dogs have owners, cats have staff.)

He occasionally plays keyboards in a band that occasionally plays Rock-n-Roll cover tunes, but he listens mostly to jazz, country and sports-talk radio.

He blogs. He invests in commodities, but not equities. He plays options but not futures.

He reads lots of non-fiction, (economics, history and theology), and a little fiction, (high-brow snooty literature mostly, but also has occasional forays into comic books.) His favorite film has never been released on DVD. He believes the best shows on television are all cartoons - Futurama, The Simpsons, Family Guy & King of the Hill. His hero is Bugs Bunny. (Perhaps we detect a theme here.)

He's an ENTP, although he believes that Myers-Briggs is deeply flawed, in spite of its ubiquity and reputation. He also believes the demise of western civilization can be traced directly to the advent of Astro-Turf and the Designated Hitter rule and can be traced indirectly to public edjumakashun, fiat money, premilennial dispensational eschatology and Rationalism.

His reach exceeds his grasp. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. Time flies like an arrow, fruit fries like a banana.

I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

Baseball!

I took Caroline to the Red Sox game at Oakland last night. She is so much more than a fan: the Red Sox are her church and attending a game is a sacramental experience. Me, I've always enjoyed baseball, and tend to give my loyalty to whomever is least likely to break my heart, but Caroline is a Red Sox Fan through and through: for better or worse, for richer or poorer, to love and to cherish until, I guess, finally parted by death. I do not understand such devotion, but I do enjoy watching it in action. Her good cheer about her Red Sox - win or lose - is delightful.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to shop for something I knew she would love: tickets to see her beloved Red Sox. I got us tickets in section 116, row 32, just to the left-handed hitters side of homeplate. We spent roughly a zillion dollars on a couple of crappy hotdogs, a couple of drinks and the worst tub of popcorn I have ever eaten in my life.

Welcome to Oakland.

Josh Beckett pitched for the Sox, Barry Zito for the A's. The Sox roughed up Zito - he gave up five earned runs - but it was easy to see how he can be so dominating when his pitches are all working. Papi and Manny both homered, which delighted her. Beckett overcame a shaky start and was dominant for 5 innings. The Sox turned 3 DPs. Papelbon closed it out. In short, we got to see all the things she would want to see.

Banners around the stadium exhorted "Let's Keep the A's in Oakland!"; apparently Oakland is not doing a great job of supporting the A's. At several points in the game, the cheer "Let's Go Red Sox" rumbled through the ugly old barn that the A's call home. Not only were there nearly as many red Sox fans as A's fans at the game, the Red Sox fans were far more rowdy and loyal to their team. We stood and cheered the homers and the key defensive plays, talked smack with the A's fans around us, and took photos with fellow Sox fans after the game. They really do treat one another like "brothers" within the closely defined context of "Red Sox Nation".

I love the pace and rhythm of a baseball game, the ebb and flow, the phases of the game, (beginning, middle, end). It feels like life-writ-small.

I sat there thinking, "I need to attend more baseball games" and began plotting my purchase of Diamondbacks season tickets next year. I imagined myself becoming a real fan, knowing the players, the teams, and my fellow fans. I imagined myself charting pitches, keeping a box score, and just generally giving myself to the Diamondbacks, not because they would reward my loyalty by winning but because the rhythm of the game helps me to unwind. I also imagined how the pace of my life during baseball season would change as I made attendance at the games an integral part of my life.

I have no idea how much it will cost, but I like the dream.

San Fran Weekend

I spent the weekend in San Francisco, which is not merely on the opposite side of the Bay from Oakland but is also the opposite side of the world, culturally speaking. I love San Francisco; I will live there for a year at some point in the future.

Saturday I decided to drive into town rather than take BART. It took 20 minutes to get to the traffic jam waiting to get through the toll gates for the Bay Bridge, and then another hour of crawling to get to the gates. At least we were sitting in air conditioning. I did not at the time know what a blessing that was. Once through the toll gates, we breezed along across the bridge at 60 mph. 20 minutes later, we parked close to Union Square and stood in line to get on the cable car.

While waiting, we saw one guy wearing a scarf on his head and admiring his reflection in the shop windows. Another guy was standing on his head on the street corner. Uh huh. This is San Francisco.

