thoughts at 36,000ft

As many of my friends know, I have recently become rather terrified of flying. Thankfully this was the best flight I have had in years, and with the calm air and the macbook to journal my thoughts, I was able to spend the two hours working on a midterm, prayerfully capture my ideal calling and reflect on the upcoming baby.

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I was going to share what I had written, but it was in second person and a little to sappy for public eyes. And when I tried to change the "you"s into "(s)he"s and "him/her"s it lost some of its connectivity...
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Therefore the clifnote version is captured in these lines:

"...That is what I am discovering right now. While Lindsay is the one discovering the daily joys of you (such as your kicks and flutters, heart beat, and more), I am unable to offer you anything. Yet that is also what I am discovering this journey of faith to be like. There is nothing vital that we bring God, rather God invites us to be participators in Christ to impact the lives of each other.
That is what my expectant hope is; not that I would selfishly gain something at your birth, but that I can participate in your life and in your spiritual journey so that you may discover the true Hope."

escapism

As I try to balance my three fantasy football teams, two pick'em leagues, while suring the blogosphere and watching TiVo was wondering:

What keeps us from seeing God?
Do we pursue these escapes in order to avoid the reality of our lives?

Recently I have been aware how much we long for Heroes. Back on the 5 year anniversary of 9-11, I was watching CNN where the anchorman at the end said, "Hey, let's pan on this guy [a firefighter] so America can get a good luck at a true hero."
At that moment, I realized that we desperately seek heroes.
If you notice Holywood's recent trend of Spiderman, The Hulk, Superman, Xmen, and even "nonfictions" like World Trade Center and United 91, you can see that our culture is seeking heroes.
Not to mention NBC's show called, Deal or No Deal...er...no I meant, "Heroes."

But in doing so, we search for heroes, whether in books, in sports or in the movies in order to hear about another's journeys, another's battles and to escape the reality of our lives.

And if you notice that most religions also try to escape reality by teaching us how to attain zen, how to leave this world for a better one.
But strangely, in the story of Jesus Christ, we do not see an invation to escape, but rather a God who decided to intercept reality.

Therefore, as followers of Christ we need to rethink our concept of Fellowship. Stanley Ott this past week lectured at Princeton and made a wonderful point that fellowship is more than "friendliness" but "hospitality."

Friendliness means we have greeters at the door who shake hands and smile. Friendliness means when you run into someone at the grocery store you ask them how their children, how their family, how their day is, and then quickly leave. You avoid the reality of life by trying to remain on the surface.

But hospitality asks the question "would you come into my life?" Or better "can I come into your life?" Can we grab a cup of coffee and talk about the reality of life rather than seeking surface and escapism.

This is the model of Christ, a God who broke into the reality of the world wanting to transform the here and now of our lives, and not just help the really good people escape into heaven by wearing plastic smiles and pretending everything is okay right now.

the wb: updated

New part to the site:
This will include more professional information about me...
"Networking"

How not to finish strong

Though nearly 2 hours slower than his time in the Chicago Marathon, at least I was able to cross the finish line.

Another day, another dollar

Well,
I knew one day it would come to this. And after lugging the third large bin of books from storage into our new apartment, I have decided to succumb to the pressures. As my mother would have me do, I have emptied my bookshelves and made three piles:
Keep,
For a future office,
and FOR SALE

For those who have not been privy to my "problem." I hoard books. I hold onto books which I never intend to re-read (if read in the first place). But most disturbingly, I catalogue all of my books, have them stamped and indexed.

Therefore, I am not asking much with regards to price, but more the assistance to rid myself of this problem.

Happy bidding...
Here is the listing on Half.com


PS>>as expected 99.9% of these are either seminary texts or undergrad texts (I was a religion major so the overlap is much)...and more will come when I break into the third and final bin next week.

Storyline

Lindsay and I had our final (hopefully) sonogram today.

Because of the earlier complications, we have been "fortunate" to get multiple sonograms, in order to watch the development of our child.
Hope you can enjoy the collage of images.




-click the last photo, and let me know, does it look like the child is flipping the bird (lower right corner)

Theo-Mad Libs

Here is a reading from a recent class:

The __(Nation)__ believed that ensure their own national security they had to __(verb)__ other people with their superior military force in order to extract 'loyalty' from the subjected people. They believed that any sign of weakness on __(Nation)__'s part, such as a failure to avenge a defeat in war or to punish a revolt with sufficiently ferocious violence, would be an invitation to diaster.

I found this an interesting paragraph to read due to our current socio-political situation. This book was referencing the Roman Empire, and how it reacted to terrorism with its own form of subjugation and terrorism, which eventually led to the politically unstable situation of Judea and Galilee during Jesus's life.

