Two Important Memories

I don't write for pleasure much anymore. But Facebook reminded me this morning that the anniversary of my mother's death is coming up. And I had a couple of memories worth preserving. And I figure this space is as good as it gets.

Grief is not an easy thing to handle. And over the years I've learned that it's important to feel to heal. So I share this with that in mind. Also-- different stages of grief present different challenges. I'm not interested in rating those challenges, but for various reasons one challenge that is difficult for me the longer she is gone is remembering that my Mom truly loved me.

I'd like to preserve here my memory of two experiences that remind me of that.

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Several years ago I dated a woman who was a mother. This can be a very sensitive thing, getting to know someone well while they play such an important role in the life & development of other little people. It was something that we sought to manage very carefully. The relationship ended up not making it, but we did about the best we could.

She was very gracious to include me in various family rituals of their's. One experience that I remain grateful for was getting to play Santa Claus. I do not mean dressing up in the costume & delighting kids in person. Rather, I mean wrapping presents, setting everything out on Christmas Eve, and then enjoying the cookies and milk.

As I learned... it was work! Getting everything together & wrapping the presents took effort. But we managed to get everything together. And once we had everything laid out -- around the Christmas tree and spilling out into the rest of the living room area -- I marveled at how perfect the scene appeared.

And then it hit me. I had not observed a scene like that probably in over 20 years. Whenever it was the last time my parents made a big production out of playing Santa Claus. And had laid everything out just so for my sister and I.

And at that moment it hit me how much work Mama had put in to making those productions. And I realized she loved me.

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This weekend I was at a church convention. It's called Lads to Leaders, and I had a blast! I got to observe a host of kids (aged 3rd grade through high school) getting recognized for excellence in activities of church leadership. It was inspiring. And being around friends all weekend made it special.

There was one added element that made it even more special. Across the street from our hotel in Orlando, FL, a major Star Wars convention was taking place. When I say major... George Lucas (the creator of Star Wars) and Mark Hamill (the actor who plays Luke Skywalker) were in attendance. There were folks walking all throughout our hotel engaging in Star Wars cosplay (wearing costumes of Star Wars characters), which delighted the kids in our group to no end!

I had mixed feelings about the whole scene. Like most men(boys) my age, I love the Star Wars saga. I just don't love it that much. Similarly, I love to enjoy Alabama football. But likewise, I have never engaged in the Running of the Gumps. They may not be high, but I have my standards. I digress. As were many 80's kids, this 80's kid was obsessed with Star Wars. I would watch VHS tapes of the movies again and again and again. I'd play Star Wars with my Lego's. I loved it.

Back to this weekend in Orlando...

I was in the giant hotel lobby Sunday morning, checking off the names of our group as they were loading onto the big charter bus, when all of a sudden Warwick Davis came whizzing by me on a Segway! It was a surreal sight on so many levels. This guy played an ewok in Star Wars! This guy played the titular role in "Willow!" This guy rode a Segway 2 feet away from me & proceeded to get on a VIP elevator at our hotel!

As I was recounting the experience to one of my best friends, I remembered and made mention that "Willow" was the first movie that I ever saw in a movie theater. I remember it pretty clearly. I was 7 years old & my sister was 2. Mom must have made arrangements for her and I to be able to spend the afternoon together by ourselves. She must have been trying to keep it a surprise, because when we arrived at the Regency theater on 23rd Street, I remember asking her what we were doing. She replied, "Going to see a picture show!" I remember wondering & asking, "What in the world is a picture show?" It was my first one ever.

We watched the film. It was a little weird. I liked it okay, but it wasn't Star Wars.

It wasn't until yesterday, when my good friend made mention of this factoid, that I knew this: George Lucas, the writer & creator of Star Wars, also wrote "Willow."

It was at that moment that I realized again that Mama loved me. She carved out an afternoon to take her Star Wars-obsessed boy for his first movie theater experience to see a film that she knew I would probably love. Today I actually do love that movie, getting sucked in whenever I happen to catch it on Cable TV. Now I find myself looking forward to the next time I'll get to catch a repeat viewing.

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Thank you, Mama

I just wanna be your Friend

There are so many things that I wish I could change in the world. For example... I wish people waiting at a red light could all let their foot off the brake the moment a light changes from red to green, so that we would all get moving a little bit quicker, so that everyone waiting might not be forced to sit through a second red light. You know: the big things.

In all seriousness -- there are many issues in the world that are troubling. That I wish I had the influence to fix. That I sometimes even wish I had the ability to change other people's minds about.

I've come to realize that I'm not the only person who harbors such a wish. Judging by the social media feeds of folks I know, that wish can be so important that it consumes one's identity. And for a distinct but loud minority -- they become absorbed in whatever cause or political ideology that they're willing to lose friends over it.

Doesn't matter what the *it* is. Could be the issue of guns & gun violence, Trayvon Martin/Michael Brown/Eric Garner, Healthcare, or national immigration policy. They're going to post about it. With frequency. And intensity. With an impression of activism to the point that you wonder if you can be that person's friend if you don't subscribe to their worldview.

It's really tempting to wade into those inflammatory waters myself. And for a variety of motives.

Sometimes I wanna take a stand. Something with the world seems wrong, and I wanna stand up for what I sense is right.

Sometimes I wanna educate. There's some issue on which I sense my friends might be ignorant, and I want them to be enlightened. Despite the fact that the subject is probably not one I've studied as much as most policy-makers have -- to know all of the in's and out's, pro's and con's, potential pitfalls, and moral hazards. I mean, really: as if I'm the arbiter of enlightenment...

Sometimes I wanna say "I told you so." At one point in time the spirit of the day leaned on one side of the issue. And now at this point in time that spirit seems foolish. And I just wanna point out how dumb that was. Maybe, to be frank, to make the people who disagree with me feel dumb.

So there are a variety of reasons why I'm tempted to join the fray in cyberspace.

But I've decided to resolve to abstain in 2015.

Starting now, and through at least next December, I'm going to refrain from making political commentary on Facebook. As I've written before, it's really kind of the town square of social media. It's where folks that I know gather. Which is different from other forms of social media. I may gather at a bulletin board to join the dialogue about a special interest. Or I may Tweet about the news on Twitter -- which is almost more of a news aggregator than it is a place to spend time with friends. And then there's Pinterest, and Instagram, and all the others that I'm not hip to yet. But, Facebook... it is where my friends are.

So for the next year you will not have to subscribe to my worldview to be my friend. Hopefully I haven't done too poorly a job of this in the past. But I'm resolving to do my best at this going forward.

This is probably really petty, but if I could change something about the world, I would bring the rest of the world with me on this resolution kicking & screaming. But I cannot. I can only change my own mind about how I broadcast myself into social media. And as for me & my house: we will serve the Lord. At least in terms of being faithful to passages like Titus 3:9 and 2nd Timothy 2:23.

This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop caring about what happens in national affairs & the world. It just means that I'm not going to talk about it on Facebook. I'm not going to make my friends a captive audience for what could be divisive political views. I'm not going to use the platform of our friendship to be inflammatory about any subject in which sides have been staked out & the border lines have been drawn.

For those of you who have been doing this all along: I admire your maturity. And I notice. I don't think that you don't have opinions, or that you don't care about what happens, or that you aren't engaged in things that matter. I just think you are much more measured & self-controlled than most of the rest of the world. And I admire that about you.

So, if we're connected on Facebook, this is my resolution to you going forward: I just wanna be your friend. And if you decide the same, then that's going to make me a very happy friend.

So Happy Hol... Merry Chri...

oh, well. Best wishes to you all

An ode to "The Rally in Death Valley"

One of the greatest things about sports is that the experience isn't always great.

Sports reflect life. And life is often filled with mundane; so much of it characterized by anticlimax. That is what we are delivered most of the time. You stand in line at Wal-mart; you watch your favorite football team's offense go three-and-out. You stare at the horizon as you fill up your car with gas; you watch a great slugger draw a 5-pitch walk.

But every once in awhile something magical happens. After the amazing experience of Game 162 in Major League Baseball last year, Joe Posnanski put it this way:

But then, every now and again, something happens. Something memorable. Something magnificent. Something staggering. Your child wins the race. Your team wins in the ninth. You get pulled over for speeding. And in that moment -- awesome or lousy -- you are living something you will never forget, something that jumps out of the toneless roar of day-to-day life.

The Braves failed to score. Papelbon blew the lead. Longoria homered in the 12th. Elation. Sadness. Mayhem. Champagne. Sleepless fury. Never been a night like it. Funny, if I was trying to explain (sports) to someone who had never heard of it, I wouldn't tell them about Wednesday night. No, it seems to me that it isn't Wednesday night that makes (sports) great. It's all the years you spend waiting for Wednesday night that makes (sports) great.

Alabama fans such as myself were blessed to have just such an experience Saturday night. At some point in that final drive -- probably as freshman running back T.J. Yeldon was breaking the ankles of LSU safety Craig Loston -- that moment changed. It ceased being a game. And it became a life experience.


Those experiences don't come around often. How grateful I am for that one!

Joltin' Joe has left and gone away

It's been awhile, but I've covered this ground before:

• I asked Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?
• After some feedback, I clarified some of those thoughts with More on the Eclipse of the Great American Hero.
• And finally I found some satisfaction in getting to watch The Josh Hamilton Redemption begin to play out one night at old Yankee Stadium.

