Christmas!!!

I thought I would post a
couple of pics from Christmas Eve. One is Erica, and our little chickens that we had for dinner. It looks like she already ate one of the legs. We have a habit of taking pictures of food. I guess we'll remember them that way. On the right is the Americana Christmas picture, which may be our Christmas card picture
for next year...you never know.

Christmas Eve was an exhilerating day as my first year in ministry revved up for all of the glory of Jesus' birth. After five services, two sermons and Christmas at home between two of the evening services, I was exhausted, but had not experienced such an amazing Christmas like it.





On Christmas Day, we headed over to the great state of Wisconsin to share the day with Erica's family. It was a great opportunity to snap a family picture with all four generations, ages 93 to 7 months old!

I love/hate the internet/technology!

I am becoming increasingly convinced that technology has both a saintly and satanic side to it. It seems that every device or website that I discover and fall in love with (i.e. cell phone, wireless Internet, MySpace, Blogger, NY Times, YouTube, etc..) it will eventually turn on me. I was once naively convinced that technology was supposed to make our lives easier, more streamlined. I am no longer convinced. I think instead, perhaps technological devices have been created in order to unnecessarily raise our blood pressure, so that the pharmaceutical companies make more money and the ad agencies that produce all those crazy commercials get more famous (although I don't know how famous the actors for the Erectile Dysfunction commercials are going to get). It all may just be a conspiracy. Or, maybe not...

Immediately preceding this writing I spent the last hour and a half trying to convert this very blog over to the new "Google Blogger". Yes, I fear there has been another cyberspace corporate merge. I love Google, but I am waiting for them to get rights to implant little microchips in babies as the exit the womb. (I hope they will give me credit for that idea when the deal goes down.) Alright (did you know that "alright" is not a word?), back to technology. Three weeks ago I saw that I could change my blog over to a new and improved version of Blogger and so I did. I'm a sucker for new and improved things. When I did my blog didn't show up, and I got a message that they were unable to convert my blog over at this time, but I should check back later. Three weeks later, nothing. So, I go on with the old version, pissed really that I can't get in on this new and improved thing, with all the great special features. It looks like I should be able to convert over at some other time, Google wants all of their bloggers on the new system asap. I think instead, I will be a hold out. Maybe in 20 years, I will be the only one on the original Blogger system, just to prove my point. I could never hold a grudge against a person I knew for that long, but I imagine I could against a machine. Who knows.

On the bright side of technology, I finally entered the world of MySpace in the last couple of weeks. It is one incredible world! I really shouldn't be so amazed by it. But I can't help but be because when I created my account less than three weeks ago there were over 131,000,000 signed up. In that short time, there are now a whopping (drum role please...) 142,000,000 people on this crazy structure! You can find almost anyone under the age of 40 in there. I think it is great!

No matter your technological persuasions, just don't be naive to the fact that it is the best and worst resource we have. Cheers!

The Way We Speak Affects Our Relationships

What difference do words make anyway?!
I have been thinking a lot about language lately. You see, I just got out of seminary and I realize that I have been tooled with a particular language that is really only relavent in seminary. What conception do most people have when they hear terms like apocalyptic, liturgical, perichoresis, grace, forgiveness, the peace of Christ, eschatology, or even theology? My observation is that not too many people have a real strong concept of these terms at all, nor should the terms matter so much at all. What matters is what they mean. After living in the People of Hope ethos for the past three months, I am starting to see the light on the power of language; not the kind of language that includes multiple $100 words, but the type of language that strikes at the core of a community's being and therefore transforms community into a new way of being. I am not saying that I have found the keys that unlocks this treasure box of meaning, but I am starting to see the treasure that lies inside. My point is, people listen to others who speak in a way that communicates that the speaker cares that the people understand what that one is saying; not just that the speaker looks smart.

I think I have spent the better part of the last decade trying to speak so that people think that I am smart. Unfortunately, and admittedly, I don't sense that I cared as much if people understood me as much as I cared that they respected my intelligence. What arrogance!

As I continue to be shaped by this amazing community of people here in Rochester, I am finding that although I was a bit leary of it at first, there is no more powerful language than a language of love to shape how people interact with one another. After studying the Bible, and thinking about Jesus for quite some time in school, you would think that I would be a quicker learner....guess not. This langauge can be learned in formal educational institutions, but it may be more likely found and experienced in communities who see their mission as love for one another and those they encounter because they have experienced Christ's love first hand.

The Ever Expanding Web of Relationships

In the last couple of days I have connected with some friends from my past. I talked to my friend Melanie. She and I met when we were in high school at a church leadership event in Chicago. We went to college near one another and stayed in contact until a few years ago. We have talked once in the last three years, until last night. I am in awe of relationships that pick up as if no time had passed at all. That's how my conversation felt last night.

