70 days and change

My dad and my brother are up to a pretty interesting thing here.  Something the three of us have in common is that we’re all fans and supporters of President-Elect Obama.  The three of us aren’t quite on the same page in terms of spiritual stuff.

They’ve recognized, though, that this time of political transition for our future president is a good time for the rest of us to support our president and perhaps create some transition, too.  At the blog above, they have five specific thoughts about ways we can come together and support our future president, and connect things that for some of us exist in quite different aspects of our lives: the spiritual and the political.

This is a great oppurtunity to share ideas with people who may or may not agree with you.  It’s also an oppurtunity to live out the biblical injunction to pray for our leaders.  Some of us don’t like Mr. Obama so much.  If this is true for you, what an awesome oppurtunity to pray for your enemies.

Jesus Transfigured and Lamp Stands

I’m reading the book of Revelations.  In some ways, this might be the toughest part of the bible.  It’s tough partially because so many divisive things have been said about it.  It’s tough because we don’t really have a category for the genre John was writing in, anymore; we’re used to reading poetry, narrative, and journals, but John was writing in the apocolyptic vein.  Given that this type of writing doesn’t really exist anymore, it’s difficult to know what to do with it.  Perhaps closely related to this, is the fact that this book is so steeped in symbols and meaning.  I don’t mean this flippantly, but it’s a bit like watching an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer or Star Trek.  If you don’t understand the meaning of everything that’s happened before it’s tough to get it.

So as I read through I want to progress slowly and carefully.  Today, as I read through chapter 1 I was struck by two things.  The first was the description of the transfigured Jesus:

“And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13and among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,”^[b]dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

 17When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

I wonder, if John was reminded of the events we’re told about it Mark chapter 9: “After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. 3His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. 4And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.”

The description in Mark is much less vivid.  But it seems like a pretty similiar event.  In both cases Jesus becomes dazzling.  It seems like words fail the writers as they grasp for a way to make Jesus appearance make sense to us.

In both cases, the transfigured Christ is accompanied with something that give Him legitimacy.  In the first case, it’s figures who actually appeared in the Old Testament.  In the second case, it’s the 7 lamp stands.  A single lamp stand is featured prominently in Exodus (Exodus is the same old Testament book which focuses on Moses) as one of the pieces of craftwork that God wants (and the Israelites delives) in the temple, where they communicate with God.

The idea that both times Jesus shows up with evidence from one specific part of history is interesting.  The directions for the lampstand was given to Moses and created in his time.  I suspect that this period more than any other evokes the idea that God is a deliverer of his formerly captive people.

There were a couple things I wondered about, though.  The first is: “Why the lamp stand?  There were other items in the temple.”  The second is “Why the apparent change?” Exodus clearly describes one lamp stand with stands for seven different lamps.  We see a minutirized version in menerahs today.  (Apparently the original was the height of a man.) Revelations seems to be stating that there were seven different, seperate stands.

I did some research into these questions.  It went how internet research usually does.  Lots of people claiming their views were the right ones.  Lots of dubious assumptions.  Too much information offered up.  Difficulty in telling whether people seemed over-all whacko or not.  Amidst it all, there was some interesting stuff.

First off, somebody remarked how dark much of the temple must have been.  To have seven oil lamps, amidst all the darkness, must have been a striking experience.  In fact, I wonder if this was the brightest light (other than the sun or the pillar of fire) that they experienced.

I think it’s so easy for us to take light for granted.  The only way I can get a little piece of an idea of what light must have been like for them is to think about my experiences camping.  Propane and battery powered lanterns, if they are not in just the right place they aren’t much good.  When I was growing up we had this tent-trailer with an awning.  When my dad would hang the lantern over our heads on a hook, it would cast this glow everywhere.

I wonder if they would ordinarily have any reasons to put seven lamps together.  It must have been the greatest combination of lamps anywhere in their lives.  And to hang them up to eye-level.  It must have been blinding.  The stand, made of solid gold, must have shone!

(I’ve always heard that you can’t make things out of solid Gold, because Gold is too soft.  Does anybody have any information on this?)