And if you don't want to go re-read all of that, essentially this was the root of my frustration:

I still find myself dejected over this sad state of affairs. It isn't because I just realized that there is hopelessness where I had always expected there to be hope. I think it is more that I wish to see my faith played out on that stage of public celebrity. I want to see some light shine through. I want to see some evidence in the world -- that I can point to... that I can show to others -- to say, "Here is where the Reign of God is breaking in & making a difference. Here is where the beacon on a hill is shining."

I know that Christ has forgiven us of all our sins (lowercase-"s"). But what about the (uppercase-"S") Sin problem here, while we're still on Earth? The cross has salvific power for eternity, and Scripture is witness to that. But also, the logic of the cross overcomes the problem in the here & now of the power of Satan in our lives. It's not enough to just have our record expunged. I want my heart washed clean, too.

And, so, it would be marvelous to find more examples, that are in public view, of humanity overcoming. I know some of you are still going to argue, "You're looking in the wrong place." I don't think I am. I'm just looking for that city on a hill. And I suppose my point in all this is that it's hard to find in celebrity. I want to be able to point at someone and say, "See, Christ works even THERE!"

That's a nice sentiment. But the more I've thought about it, it's a sentiment that's not completely honest. Because, whether or not I knew it at the time, I wanted to do more than point. I wanted to worship.

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Worship is what we do with celebrities. Of all kinds -- whether from sports, politics, Hollywood, private enterprise, or the music industry.

Even before tabloids there was a fascination with celebrity. In the Bible, when Israel had no King, they coveted other nation's that had one. And they begged God for one. So he up & gave them what they wanted. So Israel finally had it's King.

This urge to crown Kings is at the root of some of humanity's best stories. Tell me -- how many of our ancient legends or fictional stories are a variation on this basic premise:

"ONCE- there was a great King. Who ruled with wisdom and power and justice and compassion -- all at once! And therefore, when the King was there, the land experienced a Golden Age. And everyone blossomed and we all reached our potential. The land blossomed, the arts blossomed, our relationships blossomed, civilization blossomed.

"BUT- something has taken the King away. So everything has deteriorated. Everything has fallen into disrepair & decay.

"BUT- we look for the day in which the King will come back."

(HT Tim Keller, "Jesus Our King")

How many of our stories trace these themes? Robin Hood. King Arthur. Lord of the Rings. The current Batman franchise of movies. That just off the top of my head. There are so many others. How many more?

And why is this the case? Why this fascination with Kings? Why this need to crown them? When the actual record of human kings is terrible. When you survey the landscape of history, the actual record of kings is nothing but a trail of tyranny, tragedy, and broken-ness. There's a very good reason we don't have kings any longer. We decided it was a good idea to get rid of all the kings! We've replaced nearly all of them with Democracies.

And yet still: a good story about a king has a powerful impact on us. Why?

I'm convinced now that it's because we were wired to worship. We were made to give our devotion to someone. As the ancient writer said: "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."

The problem is this: we have this culture where we are invited to misplace our worship in any number of ways. We're even honest about it. We have a TV show called "American Idol." We even call our sports heroes idols.

Sportscaster Bob Costas put it this way 17 years ago when he eulogized Mickey Mantle:

And more than that, he was a presence in our lives-a fragile hero to whom we had an emotional attachment so strong and lasting that it defied logic. Mickey often said he didn't understand it, this enduring connection and affection-for men now in their 40s and 50s, otherwise perfectly sensible, who went dry in the mouth and stammered like schoolboys in the presence of Mickey Mantle.

Maybe Mick was uncomfortable with it, not just because of his basic shyness, but because he was always too honest to regard himself as some kind of deity.

But that was never really the point. In a very different time than today, the first baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, said every boy builds a shrine to some baseball hero, and before that shrine, a candle always burns.

For a huge portion of my generation, Mickey Mantle was that baseball hero.'

In a time where baseball monopolized America what Judge Landis said was true. But now, with so many sports & entertainment options, boys (and even grown men) have shrines to all manner of heroes.

For generations of men in Pennsylvania, that shrine was built for JoePa. He was a great ball-coach. He represented winning, yes. But more than that. His credo was "success with honor." He championed the Penn State way. He represented doing things right, not taking short-cuts, and being people of integrity. Once, when asked when he would retire, he quipped that he would not leave the game "to the Jackie Sherrills and Barry Switzers." And those who worshiped at the feet of Paterno pumped their fist. Because Joe was their crusader. Wrestling the trophies away from those who would get down in the slop & dirty up the game we loved.

Penn State isn't unique in this way. I like the way Cecil Hurt put it:

Part of the culture which made denial possible in Happy Valley is a mentality that takes hold most tenaciously with success, one in which the football program isn't simply successful, or an asset to the community or the engine of a powerful economic machine. An attitude develops that the program is "good" (and, by extension, that most of its rivals are "bad").

All the great paeans of the great white knight Joe Paterno... Rick Reilly calls them idotic hagiography.

Hagiography: writing about the lives of saints. Beyond just putting people up on pedestals. But putting them on thrones & placing halos over their heads. When really they're just human.

You know what Saint Joe did 18 months ago when he found out that his old pal & assistant Jerry Sandusky was under investigation? When Joe could feel the noose tightening around his own neck? He did what most folks would do: he gave into instincts of self-preservation. He took Penn State University to the negotiating table and extorted them for a sweet contractual exit package. He transferred ownership of his home to his wife. Because he knew what was coming. It was like a slow motion train wreck for him. And he was shielding Sue & the rest of his family from the liability locomotive that was barreling down the tracks directly at them.

That's a far cry from the philanthropic image of Joe Paterno. The man who gave millions of dollars back to the University he worked for. Nevertheless, in the end, Joe & his sons were using whatever leverage they could to extract whatever benefits they could out of that University.

Hardly a saint. Idiotic hagiography.

Some people still have a hard time accepting the truth about Joe. After the Freeh Report was released last week, someone placed a sign at Joe Paterno's statue that read, "Remember: He was a man, not God!!!" It seems that at least one person couldn't accept that:

This was passed onto me by Mary Curran. Someone ripped the Paterno statue sign, which said, 'he was a man, not a god' twitter.com/sganim/status/…

— Sara Ganim (@sganim) July 15, 2012

It seems to be a ferocious thing to step between someone & the object of their worship.

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We all would be better off if we kept the sobering lessons of this tragedy in our minds. Lesson #1 being this: protect the defenseless.

But while fans with their Joe Paterno shrines have furiously been defending the man, I appreciated these words from one of Joe's best players & one of Penn State's best ambassadors-- LaVar Arrington:

"If you really think about it, how much do I really know [coach Joe Paterno]?" Arrington told the "Wetzel to Forde" radio show. "How much do we really know him? I know the coaching figure - just like with Jerry Sandusky, I knew the coaching figure. I mean, there's obvious ways of looking at this right now with 20-20 hindsight, but I didn't know the person I thought I did."

The next time you're tempted to go use all your social media powers defend the honor of Barack Obama... or Mitt Romney... or Ron Paul...

or your favorite coach... or your favorite player...

or your favorite billionaire... or your favorite writer...

...as deeply as you may desire to offer your devotion to somebody -- as much as you may want to sit that person on the throne of your heart & place a crown on their head...

that person is just a person. How well do you really know them?

On Paterno

How ironic can names be? Consider with me:

• A man who grows up to become the General Manager of George Steinbrenner's New York Yankees... named CASHMAN

• An already famous man who becomes infamous for tweeting out a picture of his manhood... named WEINER

• A guy who runs a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi Scheme for decades, defrauding thousands of people & living off their wealth… named MADOFF

And, now-- we have a man who was a revered father figure for multiple generations of young men. Who, as it turns out, abandoned children who were in need of just such a father figure & protector. Who, as we learned in yesterday's Freeh Report, shielded a monster by acting like the father figure of a family mafia.

... named PATERNO.

The lionized leader of the Nittany Lions who, it turns out, was the definition of duplicity.

That's a lot of levels of irony. But it's no joke. Not for the victims of the man who Joe Paterno and his superiors lackeys protected.

A lot of good writers have already weighed in on Paterno. About how he was a derelict father figure. Or about how he was a a liar. Even about how Paterno's legacy now stands. An excerpt from that Dan Wetzel column:

There is no denying Paterno was a positive force in many lives, a gifted coach and motivator and, until now, a fine image for Penn State. None of that equals his shame.

The reason Paterno was able to wield such influence is the outsized value placed on college sports and the coaches who deliver those winning programs. A “pyramid of power,” Freeh described it. And anyone pointing to all the players he helped is just repeating the same pathetic concept.

Paterno did help his football players. Those men, however, were heavily recruited, talented and often highly motivated people. If they hadn’t gone to Penn State they would’ve gone to Michigan or Virginia or Notre Dame.

For decades he found a way to take top-line kids and maximize what they could do, usually by motivating them to excel at a sport they already loved. They were subject to mass adulation and had the potential to become millionaires at the professional level.

He wasn’t taking illiterate third-world children and getting them to Harvard. Almost every person Paterno positively impacted through football would have fared similarly had Penn State not even fielded a team. They just would have played elsewhere. Bo Schembechler or Lou Holtz or Bobby Bowden would’ve coached them up in football and life, just like Paterno did.

Conversely, the kids that Jerry Sandusky tricked, molested and in certain ways destroyed wouldn’t have lived the same life had Paterno done the right thing. They were attacked, out of nowhere. Without fault. Without provocation. Without the opportunity to create their own destiny.

