Sonuva...

If you've tried to call me in the last few days, I probably haven't answered. Perhaps, however, someone else did.

I've been looking for my cell for the past few days (I'm currently in Portland, ME for business) and haven't had any "luck" in finding it. I was checking my usage this afternoon and noticed that my last call was at 2:52 this afternoon.

You might remember, I just said that I haven't had my phone for the last few days.

Ass. That is, stubborn mule - you jerk. You, the one who refused to answer my calls from my wife's cell phone on my very own phone. You, the one who is enjoying my chocolate while I cannot. You, the one who is stealing.

No more.

If you try to call me in the near future, you'll get some kind of message that my phone has been disconnected. Verizon suspended the number until I get a new phone.

Sorry that this is the next new message after weeks of dark quiet, but if you know of a place where I can get a new phone for next to nothing (just need one with e911, Verizon won't allow me to activate a phone otherwise.

So, for now, I've been thrown back into the early, um, 2000's. That is, that point in time before I ever had my first cell phone.

Gene loves the city...

Last night, I thought a lot about movement and windows.
I thought a lot about the lives people were leading – how they were doing, where they were going.

I’ve started taking the train to work – I’ve talked about this before, but as every day passes, this seems to be more and more of a viable option for us. To be honest, I feel so much more rested and composed when I do not have to drive for 1 ½ hours on one of the busiest roads I’ve ever driven. More than that, riding while someone else is “driving,” gives me the time and opportunity to sort and process all of my thoughts from a given day, or a given week, or a given relationship.

Last night, I was reminded why I love to live in a city like Philadelphia.

When you’re riding in from the suburbs in the evening, there is darkness. Even from the tracks of public transit, you can see the homes, lawns, and privacy fences of those who were tired of the City and ready to literally “get away.” There’s less graffiti, more trees, and the tracks become slightly more removed from its surroundings.

Riding back into the city, there are monolithically constructed buildings of mortar and reflective glass. There, all the tracks seem to coalesce at 30th Street Station in University City. The remnants of older trains stand guard as you enter into a grand old station.

There is graffiti.

There are few trees.

There is chain link, but no privacy.

There are city lights. There, on the left, is the art museum. There are people bustling to get out of the city and people hustling to get their next meal (or, their next drink, or, their next fix). The buildings of mortar and reflective glass are lit like Christmas trees covered with votives and garland – beautiful in a way that an urbanite would appreciate.

In a city like Philadelphia, the tower of Babel has fallen and there really seems to be mass confusion. Despite the fact, people have decided to stay for one reason or another; they have decided to love the city. Perhaps it’s a mere tacit approval; perhaps they’re here because they couldn’t have afforded the quiet life in the suburbs – but the fact remains that all 1.4 million of them are here.

Last night I thought about movement and windows.
I thought about how the past has been left behind and how that same past has shaped my loves and desires today.
I thought about all the people who had come and gone through my own life – where they were going, what they were doing.
Sometimes, I wonder if they ever think of me.

A city in all of its grandeur is a stark reminder of the reminder of a world broken by sin. Someone once asked me what I like about the city, and that (in a nut shell) is it. It’s easy for my skin to become thick when I am removed from a situation, a people, or a reality. The city allows me to be surrounded by the beauty that is man created in the image of the Divine. The city allows me to be surrounded by the death that is man breaking the covenant made with the Divine.

[The picture used in this blog was found on Wikipedia and taken by "surplusparts." Picture used under the guidelines of Creative Commons Attribution 2.0]

Thoughtless...

Tonight is one of those rarities where I just can't sleep.

We had dinner with a great many new friends in our new city from the church we've been a part of since we've been here [today = 5 months...I think]. In part, this was a celebration of the fruitfulness of a couple, and the fruitfulness of God's people. This couple had basically invited everyone who had brought them dinner after their giving birth of a new son. Needless to say, there were quite a few people there [hospitality is not patently Southern].