Yesterday afternoon my good friend from seminary, Kevin, stopped by as he was driving through Rochester. We had lunch and talked as always about how we might be used as pastors and servants in the church. We wondered together what the church will look like at the end of our careers and the role of mega-churches in the religious landscape. Heck, in our position, it is hard to know where we will be at this time next year let alone in forty years.

Last night, I gathered with new friends, people who go to the church I serve and we wondered together what it looks like to live out our faith as the letter to the Ephesians spells it out. We wondered if the body of Christ was limited to the Christian church and what that means for our relationship with Jews and Muslims who also confess that God is God. We were challenged by people in the group who wondered if doing the living of faith was more important than the thinking of faith, whether the conversation became to intellectualized. I was really proud of the group for being able to hold a variety of opinions in tension and live together in faithful community. I was amazed by the closeness through faith that I experienced with this group who were relative strangers to me. It seemed that the body of Christ was living in faith together in that coffee shop yesterday afternoon.

Relationships are ever expanding and contrasting. There was a time when I felt like I had a relationship piggy bank and when it was full, I would have to empty some out to keep on making new friends. What a silly idea! Although it is true that it is quite difficult to have really deep relationships with lots of people, our connection to others, our relationship webs are vital to our health and wellness, both physically and spiritually. My heart mourns for the elderly who find themselves lonelier and lonlier as age grows and friends die. I mourn even deeper when our society devalues the elderly because they are unable to do what they were once able to. In the west, we seem to have a very difficult time giving value to people because they are people, God's beloved people. What might it look like if our society slowed down half a pace to recognize the beauty of the other, the life that the other lives and spoke a word of grace and compassion to those who feel the deep despair of loneliness? The letter to the Ephesians talks about the body of Christ which is knit together by ligaments. Shouldn't we as part of the body feel the arthritis of loneliness in another part of our body? My prayer is: Healer of our every ill, fall afresh on me, on this body so that we with you will be alert and attentive to the pain of our own body.

I am so thankful for the body of people who surround me each day, week, month or year. For new relationships and the ones that have been evolving over so many years. The web looks delicate, but in many places is strong and reassuring. Even in those places where it seems the connection is gone, one visit to that place in the web reassures me that mending is possible and in many cases even eagerly awaiting a visit to reconnect and continue the relationship.

For me, I see the body of Christ in every relationship I have. Where there is love and hope and peace, mysteriously Christ is in it. I don't think I'd want it any other way.

Peace to your house.

A Day Full of Politics

I, like many in America, have a love/hate relationship with politics. On the one hand, politics leads to law and order (sometimes). Politics serves as the platform for public debate which shapes the ethos and attitudes of the diverse collection of people who call themselves Americans. It is an incredible privilege to participate in the political process on election day. However, there is a very real dark side (insert Darth Vader theme music here) of the process, which we have finally weathered for one more season...campaigning and the hollow promises and inflated rhetoric that accompany said events. It is one thing to bring to light one's own strengths and point out strategically the errors or weaknesses of one's opponent. It is quite another thing to have announcers with voices that would be well off to read obituaries for the Grim Reaper paint images of opponents that would make the dead spin in their grave.

In ancient times in Greece and Rome, politics served as the marketplace of ideas. It was the way in which philosophers and public representatives debated ideas instead of character. The Apostle Paul even took many swings at public debate, as well as writing in letters against the competing ideas of both Greeks and Romans, and competing camps within early Christianity.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a conversation between Sojourner's editor, Jim Wallis and evangelical pastor, Greg Boyd. This was an attempt at bringing dialogue and real conversation back into the realm of faith and politics. For the past several years, faith has been a pawn of the political process and those within the faith community are finally speaking out, shaping and defining an independent voice apart from the two ruling parties of partisan politics. Each of the gentlemen have a unique perspective and I invite anyone who is interested in both faith and politics to listen to the conversation. Jim Wallis and Greg Boyd Discussion at Bethel University

I tend to resonate with Jim Wallis' perspective that faith has an active, and prophetic role to play in the political landscape, however it must be both faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and prophetic in a way that the message is not co-opted by an individual political party. There are far too many important issues that are present in our current situation as a nation that neither party is addressing. As people of faith and people of hope in God's kingdom, I believe we are called to participate as created co-creators of a more just and righteous world. My hope does not ultimately rest in the hands of politicians, regardless of political affiliation. My hope, and the hope of the faithful is in the hands of God's grace and truth, it is found in communities that lift one another up in love and care for the widow and the orphan, it is found in honest conversation about what really is happening in wars, in economies, in schools, in places of worship.

My prayer tonight is that who ever is elected may be so bold as to represent the best interest of the area to which they have been called to serve, and not just the people who will elect them again. My prayer is that the voice of those without a voice may somehow be heard by those who have power to give them voice and that their lot in life may be improved. My prayer tonight is that those who legislate and lead our government may do it honestly and continually reach into their wellspring of hope and faith, whatever that may be, so that we are a more just and perfect union.

Peace to your house.