The lives of these kids were profoundly and forever destroyed because of the actions of Sandusky, Spanier, Schultz, Curley and, yes, Joe Paterno.

There could never be enough victories, enough perfect graduation rates, enough national championships to justify that.

Joe Paterno was a great influence on men who were already likely to live great lives, men who could help him win football games.

He was a failure to those Second Mile boys who had no such talents, no such opportunity, no parade of recruiters looking to offer them scholarships. He turned his back on the very kids that were desperate for the kind of hero that Joe Paterno’s former legacy claimed he was all about.

And yet there are those who persist in saying that Joe Paterno was a man who "lived a profoundly decent life." Like Joe Posnanski, the man whose biography on Paterno will be published next month. And far be it from me to put words in Posnanski's book that the public has yet to see. But I suspect he will make mention of the lives Paterno touched that are touching others in tremendously positive ways.

Can you ignore that? You may have heard the Scriptures (1 Peter 4:8, James 5:20) that highlight the possibility of covering over a multitude of sins. But is it possible for a sin to cover over the magnitude of having “lived a profoundly decent life?”

I guess it depends on who is keeping the moral ledger. In the eyes of public opinion, I suppose the answer is 'yes.' The weight of Paterno's misdeeds is leading the media to tear his reputation asunder. "Not even a lifetime of heroism can make up for leaving a single child alone, abandoned to evil, weeping in the dark." (NYT) "Like the Roman Catholic Church, Penn State is an arrogant institution hiding behind its mystique." (NYT) Certainly the courts will follow public opinion. There may be nothing left but a heaping crater after the civil liability lawyers get finished with Penn State. Not to mention the separate on-going investigations being conducted by the Attorney General's Office of Pennsylvania, the FBI, and the Federal Department of Education. That last one is especially frightening for a University. Making the on-going NCAA investigation look paltry by comparison.

But public opinion can be such a capricious moral judge. And if our moral compass is only as actuated as the scale of punitive damages that may be exacted, then that compass is broken.

I think Dan Wetzel artfully explains (above) how that the magnitude of these wrong-doings overwhelm the good Joe Paterno has done. But does it wipe out the good in it’s entirety? No. Because Paterno’s influence in the lives of his players persists. Players that in fact did not go to UVA or Notre Dame. Who were shaped and molded by Paterno & who are shaping and molding others with positive values. That’s what makes this so complicated.



I'll say this- the statue & shrine at Penn State University that lionizes Paterno as a “Humanitarian” has to be removed. The Freeh Report showed very clearly how PSU weighed the sentiment of being "humane." It had everything to do with how Paterno & co. weighed treating Jerry Sandusky. It had nothing to do with how Paterno & co. weighed the lives of children who had been raped. Not to mention the ones who would be raped over the next decade. Yes- the statue has to go. Has to. It mocks Penn State University (and everything that Joe said he stood for) as long as it stays up.

And even in some ways still I pity Paterno. The choices he had before him in 1998 and beyond weren’t clean. As a good buddy wrote to me, “Paterno had a right choice, but he didn’t have a nice choice.” I think that's right. Paterno didn't ask for this. He had a serious decision thrust upon him. And he made the wrong choice to cover willfully for a monster.

I just hope that you & I make better decisions if, God forbid, we’re ever faced with a right choice that’s not a nice choice.

Curiously Long Ramblings about a YouTube Video

It didn't take too long in 2012 for Christians in social media to find a topic that stirs them into a frenzy. And, no, this time it isn't Rob Bell. A young man named Jefferson Bethke wrote & performed a poem. It was artfully produced, uploaded to YouTube, and went viral:



I can't count the number of reactions I've seen or responses I've read. I asked my good friend, Matt Dabbs, to address it on his blog, and he did (http://mattdabbs.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/why-i-hate-religion-but-love-jesus/). But then I began to see a host of responses. Written responses on blogs; video productions on YouTube. Pithy quotes on Twitter that either agreed with or shot down the ideas Bethke promoted. Reactions from Christians who loved it; reactions from Ministers who hated it. One minister even mimicked Bethke's delivery by writing & performing a poem of his own in praise of religion.

There were even reactions from atheists who, in the spirit of Richard Dawkins or Bill Maher, employed profanity & demagoguery in an effort to lampoon believers. One thing you can count on: if there is faith-related issue that inflames passions, neo-atheists will be right there in the center ring of the circus stoking the fire.<!-- mixed metaphor-->But I'm not interested in either praising or picking apart Bethke's video. And thus adding even more volume to the world wide echo chamber. I'm more interested in what our reactions say about us. Because I think it says a lot that's worth thinking about.

For one thing- isn't it strange how some of us write our thoughts down in our notebooks about this man's YouTube video and, one click later, the whole world has access to see what we think about him? This is a far cry from Priscilla & Aquila's model of correcting someone else's doctrine. Insofar as that is our model, praise to Kevin DeYoung for engaging Jeff one-on-one regarding his YouTube video. But it is strange that we write & critique other people on the internet. And the more well-known the subject (person) is, the more free it appears we are to write about them.

"The Social Network" touched briefly on this phenomenon:

Erica Albright: You called me a b---- on the Internet, Mark.
Mark Zuckerberg: That's why I wanted to talk to you.
Erica Albright: On the Internet.
Mark Zuckerberg: That's why I came over.
Erica Albright: Comparing women to farm animals.
Mark Zuckerberg: I didn't end up doing that.
Erica Albright: It didn't stop you from writing it. As if every thought that tumbles through your head was so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared. The Internet's not written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink. And you published that Erica Albright was a b----, right before you made some ignorant crack about my family's name, my bra size, and then rated women based on their hotness.

You write your snide bulls--t from a dark room because that's what the angry do nowadays.

At this point I should note a couple of things. First, I do not make this observation with the intention of openly criticizing my friends for writing blog entries about Jeff Bethke's video. That'd be ironic: me criticizing on a blog the fact that others criticized on their blogs. For the most part I'm pointing out how odd it is that this is socially acceptable nowadays. Second, I've written here on this blog about famous people in the past -- most notably (in my own mind) are blog entries about Jennifer Knapp. But even in one of those entries I wrote the following:

I want it to be well-attested here that what comes next comes from a place of love. And, in that sense, a complicated love. Because I've never actually met Jennifer Knapp personally. I don't know her, and she doesn't know me. Which makes it difficult to even address this issue.

I think we all would do well to acknowledge, at the least, the awkwardness of offering criticism on others that we don't know personally in a forum that any person can access. It's a simple act of humility that is imperative. Otherwise, it's difficult to move beyond the hubris of this whole blogging exercise.

Another thing I wonder about is our own motives. What moves & arouses our passions? What causes some to re-post a link to this video with an endorsement in all caps? What compels others to seek to temper that enthusiasm? Or to post several links on the subject, each with some rebuke as a preface?

I suspect both polls are passionately defensive for a reason: they have something to defend. I confess that what comes next is pure conjecture & speculation, but I think it's worth considering. What both sides are defending is likely an insecurity.

The sentiment that Jefferson Bethke spelled out in that video is not new & not unique; it has been expressed & experienced many times before. For the people who viewed it & exclaimed "YES!!" they had stumbled across a message and messenger that gave voice to their discomfort with contemporary expressions of faith. They've very likely tried Church or had it forced upon them. And despite the fact that they admire Jesus & the story he represents, they probably found His Church(es) disagreeable or had an even worse experience.

Maybe some of those folks aren't going to Church as regular anymore. Maybe some of those folks feel like square pegs trying to fit into the round holes that they hear from pulpits that they're supposed to fit into. Maybe they've stopped looking for answers in the buildings where our faith is expressed each Sunday. And maybe they feel guilty about that. If that's the case, Jefferson Bethke helped alleviate some of that guilt.

For the record: I'm not sure that's such a great thing. Perhaps some are drawn back to faith. But for others I suspect the video is an excuse to go on feeling resentful over a bad experience with religion. And maybe those folks still need a dose of godly sorrow.

And for the many ministers who viewed the video & balked I can imagine a number of reasons why. Mainly because I processed many of these sentiments myself. Maybe some of us are jealous: THIS guy is gaining notoriety (over 16 million views on YouTube at the time of this writing) while our message(s) haven't ever gained such a wide & respected hearing. Maybe some of us want to prove how much smarter we are than that guy. Or everyone else for that matter.

Maybe some of us feel threatened. Perhaps the reason we are involved in ministry is because we are the round pegs that always did fit pretty well in the round hole. And being in ministry we represent religion. We operate within it and help orchestrate it. So it stands to reason that we wouldn't take kindly to being painted with the broad brush with which Jefferson Bethke makes his strokes.

And let's be honest: maybe some of us are too critical. Whether by nature or by nurture (Seminary has a way of doing this to us...), we pick things apart. Does that mean that Bethke's video isn't an easy target? Surely not. There's a host of issues I have with it. But that doesn't mean we have to circle 'round like vultures until we pick him clean.

In fact, there's a strong case to be made that Bethke's message is quite Biblical. James wrote some challenging words to those who speak of the importance of religion but lack some of the basic characteristics that make religion worthwhile. The book of Hosea contains the famous words "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" -- a quotation that Jesus referenced at least twice (Matt. 9:13, 12:7).

Why can't we fixate on the strength of that message rather than diagramming the ways that Bethke imprecisely expressed X, Y, and Z? What moves us to offer corrections in this way?