Fruitfulness is a wonderful thing. It is also a wonderfully scary thing. I imagine, however, when our first child comes along there will be a mix of emotion much to what I'm feeling tonight. I imagine that our child [our = me and La] will be a lot like I am; that literally scares me on more levels than you know [and I am not "just saying" this...] Part of what scares me is remembering how I reacted when taken to a grave site growing up.

That is, with indifference.

It was not with a flagrant disregard or in abject disrespect - it's just that I didn't know the person in the grave. I couldn't relate to who they were. I didn't have late night conversations with them, I never sat back and drank sweet tea on a hot Southern summer's afternoon with them, I never shot pool with them, nor did I play Scrabble on the living room floor with them.

But I did with my dad.

And so I think about taking my children to his grave in Huntsville, AL and how they'll react. What will they be thinking? I doubt that they'll have much of a thought of what life would have been with him - I never did [in regard to visiting the graves of people I never knew]. I don't ever think of life with my mom's parents, right [I had never met either of them before they passed]? Thinking about it the other way around - he'll never get to hold them in his lap and tell them about how goofy I was when I was their age. He'll never get cherish them, to see them grow, to see them change, or to be loved by them.

A lot of what I hoped for when he was still alive was that when I had a family, that he would get to see a different kind of faith being lived out than what he was accustomed to [being generally skeptical of "Chrsitians" altogether]. I literally used to dream about what it would be like to pray with my children in his house - how something like that might grip his heart [as none of our conversations re: Christ ever seemed to].

And now, all of that is...impossible.
And now, I rarely even pray with my own wife except for meals.

That aside, when I am in Huntsville, I rarely visit his grave. Being at his grave once was enough. His bones are there, his casket, a concrete vault, a suit [he only wore it twice in public that I know of - my wedding and his own funeral - he said it was what he'd be buried in], and a headstone paid in part by the US Government [your tax dollars at work in memory of a Vietnam Vet] are all there.

There are no memories there.

It is an unfamiliar place...a literally lifeless place. It was a place that he'd only been to once and was never able to leave. It was the last place I saw his body, but not the last place that I saw him. And if I were to ever take my children there, they might remark about the trees, the landscaped lawns, the pond down the hill, but not about how life was with him; they'll never know that life or his.

Tonight is one of those rarities where I can't sleep - even after being surrounded by new friends, after enjoying good food and drink... even in bed with my own wife... as the loneliness of death is weighing upon my own heart.

Picking up the pieces...

Sometimes I forget.

I forget that that the life of perfection has been broken irrevocably.

I forget that the church is composed of those sharp blood letting shards.

In a way, this is an apology re: the post I left about a month ago referencing the church in Huntsville. I spoke out of anger and without grace. Where is Christ in that?

I had a response, of which I never responded [it was a private one from a friend in the not so distant past] - to that response I would simply say that we cannot hope to expect the Church of God to be perfect, or even near perfect, for when we do we really have no hope in Christ.

You dig?

It's the same mantra that expects self-perfection, right? If we were able to make ourselves better or whole then Christ, in fact, died for nothing and God becomes a sort of sadist. The argument is by far simplified, but sometimes that's what we need.

Part of this response comes from the fact that my truck has been keyed...again. I don't inspect the other vehicles on my street, but I'm pretty sure that no one else is having the same problem [there's a gold Caddy that is flawless usually parked right behind me].

All I can do is sigh again.

Today was different though, La looked like she was going to cry. The intent of the perp really seems to get to her.

But here's the deal [and I said this, in the fashion as usual with me - sin grace or mercy]. We expect sinful men and women to treat us with the dignity that was never granted to Christ, right?

So the whole keying deal [hopefully, I'm not giving up too much of Jason's promised blog] really causes me to think more about the nature of man, the nature of God, and how closely I cling to material wealth.

We don't need the truck.

