298 i robot?

I've acquired the nickname "Randor2000" up here in Seattle. Miles (guitar player for my band) came up with the name and he says it's because of my geeky, sometimes robot-like qualities...I, uh think that's a compliment.

Anyway, I mention that because around church and at Bible studies I've occasionally been telling people that I'm really looking forward to seeing the upcoming Pixar movie, WALL-E, and when I mentioned it, a lot of people didn't know what I was talking about.

Well recently some of the people from my Bible study took a trip up to Vancouver for a mini-vacatiion. While there, the commercial for WALL-E came on the television and I pointed it out saying, "that's the movie I want to see." And one person responded, "oh, it's about a robot - no wonder you want to see it."

Until that point, I hadn't made that connection, which makes me wonder how much of a robot I actually am.

Computing...computing...computing

Anyway, click here to see the trailers. I highly recommend the Vacuum Vignette - the way the Pixar folks are able to convey emotion and narrative through sounds and subtle mechanical movements (note the way they use WALL-E's "eye brows" and the way WALL-E tilts his head and "squints" his eyes as it makes its exit) is sheer genius.

That little short and all the trailers never fail to put a smile on my face....dear Lord, maybe I am a robot!

297. cultivating "pearls"

So my pastor has a really cool blog which he calls beauty and depravity. This week, as a kind of joke, he put the following exchange between himself and a Quest single woman (QSW) up on his blog:

QSW: What do you call a cute guy at Quest?

Pastor: Huh? Okay...what?

QSW: A visitor...

Pastor: [laughing] That's cold.

And I thought it was hilarious and so did some other people. But then something interesting happened. In the comments section, his innocent post touched off a flurry of discussion centered loosely around the topic of dating. It didn't take long for another QSW (not the one that told the "cute guy" joke) to put up her own blog entry in response which then got referenced in yet another post back on my pastor's blog which also garnered a ton of comments.

It's been quite an interesting and entertaining couple of days in the Quest blogosphere.

And since the topic is dating and relationships and church...well, of course I have to throw my hat in the ring.

Thing is, most of the comments (left by men and women) basically made the point that men should man up, grow some balls, and start asking out some of the amazing single women who call Quest their church home. And for the most part, they're right.

But.

But for some guys it's not that simple.

Take, oh...let's say, me as an example.

In the last few years of high school and the first few years of college, I was involved in a para-church organization that took a pretty hard line stance when it came to dating. Basically, their message was, "don't date because you can't control your emotions and your hormones. If you start dating now you're inevitably going to do something stupid like having unprotected sex (because we're certainly not going to teach you anything about contraception) and you'll probably get your girlfriend pregnant. You're going to stop going to church and fall away from Christ because you're too busy to go with your two minimum wage jobs (the only jobs you could get because you didn't finish high school/college) and so your kid will grow up outside a nice christian home and he/she will hang out with the wrong crowd and start taking drugs which will lead to him/her stealing items from your home which they will pawn off to support their habit. In the end, you'll die a miserable old man who never got to accomplish anything meaningful in life. All because you started dating before you were old enough to handle it."

You think I'm joking about this? Well, yeah, I'm exaggerating a bit but honestly, not by much. During camps and retreats, they'd often have a segment where they'd separate the guys from the girls and they'd give THE TALK, not entirely unlike what I wrote above. And they did more than talk. If a dating couple made the mistake of attending one of these camps, the counselors would do everything they could think of to try to break them up through the course of the retreat. They'd make sure the one couldn't see the other during free time. At every opportunity, the women counselors would talk to the girl and the male counselors would talk to the guy, explaining in no uncertain terms why they were too young and unprepared to be in a relationship. Their tactics were quite effective. Lots of couples either left halfway through camp, unwilling to put up with the bullying tactics, or left camp no longer dating.

Now you might be thinking, that's so screwed up - why did you put up with that kind of teaching? Why did you stay with that group?

Well, yeah, looking back now I can see how screwed up that all was, but at the time I didn't know any better. I mean I wasn't learning about dating and relationships at home. I love my parents and all but I never saw them modeling any kind of healthy interaction, let alone intimacy (despite the eww factor). And back in the day, I wasn't one of the cool, with-it kids. I was one of the nerds back when being a nerd was still a bad thing. No one in my circle of friends knew anything about how to get dates let alone what to say or do if we somehow went on one. So when I started going to these camps and hanging out with these smart, hip christian leaders who talked about how great their marriages were, why wouldn't I listen to what they had to say?

And here's another thing. Despite the fact that I now see that their views on dating were fracked up (I've been watching BSG oh hulu), they really did have some solid teaching and discipleship. I learned a lot from them and I might not be the christian I am today were it not for some of the values they instilled in me. I mention this because their being on point in most areas of christianity made it that much harder for me to dismiss their take on dating even if it seemed a bit odd to me.

Now at the same time, as I was growing up, men were being mocked and ridiculed on television, in movies, and certainly in the stand-up comedy routines of female comedians. Take a movie like When Harry Met Sally. Billy Crystal's character is basically a jerk. Not just that, he gives Sally (Meg Ryan) multiple lectures on how men are pigs who only have one thing on their mind when they're around women.

Or take a look at this bit from a song by Jimmy Webb titled, What Does A Woman See In A Man which ends with this bit:

And yet, dreaming of orgies in Vegas or Cannes
He preens and strikes poses Olympian
While she shoulders the cross
And lets him play boss
His nurse and long-suffering Samaritan

He brags about knocking the world on its ass
But oh when the shit hits the fan
She'll bail him out
She's the one with the clout
Only she knows how humankind ever began

Tell me what does a woman see in a man?

(complete lyrics here)

The song came out in the early nineties but in its own hyperbolic way, it kind of captures the man-bad-woman-good vibe that kind of emerged out of the eighties.

I'm sure there are much better examples of what I'm trying to get across which is the idea that I grew up in a time when the habits and attitudes of men were belittled in the media. Oh, and I just remembered a quote from a movie called Mindwalk that went something like, "you men have been in charge for so long and look at what a mess you've made of things. Maybe it's time for women to take the lead."

And one last item before I (finally) get to the point I'm trying to get across.

I suppose I just have the worst luck when it comes to women because despite all the dysfunctional instruction I received, I did manage to start sort of seeing this girl while I was in college. And it was stupendous, thrilling, bountiful and beautiful. It's like we were best friends from the start - we had similar interests, we finished each other's sentences. We felt instantly at ease around the other and found ourselves sharing things even our best friends didn't know.

But.

But we were just friends and when I suggested maybe we be a bit more than friends, she freaked out. She said I was betraying our friendship and she couldn't believe I would want to ruin something so special.

Now let me be clear here that it's not like I was suggesting we begin regular make out sessions in the back of my car. All I wanted was for us to see one another more regularly, to not date other people, to be able to tell our friends that we were seeing each other.

But she didn't want it. Any of it.

Don't ask me to explain. Her friends didn't get it either - they thought we would've made a smashing couple. Everyone saw that she and I seeing one another would have been the obvious, perfect thing. Well, everyone but her.

I'll spare you the gory (and I mean Stephen King/Clive Barker/GWAR gory) details but it went from amazingly beautiful to brutal and ugly almost overnight. I was a mess and she started seeing some guy who everyone thought was obviously wrong for her.

I guess this is all a VERY long, cumbersome way to respond to what some people said in the comments section of my pastor's blog posts which was basically, "hey guys, stop being spineless, safe, and weak and start asking girls out!" To which I respond, "it's not that easy for everyone."

I don't know if it was the batty teaching on dating I got from those camps or the fact that my parents didn't model a healthy relationship for me or if it was all the men-are-bad vibe I was getting from the media or if it was the brutal crash and burn of that early almost-relationship with that girl. I suppose it's all of the above, but add it all up and I guess you can see that dating doesn't come easily to me.

The amount I don't know about dating and relationships could fill a black hole and turn it back into a star again.

In the comments section to one of my pastor's posts I asked why women didn't do some of the initiating. One person responded that women do initiate by putting out signals.

Maybe I've never been signaled, maybe I haven't seen the Rosetta Stone and don't know how to interpret their hieroglyphics. Maybe I have so little confidence in the dating process that I refuse to see them. I mean if a woman came up to me with a sign stuck to her forehead that read, "hey, ask me out," I'd probably think she was just being ironic.

See, it's not like there's a school out there offering degrees in Lloyd Dobler. And yeah, there are books out there like Dating For Dummies and The Mack Within and The Game, but they all basically say the same thing which is "be confident - confidence is attractive." And I'm sure that's true but in the rare occasion that I do try and ask someone out, while my mind is telling me, "I'm the man, I'm a great catch, I'm so money I don't even know it," the thing that comes out of my mouth is, "so...um...don't feel pressured or anything because it's not really a big deal so feel free to say no because you won't hurt my feelings and I hope I'm not putting you in an awkward position because...oh, you know what? I just remembered that I need to buy bread so I'll be going now. Have a nice day."