What if, instead, we studied Bethke's video like a playbook? Obviously this guy connected with the deep aches of young people. Rather than carp over all the things we find troublesome, I wonder if we would be more wise to temper our own urgings to rebuke & incorporate what’s working into our own teaching.

I credit Jeff Bethke for getting us to talk about this. On one of his web sites, Jeff says his aim is "to offer posts that will be convicting, challenging, and cause you to deeply consider your faith." Judging by that I'd say that Jeff did exactly what he set out to do. To that end: job well done, Jeff.

Now- about those false dichotomies...

What Am I Rooting For?

I'm going to remember January 9th, 2012 as a great day. I'll remember it as the day that I enjoyed watching my team win the National Championship in New Orleans with my sister & other friends. The nervous anticipation all day of not knowing what Alabama and LSU would deliver that night. The maelstrom of complete joy that hit the French Quarter as running back Trent Richardson broke a run outside -- reaching the endzone & sealing victory. The scene on Bourbon Street minutes later as people wearing crimson filled the street.

That moment probably is what I'll remember most. I can't describe to you the joy of chanting at the top of my lungs, "L-S-WHO! L-S-WHO! L-S-WHO!" All the hugging and high-fiving was like a scene straight out of "Band of Brothers" after the 101st had liberated yet another European town. And, in a way, we all did feel liberated: we were unashamedly proud of our team & the social norms of the moment gave us permission to not hold it in anymore.

Nevertheless, despite the total satisfaction of rooting for a Championship football team, something in the back of my mind haunts me.

---

I remember back to college where I'd sit around with a group of intelligent friends and we, with the benefit of hindsight & the already well-formed judgment of history, would try to figure out why society could have such a hard time with common sense issues.

"How could Southern Caucasian Churches have struggled so mightily with the Civil Rights movement? Why were they so slow to adapt? Why weren't they at the cutting edge LEADING the cause for justice? What were they thinking?"

Inevitably, someone would ask the question, "What are we slow to act on today? What will be the blight of our generation?"

I honestly think it's this question that causes so many within Evangelical circles to push so mightily for same-sex rights. But I digress.

I wonder if I'm wrestling with an issue like that right now.

---

Kevin Turner was one tough son of a gun. A fullback at Alabama 20 years ago, Turner graduated to the NFL where he played nearly a decade with the Patriots and the Eagles. He'd deliver crushing hit after crushing hit as the lead blocker for ball-carriers. Turner didn't play a glamor position. If he got his picture in the paper it was probably an accident -- the happenstance of being in the same frame as the star running back. Young, powerful, tough -- Kevin Turner was the picture of a young warrior in professional football.

Today Kevin Turner can't even hold a telephone to his ear. ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) has taken his strength away.

"I never dreamed that my brain would be destroyed after a period of time," said Kevin Turner, 42.

While he still can, Turner is educating the public about head trauma, which he believes contributed to his ALS.

[...]

Three months after Turner's diagnosis in May 2010, some Boston researchers reported a link between an ALS-type illness and the repetitive head trauma suffered by some athletes. Turner is now involved in research about the degenerative disease, which is called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

It's believed to be caused by repetitive blows to the head, including concussions. CTE has been linked to depression, erratic behavior and early dementia in a number of former pro athletes.

"We've always known boxers could become punch drunk," Chris Nowinski said. "We never thought it could exist in other sports -- hockey, wrestling, soccer, football. The brain doesn't care what's hitting it. The brain is far more fragile than what we thought."

Then- Kevin Turner was a proud warrior on the gridiron. Today- Kevin Turner finds simple tasks like holding the hand of one of his children more & more challenging each day.

---

The tough thing right now is that there isn't enough evidence yet to prove that ALS can be brought on by head trauma. It is an exciting loose association, but in the world of medical science it is a loose association at best. Chris Nowinski, President of the Sports Legacy Institute & one of the leading researchers connecting head trauma with neurological diseases, says they need more money (from a Bill Simmons podcast on 03/08/11). But mainly they need more brains.

Dave Duerson's brain was one of them last year. Duerson was a retired defensive back -- most famous for his role on the legendary 1985 Chicago Bears defense. But after a myriad of personal, physical, and financial problems had taken their toll, Duerson decided to end his life. He suspected he had CTE, but didn't know for sure. Duerson knew that the concussions he had suffered in his football-playing career were affecting him, but he couldn't cope with the problems anymore. So instead of shooting himself in the head, Duerson texted his family instructing them to donate his brain to science. And then he shot himself in the chest.

---

Did you know that Lou Gehrig may not have even had Lou Gehrig's disease? He may have simply had CTE. Gehrig had numerous concussions from his high school football-playing days -- back when they strapped on leather helmets. He even played Major League Baseball before they wore batting helmets. They'd just wear the caps they wore in the field up to the plate. In an exhibition game in 1934, one pitch came up & in too fast for Gehrig to dive out of the way. It hit him in the forehead, knocking him unconscious. Who knows how many concussions he had in total.

---

Perhaps I shouldn't feel responsible for this. These men chose their path in life. Some of them capitalized handsomely as a result of it.

But, in a way, I think we're all responsible. The more that we make football a religion -- and it's heroes our idols -- the more young kids we're sending out to the field to prove their own manhood. And that's where the real danger lies: all those fragile teenage brains that are laid on the line under the Friday night lights.

As Jonah Lehrer wrote:

Rollinson (a high school football coach) then leans forward in his chair, as if he's about to tell me a secret. "Look, most of my players aren't going to play ball for a living," he says. "I know they don't want to hear that, but it's the truth. So there's really no reason they should risk messing up their brain."

If the sport of football ever dies, it will die from the outside in. The only question now is whether the death has begun.

I know that if there are any young Mama's who ask me for advice, I'm going to tell them to push their boys toward basketball, or baseball, or golf. Almost anything but football.

And if I believe that, then why do I continue to jump up & holler when the boys representing my tribe of choice make a big play? Am I wrestling with the "Civil Rights"-like issue of my day? Will this be the blight of our generation? If rooting on players on the field of battle only makes them to go harder, potentially destroying their brains, then what am I rooting for?

Unsocial Media

The internet is a strange place.

That's a statement we can all unite around, isn't it? Whether we hate it or we love it, we can recognize that the virtual connections we forge on the internet produce different experiences than real-life connections. Sometimes they are plain unusual. And yet, where else can you connect ideas so freely? We tolerate the oddity of web-connected gnostic relationships (read: "not in the flesh") because they bring us some value. Whether it's sharing something we love, exchanging fresh points of view, finding support through a hardship, or just helping us feel less lonely, our virtual connections serve us a worthy purpose.

On that last point, it's interesting to hop onto social media sites like Facebook and Twitter when something big is happening in the world. Instead of experiencing something alone you can feel like you're experiencing it right along with all your virtual friends. Watching a web-cast of some conference by yourself? Hop on Facebook chat & find out if anyone else is watching it. Or send out a Tweet with the appropriate hashtag. It's almost like a virtual town square where everyone can gather to share the experience together. Part of the attraction has to be the ease of access: instead of getting dressed up, climbing in your car, and going to an actual town square, you can just flip open your laptop.

And so that's what I found myself doing when the news starting buzzing on Sunday night May 1st that the President was requesting time from the major networks to make an announcement. I hopped on Twitter and Facebook to see what the world was saying. What I observed was fascinating. As the President was making his announcement, dozens of people were posting the news as their status. The people I follow on Twitter made snarky comments about this or that (as only people on Twitter can do). But the mood was mostly celebratory. People happy that the boogey-man was gone. People happy that their deeply-rooted beliefs in American Exceptional-ism were confirmed. People happy that justice was done. People happy for our troops, as if this was "Mission Accomplished" (and it felt like it), and happy for families of troops, as if this justified their decade of sacrifice.

But as joyful post after joyful post crawled across the computer screen, I began to notice another theme rising: righteous indignation. Disgust that anyone could find any glee or redemption from the death of a man. Little matter that this man was the most terrifying figure of this century. These people were upset -- uninterruptedly shouting into the chorus of joy about how inappropriate the joy was. It would be akin to a small faction of people making a ruckus about people enjoying a wedding reception because of 9% unemployment, or suffering in Sudan, or something along those lines. It was amazing. Like shouting into a whirlwind. Did these people think that they were going to shout down a happy mob? Who shouts down a mob?

Then I observed more indignation. People acting cranky over the President getting credit "instead of the soldiers." People acting cranky over the news about it being everywhere. People expressing anger over almost anything! Even people acting cranky over people getting cranky. Yeah, that's right: that was me. Even I tried to shout down the army of wet blankets who were trying to douse everyone's happiness. I'm not proud of it, but it happened.

The whole thing was just a strange phenomenon that led me two days later on Facebook to opine:

(Philip) thinks he learned a lesson since Sunday night: when big events happen, stay off of Facebook. Too emotionally charged. Too many opinions. Just seems like a good policy.

Let's see how long it takes before I have to re-learn this lesson

Turns out it was 9 weeks to the day. 63 days!

Because last Tuesday a Florida jury declared a verdict of not guilty on the most heinous charges brought against Casey Anthony. The reaction was virtually immediate; it was swift & full of fury. Twitter exploded. As I looked on, one person after another unleashed their rage -- or at least their dissatisfaction -- on Facebook. The general theme was that there was a miscarriage of justice. Some were affected to the point of feeling sick to their stomach. Some expressed not ever being able to trust the justice system again. (...seemingly reversing the sentiment from 2 months ago. If killing bin Laden helped us all feel strong again, the Casey Anthony verdict made us feel weak) And then, of course, the snark.