And every time someone keys it, I think "jeez, that's going to bring down the value of the vehicle," [which will be summarily posted on craigslist.org soon]. It causes me to think about how little grace I show to my own wife. It causes me to think about how I expect too much from everyone and still yet all the while proclaim "Grace alone."

Of course, there are always a myriad of thoughts swimming fervently through my head, most never blooming to fruition here or anywhere.

And so, who picks up the pieces?

Sometimes, I wonder if Christ really wants this mess to be cleaned up. I look at the crime in my city, I look at the inaction in my neighborhood, I look at these broken lives and I wonder why. I don't think the answer will be easy, maybe not even palatable.

Which begs the next question; how do I repent from my domestication of God?

Working through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has been a little slower going than first expected. There are the obvious hang ups (the business of life, moving nearly one thousand miles, starting a new job, etc). Then, there’s also the not so obvious hang up of definition (i.e. translating from English back to Greek for a more inclusive understanding of what I’m reading when I read it).

There’s been a lot of good in taking the time for definition, however, as it has reminded me of how I do take words for granted rather than dwelling on their inherent and implicit meanings. In addition, it reminds me of how some words (maybe in their over usage or flippant understandings?) have lost the significance, breadth, and depth on me (i.e., reading over a text and glossing over what it’s really saying all for the sake of “just reading”).

In the very act of translation, we may lose some of the force of what was originally said. Being the case, I will put out the caveat that we are not to mistrust a translation simply because it is a translation. In the vein of Christianity, we can believe that though we may not (at first) understand the intricacies of meanings behind the words we are reading, we can still yet trust that the Holy Spirit is real and that He will enlighten, penetrate, and correct our hearts and misguidance to the end that Christ is made more beautiful in and through our lives.

A little sharing regarding three verses in the Beatitudes (and hopefully, a reprieve from my “How To’s”).

Matthew 5:6 – Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Generally speaking, I would have seen this as “Blessed are those who really desire holiness because God will give them satisfaction.” Honestly, in breaking apart these words I was kind of blown away. Spiros (the main resource I use in my translation as I can’t yet understand or read Greek) gives some great insight. First, “Those who hunger” is altogether one phrase and is more correctly identified as “Those who starve, are famished; to metaphorically hunger for something other than literal food.

As a middle class American, it is hard to understand the impetus that starvation is for action to someone who is starving. The implication is that Christ is not speaking of mere desire, but of a deeply seated and desperate desire (hunger) for righteousness. The implication is that when one is starving for something, there’s not a whole lot that can avert the pains of starvation apart from satisfaction.

So the Holy Spirit reminds me, “You aren’t starving for righteousness, but you should.”

Matthew 5:7 – Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Matthew 5:7 is the only verse that uses this sense of merciful (eleēmōn) to reference believers in the New Testament of the Bible (according to Spiros). It means compassionate, benevolently merciful involving thought and action and is generally relegated in speaking of God’s mercy to us. As such, mercy is much more than giving a sandwich to the homeless person who asks you for extra change. Mercy, as defined, is a planned and intentional action for the benefit and well being of others when there is a recognized need (i.e. compassion). Therein, it is much more than “I forgive you.”

Matthew 5:12 – Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus tells us that we are blessed when we are persecuted for his sake (see the preceding verse 11). If (or when) we are persecuted for His sake, the translation of verse 12 could be elaborated upon by saying “Joy to you! Be glad in an exuberant and absurd way!”

I don’t think that it is something that I can quite understand, because when I feel wronged I am not prone to turn the other cheek and rest in quiet faith. Instead, my actions will more often dictate that I simply don’t trust that God has a plan for the situations I am placed in and that there is more truth in chaos rather than in a God who has a perfect and exacting plan for my life. In essence, it’s easier to know what the truth is than it is to believe the truth.

Sometimes hope comes with the knowledge that I’m wrong, however.

