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Randomicity | 02-24-12

No portent.  No poetry.  No platitudes and no paragraphs.  Just 5 random thoughts...

 

1. I'm currently halfway through Mockingjay.  Loving this series!  It's the most fun I've had since reading  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

2. I saw a headline this morning that said the GOP is still holding out for a "late entry hero."  Um...hello???  Jeremy Lin!

3. As I walked out of our apartment yesterday morning at 6:00am, Heather was lifting weights.  She looked hot, I did not.  Seriously rethinking my diet of lattes and bacon cheeseburgers. 

4. We saw Safe House the other night.  Denzel has to stop ending movies this way.  I can't take it.

5.  I listen to the new album by Jesus Culture approximately 22 hours every day.

 

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15 Ways To Avoid Facebook Drama

Confession: Save the drama for yo' mama was one of my favorite things to say in high school.  

Much like Don't hate! and Talk to the hand, it was an expression I blurted at every opportunity hoping to be instantly hip and ultimately cool.  But these phrases - and words like hip and cool - inevitably go out of style.   

It's a shame really, because, at its core, the message was great: your drama is childish.  

For all the new terms Facebook has brought us - poke, friend request, unfriend, like, dislike, inbox, wall post - it has brought back at least one old one as well: DRAMA.

So, here are 15 ways to avoid Facebook drama:

1. Think before you post

2. Don't share everything.  Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

3. Never post when you are angry.  It sounds great at the time, but you'll regret it later.

4. Don't post something for everyone to see that is really meant for just one person to see.  If you have something to say to an individual, have the guts to call, email, or message that person directly.

5. If you're tired of seeing someone else's trash, but "unfriending" them would only add to the drama, simply "hide" them from your news feed. 

6. Get over yourself.  Don't assume that post or update was about you.

7. Learn to be happy for other people.  Their success doesn't make you a failure, and their failure doesn't make you a success

8. Forgive people who have hurt you.  Jesus' example and command applies even in a Facebook world

9. Stop trying to convince people that you are happy, just go be happy.

10. Don't lie, embellish or manipulate through your status updates

11. Become a person who encourages others

12. Send more inboxes and fewer wall posts

13. Exercise wisdom in what friend requests you accept 

14. Grow up

15. Spend less time on Facebook

Facebook is a social networking site.  It is great for saying hi, sharing pictures, posting stupid videos and making announcements.  That's about it.  It's not a middle school cafeteria, a Lifetime Movie of the Week, or an intervention. 

Strife is strife.  Anger is anger.  Bitterness is bitterness.  Lol, hahaha, hehehe,  or :) doesn't change that.

 

(originally posted July 14, 2010)

The Best Part Of My Day

For thirty minutes each evening, I forget about bills; I forget about deadlines; I forget about goals and ambitions.  There is no word count or dress code.  There is no pressure to perform.  

For thirty minutes each evening, life is simple, pure, perfect.  My only cares are the two children snuggling with me and whether or not we have time for one more chapter.  

We read our Bible, we read our book, and we say prayers.  This is the best part of my day.  

Here is what we're reading now...

What's Wrong With Your Church?

I was at a business lunch recently where this question was posed to us:  What is the biggest problem facing the American church? 

The question went around the table like a minute hand, and each of my trendy and impossibly groomed colleagues took their turn articulating the church’s main flaw.  (side note: I work with writers and graphic designers.  When you get these people together, it looks like a Banana Republic photo shoot.  For reals.)

My highly educated and well-manicured friends gave verbose but predictable answers.  The problem with the church today is that we’re too close to current culture.  The church is too flashy.  We’ve lost our first love.  It’s all about numbers.  Et cetera, et cetera, and the required third et cetera.

I dreaded my turn because I have a natural gag reflex to this topic of conversation, and I certainly didn’t want to be known as the new guy who puked on Jade’s Skechers.   

So, when all eyes turned to me, I deflected by telling a story about an African bishop I once met who prayed like Moses.  (Stories about African bishops who pray like Moses are gold!)

I guess I’ve never understood why Christians like to sit around and discuss “the problem with the church.”  Heather and I have never gone to lunch and said, “Let’s talk about the worst parts of our marriage.”  I wouldn’t take my daughter for ice cream and say, “Sydney, today we’re going to explore my least favorite ways Mommy does your hair.” 

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I think the church is beautiful.  Really beautiful.  Studying her problems absolutely misses the point.  It’s like questioning the way Dostoyevsky punctuated or the way Van Gogh signed his name.  What are we talking about here?

