ever the optimist

if life gives you coffee beans...
   make coffee!

Some woes there are a week cannot erase
This toxic happiness across thy face
Doth bid me hope and turn me from sweet pain
While these parched tears my face would but disdain
And cry them not, but gath’ring deep to deep
Shall whelm my soul with death’s most haunting sleep
For low in those cold waters foul or fair
Alas! Salvation’s breath awaits me there
Say not cheer up nor bid me purge my lip
I part to fall and rise in holy dip

where is the outrage?

I don't have a whole lot to say in response to this article, but here's a few thoughts (well, maybe it turned out to be more thoughts than I thought).

Bradley O'Leary contrasts the reaction to a series of political cartoons depicting Mohammad with the lack of one over The DaVinci Code.

1. What cave has he been in?

2. To the disappointment of some, a Christian ministry would never be described with these words, "Property was destroyed. Flags were burned. People were killed." I said a Christian ministry, not everyone who says Lord, Lord.

The author compares the hate crime against Mohammad in the cartoons with the hate crime against the Bible.

1. This just continues to fascinate me. People continue to try and replace the centerpiece of our religion (Jesus Christ) with a book (the bible).

2. And how do you commit a crime against a book? Against leather-bound paper and ink? With study helps and cross-index and a concordance? The point is not the truth or falsehood of the Bible or even what has been omitted. I find the Bible to be true and beautiful and am happy with the final result of the canonization. I found the DaVinci code, even though quite a page turner, to be fanciful and spurious. But I never thought about the Bible being victimized. That's not the point, is it? The point might be whether Jesus (a person, our Prophet) is being victimized. But there is this huge reluctance to talk about Jesus anymore. Some people want Christians to get red-faced and defend their poor, victimized bible, which again is weird.

The author proclaims irony that something attacking the Christian faith would use the tag line, "Seek the truth".

1. I think it's a good tag line. I wish more people would actually adopt it for their life.

2. I actually think it would be better than "Defend the truth" as if truth needed defending.

3. In fact, after I read the book I had this huge craving to go back and read the Gospels again. I started in Matthew.

The author is incredulous that Sony Pictures would spent $75 million "to promote the success of this outrageous fiction".

1. Again, if this is an assault on truth, which you are afraid will buckle under the weight of the false evidence, then how sure are you really of your truth?

2. On the other hand, if it's outrageous fiction, then why wouldn't they spend a lot of money to get people to go see their outrageous fiction? People like outrageous fiction. And advertising pays.

The author asks where there American Christians are and why they aren't doing everything possible to "defend the faith" and "fight this crass commercial hate crime".

1. Maybe it's because Jesus never told us to defend the faith or fight crass commercial hate crime? He wasted all His time telling us to love our neighbors and do good to those who persecute us and things like that. Seems like he had different ideas on how to walk humbly with His God.

2. And then the apostles wasted their time telling us to keep the faith and to "fight the good fight of the faith" by "pursuing righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness."

Finally the author goes ad hominem, with a full-blown gossipesque character assault of implicating questions on Dan Brown. I have no idea how to answer his questions or if they are rhetorical. I don't see how the accusations of plagiarism would change the issues raised by the book/movie, so I assume this is just good old fashioned mud slinging.

What I do know is that the author brings up some very interesting doubts, concerns, and challenges about the Church and the compilation of her Holy Book that an intelligent person would want to research and know the truth. Is that a good thing? Is that a good thing even if some of the fiction is outrageous? What if it is distasteful?

What I do know is that I had virtually no interest in reading this book or seeing the movie until I started getting mail from red-faced Christian Political Action Committees and Evangelio-activist Organizations. Maybe I could send this author their phone number so he can find the outrage.

follow the Rabbi

This is the most incredible thing. I was looking up the references in Rob Bell's book, Velvet Elvis and ran across this web site called followtherabbi.com where there is an absolutely fascinating interactive multimedia applet called Thinking Hebrew:

http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=1854

Amazing. Especially the ones on Thinking About God and Thinking About Truth.

the power of beings

Did you ever have anyone that totally changed your life just by being who they were?

