in good standing(s)

hi.

all i want to say today is that i'm just so happy.

thanks.

hate/love/hate

hi.


there's a fine article on the last page of the 28th may 2007 issue of time magazine. it's one of probably thousands of pieces written over the last ten days about jerry falwell and his "legacy". i found it to be well written, not coming down on either "side". here's a quote from near the end of the article:


Falwell practiced the politics of division, flinging damnation at those who resisted his vision of a Godly America. Now a rising generation of Christian leaders is looking to bring people together: the politics of division may be a shrewd electoral strategy but a shallow spiritual one. Their God is bigger than their party, more mysterious, more forgiving and more embracing. (my emboldening)


it makes me very happy to see a publication like time give some props to christians. they haven't had much reason to, goodness knows; we christians have not made the best name for ourselves (or for christ) in this country, and that goes back many decades.


still, i consider john's words -- in both his gospel (quoting jesus) and in his first epistle -- as he puts forth the fact that the world is going to hate us for being followers of jesus, and that this shouldn't surprise us. followers of christ are a "peculiar people", says peter; our standing as such puts us at odds with the rest of the world. it causes me to consider a crazy thought: was jerry falwell doing something right? much of the world thought pretty ill of him -- hated him, even -- so isn't that some indication that the stand he took and the ideologies he championed in christ's name were well-founded?


not necessarily.


the biggest distinction between christ and anything else that could command our loyalty is summed up in one simple word: love. love is what we are to put on first and most, because it brings people together, not rips them apart. love is the greatest thing; without it, we may as well not even talk, think, act, or believe. love is the only thing that matters when it's all said and done. to love is the greatest commandment. love is the only thing we owe anyone, but we owe it to everyone. love is what motivated god to come to us in the first place, which alone is reason enough to think it's important.


love manifests itself most profoundly when it is done in an environment of hate, just as a light is brightest when it is shining in the dark. again, we see this exemplified in christ. we're called to that as well: to love the rejected, to show compassion and grace to those who are hard to love. we human-types were not all that lovable ourselves, but god still did.


my good friend brian made a keen observation that evangelical christians are often much more interested in being right than being loving. my prayer is that the "rising generation of christian leaders" to which time is referring will allow, yea insist, that the latter trump the former. the reverend falwell probably loved well in several (perhaps even most) areas of his life, but in those public arenas where christians are most scrutinized, he does not escape reinforcing a rigid legalism that the world perceives to be the universal "christian" social/political/theological worldview. sadly, the result is, well...the world hating us.


what then did jesus and john mean?

dirty, twiggy, leafy, rocky worship

hi.


before i start, let me disclaim the fact that some of the posts on this blog will be admittedly superfluous, like all those pithy sports stats (here's another one, by the way: the average wild pitch/passed ball is responsible for .27 runs). but i promise that there will occasionally be some substance.

this post, for instance, is an attempt at that.

much of our song repertoire and liturgy contains lofty concepts such as 'holiness', 'majesty', and 'glory', as well as some well-intentioned-but-seldom-carried-out postures such as bowing, lifting hands, dancing, and kneeling.

can the church allow its worship language to be more earthy? (actually, i would love to avoid that somewhat-hackneyed adjective; perhaps the title of this post suggests some alternatives.) what would that sound/look/feel like? i don't think there should be an abandonment of acknowledging the eternal, unattainable attributes of god (and thus worshipping him because of those things), but i'd love to see us groan for god more often from a place of authentic down-and-dirty humanness.

perhaps you've seen a movie or cartoon in which a servant comes in and ridiculously over-humbles himself in the presence of his authority, groveling and desperately spitting out adulations. we giggle at him because he is not being genuine. i sometimes feel like that when i am "declaring the majesty" or "proclaiming the glory": that i am using overly-biblical or -christianized words and images when i'm not even sure of their meaning.

there's a great scene from my favorite movie of all time where the title character is trying to "sell" to the emperor and his court the idea of composing an opera based on beaumarchais' character of figaro: a very earthy, very human subject. there was considerable objection to this, the court making its own case that this subject is devoid of the "elevated themes" they perceive to be the proper content for such a work. mozart protests, saying, "come on now. be honest! which one of you wouldn't rather listen to his hairdresser than hercules? or horatius, or orpheus -- people so lofty they sound as if they shit marble!" (then from one of the court comes one of my favorite lines: "govern your tongue, mozart. how dare you!")