It was a touristy kinda day. We rode the cable cars, strolled through the Cannery, had a Beer at Jack's Cannery Bar while listening to a guitarist play through Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon all by himself. We hung out on the beach down by Ghiradelli Square, napped a little bit, then walked back up into town. We had exceedingly hot Hot Wings at a little diner on Lombard, got a brief massage from an aspiring massage therapist whilst waiting for the 28 bus to the Golden Gate Bridge, and then walked across the Bridge at sunset, snapping photos all the way.

We took another bus to some swanky neighborhood on the Pacific side of the peninsula down by Balboa Park I think, We walked a lot more and finally found the the Muni back to Powell station. We finished the evening with dinner in a Jazz place down by Union Square. I had a mostly boring mixed greens salad, a pretty decent boullabaise, and a Neopolitan to finish off the meal. The music was good, but the service was abysmal. Just like Europe!

While trying to find the Bay Bridge again, I made an illegal left turn and got pulled over by a motorcycle cop. He asked for my license and registration. When I told him it was a rental and I was from Arizona, he replied, "I thought this was gonna be easy", and let me go without a ticket.

The trip back to the hotel in Pleasanton took less than 30 minutes. THIRTY MINUTES.

Sunday was completely different - we decided to take BART. The trains are apparently not air conditioned. It was - uhm - unpleasant. (Did I mention this was the hottest weekend of the year? Temperatures inland reached 110, and it was in the 90s in SF.) I couldn't help wondering what it must be like on a weekday afternoon packed with bodies. Bleh again. While trying to find a rail car that was not 10 degrees hotter than the blistering outside air, we got separated, which resulted in 30 minutes of trying to reconnect, which we ultimately did at the West Oakland station.

Together again, we rode BART into the Mission District and began wandering around. I had hoped to find a killer Peruvian-fusion restaurant called Limon where I had eaten before, but really had no clue where it was. As we walked up 16th Ave past a bagle shop, I overheard a couple of guys talking about Limon. I interrupted, asked them to point me to the place, and it turned out we were less than a block away. Eureka!

It was a little before 4 when we arrived, so you could say we beat the dinner rush, which was nice since we got the opportunity to ask our waitress not only about the food but about herself. (Ashley, from upstate New York, in SF for about 18 months.) We ultimately chose the sampler with 4 kinds of cerviche. Then we did the tuna tartar patty and some amazing shrimp-stuffed calamari in saffron sauce - all exquiste and well-balanced. We washed it down with a bottle of some kinda white spanish wine, (instead of the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc I’d requested), and finished with latte and two decadent deserts - a dark chocalate truffel with vanilla ice cream, and home made short bread cookie sandwiches with 4 kinds of sauces. The cookies were a tad too sweet for my taste, but overall, it was a thoroughly fabulous dinner.

We then wandered 3 doors down to a joint known as Blondies Bar & No Grill. Black walls. Black ceiling. Black floor. Minimal signage. No Grill. 16 ounce martinis. This is a place you come to drink, to lounge, to groove, to lounge and to drink. We drank, lounged and grooved - and thoroughly, completely, utterly enjoyed ourselves. The Tour de France was on the tube above the pool table in the back, a very eclectic, very San Fran sound track was playing at conversation-enabling sound levels, and a lesbian couple was making out in the back corner.

We each had only ONE 16-ounce martini because ONE 16-ounce martini is enough for anybody.

Next, we crossed the street to a little curiosity shop specializing in used clothing, snarky refrigerator magnets, (”Divorce is Expensive - Freedom is Priceless”), and anti-George Bush knick knacks. It occured to me that the humongous market for Anti-George Bush tchotskis has probably helped to keep the economy afloat - an irony which would no doubt really irritate the George Bush-haters if they had a capacity to appreciate irony, which I doubt.) The place was buzzing - at 7:30 on a Sunday evening! We bought nothing, but enjoyed the experience.

Finally, to complete our Sunday of Decadence, we wandered down Valencia back toward 16th to a dive called Casanovas Lounge. (I have a thing for slightly seedy bars with quirky character.) As was Blondies, Casanovas was mostly empty, and mostly dark. Whereas Blondies has an air of world-weary sophistication, Casanovas has more of a 19th-century opium-den vibe going on. Not that I’ve ever been in the 19th century, or in an opium den, but this is the kind of place I picture when I read Sherlock Holmes.