"O.J. Simpson finds this verdict outrageous."

"I wonder if the Casey Anthony trial jurors would ever let her babysit THEIR kids?!?"

"I wonder if Dexter will come after her!"

Social media has made us all into social commentators. And then there's strange minds like mine that spend time like this commenting on all the commentary.

Me personally: I could feel the spirit of spirit of indignation welling up inside me again. Not because I felt honor-bound to defend Casey Anthony. Not at all. It's pretty apparent that this woman murdered her daughter (whether purposefully or accidentally), then hid the body, then lied to the police. And all that while partying like a rockstar. No, I didn't feel the need to defend her; my temper was rising because... I guess because everyone else's was. "Don't these people know that the state prosecutors did a terrible job?" "Don't these people know that the jurors did exactly what they were supposed to do?" "Why are all my grace-accepting Christian friends obsessed with seeing this woman fry in an electric chair?"

Thankfully I refrained from angering anyone with these thoughts. I think. I let a couple of them loose on Twitter. Hopefully without causing anyone else ill temper.

I've spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what possesses me in moments like these. Part of it has gotta do with how I'm wired. Being an ideological moderate, I like things balanced. So when I encounter a perspective that is wildly one-sided, and emotionally charged, it charges my emotions to want to respond with the other side of the argument. It's as if something somewhere deep inside me is wanting to exclaim, "THIS IS MORE COMPLEX THAN YOU'RE LETTING ON, YOU KNUCKLEHEAD!"

The good folks at the "You Are Not So Smart" blog would say that I'm unwittingly giving myself over to the backfire effect. That's where, when confronted with an opposing opinion, you strengthen & fortify your own views. I like how they put here:

The last time you got into, or sat on the sidelines of, an argument online with someone who thought they knew all there was to know about health care reform, gun control, gay marriage, climate change, sex education, the drug war, Joss Whedon or whether or not 0.9999 repeated to infinity was equal to one – how did it go?

Did you teach the other party a valuable lesson? Did they thank you for edifying them on the intricacies of the issue after cursing their heretofore ignorance, doffing their virtual hat as they parted from the keyboard a better person?

No, probably not. Most online battles follow a similar pattern, each side launching attacks and pulling evidence from deep inside the web to back up their positions until, out of frustration, one party resorts to an all-out ad hominem nuclear strike. If you are lucky, the comment thread will get derailed in time for you to keep your dignity, or a neighboring commenter will help initiate a text-based dogpile on your opponent.

After some deliberation, I have decided that this is folly. (g) Seriously: Thank God for good satire to rouse us out of the caricature-like behavior that we can so easily & unwittingly slip into.

I've decided to repent & not steamroll over other peoples' views anymore. I recognize that it will be difficult for my balance-craving psyche to accomplish. But somehow I'll manage.

I think of two examples from Scripture. One is the prophecy about Jesus in Isaiah 42 that's also quoted in Matthew 12: "He will not wrangle or cry aloud, or raise his voice in the streets." Jesus managed to live His life and make His point without making a dramatic scene. Seems like I could do the same. I've also long admired Paul with how he combined both boldness and humility in a spirited defense of himself and his faith in Acts 26. One of the more under-rated passages of Scripture, IMO. Probably one I could stand to spend more time with. As could we all.

And if social media is the virtual town square, then it makes sense to act as one would when actually at the town square. If those gathered grow unruly & start to act with great furor, common sense would generally say, "Time to head home." I don't know why it's so hard -- maybe because it's just so intense -- but it wouldn't hurt just to log off. It's not like missing out on those two or three heated status threads (read: virtual Molotov Cocktails) is going to hurt. In fact, if indeed I were throwing a few around, it probably would.

* I wish I'd made that fabulous photo. I didn't. That came from www.xkcd.com via the "You Are Not So Smart" Blog.

The Social Performance

You know that feeling you get when a story just gets flipped upside down on you? Maybe a key member of the supporting cast becomes the villain? And it throws you for a loop? That was my feeling after going on the internet to read more about the film The Social Network. Apologies in advance if you haven't seen the film. Perhaps you could bookmark this entry & just come back to it after you've gotten a chance to watch it.

As a stand-alone movie, The Social Network is very, very good. The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin, who has earned critical acclaim (and, less exciting, but also my own personal admiration) for previous works like A Few Good Men, The American President, and The West Wing, and he won an Academy Award last night for his work. The drama develops and climaxes in a such a way that captures & holds your attention, the dialogue is snippy in a pleasing way, and there's even a story within a story that leaves those who appreciate depth satisfied.

Just a Zuck and his Laptop

Which leaves me all the more curious now about the product in general. Because if the product of a master craftsman showcases so many of his fingerprints, is that product more of a reflection of its subject or of its creator?

As I said earlier, the excellence of the movie itself drove me to learn more. And what I learned changed my perspective on the movie as a chronicle of real events. For one thing, Sorkin's manuscript wasn't original material. It was inspired by & based upon the book written by Ben Mezrich called The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. Mezrich's main source for his book? Eduardo Saverin: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's former best friend & the guy who funded the first $18,000 that allowed Facebook to launch all the way back in 2004. Ben Mezrich also wrote Bringing Down the House, a book about Asian-American kids from MIT that won hundreds of thousands of dollars playing Blackjack. You may be familiar with that story as well if you've seen the movie "21." Only they casted the film mainly with Caucasian actors and, according to Jeff Ma, sexed/partied up the story. Kinda like what Zuckerberg says happened in Mezrich's book about him.

To make a long story short, The Social Network isn't what it appears to be. What it is at it's heart is an act of cold-blooded revenge by a jilted former best friend. The motive that brought the story to prominence was as dark-hearted as Harvey Updyke's scheme to poison a cluster of trees at Toomer's Corner in Auburn, AL. His aim was to one-up himself in the eyes of the world in the same way that Justin Timberlake did to Britney Spears with "Cry Me a River." This is the grouping that The Social Network belongs in: with a legacy of having carried out revenge in a devastating & public way.

But back to Sorkin. Because even if his manuscript is slanted by his interesting observation of a social network being developed by a socially-awkward creator, his observations are still smart & interesting. Take his comments at the end of his interview on The Colbert Report, starting around the 5:45 mark:

"Social networking is to socializing as reality television is to reality."

I was one of those gasping at how profound I considered the statement. (g) Because it is a performance. You have full control to edit what you project to the world. And so does everyone else. Meaning that what you see on someone's profile page or Twitter feed is only what they want you to see. So that we all have the ability to shape our "virtual realities," or the story about ourselves that we project to the world outside ourselves. And we can shape that in a way that flatters ourselves, boosts our pride, or any number of other selfish motives. Kind of like how Aaron Sorkin & Ben Mezrich shaped their respective stories to make them more engaging for the silver screen and the hardback.

Which makes me wonder about the following questions. I don't have firm answers yet, and if anyone wants to begin a dialogue, I think it'd be a fruitful conversation to have. Tell me what you think about the following...

- How can we do social networking in a way that doesn't serve our own conceit?

- How can we do social networking in a way that doesn't make us anti-social?

...and finally...

- How can we do social networking in a way that reflects the story of God & brings more glory to Him?

Hype Aversion

I certainly chuckled when I saw the Urban Word (Phrase. Whatever.) of the Day this morning:

Hype Aversion

Rejection of an insanely popular idea, game, show, place etc. simply because it is so insanely popular.

"I'm enjoying season three of 'Lost'."
"Season three came out four or five years ago."
"I know, I suffer from hype aversion."

I'm pretty sure I did this about MySpace, Facebook, & Twitter before I eventually joined those three platforms 6-18 months after the rest of the world had already been enjoying them as new ways to connect with other people. You could consider me a contrarian market indicator: if you happen to hear me hating on some new technological phenomenon, invest in that stock right away before I start to love it.

(BTW, there's still time: I remain skeptical about Microsoft Kinect. Even though I've never tried it. Just as I was before ever logging on to MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter...)

I've thought about this in a related way before when I wrote on hyperbole. Sometimes we lose touch with the amplification of our language. And in doing so we may lose perspective. It's the reason, I'm convinced, some are moved to hate Duke basketball or Tim Tebow. I'll let Tuscaloosa News Sports Editor Cecil Hurt, in a column from 2 years ago, take it from here:

I was never convinced (Tim) Tebow’s decision to sign with Florida instead of Alabama was quite the inner struggle that it was purported to be on the ESPN special chronicling his recruitment. But he says it was tough and I will give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s been on my past two Heisman Trophy ballots and if, unlike Glen Coffee, he decides to return for another season in college, he’ll probably make my list for 2009 as well.

I refrain from calling him “Superman,” as television commentators do repeatedly, not because he isn’t a great player and a fine young man, but because ultimately, the over-the-top hyperbole doesn’t do Tebow any good, either.

The Florida quarterback seems to have turned just about every person with a microphone into a blathering fan. In the end, one fears, it will end up having the same result as Dick Vitale’s endless paeans to the Duke basketball program. You’ll start to resent the subject because the messenger — or, in Tebow’s case, the legions of messengers — finally push you to a point where you say “enough is enough.”