we live, love, and worship in a tension of brokenness and hope, of time and eternity. indeed, all of worship is a mystery, offered up in faith, but the heaviness of the human burden is undeniably real. while we do have some moments of transcendence and clarity in our lives -- less often than we are willing to admit, yet more often than we think, perhaps? -- 99.44% of the time we are bound to our humanness, usually painfully so. purely based on numbers, this is the place from where the vast percentage of our worship is expressed, both individually and communally. julie miller's broken things expresses this as well as any song i've ever known.

psalm 33:13-15 states well how god knows our hearts -- broken, human, earthen as they are. he made the things, after all. let's offer them to back to him. he wants them. no matter how many times they've been dragged through the dirt, twigs, leaves, and rocks, he accepts them and makes them what they should be.

thanks for reading.

count with me

hi. count with me.

there was this rookie pitcher named tyler clippard who got the win for the skankees last night. i want you to see how many times a newspaper headline, a sports anchor, or a talk show host make reference to this new "yankee clippard".

ready..........go.

list boy lives! - part the second

nat's top fifteen favorite films of all time:

15. beautiful girls (1996)
14. lost in translation (2003)
13. the matrix (1999)
12. the godfather (1972)
11. star wars: episode iv - a new hope (1977)
10. the paper (1994)
9. quiz show (1994)
8. chariots of fire (1981)
7. forrest gump (1994)
6. casablanca (1942)
5. dead poets society (1989)
4. tootsie (1982)
3. magnolia (1999)
2. the shawshank redemption (1994)
1. amadeus (1984)

list boy lives! - part the first

nat's ten favorite albums of all time (in alphabetical order; i have no ranking):

• achtung baby - u2 (1991)
• dulcinea - toad the wet sprocket (1994)
• odessey and oracle - the zombies (1968)
• revolver - the beatles (1966)
• so - peter gabriel (1986)
• ten summoner's tales - sting (1993)
• the beatles (a.k.a. the white album) - the beatles (1968)
• the bends - radiohead (1995)
• the joshua tree - u2 (1987)
• xo - elliott smith (1998)

a very cool stat, actually...

hi.

either steve kerr or robert horry was on the roster of every nba championship team from the 1993-1994 season through the 2002-2003 season. (horry also won in 2005 with the spurs.)

it's all about the J, baby.

NOTE: this is my last post about sports statistics for a while -- say, four days.

importance is relative, part deux

hi.

statisticians are funny. actually, i would have loved to be one. honestly. i admired anthony "walking statbook" gates in high school who knew every big and little number in NFL history.

still, statisticians are funny. i saw and heard a couple of where-the-aitch-did-they-find-that-one stats about the sox' victory last night over the tigers:

- boston has now won its last 27 games in which it has scored five or more runs, the longest current streak of its kind in the majors.

- they became "only" the ninth team in MLB history to lead a league or division by eight or more games entering 15th may.

upon further review, the first one actually has some merit to it. props to the sox' offense and defense. but that second one...hmmmm. a styx song comes to mind.

see ya.

it ain't just for surfing anymore

hi.

about four years ago -- i assume after seeing it on some 'greatest albums of all time' list(s) -- i purchased the beach boys' pet sounds. i quickly discovered it's got everything that nat loves about a record*: fantastic vocal arrangement, inventive melodies, brilliant orchestrations. and all this spawned from a twenty-four-year-old mastermind.

speaking of twenty-something musical masterminds, my friend jeff lent me SMiLE t'other day. i had loosely known the story of it: how it was to be the mother of all follow-ups, but got shelved in early '67 because of musical and artistic ideas too advanced for the public (and the record execs), as well as brian's deteriorating mental health. he resurrected it in 2004, rerecorded the tracks, and released it as a solo album.

holy freaking brilliant transcendency of musical and lyrical conception and design, batman.

perhaps like many, before familiarizing myself with the intricacies of pet sounds, i perceived the boys (and thus dismissed them) purely through the lens of "surfin' usa" or "i get around" - the latter of which, in retro-retrospect, is a fantastic composition in its own right. for those of you that still think that, check out these two masterpieces of recorded sound. in fact, go buy them right now. these are not merely the brain-droppings of a few sand-blasted surf dogs looking to get their music played at every beach party from ventura to vero, but rather some of the most important musical and spiritual statements of the decade, if not in all of pop music.

thanks for reading.