What little light there was in the place was provided by red-tinted lamps scattered around the room. Paintings, not posters, were hung all around the back part of the bar. When our eyes adjusted to the dim light, we realized that the paintings were mostly nudes, and that the sofas in the back were invitingly low and soft and cushiony and easy to get real comfortable in, if you get my drift.

We took seats in the corner across from the bar just in front of the back lounge where we could watch people both in the bar and on the street. (San Francisco is a great people-watching city. If you can’t see it in SF, it can’t be seen on the planet.) Back behind the sofa-strewn lounge area was a smaller room with couches on three walls and heavy drapes framing the doorway. The drapes looked as if they could be drawn to make a private area, but they were open the entire time we were in there. A lesbian couple was making out on the cushions behind the drapes. Of course.

We decided on shots of Don Julio Silver since neither of us was driving. Lick the hand, sprinkle the salt, shoot the tequila, lick the salt off the hand, suck the lime. Weird, but fun. In fact, so fun that we did another shot.

Directly across from our table, a DJ was spinning actual vinyl albums with actually terrific rock & roll. Most of it I had never heard before, but I really liked it. It had a 70s feel without being 70s schlocky. Oh, and it too was played at a volume that did not prohibit conversation. (What marketing guru recommended that music be played so loud that your guests cannot hear themselves talk? And who thought shouting into an ear 3 inches from your mouth makes for a fun evening? Huh?)

At some point, I remembered that I was actually supposed to work on the morrow, so we hopped BART back to Pleasanton. The return trip was a good deal cooler and less eventful than the trip out. Thank God.

It is hot in the Bay Area. HOT. Aitch Oh Tee steaming hot. I’m glad my stale, lifeless cubicle comes equipped with A/C.

Fecal Matter Occurs

Strange how a relationship can be so bad that you feel more lonely in it than out of it.

Can I get a witness?

Long or Short?: This Girl is Not Attractive, so Short Her

Long or Short?: This is strangely compelling, kinda like the game we used to play where we'd rate girls on a 1-to-10 scale, only for the go-go stock market generation.

Denny Burk

Or, as I prefer to call it, Burk's Benign and Boring Baptist Blog.

The Inklings' Cafe

The Inklings' Cafe is the work of a Singaporean Presbyterian.

I didn't really read the blog - I just wanted to say "Singaporean Presbyterian".

If he slobbered when he thought about nachos, he'd be a "Salivating Singaporean Prsybyterian".

I could do this for a while. But I won't.

I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you...

Memo to survivors of the government-induced levee break in New Orleans: The Feds are so concerned about your health, they will let you starve rather than allow unfit food to be given to you.

Some guy has figured out how to build a cleaner-burning engine. I'll be the government outlaws it.

One more reason to love Dave Barry...

For the survivors, cry mercy.

The Mask

Dan writes about evangelicalism from the inside, and boy, does he speak the truth.

Not long ago, I made the mistake of confessing my deepest, darkest sins to some "church friends", and it became immediately obvious that they didn't know what to do with such a depraved sinner as me. I'll be a lot less likely to confess my faults in the future.

A lot less likely.

A Heretical Confession

I don't believe in life after death.

I know, I know. Heretic. Before you start stacking cordwood for your Jack-flambee' though, hear me out.

Though I do not believe in life after death, I do believe in the resurrection of the dead. "What's the dif", you may ask. The difference is that the whole "life after death" thing requires that I leave my body upon death. That whole notion implies the very Greek and entirely unscriptural idea that "my body" and "me" are not the same, that my body is a prison from which I must escape if I am to experience existence as I was meant to. But if that is true, then I should seek to die as quickly as possible so that I can enter into the fullness of my existence. If being "stuck" in this body means I am barricaded from "real life", then Death is the friend that sets me free from my prison and should be welcomed as a liberator.

But Death is my enemy - a vanquished enemy, certainly - but an enemy nonetheless. I hate to draw attention to the obvious, but when we die, we quit living. Else what does it mean to say that we die? Death is The End, The Grand Finale, the Last Chapter, the Final Enemy.