Newsflash: the church is imperfect. 

Oh, and another newsflash: your church is imperfect.

She is sometimes misrepresented, sometimes overly hyped, sometimes divided.   We don’t need YouTube responses, neo-Calvinists or The Elephant Room to tell us that.

But we like to outline the problems because we feel like it's the first step to fixing them.  And I guess that makes sense.  I just didn’t know it was our job to fix the church.  I always assumed the Holy Spirit was in charge of that. 

No, I’ve decided that I’ll take her just the way she is.  Some may see her as divided; I see her as diverse.  Some may view her as immature; I view her as maturing.  Some may think she is bending to current culture; I think she is loving current culture.

The church may have flaws, but be careful what you say about her over nachos.  She is stunningly beautiful to Jesus.  He loves her.  He is coming back for her. 

She is His bride.  

What Is His Mother Teaching Him? (video)

Pick Your Spirit

I grew up differently than many of you.  I grew up in the Christian subculture.  This means that I saw a lot of things that were amazing, and I saw a lot of things that were weird.  And, quite frankly, I saw a lot of things that were amazingly weird.  

One phenomena that I observed while growing up was the labeling of people with "spirits".  Church members whom I regarded highly were good at doing that.  Actually, they were great at it.  They always knew who had what spirit.  Over some post-church meal (we had a lot of those), they'd sit around discussing who had a spirit and how we could all pray for them. 

The deacon who left the church had a "divisive spirit".  The clerk at J. Crew in the mall had a "gay spirit".  The neighbor kid who wore RATT t-shirts had a "rebellious spirit".  And the woman in the short dress at church this morning?  Well, she obviously had a "seductive spirit".  (I didn't know what a seductive spirit was, but I distinctly remembered seeing this woman, and I wasn't nearly as repulsed as everyone else seemed to be.) 

It was amazing to me how effortlessly these grown-ups could identify such spirits and dispense these labels.  How did they do that?  How did they know that?  I wasn't nearly as spiritual as they were because I never guessed right.  I once thought my sixth grade nemesis had an "argumentative spirit," but when I confronted him on the playground he turned out to have "violent spirit".  That was a painful lesson. 

I have since come to learn that the spiritual labeling that I observed as a young Christian was nothing more than name-calling.  It was spiritual name-calling, but name-calling, nonetheless.  It was mean, it was vindictive and it was usually wrong.  Not everything is a spirit.

Does the Bible speak of demonic spirits and angelic beings?  Sure.  Are we engaged in a spiritual battle?  Yes.  Is the Holy Spirit's work current and active?  Absolutely.  But that does not change the fact that we have physical bodies and live in a physical world.  Not everything is explained by unsubstantiated spiritual accusations.  Not everything is mystical.   

I believe that as Christians we must be careful with our spiritual compulsions and our spiritual labels.  Maybe the guy with the "negative spirit" just has a bad attitude.  Maybe the chick with the "sullen spirit" is just sad today.  Maybe the dude with the "Absalom spirit" just needs to be fired.  And maybe the lady with the "seductive spirit" is just wearing a good push-up bra.  Sometimes the explanation is simple.  Sometimes spiritual labels don't apply.  Sometimes name-calling isn't necessary.

But then again, I could be wrong.  Maybe I have a naïve spirit.

 

(originally posted on August 17, 2010)

The Power of Red

Red is no accident.  It is stunning on purpose.  It shocks, titillates, intimidates and invites all at the same time.   The hue of beauty, life, power and heat. 

Red.  The perfect color for love.

My life used to be cast in greys.  There were only shadows and charcoal.  The world I knew was structured and cold, ordered and still, static and pale.  I was living but not alive.  Not really.

That was before Heather found me.  She changed all of that.

Heather showed me red.

Heather is a rose among ashes.  She transcends her environment.  A catalyst.  Her laugh infectious, her eyes wild, her touch intoxicating. 

Kinetic.  Untamed.  Dangerous.  Red.

She is the paragraph you read again and again.  Expertly crafted.  A woman who smiles like she knows a secret, sighs like she's listening to music, kisses like it is forbidden.  She is hypnotically imperfect, her only flaws self-inflicted to maintain mortality.

She doesn’t just color with red – she seems to create it.

My life changed when fate let me love her.   It changes every day when she loves me in return.  I thought women like Heather only existed in Hemingway novels.  But she exists every day in my home and every night in my dreams.