I ended up watching the BCS championship and wondering if Tebow had any teammates. That’s not Tebow’s fault, but it was the impression you were left with by the Fox broadcast. It’s great to say that Tebow was “willing his team to victory,” but there must have been at least 21 other Gators who were doing a little something.

And so hype aversion sets in, and people begin to talk about how Coach K or Tim Tebow must be frauds. People sense a need to voice negativity as a strange counter-balance to unencumbered love-fests.

Don't believe in it yet? Ask a regular viewer of ESPN their opinion of Brett Favre. Better yet, do it in July or August.

I could be way off-base, but it occurs to me that a whole cultural subset has emerged out of peoples' deep need to counter-balance excessive hype. We call them hipsters. They don't shop at The Gap or Old Navy essentially because the style of clothes at those stores get too much play. So they develop more eclectic tastes. Same goes for tastes in music & entertainment. In essence their whole lives, it seems, become a counter-balance to what prevailing culture says is "awesome!" or "great!"

Which seems silly to me. Sorry, hipster friends. Even my own behavior seems silly in retrospect. How could I have hated something so neat as a tool like Facebook that helps me maintain relationships with people I haven't seen in years? What's more, hated it before I even tried it, before I even fully understood what effect it would have, almost entirely because others around me were singing it's praises? That's silly.

So I'm going to try to stop being averse to trying new things just because a lot of hype surrounds them. And I'm going to try to manage my aversion to hype and hyperbole in ways other than imposing a personal embargo.

So somebody tell me more about this fun new toy I've heard about called the iPhone.

The Hide of a Rhinoceros

I've been thinking about hurt feelings lately. Mainly because it was my feelings that were hurt. So here's what I've been wondering about.

There's this statement about ministers that they need to have the hide of a rhinoceros and the heart of a child. I don't know how true that is. It sounds pithy. And there's a good point behind it: you need to have a big heart and a thick skin. Which, when you think about it, the two are sort of in tension. Because when you open yourself up to care about other people -- whether in ministry, or just in general -- you become more sensitive to their likes & dislikes. And in being more sensitive to others, you tend to also become more sensitive about your own likes & dislikes. And especially when certain someones jump all over your dislikes -- it's difficult not to be offended.

So is the same true about developing a thick skin? In making you less susceptible to pain, does it also make you less loving in terms of sensing other people's pain? Questions I'm wondering about...

Because it is a virtue to me to not become irritable. I admire people who can step above the drama of feeling slighted. And I have a difficult time being with people who never pass up an opportunity to get upset. From Day 6 of The Love Dare:

To be irritable means "to be near the point of a knife." Not far from being poked. People who are irritable are locked, loaded, and ready to overreact.

If you're like me, you can instantly think of a handful of people who fit the profile. And they're probably difficult to get along with, or to make happy. And you don't wanna be like those people.

Until you realize that the things that offend them are probably the same kinds of things that get you up in arms. Am I right?

But that whole "hide of a rhinoceros" idea -- that doesn't mean that you're impervious. It does not mean that you have impregnable armor on. It just means your skin is thicker. So perhaps getting irritated isn't the same as being irritable. Right?

But how do you know the difference?

The one thing that comes to mind is what made Jesus irritated after he'd had his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He entered into the Temple, and was disgusted with the way commerce was happening there. And so he whipped into action. I don't believe I'm prepared to say that Jesus was irritable. I'm not sure anyone could say that. But he did get irritated.

And why? Was it becomes someone had stepped on his toes? Or become the final straw on the camel's back? No. It was because what broke the heart of God broke Jesus' heart. What was happening there violated God's values. It was wrong, and it deserved that response.

There's a sign at the athletic facility for the University of Alabama football players that Saban has the players look at & touch/tap before they enter the practice field. It says, "Out of myself and into the team." That is, that the team's ambitions, goals, and values are more important than any one person's ambitions, goals, and values. Or, to put it another way, "He must become greater; I must become less." (John 3:30) The things that violate God's values deserve a tough response. And the more that it is those kinds of things that upset us, rather than our own selfish pet peeves, I'd say that the more we can measure our spiritual growth.

I'm trying to learn that getting irritated does not necessarily mean I or anyone else is irritable. And I'm trying to discern the difference between the two. But sometimes I wonder if that requires more sober-minded thinking than I am even capable of.

Pet Peeves

This will be short & sweet, but here's a thought -- how selfish are pet peeves? You know: those social behaviors that there aren't written down rules for that make you flip out. I'm trying to cut down on mine.

Why? Because it's hard enough for people to keep up with Scripture and the laws of the land. We also expect people to hold to some arbitrary code of morality of our own making that others must observe in our presence at all times? Who do we think we are? Isn't that the height of arrogance?

I suppose these sentiments are an open invitation for comments from friends that they may know will crawl under my skin to their own amusement. But whatever. I could stand to work on patience. We all could. I dare you to dump some of your pet peeves, and see if you don't become a more welcoming, loving person in the process.

Lamenting the 21st Century 5-star Diva

For those of you who enjoy my sporadic rantings and ravings, I feel guilty for depriving you. It may sound like a pathetic excuse, but sometimes I begin to feel like there is too much girth of opinion and writing on the web. And, when you can probably find half a dozen like it if you look hard enough, what does my opinion really mean? With so much noise, what is one more yell into the echo-chamber?

Anyway, I waited long enough & I don't think there's an opinion out there like this one. It's another sports blog. I know I get sports heavy when I write. I apologize. But anyway, for those of you who like to read my words, here are a few more...

Lamenting the 21st Century 5-Star Diva

Social Fruitflies

I had to chuckle at the sight of today's UrbanDictionary.com Word of the Day:

Social Fruitfly
Like a social butterfly, without any charm or beauty. An unwanted pest.

It brought to mind an old Randy Harris lesson. One of his points is that every church has a social fruitfly. He even cracked wise and said, "Now some of you think I'm lying, thinking, 'That's not true!... Some church is missing their's because we've got TWO!'" His point was that it takes a whole church to love on people like this. Not just one person can handle the job. Maybe Sister Always-Wears-Purple can give her a phone call & chat -- JUST for 15 minutes, because you can only take a Social Fruitfly in doses. And perhaps Brother Always-Talks-Football can make sure that the Social Fruitfly feels welcome the next time a group is getting together to catch a movie. Partly because Brother Always-Talks-Football would really do well to branch out in terms of thinking about what's important.

Everyone takes their turn. Nobody feels over-burdened. Everybody dispenses a little bit of the grace that they themselves have already received.

Jesus loved the least of these. The Social Fruitflies -- they appear to have been real comfortable around Him. He became known for the love that he showed them. And then Jesus made the pivot to say, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

I think that includes the Social Fruitflies.

Annointing a Saint

Don't call it a comeback. Call it a Revival.

Wrote a few words about the passing of a good athlete & great person over at a blog I do with a buddy that we call "Saints, Sinners, and Sports." You should check it out.

"Of Sinners & Saints"

'Nobody's Perfect'

No, I will not be exegeting the hit song by Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter.

They say that sports is a microcosm of life. That being the case, Armando Galarraga taught the world how life is supposed to be lived: with a smile on your face, and with no malice in your heart.

In case you're not a baseball fan, I should help you catch up. On Wednesday night, the young Galarraga was on the verge of throwing a perfect game. It's so rare that it's only happened 20 times in Major League Baseball history. What's a perfect game? That's where a pitcher retires all 27 batters he faces without allowing any walks, hits, hit batsmen, or errors. That last one is critical, because it means your team-mates have to be perfect, too. And as we learned tonight, so do the umpires.

Let's pick it up in the 9th inning. Galarraga had faced 24 batters, and none of them had reached first base. The first batter of the 9th inning steps in, launches a rocket, and Armando got a little help from his friends with an incredible catch by Austin Jackson. It was so stunning that Armando himself unleashed a grin at how good his fortune was that Jackson hauled in that fly ball. 2 outs away.

After a groundball out to shortstop, only one out separated Galarraga from a perfect game. What happened next, as FDR once said, will go down in infamy.

You just have to watch for yourself.




The first base umpire blew the call. He admitted it himself. [ESPN]

"It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the [stuff] out of it," Jim Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires' locker room. "I just cost that kid a perfect game."

"I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay."

Never has wrong been so unanimously wrong.

And as far as we know, nothing can be done about it. Major League Baseball's instant replay rules didn't allow that play to be reviewed. So it stood. Perhaps the Commissioner could make a special ruling, but that would be unprecedented.

A perfect game -- baseball immortality -- robbed by the proverbial blind ump. It's the stuff of a Classic Greek tragedy.

But that's not the end of the story.

Sports and social media went into a firestorm as the game ended. Twitter was all aflutter. Every single baseball analyst was getting their words in. Even former sportscasters that now host shows on cable news networks. The consensus? "This was wrong!" You can probably identify with it: an overwhelming injustice was done. I think it's fair to say that our nation hasn't seen anyone upstage a big moment like this ever since Kanye West did the deed to Taylor Swift. It's that big.

And if you still don't quite get it, maybe this will help. There are scant few things in life that you can point at & not criticize. Especially in your own life. How many things have you ever completed in your life that you can look back upon & call it perfect?? Unless you're one of those people who grew up never missing a day of class in school, and never had so much as even an A-, and never so much as saw a pimple when you looked in the mirror, you've never been perfect. We've all had blemishes; we've all had ink blots on our record at one point or another.