Or at least that is what Death meant until Christ defeated it and broke its grip on mankind. The promise of Christ's resurrection is that though Death will claim us all at some point, Death will no longer have the last word.

Christ as the firstborn from among the dead has become the first fruits of the New Order of Creation; He is not a disembodied spirit but an embodied man. If Christ rose bodily from the dead, then we too shall be so raised. If Christ is now clothed in immortality then we too shall be so clothed.

But if that is so, what happens between the time of our death and the time of our resurrection? No one really knows, but I think we must simply cease to exist. We are dead. And though we are gone, we still maintain a kind of life in the memory of those who knew us on this earth. Those on earth who remember us after we are gone will not have known us perfectly, nor will they remember us perfectly, and - worse for us - they too will one day cease to exist.
But God knows us perfectly and will remember us perfectly.

Our bodies decay and return to the dust from which we were made, but the memory of us will remain incorruptible and in perfect safety and integrity in the mind of Him who first imagined us. Though our friends may wish to reanimate their memory of us, they are powerless to do so, but the God who loves us perfectly is not. When they time comes, He will restore us to life by His great power, His infinite knowledge and His perfect love.

He will raise us from the dead just as Christ Himself was raised.

The first time God imagined man, He made us from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life – His life - into us. The second time He creates us, He promises that the life He breathes into us will never end.

---

The ancient creed affirms the Christian belief in "...the resurrection of the body..." Paul reminded the early church that "if there is no resurrection of the dead, then we are to be pitied above all men". Christ appeared to the disciples after His resurrection and He made an explicit point of showing them that He was physically present. He was not just an ethereal concept or a substance-less spirit but a real person with real scars who ate real food. He occupied space, but was not constrained by space.

God seems to like the physical realm. He must get a charge out of His creation, or He wouldn't make such a big deal over it. When we treat death as if it were a friend and act as if this physical creation is somehow a lesser expression of God’s goodness than the spiritual realm, we are guilty of devaluing that which God highly values.

Life is good. Resurrection life will be even better.

Grace So Amazing

Donald McCullough verbalizes what I have been pondering for quite some time - the offense of grace.

If it doesn't offend your moral judgment, it probably isn't grace.

A Perfect Mirror

...we tend to forget that ‘justification by faith’ is primarily the story of God’s faithful actions in the world in his Son, Jesus Christ. It is because God justified himself that we are justified, and only for that reason. It is too easy in our preaching to make ‘faith’ something we do, a work almost, which smuggles in all the dross and anguish of human-centred religion which Luther left behind.

Martin Luther and the Justification of God

Robert Doyle

Sometimes I get so worn out with trying to do the right thing, be the right thing, think the right thing, say the right thing and hang with the right people that I forget the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

I manage to screw up with great regularity. Every single blooming day I do at least one thing that violates some scriptural principle, and I can always find at least a dozen books, articles, tapes and radio preachers who are eager to explain - in excruciating detail - why any person who does what I do is (insert condemnatory description here) and certainly perdition-bound.

I keep thinking about that phrase in the letter from James to the church where he says that the person who gazes into the perfect law of liberty and acts based upon what he sees there will be blessed in what he does. I used to think that James was warning us not to forget what scum-bags we are, but now I realize that I had it exactly backwards.

When I gaze into this perfect law of liberty, I see reflected back to me the image of a perfect Man. This is a wonder to me - yet the image in this mirror is in fact what God sees when He looks on me. As I gaze into my "reflection" there in that perfect mirror and ponder what God's gracious work has wrought on my behalf, the glory of it penetrates - however slowly - to the darkest and densest reaches of my heart, and as this "God's-eye-view" of me seeps into my soul, I see myself as God already sees me. A lifetime of gazing into this image changes me - my choices slowly align themselves with the reality of that image.

I can trust that the screwups I assign to myself are not reflections of the real me that God already sees, but are merely the vestigal remains of the old Jack that is already dead but not quite yet fully decayed.

Good Cop/Bad Cop - Stupid Jack

I wonder...

Am I worse at being a Christian than the other people at church, or am I just more aware of how screwed up I am?

The other day, as I was contemplating doing something I knew I shouldn't do, I stopped myself and gave myself a good talking to: "You know better than that. God doesn't want you to do that. You should do the right thing."