I can hope in a Christ that speaks the Beatitudes so that I might be drawn to Him and changed through His power rather than a Christ that speaks and says, “Now do this, or else.” The same grace that opens my heart to see this Jesus is the same grace that allows me to accept the broken world around me and to not expect the very thing that it is unable to produce apart from God’s grace: righteousness. When I drive through the streets of my broken city, I can lament with those who are not part of my family in the knowledge that in and of myself, I am lacking too. In the vein of that knowledge, I can also (from the depths of my own iniquity) point to one who is better than us, but who became like us so that we could be better than ourselves.

In short, the Beatitudes remind us that we suck. But they also remind us that there is a God who came to us to save us, that there is a transcendent hope beyond what we consider as tangible, and that there is a completion to be fulfilled by a God who sacrificed Himself and was resurrected to give us real life. They remind us that Jesus is about the building of His kingdom and that we have the privilege and unspeakable joy (rejoicing in persecution…) to be a part of that work.

I was once a bully...

I grew up in a kind of rough neighborhood in Huntsville. It wasn't the worst, but it was not the best by a long shot. I never knew it, but I kind of remember my dad saying something about not really liking living in Huntsville after we moved out to the burbs. There was an apartment complex nearby called Jackson Square - my parents never wanted me or my sister to go there. Part of their fear [and I kid you not] was the fact that mostly black people lived there. Part of their fear, too, was the drug dealing that was going on there. Part of their fear was the violence.

To be honest, I didn't hang at Jackson Square much. I just didn't have any interest.

I did, however, hang out with the kids who lived behind me a lot. We used to always pick on this kid named Donald. I was a real jerk to him. Every now and again we would just beat on him - looking back, I can't even understand why we would put a child through so much hellish brutality or why that same child would just keep coming back for more.

The "ringleader," so to speak, was a guy named Ron. Ron was pretty indiscriminate with his blows though. I think I probably received the hardest hit from him of us all in more ways than one. I remember that he was once so mad at me that he just walked up to me and hit me in my face [really, on my chin] and then he just walked away.

There was a time when I seemed to simply thrive off of violence - whether dealt or endured. When we moved out to the burbs, however, all that seemed to change [kind of]. I wasn't as much of a jerk as I was before. To be honest... a lot of that changed when I moved from elementary to middle school. I had changed from a neighborhood bully to a band geek.

I know God's forgiven me for all that crap that I put other people through, and I'd like to think that he could give me the ability to forgive others in the same fashion. In college, I remember being overcome with conviction so much to the point that I hand wrote a letter to Donald - a letter apologizing for what I did to him. He wrote me back. He said he forgave me. He said that the whole neighborhood had changed during the decade that I was gone. He said that Ron became a Christian and that everyone was better. He talked about how good everything was now.

That was nice, but I'm not sure I believe him.
Just like the bully - always right in his own.

My wife and I were talking one day about her artwork. She is incorporating a lot of people, events and artifacts from her past in this piece she's working on now. We discussed how we are the sum of our experiences and how who we are now communicates who we were. The Christian is more than the sum of his own [or her own] experiences though. What makes a Christian is not so much this one experience with a God who swears He was once a man, but a hope of an experience that can come all at once or never in our lifetime that has it's roots in another experience that happened all at once so long ago. Even in a world that doesn't acknowledge God, there is a sense that we are more than the mere sum of our experiences.

When I loved violence as a child, I didn't necessarily love it because I experienced it. I observed it. I had knowledge of it. But I didn't experience it first hand. Is knowledge the same as experience? I would think no. I watched westerns and war movies with my dad - he had experience with violence as a soldier. He would tell me stories of some of the actors - how this man had fought in this war and what was significant about this move and the heroes portrayed. Those were men and times who were familiar with the experience of violence. So, when I inflicted violence upon others, was it necessarily because I had experienced violence?

No.