Jesus told us that we are the light of the world.  He specifically said that we shouldn’t hide this light but that we should put it somewhere everyone could see.  In appearing with the lamp stands, I suppose he was drawing a connection to his words and the history that came before him. 

But why the seven seperate lampstands?  I tried all of the English translations available at biblegateway.com.   Only one called the seven lampstands a menorah, which of course implies that they weren’t seperate at all.  This translation, though, was “the message”.  The message is amazing to get overall meaning, but it’s not supposed to be picky about word-for-word translations.  The other translations (and there are about ten different ones) all strongly implied that these lamp stands are seperate.

I have two seperate thoughts on this.  One is that the seven seperate lampstands implied a criticism.  The other is that the seven seperate lampstands spoke to the new reality under Christ.

At the end of Chapter 1, Jesus states that the lamp stands represent the 7 churches.  In appearing with seven seperate lampstands, is he saying that the 7 churches are not joined in Him, but are seperate?  Is this a criticism of the divisiveness which had occurred?

On the other hand, I wonder if the original lampstand was meant to represent the common ancestry that the Israelites shared.  They all decended of Abraham, the central piece of the stand.   He had seven sons.  Under the old covenant, they inherited their relationship to God through there birth, their connection to the father of their faith.

In having seperate lampstands, Jesus could be saying “All are decendents of Adam.  Everyone is connected to me.  You, by yourself, can have your own lampstand, simply by believing in me.”  Jesus brought a renewed emphasis on spreading the truth about him.  I have this image that you can take these seperate lamp stands in every different direction in the world.  They are somehow more portable.

I suppose he could have been  making both statements at once, they contradict each other only a little bit.  Or perhaps I’m reading too much into the whole thing.  I’m looking foreward to your insights, observations, and disagreements.

Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell is this incredible author.  What I like about him is that he strikes this rare balance.  Many authors quote lots of studies without interpreting them.  Others do lots of interpretation but don’t give the reader much reason to think that their interpretation is correct.  Gladwell does both.  And, he explores these really deep topics in really exciting ways.

The thesis of his new book is that being tremendously succesful isn’t only the result of smarts, hard work, taking the right chances, leadership, etc.  All of these are factors.  But they don’t tell the whole story.

The idea is that to fully understand why the most succesful people and things are succesful, we also have to look at the context.  Their are aspects of their environment that are at least as important as personality characteristics. 

He starts with the example of Canadian Youth Hockey.  On the surface, Canadian Youth Hockey appears to be an environment that is all about personality characteristics.  It would appear that there is nothing about the context of these hockey players that will lead to success or failure.  One might think they rise or fall on ability alone.

After decades, somebody noticed something.  They noticed that birthdays in January and February are ridiculously over-represented among the champions.  Birthdays in November and December are ridiculously under-represented.

It turns out that the very oldest kids in Candian Youth Hockey, within each leauge, are born in January.  The older kids are more physically and emotionally mature.  And they are simply bigger.  I’d never really considered how easy it would be to mistake giftedness for development.  But this is what happens.

The oldest kids end up much more likely to end up on the all-star teams.  Being on the all-star teams greatly increases the amount of time the kids spend on the ice, and exposes them to the best coaches.  During the ealriest season, this advantage is fairly small.  But by the time the other kids catch up with them physically, they January-February birthdays have had so much extra ice time under so much exceptional coaching there’s no way to catch up.

This effect also occurs in schools.  There’ve been studies done about the youngest and oldest kids in there respective grades.  The oldest kids appear gifted, when in fact, they are simply behaving in an age-appropriate way.  The older kids in each grade are way more likely to do well.   Birth month has some predictive value as far along as in college.

In addition to disputing the myth that people succeed or fail sheerly on their own merits, the book also disputes the value of IQ and the idea that natural talent counts for much.

That’s actually an exageration about IQ.  The bottom line: according to studies, up to about 120 or so, Iq will predict income.  Somebody with a 110 IQ will (all other things being equal) probably earn more than somebody with an 85 IQ.  (A 100 IQ is average.  120 is near-genuis.  Somebody with an 85 IQ would probably appear not very smart; somebody with a 110 IQ would probably appear to be quite exceptionally smart.)