And so I didn't do what I was contemplating. I felt slightly better about myself and found the shadow of this thought floating through the detritus of my mind: I'll bet God is pleased with me for doing the right thing...

And just like that I realized what a fool I am.

I believed that God would be please by me doing the right thing. I imagined Him weighing my deeds in the balance and finding me worthy for doing the right thing, (or worthless for doing the wrong thing.)

Though I've always confessed that my fecal matter is malodorous to the Almighty, (and everyone else as well), I apparently still believe that my righteousness somehow impresses Him. I guess I honestly thing that my good deeds are NOT as repugnant to God as used, bloody bandages. What an idiot.

The New Testament clearly shows me that my evil deeds do not separate me from God and my good deeds do do not bring me any closer. My deeds - both good and evil, righteous and unrighteous - have no bearing of any kind on my relationship to God. With the death, burial, resurrection and glorification of Jesus, God has taken the whole issue of good deeds / bad deeds off the table. My sins mean nothing to God because they are all already paid for by the death of Christ, (and therefore forgotten by God). My righteous deeds are worthless to God, because they are dung by comparison to the righteousness of Christ. God approves of me not because I behave or don't behave but because I am in Christ .

This is such a radical way of thinking and living that I can barely wrap my head around it. I find it so much easier to condemn myself for my failings or to praise myself for my successes - yet both of these imposters are worthless to me and repugnant to God. He is utterly pleased with Christ, and is utterly pleased with me in Christ.

My deeds - both "good" and "bad" - are death for me, death if I place any value or trust in them at all. But if my trust is in Christ, then my life is in Him. He is the Vine, I am one of his branches. Whatever life is in me is His life. As the life of the vine is in the branch, so the life of Christ is the life of Jack.

Treasure

Axiom: When God speaks, no one has any trouble hearing Him.

I know that I know that God has spoken to me, but I have no recollection of the time or event when He gave me the words that I now carry in my mind. I have a message inside my head - a message from God to me - but I have no memory of when that message was given. At some indeterminate point this summer while on vacation, I knew something that I hadn't known before. I don't know how it got there, but this "message from God" was burned into my mind:

I will be your reward.

God said this to me - I don't know when, I don't know how, I don't know where. I only know that these words are in my head, and I didn't put them there.

For as long as I can remember, my experience of life did not measure up to my expectations. I thrashed about trying to make sense of it all. I've made messes, hurt people, tried things, rejected beliefs and - in the immortal words of Bono - "still haven't found what I'm looking for." A deep, brooding dissatisfaction with life has marked me and colored every day in melancholy shades of gray and blue.

Not long ago, I was reading Jesus's instructions about the things we hold dear: "wherever your treasure is, there will your heart be - so store up treasures for yourself in heaven where they cannot be stolen or rot or rust." I remember responding saying to God something along the lines of: "Help! I don't know how to treasure heavenly things. Please help me do that."

I guess maybe that was one of those dangerous prayers - you know - the kind you shouldn't pray without strapping on your crash helmet. But I prayed it. And today I realized that since I prayed that prayer and since He spoke those words into my head, I have experienced a radical reorientation in my life. I had just finished lunch with a friend, and as we were parting, he asked if he could pray for me. I'm always grateful that anyone would talk to God on my behalf, so I said sure. He then asked me, "what do you want me to pray about?" and it struck me - I have everything I need.

I have lost everything in this world that I counted dear: my marriage, my children, my home and - to some extent - my church. And yet God has not abandoned me. I don't know how I know that, but I do. Even though I am bereft of the things that were most important to me, even though I feel their loss accutely, even though the external circumstances of my life are bleaker than they have ever been, God has not abandoned me. He's here hanging out with me, even as I stumble and bumble through the biggest mess and most difficult, painful experience of my life.

He's not making me feel better - I feel like shit most of the time. He's not easing my circumstances - they suck. He's not vindicating me - my reputation is shot. He's not doing any of the things that I used to think He should do to make me feel loved. Yet I feel more loved than ever in my life.

I cannot explain this except by saying "He is with me." And because He is with me, I just don't care what people think of me. I don't really care if I am doing the right thing in the right way at the right time. I don't care if people think I have gone off the rails, or that I am a lost cause or have abandoned the faith. I don't need to explain. I don't need to defend. I've lost everything I ever thought I cared about, and now I know - even if I never get any of it back again - God is with me.