Look, here's the deal. I don't write all of this because I want people to feel sorry for me. On any given day, I'm 99 percent content and happy and secure as a single man. And even on my most needy days, I'd say I'm still up around the 85-90 percentile. For the most part, I like love being single. My life is simple, my money is my own, I don't have to clear my schedule with anyone. I'm not saying my life is all diamonds and pearls but it's like Jay-Z says, "I got 99 problems but a b#$^# ain't one."

I put my story up to make the point that "man up, grow some balls, stop being a wimp" is pretty empty advice.

I don't know how many men can relate to anything I've shared but I'll bet they don't want to talk about it because who wants to admit that they don't have the first idea about how to date - something eighth graders know how to do? Because how much more unattractive will they feel they are to women by making such an admission?

And so I'll speak for them because I have nothing at stake. I love being single.

(Am I missing out on a beautiful part of what it is to be alive and human? Probably. Am I going to do anything about that? Not right now.)

The most sublime description of the modern dating scene that I've ever heard came from one of my college Political Science teachers (Chad Blair) who said, "some people are getting it, some people aren't." And I'd add that those who aren't are either too ashamed to admit they need help or have no idea where to get help even if they wanted it.

I don't know what the solution for this is. I don't know how to make men better, more whole, more confident. But sometimes the suggestion, "be a man," is about as useful as telling a drowning person, "learn how to swim."

296. keeping the dream alive!

[preface]

So I'm still super busy. This week I've spent the past three nights out of four at our rehearsal studio after work, working on the new Harrison CD that we need to have done before our tour in July.

And truth be told, this is actually the second blog I've written this month. I won't post the first one for reasons you'll read about below and the only reason I've rushed to finish and post this one is because I really want to write a response to this post because I have lots I want to say on the topic.

So this is a bit of an unfinished post (as if my blogs are ever anything but), but stay tuned - another addition to the Dating & Relationships series is forthcoming.

[end preface]


So...um, being busy isn't the only reason I haven't been able to write lately. It's also because the things I wanted to deal with in my writing had to do with people in my band - people whom I care about deeply. I knew I had some difficult things to say and to share about them but of course, the blogging thing is a very public forum and I didn't want to air out dirty laundry where everyone could see.

But that creates a kind of problem for me because the way I think about and deal with problems is by writing about them and often, one of the few things that can motivate me to get to the hard work of writing is you, my readers. So, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant plan. I decided to write out my grievances as a blog entry but to not post it until I showed it to my band and got their permission to put it up.

That did the trick. I opened up the spigots of my sub-conscience and let loose a barrage of bile and accusation.

Now before I go on about what I wrote, let me say that my "method" of writing has to do with having an issue that's unresolved in my mind and working through it by stringing words and ideas together. It's been said that thought is parallel (your mind can process more than one idea at a time) while writing is far more serial (it can basically only deal with one idea at a time). With this band thing, I knew I had a lot of discontent brewing just below the surface, but when I started writing about it, I didn't know, precisely, the source of my frustrations. And so I just began by putting down the first thing that came to mind on the topic and went from there.

It wasn't easy and it certainly wasn't fun which sucked because for the most part, while writing is seldom easy, it is almost always fun (a sick, self-torturturous kind of fun, but fun nevertheless). Dishing out the frustrations I had with my band was like squeezing the puss out of a cyst or boil - it was painful and it was ugly. But it was necessary. And to extend the analogy, once I started squeezing the poison out, I started to feel better.

For the most part, the things I was writing centered around the thought that the source of my frustrations was the feeling that all the hard work I had put (and continue to put) into the band was being taken for granted - I didn't feel appreciated. I laid out example after example of why I felt this way. In the end I wound up with an entry that weighed in at four pages and almost 1,800 words. I finished the last bits of it in the hours before our Saturday rehearsal - I rushed the ending because I wanted to show it to the band and be done with it.

(As an aside, here's some sage, free advice to anyone thinking about sharing their frustrations with friends in written form: don't send the first draft!)

I showed up (late) to rehearsal and told them a bit about how I'd been feeling these last few months and then I told them about the blog entry that I wanted to post and gave them the copies I had printed out. We decided that they would read what I had written and discuss their take on the matter the next day before rehearsal.

The rest of that Saturday was odd for me. I wasn't sure how my band would take the things I had written. I didn't pull any punches. When given the choice between taking the direct, hurtful approach and the more subtle, passive approach, I chose the former. I took a bit of time out later in the day to re-read what I had written and I saw that there were things that I should have taken out or at least re-written. But it was too late for that and anyway, I figured maybe it was best that they got the unedited, unfiltered me.

Sunday was interesting. I'll spare you the gory details (sorry to deny your voyeuristic curiosity but that's privileged, band information) but suffice it to say that I was wrong about what I had written. I don't just mean that I said some unfair, hurtful things which I apologized for, I mean the crux of my blog entry was wrong. The source of my frustrations wasn't so much a lack of appreciation - the guys in the band know I put in a ton of work, even if they're not the best at showing it - as it was the feeling that as a band we had lost our fire and passion and drive.

See, here's the thing. I work my ass off for this band and I've invested a lot of my own money into items that benefit the band as a whole - this is on top of money I've put into my own musical gear. I didn't feel pressured to get this equipment - nobody asked me to do it - I did so because I believe in this band. I pour myself into the band because, if you'll allow me a moment of unbridled optimism, I truly believe that we have a chance at being the last monster band of the CD era or the first monster band of the internet era. And by monster, I mean the kind of band that crosses marketing boundaries and finds fans across a wide musical spectrum, the kind of band that people get tired of hearing because we're everywhere, the kind of band that sells out arenas and stadiums, the kind of band that people ape in karaoke bars.

I believe it.

All of it.

And so I work my ass of for this band.

But.

But I can't do it by myself.

The thing that was killing me was not that I felt unappreciated, it was that I felt as if I was the only one left who believed enough in the band enough to sweat and work and sacrifice for it. Maybe it's because the music scene is tougher than we anticipated. Maybe it's because we miss a bit of home. Maybe it's because all our personal differences and conflicts are heightened now that we're in a new environment. Maybe it's all of the above. Whatever the reason, these last few months it seems all the air had been let out of the Harrison balloon and our basket was in danger of running aground. We had lost sight of the prize and were doing just enough to get by.

I was a bit of an asshole in what I wrote about my band. They were gracious in forgiving me for it and the one really good thing (among others) that came out of it was that it reminded all of us that as a band we all have to continue to believe in what we came here for.

We didn't leave the comforts of home and the support of friends to play tiny shows to tiny crowds in tiny parts of Seattle. We left home behind because we believed we could take over the world! At least that's why I did it.

When I look back on my time in this band, I don't want to remember that we came to Seattle and found the scene too hard to break into and so we just played what shows we could and gave up after a couple years. I want to remember that we gave every ounce of ourselves to make it happen and even if we never got to play stadiums or arenas, we gave it our all on every stage that would have us.

As a band, some of us (myself included) had forgotten about that dream, that purpose, that fire and that's why I felt so frustrated at all the work I was doing for the band - because if I'm not doing it to fulfill a dream, then spending hours and hours working on recording, mixing, and editing songs for a new CD is just building the Titanic.

I gave some action items to my band - things that would show me that we still intended to shoot for the stars - simple things like responding to emails and keeping others informed about what we've been working on to make sure we're all on the same page, making sure we're working as a team and not as lone rangers (of which I was the most guilty). I've seen some improvement in these areas, not as much as I'd like but it's a start. And I know that as I'm working on the recording end of things they're working to put together our summer tour - we already have shows lined up in Portland and LA with more prospects dangling in the air.

And the cool thing about working in Seattle is that we've found some really talented individuals who really want to help us:


I really do believe that we can make it, that we can be an unstoppable monster of a band. And the amazing thing is that along the way, we've found some great people who believe in us as well - a savvy manager, a web marketing guru, a dope web designer (new website coming soon), and a photographer talented enough to make the monkeys in our band actually look like rock stars (no small feat, I assure you). And this is in addition to having an amazing videographer who's already shot two amazing music videos for us (see here and here...or here if those links don't work).

We've been blessed with resources that most bands only dream of. On top of this, because of the new avenues that the internet has opened, lots of the old barriers to stardom have come tumbling down. None of the old rules apply anymore - ask any crusty record exec and they'll tell you that they have no idea what their industry will look like five years from now. We are poised on the leading edge of a music marketing revolution. It will be a lot of chaos and a lot of false starts and dead ends. Some bands will get screwed, some will soar. It's going to be a bumpy, turbulent ride but I'm on board for better or for worse. And I'm betting big on better.

123. viva la revolucion! (redux)

[preface]

So in my last post, I asked for prayer for some things I've been struggling through and I've been feeling better. Many thanks for all who prayed and commented.