Which is what makes the luster of a perfect game all the more special & sacred. For ONE day -- for one brief moment in time -- a pitcher can point to that and say, "That was perfect."

Until that moment is robbed from you by someone else's imperfection.

And then, in the locker-room after the game, with more maturity than anyone else in the world demonstrated on Twitter, on the diamond, in the press box, or anywhere else, Armando Galarraga shrugged off the bad call by saying, "Nobody's perfect." I'm not sure how you muster the will to say those words. But he did. Twice. [MLB]

Galarraga said he gave Joyce a hug when Joyce apologized to him after the game.

"He really feels bad," Galarraga said. "He probably feels more bad than me. Nobody is perfect. I give a lot of credit to that guy. That (an apology) doesn't happen. He apologized. He feels really bad. Nobody is perfect. What am I gonna do? His body language said more than a lot of words. His eyes were watery, he didn't have too say much. His body language said a lot."

And here's where the game being a microcosm of life pivots from mere entertainment to teach us something about our existence. Armando's right. Nobody is perfect. Life is not fair. It is one of the more difficult discoveries of life when you begin to realize this fact yourself. And I'm not just talking about the cruel twists of fate where the ball doesn't bounce your way. It's especially heart-breaking when people let you down. And they're going to. 'Cause nobody's perfect.

And how we deal with that fact determines in large part how we deal with life going forward. It is perhaps the definitive hallmark of maturity for one to be able to be able to react in a positive way to other people when they deliver to you a negative experience. Extending mercy when outrage feels better, or even right. To give your wife a hug when she locks her keys in the car for the third time this year. Or to give your husband a kiss when he gets lost despite the presence of a Rand McNally map, an iPhone, and a Garmin. Or cracking a wry smile on the field, and effectively shrugging your shoulders in the locker room, when an umpire blows your perfect game.

Armando Galarraga's reaction begs me the question, and I pass it along to you as well: am I that sort of person? Or am I way more impatient?

I want to be like Armando. I want to be the kind of person that gives people permission to be human. I want to be able to not break bruised reeds or not snuff out smoldering wicks (Is. 42:3). But there are far too many moments where I'm not.

I wish I had a visual reminder. I think that would help. If I had an image that stood before me day after day that would remind me for all time that nobody's perfect. Because no matter how much I look in the mirror, Satan always seems up to the challenge to twist my thinking.

I think I have just such an image in mind. A poster. A wide-lense photograph from down the first baseline, back in the stands behind home plate. It would be of the moment right after Galarraga touched first base with his right foot. He's starting to lift his arms in triumph & he's looking up at the umpire. And Jim Joyce is emphatically extending his arms to make his infamous, heart-breaking call. And in true Successories style, this poster would have a caption.

I think you know what it would say.

When Pop-Culture Meets Epistemology

WARNING: spoilers lie ahead. If you aren't caught up on all the latest episodes of LOST, save this to read later

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A great little piece of pop-culture is set to expire in just over a week. The ABC television series "LOST" comes to a close on May 23rd when it airs it's 2-and-a-half-hour finale.

Part of the show's great appeal has been how difficult it is to figure out what exactly is going on. If you don't watch the show, that might seem strange. And it is. The show turns you upside down so many times that you can scarcely decide which way is actually up. It is the epitome of the phrase coined by Winston Churchill, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Just when you think you have figured out what is going on, the show peels back another layer of the onion to reveal a perspective you haven't even been aware of before.

Take the notion of figuring out what the island is. There are at least a half-dozen theories. The island is Atlantis. The island is the Garden of Eden. Perhaps the island is a just a place for the cursed -- a place where people are tortured and ultimately sentenced to die. And then there are island mythologies that have been presented to the viewers this season. Jacob, a very influential character, shows another character a bottle of wine, and suggests that the island is the cork that keeps the contents of the bottle from spilling out & ruining the rest of the world. And now, more recently, we were introduced to Jacob's mother. She shows her sons a sinkhole that a small stream empties into & that has an unearthly golden glow emanating out of it. Jacob's mother then explains that this is the light of the world, and that if it goes out on the island it goes out everywhere else in the world.

If you don't watch the show, and you've stayed with me this far, God bless you. Because you're probably thinking what I'm thinking, "This is just some murky bologna." That's exactly what it is. But it all serves to cause you to question how you know what it is you think you know -- the question of epistemology. A point that Entertainment Weekly's requisite LOST writer "Doc" Jensen touched on this week:

To behold ("the golden light" from the sinkhole) is to take a metaphysical Rorschach text. I might see God and a call to worship. Someone else might see science and a call to investigate. Someone else might see a practical joke and start looking around for Ashton Kutcher. I suspect Lost would say that no single interpretation is correct; that those who insist on a single interpretation couldn’t be more incorrect; that the history of human catastrophe on The Island is comprised of eras of dogmatic, abusive interpretation run amok.

Terrifying thought, isn't it?

And then you take a glimpse at the real world, and real human history. Where there were things like the Aryan supremacy movement in 1930's Germany (partly a result of faith in Darwin's "survival of the fittest" thinking), and The Crusades (whose effects echo down through the centuries all the way to today's "War on Terror"). "Dogmatic, abusivve interpretation run amok" can explain a lot of sad parts of our history.

It's almost enough to make you want to swear off taking a stand on anything, which is an error of another kind. Pluralism reigns. Which "Doc" Jensen goes on to address, thinking about what is the message of LOST:

It could be that LOST is philosophically relativistic and religiously pluralistic — but given everything else we've seen on the show, I think what's more likely is that Lost just doesn't trust human beings enough to know "the right answer." We are too flawed, too damaged, too biased, too selfish, too incapable, too limited, too mortal, just plain too much of this world to be able to really and fully know what this world is really all about. To paraphrase Mother: All our answers will only lead to more questions. It's an infinite progression into infinite regression — "turtles all the way down" cubed, to use a phrase that I'm too stupid and tired and lazy to explain, but feel free to look it up. I don't think LOST is saying to stop pursuing truth. Not at all. I think it's more concerned with how we conduct our search and how we can labor with our neighbor in their search.

It all brings to mind the old parable about seeking truth. Say you blind-folded 4 men, and had them feel out an elephant. What would they say they found? One man might discover the tail, and declare that it is a rope. Another man might discover the trunk, and call what he found a huge snake. Another man might feel out the tusks, and say he discovered a spiny beast with spears protruding out of it. And another might just feel up the side of the elephant, and say that it is like a great wall. The point being that we’re all essentially half-blind creatures (at best) with very limited perspectives. Paul might say, “we see as through a mirror dimly.”

Which is very difficult for an Evangelical like me. Because while I believe that the text I’m handling is inerrant, I can’t really believe in my ability to meet it all out infallibly. I'm only human.

So, that being the case, I'm going to need grace for the errors I will inevitably make.

And that being the case, I probably oughta have grace with others on theological errors they may happen to make. Because if we want forgiveness, we have to forgive.

Ultimately, the point is humility. Because while we've all cobbled together a set of beliefs about what our world is & where its going, we'd be hard-pressed to claim full knowledge & insight into the goings-on around us. To have enough humility to maintain an open mind. To not be closed off to other possibilities when the next layer of the onion is peeled back before us.

Such a conclusion seems to clash with the idea of "boldness," something that the book of Acts speaks a lot about. Until next time...

My Friend, So Long -- Part 2

I imagine what it must have been like.

The Church at Corinth meets together at their regular time on Sunday morning. There's a buzz before worship starts on this day, though. News is being passed around that can only be described as startling. It's being bandied about that one of the young adult guys actually is sleeping with his step-mother! Can you believe this? It is UNbelievable...

"That's right! Unbelievably AWESOME! High fives all around. What a score for him, right?!"

This is how the Church at Corinth reacts apparently. Surprised? This is a town where, when you show up on someone's doorstep, instead of a doorbell you're greeted with shapes of human reproductive organs. You see, in 1st century Corinth, sexual irregularity was a virtue. The kinkier the better. It's like your most awkward bachelor or bachelorette party, only it's every day life in Corinth.

And you thought OUR culture was in the dump.

---

In our last installment, we engaged some of the questions that Jennifer Knapp's out-of-the-closet announcement raised. In this installment, I just want to focus on one:

What does it mean for kingdom people to dwell with Jennifer Knapp?
Raised by Scot McKnight, this to me is the most challenging and most pressing question. Questions about nature & nurture are interesting (not to mention eternally inconclusive) but ultimately secondary to the fundamental issue of how we deal with people. Because for kingdom people, our greatest commandments -- our primary standing orders -- address how we deal with others.

So, kingdom people, how should we dwell with Jennifer?

---

Let's pick up where we just left off. Our primary command is to love. To love with everything we have, and to love as much as we love ourselves. So how we respond, it should occur to us, needs to come from a primary motive to love.

But love is a very complicated thing. Love doesn't always result in saccharin, feel-good niceties.

Take the Apostle Paul. In his relationship with the Church at Corinth, scholars tell us that Paul wrote at least 4 letters. FOUR letters. "But I only have 2 in my Bible." That's right. But Paul references the other letters he wrote -- which we do not have any copies of -- in the 2 letters we do have. We know that Paul wrote one of the letters before he wrote 1st Corinthians. And we know that Paul wrote the other letter in between writing the two letters we have in our Bibles: the ones that we call 1st & 2nd Corinthians. Paul talks about THAT letter right here:

So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you. For if I grieve you, who is left to make me glad but you whom I have grieved? I wrote as I did so that when I came I should not be distressed by those who ought to make me rejoice. I had confidence in all of you, that you would all share my joy. For I wrote you out of great distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to grieve you but to let you know the depth of my love for you.