So I told my friend, "I can't think of a thing to ask of God. He is with me - what else could I possibly need?"

He has become my treasure. He is my reward.

Jamming...

I can hardly wait to see what I am thinking.

I spoke with Robert Capon today, the author of the subversive book Between Noon and Three. He is the first author I have ever found who is willing to say publicly what I have only dared to half-imagine. Grace, as he sees it, really is a the free gift of God to the underserving, and the only possible way to avoid enjoying its benefits is to not believe it. Simple, I know, but profound in its implications...

I have wondered over the last few years why it is that I have always been attracted to the folks who exist on the fringes of cultural normality - the freaks, weirdos, oddballs and assorted socially not-quite-acceptable people. Normal people, while non-threating, tend to bore me. I don't know why I prefer the statistical outliers to the normal folks, but when I look at His creation, I find all sorts of analogues in the natural world. God apparently has a tremendous taste for the bizarre and the weird and the just plain not-normal. How else to explain the platypus, or the venus fly-trap, or tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, cancer, Amos 3:6, crocodiles, dragons, giants, dwarves, the Loch Ness monster?

I know I am wandering back & forth between the nominally real and the nominally imaginary, but where exactly is the border between the two? Chesterton argues that myth is more real than reality, that the realm of the fantastic is where life really lives, and that the world we moderns and PoMos call "the real world" is really just a two-dimensional cardboard replica of the real thing. (Sorry, I don't remember if I got this idea from Orthodoxy or from The Everlasting Man.)

In light of my previous post, and in light of being cut off from the five most meaningful relationships in my life, (and thus losing my gravitational center), I find myself questioning my whole concept of God. It seems He is both far more terrible and far more wonderful than I thought before.

Well, maybe I have thought it before. I remember as a pre-adolescent reading The Chronicles of Narnia and tasting of something so much more wonderful and more awful than myself and my small, constrained little world, something I identified as God expressed through Christ, but the 30 intervening years have pretty well smashed the awe and wonder of that childlike vision out of me. I am so much more sophisticated, more worldly, more cosmopolitan - and yet somehow my world has become so much smaller.

But along comes Genesis and Job and Chesterton and Lewis and Capon and my world is turned inside out, or upside down or something I cannot explain in a straight-line intellect-only dimension. Poetry or song or art might better capture it.

I stumbled onto some poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, (who is apparently no longer in vogue as a poet), and found a beauty and wistfulness there that I had all but forgotten. So I shall sit down with my poetry again, and seek to touch that long-lost chord that Lewis first struck in me when I was 11 or 12, that music which echoed in my soul for years but that the years have likewise silenced, that wonder and awe at the beauty and mystery woven into the very fabric of the universe.

I am alone tonight, as I have been for the last 16 nights, and probably will be for many more nights to come, yet in some undefinable way, I am NOT alone, maybe for the first time ever.

As Robert Capon reminded me on the phone today, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and if I am anywhere at all these days, it is in Him.

A Disturbing God

What makes the Christian faith different from any other, from that of the Jew or the Mormon or the Jehovah's Witness or the Muslim or the Buddhist or the Sikh? Aren't all who fervently hold to their faith determined to be good people, to do good things, to be a positive influence on their world? Quite frankly, I know plenty of Christians who are simply nasty people. (I may be one.) And I know lots of extremely good people who are Jews and Mormons and JWs and Sikhs. So I cannot help but wonder if the behavior of the faithful is not really the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity.

We had a bible study at the office today and read Genesis 39-41 about Joseph, and the leader asked what the story taught us about how we should behave, (I think.) But it seems to me that is the wrong question. Rather than asking, "what does this story teach us about us", it seems to me the right question would be "what does this story teach us about God?" And quite frankly, I find it pretty darned disturbing. Here is a God who was apparently powerful enough to prosper Joseph as a slave and as a prisoner, wise enough to give him the interpretation of dreams, in control enough to cause them to come to pass, faithful enough to be with Joseph wherever he found himself, and yet this exact same God also allowed Joseph to be sold into slavery, allowed him to be cast into prison, allowed the baker to be hung, and allowed the famine to occur. It seems to me that such a God is utterly unlike anything we could imagine on our own. It seems He cares not one whit about pain - He certainly allowed, if not outright caused plenty of it. So the thought of us being "used by Christ" to be nice people in hard circumstances seems utterly laughable.