Truth be told, the issues I'm struggling with are still there. They come up for me every once in a while and when I look back and think about it, it's pretty much the same issues over and over again.

One of the benefits of blogging or keeping a journal is being able to go back to older entries and see how you've dealt with things in the past. I woke up this morning and was reminded of the post I'm re-posting below. It's one of my favorites because (if I can be so immodest) it kicks ass.

I'm also re-posting the entry that I wrote one week after that one because (apart from having a hilarious ending) it gives balance and reminds me that Kingdom work is hard work.

On another note, I'm hoping to be back with new original entries soon so hang in there!

[end preface]

123. viva la revolucion!

I, in my naivete, used to believe that being a kind, generous person meant that kindness and generosity would be returned to me. I don't mean if I helped someone that I expected that specific person to be available to help me in return on some future date. I guess I believed in a kind of grand karmic bank account where good deeds deposited could be withdrawn from in times of need.

I've found that this is an exercise in frustration. The world is like a black hole for kindness - it goes in but it's a one-way trip. Now it turns out that apart from x-ray radiation, black holes do kind of leak minute quantities of mass due to quantum effects. In the same way, sometimes kindness does return but it's at a much, much, much smaller level.

The realization that kindness and generosity are bad investments has been a source of much frustration for me these last few years. I felt lied to. I had believed all those church/Bible study lessons that told me it was better to give than to receive, that JOY meant putting Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself last. I believed those things and put them into practice. And then I kept trying to figure out how giving was any better than receiving; and I kept wondering when the joy part of the JOY formula started kicking in. I can't say exactly when, but it finally dawned on me that those sayings were/are bunk. Receiving is better than giving in every way, and putting yourself last is a surefire way to kill joy.

It's been hard for me these last few years. I'd been a generous person for so long, that it's just a part of who I am. It didn't matter that the foundation on which I had built my generosity was made of sand, it was there to stay. Sometimes friends tell me to just forget about helping people and to just do what makes me happy. Well, helping people is the thing that makes me happy.

But doesn't that contradict your critique of JOY? Perhaps I'm not explaining myself well. What I mean is, I grew up believing that being kind and generous would cultivate a life where kindness and generosity would return to you - it would create an atmosphere of good will, (kind of like terraforming - turning the hostile air of cynicism and greed into sweet, breathable mercy). The realization that's been killing me these last few years is that there is no guarantee of return, in fact chances are good that kindness will never be returned. And that made me pretty salty because it's like I've been investing in a start-up that had already shut down. Think of those people in New Orleans who pumped money into hurricane insurance year after year only to have their home destroyed in a flood which is not something their policy covers. "Well then what good is all that money I've been paying for hurricane insurance?" That's how I felt about kindness and generosity.

So I get to the point where I realize that kindness and generosity are bad investments. I figured there were only a handfull of things I could do in response:

1. Stop being kind and generous. Switch to live and let die mode and just look out for number one.

2. Stop being kind and generous. Switch to being selfish and greedy instead.

3. Keep being kind and generous. Live with the frustration I'm feeling now, grin and bear it. Try not to go poastal.

4. Go poastal. Do not go gentle into that good night, go with a big fucking bang.

None of those options appealed to me because none of them were sustainable. Even option three, which is pretty much the way I've been living for years, was unappealing because it seemed pointless, stupid, absurd.

And then...

And then the skies parted, light broke through the darkness and the fog. The little bulb over my head flickered to life. I had a eureka moment.

I realized that I could be kind and generous DESPITE the fact that it was a bad investment, despite the fact that it offered no yield. I could be kind and generous knowing full well that it would likely never come back to me, that it offered no guarantee of good friends, good jobs, good wife, not even a good reputation. I could be kind and generous as an act of sheer rebellion, as a subversive act of open aggression against a greedy, needy world. I could be the leader of a rebel force of one. I could strike out with guerilla attacks of random kindness. I sow the seeds of a revolution that seeks to overturn a world stuck in the trap of consumerism - where everything is seen as a transaction with one party profiting and another suffering a loss, where even free car washes are not really free car washes, where we are defined by what we own rather than what we give a way.

Yes, it's futile. Yes, I'm just one little man and my revolution of kindness will go unnoticed, ignored, perhaps even exploited by those who will take advantage of my cause. I acknowledge all those things, but I don't care. If I am just one tiny flame of light in a dark world, so be it. If I can allow the Kingdom of God to trickle into this fallen world through my life, I think that's as noble a cause as any.

It's mad, but it's beautiful. I just hope I'm up to the task.


124. on empathy and faith

Empathy is stupid. It's a burden, a curse. It's a monkey on your back that just won't let up.

It's not an easy thing to feel this ache to help, to comfort, to heal but to not be able to. I suppose one can pray but so often, prayer seems to have so little reach. You speak it into the air and where does it go? What does it do? How is it supposed to work? And even after the, "amen," the ache is still there.

Better the selfish bliss of ignorance, to not know, to not comprehend, to not care. Better to wonder why they can't just get over it. Better to pity than to burn for resolution, to seek after some solution, whatever the cost.

To make another's pain one's own, to hear it echo in your own heart (a ping, tart and tang), to yearn for justice and redemption. What use are these when there's nothing you can do?

And a prayer seems like so small a thing, yet faith (the mustard size of it) can amplify, multiply its use. Faith, the evidence and substance of it, can be the only hope one can hold on to. And where do you place this faith? In the One who can turn water into wine, the One who declares that those who mourn will be comforted. In the One who wove the fabric of space and time in ten dimensions, confounding Mensa minds and atom smashers alike.

...but all that said, I still think empathy sucks.

294. running out of empty...a prayer request

Sorry, I can't go into detail right now because...

1. Because I'm too tired to.
2. Because I just can't go into it here for various reasons.
3. Because I think I'm getting sick again and I'm going straight to bed.

All I'll say is, it seems like I've been running on empty these past couple months and it just doesn't seem to stop and so now it feels as if I'm running out of empty.

And so, a prayer request to you, my readers.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what I need prayer for...or maybe it's that I can't work up the energy to even think about it. If you think of me or if you remember this post, just pray that...pray that...

Well, just let the Holy Spirit guide your prayer for me - that will be enough, I think.

Thanks.

293. living in sin

Well, I suppose this comes as no surprise to regular readers (and perhaps to irregular readers as well), but the Tomato Stand is taking a leave of absence.

Main reason: I'm just too busy.

Examples:

1. This month there've been four visitors from Hawaii in town and there's a couple more on the way. Entertaining, while supremely fun, is also time consuming.

2. My band is recording new material for an EP that we hope to take with us when we go on tour in the summer so that's eating up a bunch of my time.

3. I love my new job but the commute is KILLER. It's at least one hour, one way which means even if I drive (I try to bus whenever I can), the commute to work takes a two hour bite out of my day.

I believe there are other time sinks that I may not be aware of. I suppose it may be time to man up and start ordering and structuring my life more. At the very least I'd be able to see where all my free time is draining away to.

Honestly, I hate not having time to write. One, because I love writing, two because I know I'm disappointing readers (all three of you), and three because, frankly, it feels like I'm living in sin.

See, sin is not just doing things you know are wrong (sins of commission), it also has to with not doing things you ought to be doing (sins of omission). As inconsistently and as clumsily as I do it, I believe that writing is a gift that God has given me and for me not to exercise it is sin. I honestly do feel that badly about it.

Be that as it may though, I am going to be taking a break. I hope to be back at blogging by the end of March, hopefully sooner.

Pray for me, a sinner.

292. I'm not the only one - Hillary and Barack part 2

A few weeks ago I wrote up a post where I likened Barack to a Mac and Hillary to a PC.

Looks like I'm not alone in thinking this: New York Times article, Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC?

From the article:

"On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC."

Does that make me an expert?

291. back soon...

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've got some stuff brewing in the queue, but they're not done yet. Soon.

A quick update until I can get to the longer posts:

1. I really like my new job. It's a really geeky, techy company and the people are cool. What do I do there? Well for now I'm just helping out with miscellaneous maintenance tasks. I don't mean I'm sweeping floors or cleaning windows, I mean I'm helping out with some of the tedious, repetitive jobs that are a part of moving their products through the pipeline towards production.

2. The job is great but the commute sucks. If I drive, it normally takes about an hour to get there. If I take the bus it takes about an hour and a half. I try to take the bus because I can read on the ride there...and because it's greener.

3. The commute time is part of why I haven't been able to blog lately. Even if I drove everyday, the commute carves at least two hours out of my day. I thought I'd be able to blog on the bus but the bumpy ride makes typing too awkward and error prone.

4. My band has been working on recording new material and so that's been keeping me busy as well. We've also been meeting with some really cool people who are willing to help us kick it up a notch - band manager, web design team, and an amazing photographer!

Well, those are the big items in my life right now. There are lots of things I want to write about and so I'm trying to find the time. In the meantime, click here and help my pastor win in Metroblogging Seattle's blog competition.