What is unfortunate is that the particular context Jesus was born into, namely Roman Imperial rule, is the exact context that Christianity has established with its amagalation to Western Civilization.

For a country that was established, debatedly, upon a Christian ethos and is being currently lead, even more debatedly, by Christian leaders, retailitory and pre-emptive war in which XX,XXXs* humans have been killed, so that our country may not be seen as "weak" is terribly disturbing.

The response is often, well what other option did we have?

While I can say, we don't know, my guess is that by repeating the options of a historic Empire which Jesus Christ was born into as a revolutionary and subversive character, should not have been them. As Dr. Stackhouse said into class, if you believe in the Providence of God, then it is precisely because of the instability of Judea and Galilee during Roman occupation that God interceded into human history.

In other words, God was using that empire as a foil to what God's Kingdom would be like.



*by the way, whether the 655,000 humans number is inflated or if Bush's 31,000 is deflated, the fact is still sad.

self promotion

Having just spent the day in Babies 'R Us
I thought I would share our results:

BabieRUs
Amazon's Wishlist

Sin

A very accurate and well written reflection on the headaches of CPE this summer by Alec Flynt: More than Clowning around?

It caused me to stop and wonder how Christocentric are our classes?
The litmus Alec uses is role of sin language, which is the role we both learned as young lifers; in order to understand the cross talk we must first understand our need (sin). Therefore, how much talk there is about "Sin" in our classrooms at seminary (the original kind not the symbtomatic and corporate kinds) will help illuminate why Christ was/is necessary.

While we are quick to point out the sin of the Imperialistic Expansion of the American Empire,
or the particular sins of Foley and those fools on Dateline NBC who keep showing up to those houses,
or whether or not hookah smoking is a sin,
or if the practice of homosexuality is fine by me or a sinful act.
or sometimes we talk about it as the absence of the postive: the lack of justice, the lack of hesid (See Jess, I was in chapel!)...

I do not really recall a discussion on Original Sin.

These dicussions on symbtomatic sins are easy to talk about because they involve the "other."

The original kind, however, involves me, my family and even our fetus (is it still a fetus, in Lindsay?)*
and causes us to see our need for Christ. Total Depravity, though a real downer, is necessary in order to experience/understand God's love on the cross.

Therefore, no wonder CPE experiences often lack a Christocentric approach, because we would rather not talk about why Christ must be the center of our lives and our healing, namely sin.


*digression: Something just hit me. For months, I have been praying that our child would come to know the love of God even now as God is intimately knitting him/her in Lindsay's womb. But in order for our child to know the amazing love of God that requires that our child experience the painfulness of our fallen conidtion into original sin. See that is how big of downer it is, that my -5month old child is a sinner and he/she has not even breathed a bit of fresh air.

Downhill

Well, I am 27 today.

though still in my "mid-twenties" for the next six months, I have finally hit "that age."

As my strength coaches in college and high school explained (unless you are Barry Bonds, I guess) at 27 your body's ability to rebuild torn muscles, thereby making you stronger, starts to slow.

I guess it is fitting that I went to bed last night with a pretty sore right knee after running and practicing non-contact, co-ed intramural flag football,
Not that I ever expect to get back to my football weightlifting strength at Davidson College

Looks like my coaches were right: Research on Age at which Athletes are at their best.

Sigh.

are you freaking kidding me?

Sorry, but I am irrate right now.
this has happened thrice...unfortunately I realize that if you are smart of enough to use a computer, or read, or even breathe than you probably are not the culperate, but seriously.

So, this morning I went out on a 17 mile run. 9 miles north, 8 miles south, with a mile walk home. Half a mile into the starting point I drop a water bottle [actually I stand it up so it does not look like it was accidentially dropped], so I will have fresh water to come back and drink. For those in CRW--I put it right at the corner of the bridge and the canal (a 50 mile atheletic trail).

When I came back (after 2:30 hours of running), its gone! Some imbeicle probably figured that since no one picked it up after their 20minute walk then obviously it was left there (harsh, I know, but I am thirsty, tired and pissed).

Had this been the first time, I would have been okay with it. But just last weekend, I dropped my towel and waterbottle at the bridge--and some imbecile took the towel but left me the water bottle!

Had that been the first time, I would have been okay with it. But last fall, while training, I had dropped my waterbottle and towel a mile into the run. When Lindsay and I were 2 miles from returning to that spot, I saw a woman carrying my waterbottle and towel! Her response to my confrontation, "oh, I thought someone left it." (Argh!)

So please, if you are on the canal and see a full water bottle standing up with a towel attached to it, for the love all things pure and holy, leave it alone.