Heather did for me what no one else ever could, she chased away the grey.

So, Happy Valentine’s Day, Heather.  Thank you for showing me red.  You stop traffic, you warm my soul, you course through my veins.   With every beat of my heart, I love you.

What My Pastor Didn't Say

My pastor wasn’t at church this weekend.  He was ministering in Japan.  (In related news: I once ministered in Raleigh.)

A lot of Mondays, I blog about what Pastor Robert said at Gateway Church, but today I can only tell you what he would have said...

• He would have had us turn to two passages of Scripture. 

• He's a teacher and these are his favorite phrases.  (He would have used all of these.) 

            “Listen…”

            “Okay, let me say it this way…”

            “Here's how this works..."

            “Let me ask you a question…”

• He would have unveiled at least one (but probably ten) Scriptural truths I had never seen.

• He would have pronounced the word “on” as “own” (Texas, ya'll)

• He would have finished by asking, “What is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?”

These are the things my pastor didn't say in Soutlake last weekend but I'm pretty sure he would have.  I wonder how well they translate into Japanese. 

I Can't Wait

I can’t wait!

That’s been her mantra for the last month.   It’s all I hear.  

“Daddy, my birthday is in 3 weeks; I can’t wait!” 

“Daddy, Mommy says my birthday is only 10 days away; I can’t wait!” 

“Daddy, can you believe TOMORROW is my birthday? I can’t wait!”

And now the wait is over.

Today, we’ll go to Chuck E. Cheese's and eat the worst pizza on earth.  We’ll buy tokens and wear party hats and sing off-key.  There will be pink wrapping paper and Barbies and something called Zoobles.  We’ll do all of these things because that’s what you do when little girls turn seven.

But in quiet rebellion to the excitement, I’ll feel a twinge of sadness.   The fact that she's  growing up isn't something I want to celebrate.  So, we’ll take pictures of the new seven year old, but I’ll picture her at seven months old.  We’ll sing Happy Birthday to the party girl, but I’ll remember singing lullabies to the baby girl.  She’ll smile all day, but I’ll think of her first smile ever.

Ugh.

However, I’ve resolved to mask my despondency.  It’s a big day and Heather says I have to get on board.  I’m ready; I can do this.  Today, I’m going to fake-enthusiastically fulfill the three dad duties thrust upon men for generations: I’ll pay for the food, I’ll take the pictures and I’ll dispose of the trash.  

And with every trip for more tokens, I’ll stop, kiss her on the cheek and say…

Happy Birthday, Sydney.  Daddy loves you.  You were right; this party is amazing.  I know you thought this day might never get here, but somehow I’ve always known that it would.  

From The Vault: One of Those Weeks

Have you ever had a week where you just can't get on track?  Where your life seems stuck in neutral?  Where your biggest accomplishment and your biggest embarrassment are the same thing: watching Glee? 

I'm having one of those weeks.  Off schedule, out of sync, undisciplined - these are the words I would use to describe my life over the last four days.  It's like I'm dancing to the wrong song (and that's a weird analogy considering that I only "car dance").

I've been tempted to do what I always do in times like this, beat myself up over it.  I suck...I'm lazy...I'm stupid...I'm out of my league.  In the past, my outrageously infantile self-loathing would be followed up with despair.  It would usually involve long, morose car rides, a steady dose of jazz and bluegrass,  a tad too much rum, and - particularly if it's raining - a culminating, dramatic double-fist-shake-at-the-heavens for cinematic effect; Why God...whyyyyyyyy?!?! 

But things are different now.  Though I still don't like or excuse my inconsistency, it's no longer the starting gun for my race to the fetal position.  Of course I suck, this is nothing new.  Of course I'm out of my league, this is not a breaking story.  Of course I'm sometimes lazy, I know this.  The amazing thing is that none of this affects how much God loves me.  None of this affects the plan God has for my life.  In fact, it's because God chooses to use me in spite of my insufficiencies that I marvel at His goodness.  My gaffs highlight His grace.

Maybe you've had a bad week, too.  Maybe you disappoint yourself sometimes just like the rest of us.  Maybe you're off of your game right now.  That's alright.  God loves you anyway.  Your string of bad days has not put a dent in His plan for your life.  He's unphased by your failings. 

God's grace for you is still flowing.  God's love for you is still deep.  Isn't that amazing?

 

(Originally posted on May 20, 2010)