290. a lighthearted take on Hillary and Barack

I was hanging out with some friends last night and I mentioned something I've been thinking about as I've listened to the battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. My friends seemed to enjoy the analogy and I've never heard any news sources mentioning it so I thought I'd share it with the rest of you.

If the candidates were computers, Clinton would be a PC and Obama would be a Mac.

No elaboration, I think it's pretty self-explanatory and not to be taken seriously anyway.

(if the link below doesn't work, try here)

289. the Harold experiment

For those who read my blogger blog (I also mirror my posts on MySpace), I don't know if you've noticed, but I've started tagging some of my posts. One of the tags is called The Harold Experiment and those posts are all about my ex-coworker whom I code-named "Harold." I labeled it an "experiment" because after a while, that's how it felt.

(Brief synopsis - if you're up on the situation, feel free to skip this paragraph.) See, I work in a small, specialized department of a much larger warehouse where it's just me and Harold. Harold is difficult to work with. He's not efficient, he can't (doesn't) prioritize projects, has a very short temper, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say he's lazy...I take that back, he's pretty lazy. He's also not much of a team player - unless you consider dumping all of the hard work on your coworker (me) teamwork.

It would have been really easy on numerous occasions for me to have reported Harold to my supervisors, and it was hard not to but at some point I came to see our little specialized department as a kind of laboratory and my interactions with him as a kind of experiment. I mean, I didn't think of it that way at the time, but looking back on it, that's an apt way to put it. It was a test to see if living out the Gospel in the way I had come to understand it really worked.

See, I've done a lot of thinking in the last few years about what it really means to live as a christian. One of the ways of understanding the Gospel that has been key to me is the idea that being a christian means living now the way I would if the fall had never happened or the way I will after Christ returns and redeems all of creation. So my little experiment involved trying my best to work with Harold as if he was a kick-ass, hard driving uber-worker even though he was the opposite of that.

That meant I had to bite my tongue a lot. There were so many instances where I wanted to blow up at Harold, shove his shitty work habits back in his face but I didn't. When his lack of initiative left unfinished projects strewn about, instead of letting them slip past deadline and pointing towards Harold when asked who was to blame, I stepped in and finished them for him. There were even a couple of occasions where I flat out caught him taking shortcuts that were clearly breaking company rules but instead of reporting him, I just told him I knew what he was doing and asked him not to go there again (and to his credit, he never did...at least I never caught him doing it again).

I don't mean to paint myself as a saint in this situation. I bitched a lot about Harold to some of the other people I worked with and of course I've dished it out in this blog but honestly, I did the best I could. And it's not like I had anything like a holy or reverent attitude about this little experiment. Especially in the past few months, it felt stupid and pointless because no matter how many times I finished his projects or cleaned up his mistakes, he just kept being his slow and lazy and unorganized self.

You know, looking back on it now, I'm not sure what I expected to get out of this little experiment. I mean, I did my best to not think about how unfair the situation was, how little he was working, how his lack of consideration made my job more difficult that it had to be, but I don't know if I ever expected anything to change. I just did my best to soldier on and do the job as if working for the Lord and not for Leroy (code name for my supervisor). I did my best to be Jesus to Harold.

It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done. And it took its toll on me. In the last couple months, there have been times when I've been working in the racks and I found myself punching the shit out of some of the boxes. See, in the racks, boxes are stacked three high and three deep. Sometimes the file you need is buried back in the last set of boxes and when you try to get it out, boxes in adjacent stacks get in the way and so you have to push them aside to get the box you want out. Normally all you have to do is tap the offending box a bit to make room but there were times when a kind of rage took over and I would start slamming the box with my fist, over and over again, as hard as I could.

The scariest part of this is that these little rage episodes didn't always coincide with Harold pissing me off. Sometimes it would just be an ordinary day where Harold and I were working on different things and everything would be fine until I'd run across some small, insignificant situation and all of a sudden I'm overtaken by an urge to throw something across the room or kick in the side of a box. Not like me at all.

And I've only been working there for a year. Harold's been there for five years so maybe it's no wonder that he's the way he is. But then again, Harold never had to work with a Harold.

Anyway, this past Friday was my last day working with Harold because he has the next week off (my last week at work). Normally I don't like goodbyes but I was really looking forward to the end of Friday because I knew that was going to be the last time I'd ever have to work with him. The day goes by like any other - me working like a dog and Harold working like a tree but in the last few minutes, Harold motions me aside and while I can't remember the exact words, he says something like:

"Randall, I've learned a lot from you."

Now I'm thinking he's talking about some of the work flow things that I've developed to streamline the process of getting orders pulled and out on time but then he continues,

"your work ethic and the way you treat people, I've never seen anything like it before and it's taught me a lot and I want to thank you. I know I'm not the easiest person to work with but you've really shown me something and I'm going to try to use some of what I've seen in you. So thanks, and I hope things go well for you at your new job."

I don't know how I kept myself from fainting or just staring at him with a blank look of disbelief. Instead, I shook his hand, thanked him for his kind words and wished him the best as well. He then walked out of our department, clocked out, and went home.

I couldn't believe it. That was probably one of the most stunning things anyone has ever said to me. All this time I thought he wasn't paying any attention. I thought, if anything, he was just taking advantage of my drive.

Earlier that day, I had been thinking a bit about what I was going to say to Harold when he left. I knew I wasn't going to lie to him and say something like, "it was a pleasure working with you," because it wasn't. I didn't know what I was going to say to him, I figured I'd just come up with something when that time came around. Actually, to be honest, when I did think of Harold these past couple days, I was relishing the thought of all the workload that I'd been shouldering falling squarely on him. I mean, we are training someone to take my place but she's new and so if anything, she'll be a drag on his productivity. I imagined our department full of boxes that weren't getting put away, orders that weren't getting pulled on time or correctly. I imagined the CSRs and supervisors coming down hard on Harold and once all that pressure hit his notoriously short temper, I pictured some really volatile, explosive situations.

I felt pretty stupid and evil and guilty for these thoughts after what Harold said.

I thought my little experiment was a failure, that soldiering on despite Harold's sloth was fruitless and futile. I thought I was a dolt for not complaining when I had the chance. I thought I was just banging my head against a wall that wouldn't budge.

But what if during all this time when I thought I was firing blanks I was actually planting seeds?

Of course the cynical side of me says he's just talk - that he's going to remain his slow, unorganized self, that he's going to push the bulk of the work on the new trainee. But what if some change does occur? What if he's been watching me closer that I ever considered? What if God's somehow used me to upset his world-view, showing him that there is another way to live? I mean, he's not exactly an effusive guy. Something must have been on his mind for him to open up the way he did. He could have easily just said, "good bye and good luck."

I don't know. My head is still reeling from the shock of what he said. I don't know if I'll ever see him again. I gave him my number because earlier this week he had mentioned that he was going to use his week off to try and find a new place to live so I gave him my number and told him I'd help him move if he needed it. Maybe he'll call, maybe he won't.

I don't know what's in store for Harold and I'm still processing the results of this little "experiment," but a part of me wants to believe that God will grow this little seed and give Harold new life. He doesn't have to be his crusty old self, that's just the hard, ugly shell that sin has painted over him.

And I don't know if not reporting his poor work habits was really the best way to live out the Kingdom of God (something I define as doing your best to make wherever you are a bit more like Eden and less like Babylon in whatever way you can). One thing I completely failed to consider is the work situation for the person who would take my place. If Harold remains anything like he was when I worked for him then Newbie is in for a world of hurt. Perhaps if I had known that I was going to be resigning for a new job a few months ago I would have worked more purposely at getting Harold to clean up his act so that the next person wouldn't have to face the brunt of his poor work ethic.

Again, I don't know.

But here's one thing I do know. God used me to make an impression on Harold and I don't know what God has in store for him but I feel humbled and blessed that I got to play a part.

Perhaps you've heard the phrase attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary." A brief Google search turned up this link that suggests that it's not really something St. Francis said, but the story surrounding the quote is useful here so I'm going to use it anyway - because even fiction can be instructive (sometimes more so than the truth).

Story goes that St. Francis took a trip out to the local village with the members of his monastery. When asked why they were going, he told them they were going to preach the Gospel. Once in the village, St. Francis started assigning fellow monks to tasks like fixing roofs and broken fences, helping farmers haul bags of wheat, helping people haul water, sweeping and cleaning dirty streets. They spent their whole day just helping the villagers in whatever way they could.

Late in the afternoon, one of the monks asked St. Francis, "when are we going to start preaching?" And that's when he supposedly replied, "Preach the gospel always. Use words if necessary."

I share this story because I wonder if in my imperfect, clumsy way, I've been able to preach the Gospel to Harold. I never shared the Four Spiritual Laws with him or asked him to pray the Sinner's Prayer, and I don't know if I've ever told him flat out that I'm a christian but he knows I go to church and I hope I've been able to share Jesus with him through the way I've worked.