I once worked with a guy who was so sure that he was the best thing his boss had going. He talked it, he walked it, and as far as I know he delivered on it. You would have to conclude that by the way he talked about everything and the way people reacted to him. And the odd thing is, he was convinced that I was the best thing my boss had going for some reason, too. He got me believing it—so much so that I started talking like him, acting like him, and seeing things like him. Pretty soon after that, I got fired. I went across the street and got a job paying twice as much. In two years I doubled that again. So basically just over two years after meeting this guy, I was making four times as much. And a lot of it was because of his influence. I wasn’t any smarter at all. I wasn’t any more educated. I wasn’t a better a worker. I just reckoned myself differently. I made more and made my company profited more. And then I heard that my neighbor across the street had helped one of the big InfoTech consulting firms he worked for close several multi-million dollar deals, but he was still waiting in March to get his $2000 bonus. Still in the same posture, I told him that was ridiculous, that he was worth a lot more than that. He was actually considering moving to Colorado where he could make slightly more money with the same company. He was going to rent his house out and do some other financial wizardry to make it all happen. I talked him out of that and hooked him up with the firm I was working for. They made him a practice manager and paid him zillions (I say that because he moved his family out to Southlake with all the rich people and hardly talked to me again—he obviously made too much to live across the street from me anymore). All this can be traced to the way that first guy just was.

I knew a girl who was so passionately sold out to Jesus Christ. She talked about Jesus all the time as if He were her lover. It was almost indecent the phrases she used. It was like she craved him, she needed him, she was infatuated with him, she wanted his body. She talked about being a martyr, basically so she could touch him and then be with him all the time. And she would write these incredibly powerful poems and journal entries and fantastic stories that described mythically what she was going through, and she’d let me read some of them. When I saw how much she depended on Jesus, and how sold out she was to Him, it made me want that kind of love. I used to get really mad if things didn’t go my way. That, or try harder. After I met her I took up journaling and decided to pour my heart out to God like her, and like David did in the Psalms. I would say that she changed my life forever, but it’s really more like she woke up something in me. Jesus is more real to me today than I could ever imagine. When I say Jesus is my best friend, I mean it. It is not a bumper sticker. We have joined hearts, and He has come through for me like no other ever could or probably ever will. This has made a believer out of me. Not a believer in the sense that I agree with a list of doctrines or tenets about Jesus, but in the friendship sense. Jesus and I are like David and Jonathan—the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Another thing that has happened to me is patience—not patience the virtue, but patience the soul food for my anxious heart. I have been driven again and again to the patience tree, looking for fruit. And I have eaten and been satisfied. Some people who have known me for a long time have remarked that I am more patient and humble and compassionate than I used to be. It’s not because of me. All this can be traced to the way this girl just was.

And I know an eight month old baby who cannot seem to go to sleep without being held firmly against someone’s breast. I just put him to bed tonight with some effort. What a precious gift he is. He’s hard to live with when he’s bawling, but precious just when he falls asleep. It makes me want to find my rest being held tightly by someone much bigger than me, someone as big as God. I know it’s not his maturity or his deep feeling of wholeness and centeredness that makes him want to be held like this. Even at his tender age, he has fears and insecurities that he may carry for life. And I know my girl friend and my guy friend are not perfect. But it is probably their issues that have driven them to the extremes where they have lived. I’m actually thankful for their issues because of their impact on my life. But I’m not sure they would be thankful for their issues. Maybe that’s how it goes. One person is afflicted with something and the way they respond with their life is a testimony to others of a better way to be. Thank God that’s where they were. What an honor and a blessing to be touched by each of these in their own unique way.

Did you ever have anyone that totally changed your life just by being who they were?

blame is to blame

Blame is the problem.

It is always destructive.

It has never brought healing to anyone or anything.

I notice that cursing did not precede blaming in Adam and Eve's fall.

I really think the coming of Jesus was to abolish the blame game.

I really think blaming kills any chance of restoration.

There has to be another way.

one year

Today marks one year of my foray into the blogsphere. What a year! The nostalgic in me looks back to the original post: Last Call