However, IQ stops having a predictive value beyond 110 or 120.  There’s no good reason to think a 130 IQ will be doing any worse than somebody with a 180 IQ.

Finally, the book has some interesting things to say about talent versus practice.  One interesting and bold claim: being a world-recognized authority in anything takes right about 10,000 hours. 

It appears that everybody has to put this time in.  Child prodigies might not appear to have.  But the deal is that they’ve usually put their time in much earlier than anybody else.  Bill Gates, for example, was in one one of the only places in the world where a junior high school student would have had access to a computer at that time.  And he put in thousands of hours through out his high school career.  He looks like it’s all instinctual, because he’s mastered the stuff by his early twenties. 

The book even claims that Mozart started composing young, but that his earliest works are not regarded as all that well-done.  Compared to other ten year olds, he was clearly ahead of the game.  But the deal is, by the time he reaches his early 20’s, he’s thousands of hours of experience ahead of his contemporaries.

Some of the support for this idea being more generally true comes from a study at a school of music.  They found that overall success as a musician can almost completely be predicted by how long the musician practiced through out their lives.

I could go on and on.   Interesting stuff.  At some point, I’m hoping to process what this means to me as an individual and to us as a society.  I imagine that there will be some wrapping up chapter at some point.  And maybe some more interesting stuff to share along the way.

Ten Spiritual Realities That I’m thankful for

1.  I’m thankful that Jesus’ death created the possibility of a meaningful relationship with my maker.

2. I’m thankful that Jesus’ life was lived as an example so that I can figure out what God would do, and also as an act of solidarity with us.

3.  I’m thankful that we have to work, and trust, and grow; it’s not a one-shot magical transformation.

4.  I’m thankful that God is a God of the opressed, of the underdog, of crazy reversals of the world’s way of seeing things.

5.  I’m thankful (though baffled) by the idea that God invites us to create reality with him through service and prayer.

6.  I’m thankful that I’m allied with the global church in this effort.

7.  I’m thankful that I’m located in Fellowship Holden in this effort.

8.  I’m thankful for the ability to praise and worship.

9.  I’m thankful that God works through scientific laws, usually, and values thought as much as feeling.

10.  I’m thankful that I’ll spend eternity in God’s kingdom.

Ten big-picture abstractions that I’m thankful for

1. I’m thankful that I live in a country where I possess all sorts of freedoms.

2. I’m thankful that I live in a country where I can provide my family a roof over their heads and food to fill their bellies.

3. I’m thankful that I live in a country where my family and loved ones are relatively safe and secure.

4.  I’m thankful that people have been willing to risk their lives and die for me to have #’s 1-3.

5.  I’m thankful that I have a job that not only provides for my family but which also makes me feel like I’m part of the solution.

6.  I’m so very thankful to God for who he is and what he’s done in my life.  (More to come on this topic.)

7.  I’m thankful for the fact that the world is consturcted in a way that grows me and others around me… even if I don’t particularly enjoy all the “growth experiences”.

8.  I’m thankful for the ease that technology brings to my life.

9.  I’m thankful for the oppurtunities and responsibilities related to who I am, where I live, and what I do.

10.  I’m thankful for the oppurtunity to listen to others and that others listen to me.

10 seemingly little things that I’m so grateful for

As I pondered the whole idea of Thanksgiving, I realize what a blessed life I have.  To list the things I’m thankful for is a daunting, nearly impossible task.  So over the next few days I’m going to break it up into smaller lists of 10.  I figured I’d start small and modest…

1) Starbucks coffee.

2) Star Wars Movies.

3) The last bite on a plate of Chinese Food, where all the sauces and foods have mushed together into this medly of yumminess.

4) Cheesy John Hughes movies about how hard it is to be a teen ager growing up in the 80’s.

5) Socks right out of the drier on a really cold day.

6) Migraine medicine.