I don't know. My (ongoing) Layman's Theology series is all about a way of understanding the Gospel that has made christianity rich and meaningful for me and there are many areas of my life where I'm trying to figure out how to turn thought and theory into lifestyle and application. My little Harold experiment was a part of this exploration and, thanks be to God, it's returned a surprisingly positive result.

Further study needed to verify long term effects of experimental data but that's (literally) not my job.

(preview) new job

[preface]

Yeah, I got a new job and I have a lot on my mind about my old job...but I'm going to wait until I'm officially out of my old position before posting my thoughts. Call me paranoid, but I just don't want to risk being fired for insubordination because of something I post here (how's that for a teaser).

So here's the first few paragraphs of a much longer entry, the rest of which will be posted in two weeks.

[end preface]

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

The righteous may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers them from them all;
Psalm 34:18-19

Well, I don't know if I would go so far as to call myself righteous, but I certainly feel as one who has been delivered.

So some of you know this already, but I recently got a new job! I gave my two weeks notice at my current job on Monday and I wouldn't call it was bittersweet because it was all sweet. Though now that I think about it, my supervisor looked kind of bitter after I told him I was leaving...

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what my new job will entail but based on the interview with and tour of the company I had last week, it will be nothing like my old job. They told me some aspects of the job can get tedious and boring. I told them I've been stacking boxes for over a year now - nothing they can throw at me can come close to matching the monotony that was my old job. I'll be working for a tech company that has some really impressive voice recognition products that end up being used in in-car GPS navigation units and smart phones and probably lots of other places that I don't know about yet. Honestly, I still can't believe they offered me a position. Almost everyone there has a degree either in programming or electrical engineering. I have a degree in English Literature.

I have to give credit where credit is due and so big ups to George (who asked me to send him a copy of my resume) and Aaron (who got my resume from George and ran it by his boss...and I know he vouched for me so double thanks there). A few months ago, I wrote about how I was a part of a huge church renovation project. Most of the work I did there was with the church's new audio system and a lot of that work was done alongside George and Aaron. It was a lot of sweaty, dirty, sometimes intricate work but it paid off - the new sound system is bangin' and I can't help but think that seeing my work ethic firsthand made Aaron's pitch for my position to his boss that much more effective. Who says volunteering doesn't pay?

288. just a couple little links...

Last week's post took a lot out of me. I deserve a break.

Oh, and in the comments section, of my pastor's blog, he said some nice things about my blog then (not so) subtly said I write too much, likening my posts to "novels."

It's all good because I know I ramble on and on. When I write, I make it up as I go along - I seldom (if ever) have what I'm going to say planned out. Words spill onto the page and while I try and do some minor editing (thanks for pointing out that spelling error, Nate), I pretty much just leave posts as I originally wrote them.

When I go back and read my old posts, it's obvious there's a lot of fat that could be trimmed but by that time, I'm sure nobody's reading those old entries so tinkering with them would be of no practical use.

So to give myself a break (and to keep this post to short-story length), let me just share a link to one of the funniest, most interesting blogs I've seen in a long time:

Local Girl's day in pictures

And if you haven't seen it already, Blogger has a feature called Blogger Play where (as I understand it) it takes photos that have been uploaded to Blogger blogs and places them randomly into a never-ending slideshow. It's hypnotic and fascinating. It's kind of like people watching but on a global scale.

http://play.blogger.com/

Enjoy.

287. thoughts on the trajectory of the Bible

[preface]

How's that for a fun, provocative title?

When I first started my Layman's Theology Series, I originally planned on starting with foundational ideas like salvation and communion and then work my way up to some really big, crazy, likely controversial thoughts I've been having recently about God and the Bible and christianity.

And there are still some basic tenets that I want to write about like sin and prayer and worship, but I can't wait anymore and I want to fast forward to get some of the more crazy ideas out before I forget about them or get too scared to put them up.

I think most of what I've written before about my take on theological ideas has been well within the realm of orthodoxy - the ideas were gleaned from books I'd already read by authors like Brian McLaren, Anne Lamott, N.T. Wright, Lauren F. Winner, and others.

But I've never read anything like what I'm going to share below. It may have been hinted at and that's probably where I got the idea, but still, it feels a bit scary to post because I'm not one to just speculate wildly about the nature of God because, well, God is GOD, you know?

As always, I'd love to hear from you - what do you think, am I completely off in left field on this one?

[end preface]

So one of the things that's always puzzled me about the Bible is, if God doesn't change, then why does he seem so mean and mad in the Old Testament and so warm and full of grace and love in the New Testament?

Well what if God seems to change between the OT and the NT not because he is different but because society and social systems changed and so the way he related to them changed?

The best way to explain this idea is to think of parenting. The way parents treat and relate to an infant is far different than the way they behave when their son/daughter is a teenager or when they become an adult. And this is understandable because the needs and abilities of their kids change as they age. More and different responsibilities are relinquished to them as they are able to handle them.

What if the same thing is happening between the end of the OT and the beginning of the NT? Think about the nation of Israel back when Abraham and Sarah gave birth to it. It was helpless and small and undefined. Israel was very much like an infant at this point. Then think of the Exodus - the wandering in the desert and the complaining and the time when Israel entered the promised land. This could be seen as the early adolescence of Israel when it tested boundaries and struggled to find its identity. The rest of the OT can be seen as Israel's late adolescence and early adulthood where it was trying to find meaning and purpose while sometimes shirking responsibilities and suffering the consequences.

Now think of the way God interacted with Israel during these periods. During this formative time, God was pretty hands-on and brutal because he had to be because perhaps the young nation of Israel needed this kind of discipline and guidance.

Take the OT dietary and cleanliness laws (Leviticus 11 and on). On a pragmatic level, what if they were there to keep the Israelites from getting food poisoning and keeping them sanitary? I mean, think about it. They didn't know anything about microbes or how diseases spread the same way a young person doesn't know that fire burns or that too much candy leads to indigestion and bad teeth. Because they don't know any better, we grab kids' arms away from the flame and hide treats up where they can't get to them. And they don't get it - they think we're being cruel and arbitrary. When they grow and come to understand why we've kept things from them, we let them restrain themselves.

This idea could help explain why God loosened up on the dietary laws in the NT (Acts 10:9-16). What if his change took place because enough was known about how to properly handle and cook meats?

I don't know nearly enough about culinary customs of the time so I have no idea if this way of looking at dietary laws holds any water, so maybe that's a bad example. How about this one.

The heavy-handed nature of God in the OT can be likened to old-school parenting. I'm talking spankings and no-TV, no-phone, no-internet groundings style parenting. Children need discipline and because they can't understand the long-term consequences (growing up to be an asshole) of bad behavior, a firm hand is needed to keep them in line.

Think about the early years of Israel. Before being delivered from Egypt, they didn't have any kind of governmental structure, they didn't have written laws, and little in the way of customs - basically, no culture. In a way, the only defining characteristic of the people of Israel was circumcision. That sounds to me like a pretty wooly, loosly organized band of people - hardly the stuff out of which to birth a nation.

So God intervenes and literally lays down the law. The Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are where God lays down rules and customs for the people of Israel. And there are lots of them and if your use your imagination, doesn't it read a bit like a parents laying down the rules of the house and chores for their children?

But kids don't like to follow rules or do chores so a firm hand is required to impose order. This need for parents to be firm helps me understand the way God acted out the way he did during the Exodus where over and over again, he comes down hard on the Israelites. For example, there's this episode where the people of Israel are tired of eating manna day after day (forgetting that manna was a gift, appearing miraculously every morning) and they yearn for the taste of meat (Numbers11:4-35). And God gives it to them along with a plague that killed many - the story seems to suggest that it was the ones who complained about wanting meat that died there.

And there are lots of stories like this in the OT.

Maybe this picture of God violates our modern sense of justice and compassion because the punishment seems excessive in the extreme but the brutal fact of the matter is that the birthing of a nation is a messy, bloody, painful process (take a look at any political revolution of the past century). For me, reframing God's heavy hand as the discipline of a loving parent towards an unruly, young nation helps me see the Bible as a seamless work rather than one that portrays two different, unreconcilable Gods.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Fast forward a couple hundred years or so and we see the birth of Christ. By this time, Israel is a fully fledged nation (albeit, one that is under the thumb of the Romans). They have a robust culture and identity as well as social structures that do their best to keep everything in line. But they seem to have forgotten something. Perhaps afraid of invoking the wrath of God, they have become all about following the law. They have forgotten that they were called to be a blessing to all nations.

And so Jesus enters the scene to remind them. But because Israel is older and wiser now, the reminder comes not in the form of fire and brimstone but as a man who walked around, healed people, and challenged religious leaders.

Once a child becomes an adult - gets a job, starts making his/her own decisions, takes responsibility for their mistakes - the relationship between parent and child becomes less top down and becomes more peer to peer or mentor to mentee. The parents will always be older and have more life experience and so retains the right to offer guidance and advice but when advice is not heeded, it's allowed to happen - they don't get out the old spanking paddle.