* - i feel the same about the zombies' odessey & oracle [sic], another brilliant non-beatles release from the 60's.

community is basic

hi.

i heard a great message on community yesterday from dave ward. he talked about people being "god's plan a". yes, yes, and yes.

i feel that we need a 'reset' of our understanding of what it means to be a follower of jesus. most evangelical christians have been conditioned to believe that in order to be a follower of christ, one must make an individual, personal decision to do that, and that subsequently one's faith is lived out in a similar framework: how's my devotional life? how's my walk? am i living for the lord? how was my worship experience last sunday? this is also reflected (quite ironically) in many of the songs we sing during community worship which are sung from the first-person singular "I" rather than the plural "we", which would obviously make more sense given the context.

as the next generation of jesus-followers emerges (including those two boys at the top of the page), how can they be taught to perceive community as basic to their identity as a christian? it's comforting to know that many people born after 1966 or so seem to have a natural proclivity toward, and reliance on, community, that it's fundamental to our existence. i'm excited for the church to learn something about community from us!

i think i have a lot to say about this. more later...

calebstine.com

hi.

i discovered that there is a calebstine.com. funny. i might email him and applaud him (or his parents, i guess) on his name.

importance is relative

hi.

i laughed.

sportscasters do this all the time (back me up here, the): i just watched a little clip from last night's game 2 of the spurs-suns series (where steve "where have all the white boys gone" nash was the phat). the anchor said something about "critical game three" coming up in a couple days.

when you're engaged in a sport that you care about, especially when getting paid pretty well for it, especially when playing at the NBA level, especially when in the playoffs, especially when in a series as heated as that superb southwestern match-up, isn't every freaking game critical???

just wondering.

what the aitch?

hi.

how do you reading this right now know i have a blog??!! i hadn't come out of the blogzet yet, i thought. i guess it wouldn't be that hard to discover; if i've commented on yours, it'd just take you two clicks to get to mine. that, and the fact that bill is one of the most resourceful people i know.

i guess i'll have to do some real work on this thing now that it's open for business.

thanks for reading. all of you...

57

hi.

rachel and i rented bobby last evening. lemme clarify: i saw it, but she watched about 57% before falling asleep. come to think of it, rachel has probably fallen asleep during 57% of the movies we've ever "watched" "together".

i can't say i blame her. on a scale of 1 to 100, it was only about a 57. while the premise was compelling -- the stories of several guests at l.a.'s ambassador hotel converge on the night of robert kennedy's victory in the california primary as well as his assassination -- the delivery was less than stellar. speaking of stars, the film had plenty of power in that department, perhaps too much, which may have been its weakness. rachel was making comparisons to good night, and good luck., observing that bobby lacked the palpable drama and strong writing good night... had.

still, though i was born five years (and almost seven days) after these events, i was moved to think what this country would have been like with president robert kennedy in the white house for eight years, which i presume would probably have occurred. things would have been -- and thus would now be -- very different it seems: race relations, class distinctions, our role in the vietnam (and subsequently any) war. i'm no expert, but i think that difference would be nice right now.

still, it was nice to sit down and watch a movie with my wife...or at least watch a movie with my wife there. i feel like we hadn't done that in 57 weeks.

thanks for reading.

this is the first one

hi.

i am excited to finally get something going here. in fact, it is kind of a new thing for me. i have never ever ever been a willing journaler (-ist?); it's not an expression that comes completely natural to me. consequently, however, i have noticed that i have many thoughts about life, god, worship, music, culture, humanity, irony, food, family, community, sports, etc., that i wanna get down on "paper" -- perhaps in an arena that will somehow give others some encouragement for the journey. i've known many people with excellent blogs, and though 'eye suppose' will not equal their journalistic quality, i still hope and believe that my experiences and insights will somehow do some good for some people.

thanks for reading.