What kind of God allows a beloved son to suffer from cancer and die at the age of 9? What kind of God says "I am with you no matter what", and then allows or causes all hell to break loose in our lives? What kind of God allows over 100,000 people to be swept away in an instant by a tsunami He darn well could have prevented?

If our job as "believers" is to help people by being nice and not causing pain and helping relieve painful circumstances and bring comfort in pain, then why doesn't our God simply arrange things so that people don't experience hard circumstances? Why in the world would He need me to be a pain-reliever? What lunacy!

I don't know the answer to these questions, but I do know that the God I see in the scriptures is not the tame and kindly old grandfatherly figure much of Christendom seems to imagine and teach. The God in these stories is terrible and wild and utterly beyond our comprehension. He keeps the universe spinning, for pete's sake. Does He actually need us to be nice to other people? The sheer folly of such thinking simply overwhelms me. If He was incarnate in Christ, (and I believe with all my heart that He was), then what do all these things tell us about God? I just don't think it tells us to be nice people, to say nive things and think nice thoughts and be a postive influence. I'm really not sure what it tells us, but a God who names the stars, puts the planets in place, sets the galaxies spinning, builds an earth that wipes out people as if they were nothing more than kindling for a fire, presides over cancer and AIDS and divorce and alzheimers and even became a man and DIED a horrible, humiliating death, such a God certainly has absolutely no need of me for anything. The whole idea of "morality" utterly pales before such a God.

For some reason I keep thinking of that story where Jesus was teaching in somebody's house and these guys cut a hole in the roof and lowered their paralyzed friend through the hole right down in front of Him. Jesus looked at the paralyzed guy and said, "Your sins are forgiven you." And then, because He knew the Nice People, the Moral People, the Upright People, were all pissed off about that and saying to themselves, "who does He think He is", Jesus said to them, "I know you are offended that I granted this man forgiveness for sins. You concept of God does not allow me to do that. So just to show you that your concept of God is completely wrong…" and then He turns to the paralyzed guy and says, "Get up. Take your mat and go home." And the guy gets up. And takes his mat. And goes home.

Who is this God? And how could I dare imagine He needs anything from me? My intellect is not merely humbled, it is driven speechless to the ground where it wallows face down in the dirt. My emotions short circuit from the nearness of His overwhelming power. My very body wants to find a small, dark place to tremble in fear and hide.

This God is not what I would have imagined, not what I would choose, and certainly not what I have been taught.

But I want to know Him. Dear god, I want to know Him...

Old Friends, New Friends

Over the years, I have come to realize that I like weird people. I like the folks who fall outside the bell curve of "normality". Don't know why, all I know is that freaks never freaked me out. I always kinda enjoyed their weirdness. Some folks are weird just for the sake of being weird, and in my mind, they are just poseurs and are as ignorable as the 68% of the population that fits neatly inside the mouth of the bell. But other folks just genuinely look at life differently, and that makes them fun, interesting, intriguing. As the bumper sticker says, "why be normal?"

Alex is one of those people. I've known Alex for several years - we work in the same company and in fact I actually interviewed him when we were hiring. I've always liked him - he's really different. He is very ethnic looking - in actuality I think he is part cuban, part japanese, part I-dunno-what, but he could pass as any number of ethnicities or nationalities. He was raised in Europe, was recruited by the CIA right out of high school and quit his high-paying job as a QA manager for a big Fortune 500 company to become an entry-level programmer. Did I mention he is brilliant, gentle and interesting?

We had a drink together tonight, solved the problems of the world together, and I thought to myself, "why are we not better friends?" I honestly don't know the answer to that question. But I am determined to change that. Alex is an extraordinary man - he challenges my thinking in some ways, and agrees with me in others, but he is most of all his own person.

So tonight I give thanks for a new old friend. To Alex, who dares to be simply who he is. Next time, the drinks are on me.

Return to the Dark Ages?