And that's how I see the move from the OT to the NT. It's not that God changed, he just changed the way he related to his people - a shift that occurs because of the "maturity" of the nation of Israel.

Well one might object, what about the NT story where God strikes down a couple in the early church after they lie about how much of their possessions they donated (Acts 5:1-11)? Well I see the same parallels I outlined earlier. Just as the early, less organized nation of Israel needed a more firm hand from God, the early, less organized church needed to be reminded that this was a serious business they were involved in. And to my knowledge, it's the only story in the NT of people being struck down like this for sinning.

Of course the parenting metaphor is not a tight fit. I only use it to provide a kind of framework to talk about why God seems so different between the OT and the NT, but why do I do this? Why do I try to justify and make sense of God's behavior? Is there a point to this or is this just some intellectual exercise?

The reason I share these ideas is because for me, they help make the Bible real and relevant for today. Because if God changes the way he relates and reveals himself to his people based on how they are able to receive him, then this shift continues today and we need to be sensitive to and aware of and looking for the way that God is relating to us as we are here and now.

See, some christians are still trying to experience God as he expressed himself in the Old and New Testaments. They want to see healings happen, they want to hear the taingible, audible voice of God, they want radical intervention. And let me say now before I get flamed that I don't discount such desires - I do believe God still heals and that he does choose to express himself more palpably to some people - but I also think that in general, God is choosing to relate to us today in a different way than he did even in the NT.

Why? Because we as a society have grown and changed and matured.

Here's what I mean. Some christians lament the fact that God doesn't seem to be healing people the way he did in the Bible but here's what I think. I think God has given us the gift of medicine and science and he is waiting for us to use these gifts to bring healing to the sick, the poor, and the needy.

I have a friend (let's call him D) who used to live in Hawaii who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Now this is a guy who has experienced big miracles in his life. For example, when he first moved to Hawaii, he didn't have a car and started praying for one. Lo and behold, someone walks up to him after church that week and says to him, "God told me you needed transportation so here are the keys to my old car." But that's not the crazy part. See, D drives this car around for a week and discovers that it's a piece of shit. So he gives it back to the guy saying, "I don't think this is the car God has for me." Then a couple weeks later, someone else from the church gives him a car - this time an old (but fully functioning) Cadillac!

I share that story to show that this is a guy who's not unfamiliar with God's provision. So last year he gets diagnosed with a brain tumor and the prayer chain goes into overdrive. He's got lots of Pentecostal-type friends so they pray for radical intervention and complete healing but that doesn't happen. He has an operation and recovers completely. But he didn't have medical insurance so he got stuck with a mega-buck bill from the hospital. However, donations and support checks start appearing from friends and long story short, he's able to cover all medical costs.

The point I'm trying to make is that maybe a hundred years ago, prayers for God to heal D's tumor would have been answered because there was no other way for D to survive but now that the technology is available, God let the tumor remain so that he could let the church step up and provide the financial support D needed for the operation.

Today, I think that praying for medical miracles in cases where there are already treatments available is like an adult asking his parents to continue giving him an allowance instead of getting a job using the college education that his parents paid for.

Let me try and say this another way.

Take a look at this bit from John 14:11-14:

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Some look at verse 12 and conclude that by doing "even greater things than these," Jesus meant that christians will be able to heal the sick and the blind and the possessed. And Jesus does mean that, but not necessarily in the sense of laying hands on a lame person and seeing his/her legs instantly made well again. What if by "greater things" he was referring to modern advances in prosthetics technology and the opportunity to help victims of land-mines in places like Cambodia and Afghanistan and Burma?

Maybe that isn't as sexy as a flesh and bone healing but while some christians are waiting on God to provide healing power, I would argue that God is actually waiting on us to use the knowledge and technology that he's already given us.

Because some still expect an OT/NT God, they point fingers at him when he doesn't provide relief in Indonesia or New Orleans or Sudan. What we don't see is God pointing his finger back at the excesses of Las Vegas, at outrageous CEO salaries and corporate profits, at all the money our government is throwing at the war in Iraq. More ominously, God is pointing his finger at mega-church ministries that fly their pastors around in church-owned lear jets and provide $23,000 commodes (NPR story).

To finish off the parenting analogy, I believe that today in these modern, technological, scientific times, our society can be likened to a highly skilled adult and maybe God seems to be more hands-off today because he wants to see what we will do with the skills he's blessed us with. As a social species, he's moved us through birth, adolescence, young-adulthood and now that we are older, wiser, and better able to navigate this tricky planet, God wants to see what we will do.

The resources exist today to eradicate diseases like malaria and tuberculosis that are still ravaging developing countries. It would take a fraction of the current military budget in the US to provide clean water and sanitation for the 1.1 billion without it (2000 WHO report). Can't get your head around a number that big? The UN estimates that the global population topped 6 billion in October of 1999. That means about one in six people on this planet do not have access to clean, safe water. Think of six of your closest friends. Now pick one of them and contaminate his/her lifetime water supply with parasites, pesticides, and industrial waste chemicals. Then watch them waste away while you go on with your own comfortable life.

I mention the problem of clean water because I'm excited about something that my pastor is working on. He's blogged recently about a non-profit that he wants to set up and while I'm not exactly sure what it is yet, it seems to be exactly the kind of work that pastors and churches should be doing - helping to redeploy the gifts that God has blessed us and our country with to those truly in need.

Not to dis on any others, but my church is the bomb, yo.

Here's the deal.

It's easy to read the headlines and to be overwhelmed by all of the problems out there. But those problems aren't the problem. The solutions to those problems exist today, now. The problem is $25,000 desserts, perfumes that retail for $2,150 an ounce, a military budget that is looking to spend $439.3 billion this year (that's about 1.3 billion per day) - a fact that wouldn't be so bad (because defense is a priority) if the money were being used wisely but sadly, it isn't (warning, this story will make your blood boil).

God is not aloof or ambivalent. He wants desperately to take loving care of this world he's created and the people he's populated it with but he's not going to go in and fix things - not when we already have what we need to fix them ourselves. The reading of the Bible that I'm putting forward suggests a trajectory where God is placing more and more responsibility and expectation on us as we are able to handle it. Again, not because he's lazy or doesn't care but just as a parent of talented children wants to see them thrive with the talents they have, I picture God in anxious expectation just waiting to see the "greater things" that we will do with the resources he has equipped us with.

But he's not going to wait forever.

286. just a little something for Chrismas

Thanks, one and all for reading. Honestly, if it weren't for the trickle of hits I get on my Site Meter counter (as well as the fact that people start complaining if I don't put anything up for a while), I don't know if I'd write as much...or at all.

And so this is for you who put up with my inconsistent writing and my potty mouth and my excuses. It's a poem by Allison Smythe (I hope she doesn't mind that I'm posting this). It's about searching...and I won't say too much about what it's about because that takes half the fun out of enjoying poetry.

Maybe this is an odd poem to share at Christmas, but I guess I chose it because the words she uses and the way she deploys them are just so beautiful. It reminds me of what I love about writing: words. And maybe for some that seems to be an odd thing to say but I really do love words. They're so much fun to play with.

Take a word like "obfuscate" which means to "render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible," (from the Mac Dictionary). Just pronouncing the word obfuscate makes your mouth work, twisting your tongue and lips into odd, uncomfortable shapes. And just look at the word - all those odd consonants and vowels jumbled together. The way the word sounds and even the way it looks perfectly conveys its meaning. That is a kick ass word!

And I love how a word that normally means one thing can be used in an unexpected way or in an unexpected context and it still makes sense - you know exactly what it's trying to say.

At my church, the sound equipment is located in a tiny loft that is only accessible by a retractable ladder. I usually run sound at the 5PM evening service so I use the ladder quite a bit. Well recently, I'd been noticing that the piece of wood that the ladder was attached to seemed to be pulling out and I was worried about something going awry (that's another great word). I shared my concerns with leadership and they had some people look at it and they said that the problem was merely a cosmetic one - that the box to which the ladder is attached is secure and sturdy. But to ease my concerns, they added some reinforcement and that put my fears to rest.

I share this story because when the engineer took a look at the ladder and said he was going to add reinforcement, the word he used was "beef," as in, "I'm going to add some beef up there." And even though he wasn't going to lather the anchor point in hamburger meat, I instantly knew what he meant. I love that about our language.

And one last brilliant example before I get to the poem.

Take a look at this line by one of my favorite singer/songwriters, the late great Kristy MacColl (two links there):

"But I'm not crazy, no I'm just mad. . ."

That's genius right there, even out of the context of the rest of the song. It's brilliant because in that line, the word "bad" means two different things (mad as in angry or mad as in insane) and the fact that the line makes sense both ways gets you that much more in the head of the character in the song.

The English language is just so much delicious fun.