7) Synthesizer pop (Depeche, Erausre, Oingo Boingo)

New books by favorite authors.

9) Dry erase boards.

10) The fact that some things cost a dollar or less- mailing letters, buying newspaper, useless junk from the dollar store.

Anybody? Really?

3 John says this: “Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.”

Taken in context, there is at least one radical thing this means.  There might even be two radical things this means.  I’ll be interested to hear thoughts about that.

The context is that John’s writing about his plan to deal with an unloving person who calls himself a follower of Christ.  This guy isn’t being hospitable and open.

It seems clear: He’s saying that this guy isn’t a real follower of Christ.  He’s a poseur, an imposter.

The people I had a virtual temper tantrum about yesterday, those knucklehead folks that were out protesting when they should have been doing something to help a situation, in my opinion this applies to folks like them.  Or those boneheaded “Christians” who show up to protest at veternan’s funerals.  Or funerals of people who die of AIDS.

It’s kind-of reassuring and refreshing.  I’m called to love these people but I don’t have to identify myself with them.  I don’t have to answer for their foolishness.  They are doing evil.  They are not from God at all.

The other ramification, equally radical: there are millions of people who are from God who don’t even know it.  Some of them might even hate God, but they are still doing good.

I think that sometimes we Christians want to claim a monopoly on goodness.  If there’s not a cross on it, if it wasn’t purchased at a Christian bookstore, if it wasn’t endorsed by some pastor, then we are unsure about whether it was good.  It seems to me that this verse flies in the face of that.

What do you think?

Pissed off

I’m pissed off.

Through what was mostly coincidence, I’m pissed off about the topic of homosexuality and Christianity.

I’m writing to vent.  And I’m writing because all you good people who leave me comments, every now and again, you help bring a little balance to my sometimes lopsided views of things.

At any rate, my wife was chanel surfing and she ended up on this Rosie O’Donel reality show.  There’s some kind of cruise for gay families, in the process of adopting kids. 

I find Rosie so annoying.  And clearly the show was made by people who had an agenda.

But this doesn’t do anything to change my rage.

There was this protest by some ridiculous church.  About people wanting to adopt other people.

 

I get it.  I think.  I get it that the people in that church think that they are doing the right thing.

But I have experience with what it’s like for kids who want to be adopted.  We had a foster child.  I work with kids in the system.

It’s not that it’s evil.  But it’s utterly a crap shoot.

There are very, very evil places for kids to be out there.  Horrible places.  Places where they are neglected and abused. 

And there are people who want kids.

And I just wanted to scream at the church, “You’re not helping!”

And perhaps I’m being unfair.  The show didn’t tell the church goers story.  It’s possible that they are doing more than protesting.  I would have a great deal of respect for them if they were like my friend Steve, who takes foster children in.  Or if they were working to make the system better.  Or if they were working to keep kids out of the system by enabling parents.  Or if they were working to keep kids out of the system by helping people not get pregnant in the first place.  Or even if they were spending time and energy trying to promote adoption from straight parents.

Most of my rage isn’t so much for the adult parents.

Most of my rage is for the kids. 

Some of my rage is around what a terrible witness these people are of Christ’s love.  The only redeeming view of Christianity in the whole thing was the pastor who was on the cruise.  She was doing the marriage ceromony for some of the gay couples.  These ridiculous protestors started singing songs about Jesus, and the pastor, she stood by the gay people, but she sang along.

It was incredibly powerful: this woman, through her actions, she was saying “Yes, we have Jesus in common, you protestors.  I know all the songs and stories, too.  But I make my stand over here, with the least of these.”

Should she have been doing gay marriage ceromonies?  Is it right to be gay?

I don’t know.  But I do know some other things. 

It’s so hard, because in discussions like this, it’s easy to say “Jeff, we can’t be ruled by emotions and anecdotal stories.”

And that’s half way true.  But it’s also true that behind every anecdote is a real human being.  And we can’t ignore real live human beings. 