It may be hard to follow - but we are more than what we can see. We are more than what we are doing, or what we have done. A similar thought came over me last night as I was walking through a local K-Mart [yeah, they still have those here]. I looked at all the people wearing red vests. I thought about how they drone about. Then I started to wonder where they live. I wondered if the corporate heads tried to make them seem inhuman by making them dress in uniform. I wondered if there was a more devious motivation to all of it. I digress. Here again, these are more than the sum of what they do. They are more than the sum of their experience.

In a way, I guess we are a sum of all of human experience in a non-reincarnate way. As a Christian, I believe that part of who I am is built upon the experience of Adam in the garden in his disobedience. As a Christian, I believe that who I have become and who I am becoming is built upon the experience of Christ in the garden in his prayer of obedience.

So...sorry for going from entertainment to deep thoughts. Caught me by surprise too.

Theology of the grocery...

I was standing in line a Bruno’s in Inverness earlier this week. This particular Bruno’s [for those of you who aren’t from the Southeastern United States, Bruno’s is a grocery store] is outfitted with 4 “Self Checkout,” lines. I usually gravitate towards these lines so I don’t have to make awkward conversation with the people who work at any given grocery store.

This day, there were only three functioning lines. But to clarify, apparently none of them were truly functioning correctly as all of them had workers assisting the people who were using them. Unfortunately, there was only one line which was not “Self Checkout,” but it wasn’t moving any faster.

I had two bags of beef jerky, a small iced sweetened [with Splenda] tea, and a Krispy Kreme Donut [the urge hit me while in the store].

And I stood and watched while three middle age plus women struggled to work machines labled “Self Check Out.” Needless to say, I was becoming impatient.

I love technology.
I love technology that frees people up – makes things simpler and what not.
I love people learning how to use new technologies [I love that people learn period].

I hate contradictory situations that stand in the face of logic. Part of this is that I believe that God has created things in a logical [albeit, a supranatural (yes, supra-, look it up)] fashion. Men and women whom require the help of cashiers in a “Self Checkout” line are simply living in sin because they’re striving against the naturalness of things.

My turn did come. I scanned everything with little dallying. I had to look up the donut as they don’t come equipped with UPC symbols. As I was selecting the item one of the cashiers walked up and said, “Oh, you found the donut?”

“Yes, thank you.”
I swiped my card, and left.

The analysis, I suppose, is found here: I should have been more thankful – right? Maybe a little more longsuffering? The things, or concepts, which seem to come most natural are often those same things or concepts wherein we find the least amount of patience within ourselves – at least, that’s my human predicament. I walked away complaining in my heart. I complained in my truck on my way back to work. I complained to my wife. And now, presuming that you’ve read this, I’ve complained to you. There’s little distance that this complaining has brought any of us, to no surprise. In the very essence and nature of complaining, I’ve live against God’s design even as these middle aged plus women have.

Is it at all right for me to complain? Not to throw out a Clintonism, but it really does matter what your definition of right is. In a technical sense I may object to the fact that these women have technically breached the law of the line – it was clearly a self service line and they were clearly taking a full service approach. In a moral sense I may object because these women were clearly rebelling against authority. If Christ is the head of all authority as the writer of Colossians states, then these folks are in a bit of a predicament as they have clearly run against the authority who has placed the sign that states “Self Checkout,” in this store.

In a technical and moral sense, however, Christ would have me to be patient with all men and women. The conundrum in which many Christians find themselves is that they are little willing to show any of the same patience, love, and transcendence that Christ has shown to Christians. Therein lies one of the biggest weaknesses within the Church – the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of grace. There is a sense wherein the call to holiness is seen as a calling to live and work as the bleach that would purge the sinfulness from the human race rather than showing the human race the One who would gladly wash those who would believe in His own blood – making them so crimson…so clean. My anger towards these women is exemplary of the same anger, impatience, and misunderstanding that we as the Church [as I would count myself as one amongst the Chruch] would hold over, against, and towards a dying world.

In the same way, Christ is our hope – our salvation.
Regarding the way I acted…or felt in my heart of hearts…I am an awful man.
Thanks be to God that he would show grace to this awful man.