Extravagent Blessings

Seattle is amazing. Everywhere you look, there's green. Walking down a suburban street, you see trees, flowers, shrubs with the mountians shining in the background. In the city, every street is littered with beautifully divergent colors of green that make you wonder if the city itself isn't a love letter from God. Driving in traffic, you see trees and sky scrapers inextricable intertwined with Mt. Raineer behind it. It's almost impossible to be even sad on a sunny day. Green against blue with some clean grey concrete complimenting. wow. I just can't even begin to comprehend how blessed I am to be here. Each day seems a gift too great and extravagent to accept. Simply being here is the type of life people dream and write about - and it's my reality. I just can't believe it.

Then there's my job...working with a pastor who likes my bumper stickers and even went to Left Bank Books to check out their supply of leftist stickers, a church that is hopefully and excitedly venturing into postmodern ministry and unbelievably supportive of my schooling etc.

Then God give me vision for using art to aid the two-thirds world and even give me time, opportunity, and vision for creating art myself. I'm in awe and cannot comprehend how all these blessings are suddenly mine!

Finally, after two years of suffreing, I'm at a school I'm excited about and that nurtures the soul. Next week I get to take a class called "Spirituality and Art." I'm reading McLaren for credit and get to spend 9 hour a day with him for four straight days -- and this is school? Unbelieveable!

The past two weeks, I've had to stop myself from thinking about it to keep from being parapalegically awe-struck and held captive to wonder as to how and why God has chosen me for such blessings. He is good!

But...I do have to speak infront of the entire congregation on Sunday - which freaks me out, but that's just a tiny looming black fleck on the movie screen of my life right now!

Inevitability

Last Thursday, I awoke to my dad telling me, "We're probably going to put your dog to sleep today." My dad's tact is, as always, impeckable. He was over reacting -- again. She's just got a bad wrist - or ankle? - whatever, she's got arthritis. So she has trouble walking sometimes, no big deal. Then there's the fact that she's 14 and corgis live to be somewhere between 12 and 16. As I watched my poor old puppy trying desperately to navigate her way outside of my room, she was vearing heavily to one side and couldn't make it out the door but kept running into the wall. OK, maybe he was right. What a way to start the longest day of my week. I decided to go back to bed. I slept for three or four hours and determined not to get out of the bed until I wasn't depressed anymore.

It was about an hour or so after I got up that my dad returned with my poor puppy. As it turns out, she's got like the worst ear infection ever and they're going to have to knock her out to clean it - but she'll be fine. Still, with her equilibrium shot, the four days following were like Ground Hog's Day. My alarm went off, I hit snooze four times then sat up and stared at my dog - wondering if I would actually get up. Then I picked her up, put her gently on the floor and went to open the door. She ran out the door and without her equilibrium, she hit the stairs lopsided and tumbled down them like a chic in an old movie who either dies or loses a baby from the tumble. I stand at the top of the stairs with my hand over my mouth and my, no longer half asleep, eyes wide shouting "Dixie, Dixie, No!" I'm certian, each of the four times this happened, that she's going to die. She get's up, shakes off like nothing happened and looks at me with eyes that ask, "What's your problem, where's my food?"

The point it this, my dog is going to die, probably soon. I know this, and so I'm making myself crazy thinking every morning is the day and trying to fight it. Her death is inevitable. What I should be doing is enjoying her and understanding that she's only around for a little bit longer.

Here's the connection with something that actually matters. I've just started a new ministry and I am so overwhelmed with not wanting to hurt, let down, fail etc. anyone that I am paralyzed. However, I know that it's the nature of serving a perfect God that I will miss the mark. I need to accept the looming failure and follow the words of my second favorite reformer, "Sin boldly!"

Where did Christians come up with a pietistic expectation of perfection in place of an understanding of failure, grace, and God's ability to write an epic story with plucky little characters? It is mind boggeling to look at Scripture and church history and see the product we got. It's like seeing a kid who wrote 1+1 and somehow came up with the answer 14,235,764.5733 to the third power time x.

an a?

i just got all my work back from church history to the reformation. i literally crammed the entire course into one or two weeks. i got 100% on everything. i even started one of my essay exams with "heck yeah dude!" i came down against just war and for pacifism, spoke against reactionism toward postmodernity and over-exalted the arts -- these aren't exactly gcts friendly things. so either i really knew what i was talking about -- or the professor didn't actually read my work.

also, bonnie and craig gave me a copy of his cd -- it's pretty awesome! i hope they play it on kexp.

literally "holy crap"

anyone looking for some "contemporary evangelical tools"? check out the sensation at www.sonsational.com -- good for meaningless entertainment under the guise of "reaching" the "lost", wasting church funds, or feeding an ever present sarcastic monologue with regard to evangelicalism -- good fun for all :)

Shouldn't children's ministry be an important part of the church? Shouldn't a postmodern ministry reach mainly to the newest generation - the one most saturated in post modernity - children? Instead, it seems like this is where the old paradigm is most entrenched. So, we have kids who say things like "church is where we learn all those things we believe but aren't true." When church babysits kids, what's the point?

You would not believe how difficult it is to find a worthwhile chidlren's curriculum -- most, you're supposed to buy sight unseen. How irresponsible is that? I would create my own curriculum, but between youth ministry, children's ministry and school, there is no time. This has to be one of the most frustrating things I have encountered -- being forced to do something that is less than perfect, and probably less than good, for God's children. ahhh!!!!!

So, if anyone knows of some actually good children's curriculum, let me know.

strange

reclining alone in velvety brown chair in the corner, i found him the same as always, but the encounter proceeded to create an alternate reality. today i met matt miller, who i nicknamed "conservative matt" and who gladly accepted the title, at starbucks. back in boston, he and i began and continued an odd friendship within the walls of a starbucks -- against my better morals. his first words to me were, "so are you a liberal or what?" stunned, i wondered if it was my ramone's lunch box, seattle style, tattoo, or facial piercing that made him ask such a question of someone he'd never met. he noted the look of suprise and explained, "you ordered the grande soy chai -- the grande social ist. so are you liberal or what?" if you know me, you know where the conversation went from there - a combination of being nice and being strong-willed (as i have often been told, i am a walking contradiction). over two years, we took pot shots and, from time to time shared our hearts and lives. once or twice, we even agreed on a thing or two.

matt's in seattle; i think for a wedding. we made plans to meet for lunch and, at his suggestion, which suprised me, we met at capitol hill. so, as i drove to capitol hill, another contradiction entered as he asked if we could meet at starbucks and walk to lunch. he wants me to go to capitol hill and grace the evil empire with my presnece?!? what!!?!! ok. i did it -- and i even ordered a tall "socialist." we walked to a restaurant of my picking.

once there, we discussed bonhoeffer, post modernity, the emergent church, brian mclaren, ministry, talk radio, racism, and even (shock) politics. it was, much to my suprise, one of the better interactions i've had in a while. matt was fair, wise, honest about himself, appreciative of our differences etc. (he even, despite being a gcts student and having been warned about the evil of a "heretic" such as mclaren, had good and, in fact kind, things to say about mclaren). in response, i was more honest than nice and truly encountered this person who, though we've talked exhaustively, i doubt i had previously encountered.

so, it began the same as always -- at starbucks and heavy with all the nuances starbucks carried-- but turned to something holy, sweet, educational, and, above all, strange.