The following are little snippets that I can personally verify.  And really, my connection to the foster care system is not all that extensive.  There are amazing foster parents.  But there are also stories out there much worse than these:

I know of a little girl who was in foster placement who lived in this home overrun by rats.  Years later she still, sometimes, slept with her hands over her ears because she was afraid they would crawl in.

I know of another little girl who lived in a foster home where only one person spoke English.  She did not speak Spanish.  The night that she was taken from her mother, she had no way to communicate that she was terribly afraid of the dark.  She stayed up all night.  Every day she would throw up at the end of the school day, knowing where she was headed back.

I know of several kids who were sexually abused by foster siblings.

I know of a few who were sexually abused by foster parents.

I’m not saying that we ought to just start tossing these kids out of foster care to any knucklehead who shows up.  I am saying that there are safe guards in place to determine the suitabality of adoptive parents.  If those safe guards are so weak, if that background check is so pathetic, that we decide we’re going to leave them in these temporary places, which are sometimes dumping grounds and money-makers for people because somebody is gay…

(A quick note on molestation and sexual abuse: Most pediophiliacs express a preferred gender of victim.  However, this gender does not correlate to the gender of adult they are attracted to, nor is it higher in practicing homosexuals.  In other words, a child molester is just as likely to be a straight as gay)

The Problem With Our Kiss

The problem with our kiss.

Is that I could taste our first one

when we shared our last one.

 

The problem with our kiss

was that when we shared that first one

I knew already

that the last was on its way.

 

The problem

was that their was a first kiss.

 

The problem

was that their was a last kiss.

 

The problem

was not so much

that I kissed you like my mouth was an escape hatch

I kissed you like the very most inner-secret parts of me

might escape out of my lips

 

and into you.

 

And the problem with our kiss

it was not so much that you did the same thing.

 

It was that we both did it

at the same time.

And the very best we could hope for

was a crash on our way out of ourselves

a colission at the boundary between us

Thrown back where we began

from the place we fled…

 

Or worse:

I might leave myself

and end up you

and you might leave yourself

and end up me

and there we would be

alone

still.

 

The problem with our kiss

is the rythmn to them

there is a give and take

a push and pull

 

When I tried to be the moon you were the moon too

and when you tried to be the waves I was trying to be the ocean.

 

You said that the problem with our kiss

Is that it was a metaphor for everything else.

 

I say that everything else

is just a metaphor for that kiss.

Gone Baby Gone

I’m about to ruin the amazingly surprising ending of Gone Baby Gone.  If you haven’t seen it yet and you plan on it, I’d encourage you to go read something else.  It’s a very bleak movie.  Especially if you have trouble watching and thinking about abused, endangered, and murdered children.  So spare yourself if your sensetive.

It’s also quite amazing.  And theologically important.

The main character quotes scripture and mentions his priest’s words in a positve light.  And he is this incredibly moral character in his own way.

He swears.  He shoots at people.  I don’t think that they clarify whether the women he lives with and sleeps with is his girl friend or his wife.

Yet… (This is probably going to annoy some people) he’s a better Christian than just about any figure I can think of in a movie, ever.

The movie centers around a little girl who appears to be abducted by a drug dealer.  The mom is established as a horrible person.  It eventually becomes clear that she was actually kidnapped by the character played by Morgan Freeman.  He’s established as a brave, kind figure.  A perfect dad.

Nearly everyone in the movie is quite happy with this arrangement.  Except the main character.  He gets it that it’s wrong.  No matter how good the outcome is.  Despite the outrage of basically everyone, the main character blows the whistle.  He returns the little girl to his rightful mother.  Brilliantly, the movie doesn’t give us much reason to think she’s changer her ways.  She’s still drinking and spiteful and more interested in going out than taking care of her daughter.

The main character loses his significant other.  He seems to know that there are all kinds of ways the life that the Morgan Freeman character offers her is the better life.  But this doesn’t make it right.

And so I find myself wondering:

Would I have the courage to do the right thing in his place?  If I knew the little girl’s life would be better if I do the wrong thing?  If I knew the Morgan Freeman character would go to jail?  If I knew that my life would leave me?

What about you?  What would you do?