Those who know what is happening in my life now may find it ironic that I link this article by Joe Sobran, but there it is. I agree with Sobran - the "bright new day" the Progressives envision for us is in practice a dark, dark night. Speaking as one who has been living in darkness for as long as I can remember, I ought to know.

I won't blame "Progressives" for all the societal ills from which we suffer, but they certainly bear significant responsibility for changing our societal paradigm from one which tolerates deviance to one which revels in it. Jonah Goldberg makes the case more clearly than I could.

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I face an awful lot of fear now. I just wrote a note to my pastor and one of the elders describing all the things that scare me in my life: living alone, being barred from worship, the effects of this situation on my family... Panic lurks under the surface.

The really, really, really weird bit is that I have more of sense of being in God's hands and more sense that He is actively at work to do me good than I have had in a Very Long Time. Go figure.

More Thoughts on Mercy

Mercy comes in painful packages as well.

The last few days have been some of the most difficult, painful and strangely liberating of my life. A personal crisis has forced into the open some issues in my heart that I never recognized, and the recognition has been not merely a revelation but an epiphany. It is as though I had spent my entire life viewing the world through the wrong end of a telescope, always running into things and tripping over things, never really seeing or experiencing the world the way "normal" people do. And suddenly, I understand why.

Now, that doesn't mean the pathology is not still there. But what it does mean is that the first step to finding a solution is identifying the problem. I've been in the IT biz for a long time, and it is axiomatic that you cannot solve the problem if you cannot identify the problem.

Well, now I know the source of the problem.

It's a relief, really, even though my life externally appears to be in worse shape than ever. In reality, what might appear to an onlooker as the first day of a disaster was in reality the first day of healing. Although the metaphorical cancer is still inside me, at least I now know the nature of the problem.

I fight self-pity a lot, which is both self-indulgent and stupid. God is actively at work on my behalf, sorting out the mess that I have made of my life, redeeming that which seems irredeemable, making something beautiful out of something horrendous. I am not in control - He is. But the illusion of control is hard to relinquish.

My family suffers because of me. That is my excruciating reality. Yet they too are in God's more-than-capable hands. I do not understand His ways, but I have reached a point of desparation where I must entrust myself and my family to those ways, opaque though they may be. And in abandoning my delusion of control, I find freedom. Paradoxical, eh?

Mercy in a Strange Package

Today's morning Psalm was number 103. Among the mind-boggling things it says is this:

Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not one of all His benefits -

Who forgives every one of all your iniquities
Who heals each one of all your diseases
Who redeems you life from the pit and corruption
Who beautifies, dignifies and crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercy
Who satisfies your mouth, (your necessity and desire at your personal age and situation), with good so that your youth, renewed, is like the eagle's.

Sometimes the scripture seems so random, other times it seems as if God had something written specifically for me. This is an instance of the latter.

I am overcome by my own iniquities. I have climbed down into the pit and am trapped in my own corruptiom. My life is hideous, shameful and despicable. I deserve scorn and wrath. I am ever hungry and never filled.

God's mercy is displayed initially in allowing my shame and corruption to be exposed to the light. It is horrible to be exposed as a liar and a cheat. But I am hopeful - very hopeful - that He is faithfully dealing with me as son, cleansing me, forgiving me of my sin and changing my life into one that is an honor to His name.

This is my Body

Consider the fact of your own bodily presence. What is undeniable about you - or about your body? Just this - no one but you can occupy that space at the same time. You can say with utter assurance, "this space is mine". No matter how confined or constrained others may make your space, God has given us our own space that belongs to no one else, and the borders of that space are defined by our own bodies. Silly? Perhaps. But for that person who has everything else stripped from him, there is comfort, however small, in the fact that the space occupied by their body can be occupied by no one else.

Small as this is, I think it speaks to a fundamental truth God has woven into creation. In spite of the virtual nature of so much of our work these days, we are still creatures, not merely consciousness. There is a physicallity to existence that makes each of us unique, no matter how unremarkable we may be. The constraints of space and the borders of our physical bodies both reinforces our alone-ness and our uniqueness.

And this also has implications for those who profess belief as Christians. Our physical presence - together as people - is the format through which Christ is manifested to the earth. Gotta have that body - and all the irritating realities that come with it - living, working, singing, laughing, crying. fighting, forgiving together to incarnate the Word of God in our communities.