"Hunt the Thimble" by Allison Smythe

That game we played as kids:
You're getting warm. . . warmer. . . warmer. . . hot!
maneuvering as if by remote control for the hidden
thing -- someone's red sock, lollipop, or secret

note, knowing the hunt was richer than the prize.
It's not so simple now if it ever was
simple, the universe as we have known it
inflating in theories of everything.

Hints lie everywhere like feathers
in a chicken coop, scattering just as you
bend to pick one up. God, the child's
game, with all his halls of doors.

It started with a word
in a language that never was and every stab
at translation in our currency of morning
and night, of skinned knees and long departures

slants a bit of the original intent and thus complicates
the game. Maybe it's all the concrete under
our feet or that mountains eventually hitchhike
to the sea or that I haven't read every book

not yet written that makes time something that needs
to be found and cut loose from space; perhaps
there is something like light that we have
not yet detected but can't stop looking

for and the one who hid it laughing
because there is always another door
cold. . . colder. . . colder
and the hider always has the most fun.


You know, it struck me while copying this poem, how apropos it is for this month of December. It's been a great year overall but this month has been difficult and not just because of Christmas. I know of at least three friends at my church who have lost loved ones this month and I know there have been others at my church who have suffered the same. Just in this month.

And honestly, even for myself, it's been a hard month. Writing that post a few weeks ago about love - it made me face some uncomfortable realities in my own life and even though I like to think that my life is on a pretty even keel overall, I wonder if I'm just ignoring the hidden rot underneath.

And even though that poem seems to end on a dour note, there is (THERE IS!) "something like light" to be found even as we stumble towards and away from it. And to bring it all, clumsily, back to Christmas, isn't that what Advent is all about? The fact that Light came into the darkness via a baby in a manger to show us the way. And this Light remains.

Merry Christmas, all.

285. going back to school at Berkeley and MIT...sort of

The internet is amazing. So much better than television.

Did I mention that I don't have a TV where I live? It's funny because whenever I go to a friend's house where the TV is on, I sit rapt in attention, glued to the tube regardless of what's on. I mean it's not that I miss having a TV because back when I was in Hawaii, the television was my crack cocaine. I was an addict. I'd sit down to watch a show while eating dinner and next thing I knew, it was 2AM and I was watching yet another infomercial. And this wasn't a rare occurrence. So like I said, when I'm at a friend's house and the TV is on, I watch the way a recovering alcoholic watches their friends drink.

Not that I miss it. The other day I was at someone's house and we were watching NBC's Battle of the Choirs. What a heaping pile of a show. And what's up with Nich Lachey's choir winning out over Patty LaBelle's? Lame-o!

Anyway, back to the internet.

I found out recently that UC Berkeley posts some of their courses online for FREE. And you don't even need to sign up or anything. You just click on the class you want to sit in on and watch. I'm currently watching the Physics for Future Presidents course - a basic survey of fundamental physics principles. I've also got my eye on the Integrative Biology classes.

Also, a friend recently put a link up on facebook to online courses that MIT offers!

I am in geek heaven.

I must have been a really good boy this year because Santa has hooked me up.

284. tell me about love (part 2)

Couple weekends ago I was asked to play drums at my church's morning services (two morning services). During the second service, the band gets together during the sermon (since we've already heard it during the first service) and hangs out so we can get to know one another better or catch up on what's been going on. This week, the worship leader asked an interesting ice-breaker type question. He asked us to share something that no one or very few people knew about us - something we felt comfortable sharing.

I shared that I'd never had a girlfriend but not for lack of trying. When I shared that, I thought it was something only my closest friends knew but after thinking about it later, I realized that I had already shared this fact in my blog (see entry 162). So I guess it wasn't as much of a secret as I thought it was. Maybe I should have shared how I went skinny dipping in the ocean in the first early hours of January 1, 2000 (true story).

I'm not sure how the other members of the worship team took what I shared about being single, but it's funny because later that day while we were packing and cleaning up after church, the worship leader asked me if I'd be willing to go out with someone who was Chinese. In jest, told him I'd go out with anyone with a pulse. The truth of the matter is, the list of things I'm looking for in a significant other is pretty long and esoteric (see blog 62 and 275) but I'm open to the idea that the person I end up with might be someone I never would have expected so consider this an invitation to set me up at will.

All that said, I've also written before about how after years of longing, pining, craving a girlfriend, I've found ample contentment as a single man. And I have. Among other things, I've come to appreciate the freedom being single affords. I can go where I want, when I want. I can eat whatever I want wherever I can get it. And that's one less gift I have to buy this year.

But in the back of my mind, I know I'm missing out.

In my previous post about love, I wrote a bit about 1 Corinthians 13. Paul ends that epistle with this line, "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love," (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Honestly? If asked, I suppose I could rattle off a list of ideas that I think describe love but it would be like me describing the surface of the moon - I've seen pictures but I've never really been there.

And I've heard it said that in order to get love you've got to give love. But how do you give something you don't understand? When I heard this idea, I figured the best way to show love would be to give of myself to others - to help in what ever ways I could and I think (at least I like to think) that those who know me will say that I'm someone who will drop what I'm doing at the drop of a hat if I see someone with a need that I can fill.

But what if that's not how love works?

Take a look at this other piece from 1 Corinthians 13 - this time from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, The Message:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7

Ouch.

What if all the generosity I gave that I thought was love was just "the creaking of a rusty gate?"

What if I have no idea what love is?

Because (and maybe this is the secret that few people know about me) I don't think I know what love is.

And that's a pretty screwed up thing to write but there it is.

Well, let me clarify that a bit. Of course there are people in my life who I love - family, the guys in my band, friends back in Hawaii, new friends in Seattle - but even with these people, it's sometimes hard for me to know how to love them. I know I love them, but how so? How do I show it, how do I live that out?

And if I have uncertainties about loving those I love, how am I supposed to love my neighbor or my enemy or Harold?

[insert long pause (say, 20mins) where I'm staring at the screen, wondering if I should write this next bit]

I hesitate to write this because, to me, it sounds terribly self-indulgent and selfish and spoiled but it's where this entry is headed so I may as well just go there.

See. . .

I. . .

I wonder if I'm not sure what love is because I don't think I've felt loved in a really long time.

Is that okay to say?

There's a really popular book which I haven't read but I've heard a lot of people talk about it so I'm vaguely familiar with its concepts. It's called The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. In it, Chapman talks about five "languages" of love - five different ways that people experience and give love. They are:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch.

I don't think I speak any of those languages.

Well, let me qualify that. I think I show love to others though acts of service. But I don't know if that's how I receive love. In fact, looking at Chapman's list, I'm not sure if any of those is how I receive or feel loved.

There are lots of different versions of this Love Languages book. There's a Men's edition, a children's edition, and a teenager's edition. I think I need a geeky introvert edition. I'd feel loved if he wrote that.

I guess I write all of this to make this point. I wonder if the easiest way to learn about how to love and be loved is to, well, be in love - ideally with someone who loves you back. And so I wonder if I need to get over the comfort I've found as a single person and put myself back out there and try and find someone I can grow old with.

I don't know.

So tell me about love.

What's the best way to give and receive love?

What is it about modern society that makes it so hard to express and/or feel loved even as we are supposedly more "connected" through cell phones and email?

Should I get off my lazy, single ass and put myself out there more?

Lastly, I got no game when it comes to dating. Does anybody think reading this book would help me learn some moves?

283. What It's Like to be Shy (fiction)

I was about to start on this week's post when (for some reason...probably to delay the actual work of writing) I took a look at my "secret" blog where I used to post pieces of fiction that I was working on. I haven't put anything up there in months (like since April).

Anyway, I'm looking again at what I had posted there and I came across this little story and I was cracking up because it was so much fun (if I can be so modest). And I thought I'd share it with ya'll.

Just a note, this is FICTION! It might sound like me and while it's loosely based on me, it's not about me (mostly).

Hope you like it.

What It's Like to be Shy

At The Coffee Shop:

I dress anonymously. I avoid color and fashion. Blue jeans and a dark (but not too dark) shirt.

I sit in the corner and face the window. I used to face the wall but one of my friends (one of four) told me it makes me look a bit crazy and kept me from blending in.

I scan the crowd but avoid eye contact. At the window in the front of the shop there is a row of barstools and a counter where patrons rest their lattes while flipping through the local weekly or write on their laptops. Sometimes I'll spot a woman sitting there whose hair style attracts me and I imagine that she has a face with a beauty unique to my quirky aesthetic. Sometimes she turns and shatters the illusion, but more often than not, all I ever get is her ear lobe and the curve of her chin. And that can be enough.

At the Barber Shop:

When I get a trim, I always hope for a stylist who just cuts hair, who doesn't bother with small talk.

I would never say this, because that would be too forward of me, but as I'm sitting in their chair, I always think to myself, "please, please, just cut my hair. Don't ask me how my day has been. Don't ask me what I do for work or for fun. Don't ask me if I've seen any good movies. Don't ask me about the latest reality show."