Notice that this letter, which Paul later references again & is often called "the sorrowful letter," was written out of "distress," "anguish of heart," "with many tears," and out of "the depth of (his) love." Paul apparently had to spank the Corinthians verbally. But he did so out of a motive of love.

Paul didn't do this so that he could feel better about himself. He didn't unleash his rage just to vent all of his pastoral frustration on these difficult people. That wouldn't have been love; that would have been selfish. Instead, Paul wrote what he did out of love, because he loved that church too much to not say something.

---

I want it to be well-attested here that what comes next comes from a place of love. And, in that sense, a complicated love. Because I've never actually met Jennifer Knapp personally. I don't know her, and she doesn't know me. Which makes it difficult to even address this issue. In her Larry King interview, Jennifer verbally spanked Pastor Bob Botsford for having the gall to speak to her as a spiritual mentor when he doesn't even have a real relationship with her to speak of.

And yet, here we are in the 21st century. With rock-and-roll superstars that you feel like you know, and digital connections that shrink the world.

I don't know Jennifer. And yet I can't escape the notion that I know a lot about her. The fact that Jennifer wrote her lyrics with a remarkable depth and quality says a lot about her as a person. And those lyrics themselves say a lot about her, too. The fact that when I listen to her music I sense that she's mining out from the depths of my own heart speaks to the connection that she's fashioned -- not only with me, but with all her fans. The nature of fanhood in the 21st century produces an "unknown knowing" level of relationship that, while certainly odd, cannot be denied.

I feel a deep gratitude to Jennifer for her music. A gratitude for the entertainment quality. A gratitude for her giving words & lending her voice to deep spiritual insights. A gratitude for the companionship of her music in vulnerable moments. Her music has been a gift, and she's made her fans feel loved by it.

That connection, while not a personal one-on-one association, moves me to speak.

Not only that, but here I am expressing these ideas on a blog. Perhaps you found them via a link on Facebook. Maybe even a couple of you will go post a link to this on Twitter. The world is small. Whenever we move on geographically through our various stages of life, we're no longer forced to leave our friends behind. We still connect with them. It's wild. Churches are no longer simply small pockets & reservoirs of spirituality located in church buildings a few days a week. Churches are interacting with each other every day through status updates and instant messages. And churches aren't limited geographically. They're interconnected by whatever your standards of friendship are on Facebook.

So I say what I say about Jennifer not just as a member of the Lynn Haven Church of Christ -- wagging my finger at her & whatever church she attends across some spanse of space. I say this as one believer to another in this large, increasingly boundary-less group of believers.

So I hope I don't get verbally spanked by Jennifer like Bob Botsford did. I just love her. Yes, perhaps just fan love. But it is from a place of love, and motivated out of love.

---

Back to Corinth. Again.

This blog entry opened briefly with the tale of the immoral brother from 1st Corinthians 5. A man was sleeping with his father's wife. And looking closely at the original language, this was probably an on-going affair -- not just a one-time event.

And the congregation accepted this. Celebrated this. They thought that this was a good thing.

It didn't matter what they thought, though. Because the Kingdom of God isn't a democracy where you can sway sentiment & public opinion to establish your own idea of what's right & wrong. We live under the reign of God. Only His vote matters. What He says goes.

Then Paul wrote the following:

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."

Two harsh points need to be made here.

#1, Is it the Church's place to judge Jennifer? Actually, yes. "Say whaaaaaat??" We have the responsibility as believers to look after our own. And while we have to be cautious about that, and remove the planks from our own eyes before we go speck-hunting in others' eyes, Paul twice here mentions passing judgment on those who are in the faith. How could we ignore that?! We can't ignore that. It's right there in the text, plain as day, in black & white.

While Jennifer Knapp remains in a same-sex romantic relationship, she remains in sin. She can turn away from that lifestyle choice at any time. But so long as she is steadfast in this choice, she is steadfast in sin.

I want to clarify: it's not the urge or the temptation that makes it sin, it is the choice. Here in 1st Cor. 5, Paul mentions a variety of sins that we may be more drawn or less drawn to. That said, I can't imagine any of them being as tempting as what Jennifer faces. But some people, it seems, are born to struggle with something.

I think about Frank Abagnale, Jr., the character at the center of the film "Catch Me If You Can." That man was born to be a swindler. And swindle he did. Until one day he repented. He didn't change his nature; he changed his mind. And he went to work for the FBI to fight financial fraud. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for him to know methods & cons where he could defraud people in seconds, and yet chooses not to. He has a gift. It almost seems like he was born with it. And yet, he has turned away.

Jennifer, too, can turn away. And it might be a thousand times more challenging to live with than Abagnale's predisposition. But she must turn. It's important that she hears that from her brothers & sisters who love her.

Harsh point #2... The church really needs to re-orient its attitude toward the homosexual community. Paul clearly instructs that this posture toward the immoral brother is NOT the same posture to take with the world. Go read it again: "not at all meaning the people of this world..." and "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?"

Christians need to grasp the concept that the world is going to be the world. The "homosexual community" -- the one that primarily exists outside of faith -- they're going to be who they are. And they may intimidate you & make you feel really weird. DEAL with it. They are who they are, and they're going to be who they're going to be. Let go of the hate. Let go of the spite. And stop talking like they're what's wrong with the world. SIN is what's wrong with the world.

The church needs to shut its mouth about condemning homosexuals as a group. That's not our job. We need to stop hating, and start learning how it is we're going to be salt and light to these people & maybe win over a few of them. That's what Jesus would do. That's what Paul would do. That's what we need to do. Period.

---

One of my other favorite voices in the community of Contemporary Christian Music is dcTalk. They haven't been together as a group for almost a decade. But they're still rocking concert venues as solo artists and fill-in lead singers (Michael Tait now performing as lead singer for Newsboys... weird, huh?).

It seems they knew that they were coming to an end as a band & were about to launch their solo careers. In their final full album, they released a song called, "My Friend (So Long)." It was sort of a warning to from each of them to themselves. From the beginning they'd used the music of dcTalk to honor God & further the Kingdom. And, going their separate ways, they didn't want to see any of them use their fame to launch solo careers that were only out to make money & bring honor to only themselves. So they wrote this song as an intervention to make a pact to keep honoring God with their music.

When I listen to this song, I can't help but think of people I've known who've left the faith. People I've cared about who've gone astray. It's a sad song. And now, I think about Jennifer.

Embedding is disabled, but here's the link to the song on YouTube. And here are the lyrics:

I heard your record on the telephone
It was my cousin, Joan
She picked it up in the top 40 rack and then...

I read your interview in Rolling Stone
You threw the boys a bone
And so I genuinely felt obliged to call...

I know You never meant to hurt us, man
We're just "a baby band"
You found a quicker way
To scale the wall of fame...

The situation's awfully dim
Should we up and go with him?
No way [no way, 1, 2, 3, 4]

(Chorus)
We know exactly where you are, and you're gone [my friend]
Don't know exactly where you're coming from
You've gone away my friend
We know exactly where you are, and you're gone [my friend]
Don't know exactly where you're coming from
Have you gone astray [gone]

I saw your video on VH1
Looks like they spent a ton
How does it feel to be the flavor for a spell...

And I remember when you used to say
"Jesus is the way"
I never thought I'd see your light begin to fade...

The situation's awfully dim
Should we up and go with him?
No way [no way, 1, 2, 3, 4]

(repeat chorus)

(bridge)
Don't think we don't miss you
[We think about you every day]
We still love you anyway
[Love don't go away]
There's still this burning question
[I got to know] Why?

[What will people think when they
Hear that I'm a Jesus freak?]

Ah, ah, ah [hey]
[While this is something of fantasy]
[The moral of the story is]
[To stick with your friends]
Ah, ah, ah, ah [hey]
Ah, ah, ah, [hey]
Ah, ah, ah [hey, hey, 1, 2, 3, 4]

(repeat chorus)

Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, and you're gone [my friend]
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, so long
You've gone away, my friend
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, and you're gone [my friend]
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, so long
We'll see you someday
Wish you well
Na, na, na, na, na, my friend

---

So how should kingdom people dwell with Jennifer Knapp? I guess I can only answer how this kingdom person is going to dwell with Jennifer Knapp.

* I'm not going to buy any of her new music. I won't be going to any of her upcoming concerts. As much as I'd love to listen to her new tunes, I can't abide her choices. I won't support those choices with my money.

* I'll continue to keep up with her goings-on. I'll be watching from afar as she talks about her life, her faith, her lifestyle choice to love another woman. I'll be hoping that last one changes. I'll be praying for her regularly.

* And I'll keep listening to her old music that I still have on my iPod. I'm not going to delete any record of her & purge her from my memory. That seems inappropriate. I still love her old expressions of faith put to song. To me now, they're like pictures in an old photo album that remind me better times with her. Those aren't going away. I'll still be listening to those, probably praying as I hear each song.

So this is where we part. Jennifer has made her choice. I've outlined how I can't abide that choice.

One more thing: I don't feel like I, or the church, is leaving Jennifer. Point of fact, she left us. Maybe she didn't want to; maybe one day she'll come back. I'll be hoping and praying for that day.

My friend, so long.