"Just ask me how I want my hair done (short and thinned out), ask about my sideburns if you must (just even them out), but overall, just let your scissors do the talking and I promise a generous tip in return."

In a Group Setting (say at a staff meeting):

People are often surprised at my insight and willingness to speak up. They think that because I am soft-spoken and reserved one-on-one that I would be more so in a formal group setting.

What they don't understand is that it's the personal part of personal interaction that I find acutely uncomfortable. Speaking in front of a crowd is easy because in a group, people become anonymous, impersonal, other. And when someone from the group responds to what I say, they are responding to the idea presented not to me, and that makes me feel safe.

Sometimes after a meeting where I had been especially vocal, a person will come up to me and ask if I would be interested in discussing my ideas further with them, perhaps over lunch. I find a polite way to tell them I can't and that surprises them. I don't tell them this, of course, but I decline because that's just too much, too close for comfort.

Perhaps I miss out on promotions this way, and I'll admit that it's frustrating to watch people with an abundance of social skills but a dearth of intelligence work their way up the pay scale, finally settling in a position where their ignorance can flourish.

At the Bookstore:

I head first for the magazine rack, but my time there is short - catching up on the latest computer news and reviews. Most of my time is spent among the Literature shelves, particularly the New Fiction section.

Some recommend meeting women in the grocery store but that seems wrong to me. How much can you learn about a person based on vegetables, meats, and starches? I find the bookstore much more telling. I mean if I see a woman smelling the rind of a cantaloupe, what does that tell me, that she likes fresh fruit? But if I see a woman flipping through Sylvia Plath, I know she's hurting something bad. If she's reading Jane Austin, I'm thinking she's probably got impossibly high standards. Jack Kerouac tells me she's probably too bohemian for me and Toni Morrison that I'm not smart enough for her. And on and on. Much more informative.

Of course, being as shy as I am, all I ever do is watch. . .or what's the more modern word for it? I lurk. And if I see a woman reading Douglas Coupland or Michael Chabon or T.C. Boyle, I just dream about what might be if I had bravado, and lines, and looks.

In My Dreams:

I'm taller and better looking. I dress better because I know how to dress better. I'm smooth and suave. I have women at hello.

I had a phase where I dated casually and widely. I unintentionally stole a couple girlfriends from their boyfriends though I didn't know it at the time. However, I am now past all that exploration because I have found the love of my life. She is warm, witty, sharp, and in possession of natural, effortless beauty.

We work at our relationship. We do our best to fight fair. We agree to never hold grudges and we try not to.

I enjoy spoiling my love with style and surprise. I send her random, gooey text messages while she is at work - things like, "all u ever have to be is u and I'll fall in love over and over again." I imagine her reading those messages in the middle of a meeting. I imagine her hiding her smile behind her hand, pretending to cough. After the meeting is over she shows the message to her girlfriends and they laugh while wondering why their boyfriends aren't as wildly romantic.

She finds surprising ways to return my favors. She sneaks a secret cup of pudding into my lunch bag. She draws a heart on the back side of my spoon so I don't notice it until one of my coworkers points it out. He laughs at me just as her coworkers laughed at her but he laughs for a different reason, though deep down inside where he'll never admit it, he laughs for the same reason.

[the end]

BTW, if you'd like a link to my "secret" story blog, email me (lonetomato at yahoo dot com) and I'll send you the link.

282. preliminary thoughts on Faith and Race

I've mentioned before that through the past few weeks I participated in a class my church put on called Faith and Race. It was an eye-opening, challenging, paradigm-challenging experince. So much so that I hardly know where to start thinking/writing about it, but one of the first issues we discussed was that of privilege - White privilege in particular.

Now let me say up front that as an Asian-American who grew up in Hawaii, I come from a unique (compared to the mainland) background. According to what I could find on the U.S. Census Bureau website, in Hawaii, Asians make up almost 40 percent of the population while Whites account for about 26 percent. In contrast, even in a city as diverse as Seattle, Asians make up about 13 percent of the population while Whites account for nearly 70 percent. This means that my experiences growing up Asian-American were very different from that of Asian-Americans who grew up on the mainland.

I mention this because one of the things we learned in our class was the idea that more often than not, people who have privileges because of their race never have to think about, acknowledge, or otherwise be aware of their privileged status. In contrast, those without privilege are constantly confronted by the fact that their life is different from those who hold privilege.

Those are pretty loaded statements so let me unpack them a bit by talking about why I say growing up Asian-American in Hawaii is different from growing up Asian-American in the mainland.

In Hawaii, it was no problem for me to find people who looked like me and understood my cultural background. I grew up with lots of other Asian-American kids around me in school and in my neighborhood. Teachers knew how to pronounce my last name without asking. Among my peers, it wasn't hard to find role models who looked like me. The cool kids were Asian-American. The bullies were Asian-American. The jocks were Asian-American. The homecoming king and queen were often Asian-American. That's not to say that there weren't any White or African-American kids around, there were, but the point I'm trying to get across is that in Hawaii as an Asian-American, I didn't feel out of place and I never had to think about how my ethnicity affected me.

In the Faith and Race class, it was painful to hear some of the Asian-Americans in my group talk about their experiences growing up in the mainland. For them, their race walked into the room before they did. In other words, when they walked into a new classroom, the first thing the other kids would see was not another student but another Asian student - another other. They were instantly stereotyped - imprinted with whatever images non-Asians had of them - and they had to actively work past these stereotypes (often one person at a time) before they could be seen for who they truly were.

Growing up in such an environment takes its toll. And it's not like the problems are confined to high school. These experiences take on different forms in adulthood and only serve to reinforce the conscience/unconscience/subconscience idea that as an Asian-American, they are not the norm.

When we talked about privilege in the Faith and Race class, I felt like someone who had been on both sides of the fence. In Hawaii, I was part of the group that enjoyed privilege but now, in Seattle, I am outside of that group. One of our readings for that class was White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, and in her article she lays out a long list of conditions that benefit her because she is white.

In our class, we used this list in an exercise where we looked at each item and answered "yes" or "no" as to whether we could claim that privilege in our lives. We tallied up our individual responses and the class facilitator asked those who were able to check off forty to fifty items to stand on one side of the room, those with zero to ten to stand on the other side of the room and also designated areas in between for those with ten to twenty and twenty to thirty. Most people were at the ends of the room, kind of like an inverse bell curve.

It was a stark reminder of just how divided we still are in this country because of race.

For me, the difficult and interesting part of this exercise was realizing how my responses would have been different if I were back in Hawaii. For example, the first quality of privilege listed was "I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time." And I could say "yes" to that in Hawaii but not in the mainland.

I make it a point to state up front that I grew up Asian-American in Hawaii because I don't know what it's like to be a minority the way Asian-Americans in the mainland do and because of that, I feel as if I'm in a kind of odd situation. I want to talk about my thoughts coming out of the Faith and Race class but my perspective is different from those of mainland Asian-Americans, so please don't take the things I write as definitive in any way in regards to the Asian-American experience. I'm just some guy who's trying to think through some issues of race through his blog.

But.

But before I say more about faith and race and racism, I realize that I need to read up on the subject a bit more. I feel now the way I did years ago when I first started asking fundamental questions about Christianity. I knew there were ideas that I had about being a Christian that just didn't sit right with me but I wasn't sure why. It took a lot of reading, a lot of writing, and countless hours staring at my computer screen trying to think things through but I finally have some...not answers, but a kind of rough sketch of beliefs that have made Christianity more practical and real and livable for me. I've been sharing a kind of summary of my most recent thoughts about being a Christian in what I've recently called my Layman's Theology Series (ongoing...stay tuned for more episodes).

So to continue my education on issues of race and racism, I picked up Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum's book, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? I'm only a few pages into it but I already feel my perspective on the world opening up.

I realize that I'm opening a huge can of worms, but I love living in America and being an American (and Asian-American). I think it's the best place on earth to live but there are a lot of huge problems that this nation will have to deal with if the American experiment is to live on. Race is certainly one such issue. As the racial makeup of America continues to change (census data project that whites will be a minority in America by as soon as 2040), issues of race and racism will continue to come into play.

If I have one minor criticism of my church's Faith and Race class, it's that while it did a great job of highlighting the problems (subtle and not so) of racism, we never went on to talk about potential solutions and how Jesus would have us (as individuals and as the body of Christ) move forward.

But I understand. Advocating solutions in issues of racism is a touchy subject but I believe that the metaphor of the Kingdom of God that Jesus speaks so much about is a kingdom where the problem of racism no longer exists. I also believe that as christians, we have an obligation to work towards this vision of the kingdom, and it would help to have some ideas about what that might look like.

But you can't deal with a problem unless you know what it is and for helping me take the first steps in better understanding the problem, I'm truly, superlatively grateful for the class.