Hello Old "Friend"

I am back in the office this morning...and it feels like an "Ultra-Monday." There is the usual backlog of mail and messages from the weekend, but there are also messages and duties from the entire previous week...a week of vacation that I wish had never ended. But more than anything, I'm feeling it this morning because I had an early morning meeting with someone I have let slip out of my life:

Fitness.

Fitness and I were inseparable in High School. I used to run cross country and train for it...spending evenings out running. I played my share of pickup basketball games, ran track, even golfed without a cart on hot days. Now, granted, the relationship slipped a bit when I went off the college...but I still checked in regularly with pickup games of ultimate frisbee, football, and basketball. But then grad school came...and suddenly I noticed that Fitness and I were having an extremely hard time finding things that we liked to do together. It soon reached the equivalent of rolling over in bed, looking Fitness in the eye, and sobbing quietly, "I don't even know who you are anymore." Our once wonderfully mutual relationship had turned completely one-sided. All I did was give...all Fitness did was take. She nagged, she made me feel guilty, and then, when I gave in, she made me feel old, fat, and tired. Pretty soon, we weren't on speaking terms. And that has pretty much been the status quo ever since. Sure, I lifted some weights in seminary (which, it ends up, was like putting a little more cargo on the Titanic) and have dabbled in running over the past few years...all to no avail. I have longed for those glory days of fun-loving, attractive Fitness...but instead have found a stable of dependable, enjoyable friends in Apathy, Lethargy, and Procrastination.

Now...let's get something straight here...I think that I'm in decent shape. Mostly thanks to Julie, I'm not the average-American who's borderline-cardiac-arrest. I eat well and am relatively healthy. But the recent health test I did for health insurance revealed that I have borderline high cholesterol...which, when teamed with my borderline high blood pressure, means that I probably need to do something I've been avoiding for a while; reconciliation with Fitness.

One of my problems is that I've done the elliptical trainer some over the past few years and I think that my body has learned to "fool" it. I usually "run" on it for about 20-30 minutes while watching a James Bond movie, and when I get done I feel slightly sore but not really all that drained or tired. It's as if my body says, "There, see! You're in shape! Now never do that again." This morning I tried to rekindle my love affair with Fitness through our old favorite: running. I thought that pulling out the walkman and going back to my roots might bring back all those good memories. So I pulled out of bed early and hit the streets this morning...and, boy, let me tell you:

Fitness has let herself go. There is nothing even remotely attractive about her...in fact, these past few years have made her bitter and vindictive. I'm convinced that she hates me. First, she shook loose years of God-only-knows-what in my lungs, causing me to cough like a chain smoker for most of the morning so far (I swear there were some bats nesting down there or something). Second, even after trying to let her know I was coming back by stretching before and after, she took a billy club to my left knee just to remind me that it's been years since I have called, then added double side cramps to really bring home the message. Third, for a "soundtrack," she made sure that he only tapes we still have are old mix tapes I made Julie back in the day that have more songs of the "slow, lovey, mellow" variety than the "fast, motivating, exciting" variety on them...so I was panting and heaving to the soothing sounds of Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" and Neil Young's "Silver and Gold." So it not only looked like a wake and felt like a wake...it sounded like one, too.

Those who run fairly often speak of something called "runner's high," a feeling you get when you're done running that is akin, somehow, to the euphoric feeling you get when you do drugs. Well, this morning was bad acid. They also say that your body sends you messages that you need to listen to when you work out, mine was saying something like: "What the heck is thiiiiiiiiiiiiis!!!???" But, valiantly or stupidly ignoring those messages, I pressed on. When all was said and done, I stumbled into the front yard heaving, wheezing, and listening to the soothing tones of "Blue in Green" by Miles Davis. I was oh-so-close to just lying down in the sprinkler and asking Jesus to take me.

But I guess it is that yellow yard that brought me a small slice of solace this morning. Our yard, once spectacularly green, has recently been upgraded to "extra crispy." But Julie and I have been working at it, dragging hoses and watering more frequently. The lawn seemed resistant at first, screaming "You talkin' to me!!!?" by stubbornly staying pale yellow. But slowly, and surely, the lawn has greened up. It still looks absolutely terrible in places...there is still a lot of work to go...but it's getting there. I just keep thinking about how much easier it will be to maintain rather than catch up. I keep thinking about how much better the house will look. I just need to keep thinking about the benefits of the work I'm putting in...rather than what a pain it is to drag those hoses. I guess you could say that I just have just got to keep at it. And then stay at it.

And so I am "watering the lawn" of personal fitness. And, yeah, it's been a while. And even though I don't think I'm burnt yellow yet...it still feels like I have a long way to go. But even though I know that, even though I preached yesterday on the cost of being who God makes to be...I still sat out back, sucking air to the point that I nearly inhaled our neighbor's dog...

And prayed for underground sprinklers.

On Bob Barker

I was half-awake on Friday morning. After spending the week at my New Pastors' Group (and staying up late every night), I was beat. I dragged myself out of bed and upstairs to work on my barely-started sermon...a sermon that I was intending to be on the subject of embracing change...but I was in no mood to write. As she left for work, Julie reminded me of something that had slipped my mind: "Today's Bob Barker's last show...you should watch it." I said good-bye, gave her a hug, and said thank you. She was out the door...and I was alone.

Sure enough, I "wrote" until 10:00 and made my way downstairs. I hadn't watched The Price is Right in probably 5 years...but I wanted to watch television history. I plopped myself down on the sofa and turned the television to channel 4...and was greeted by that same old music, those same crazy graphics, and that same old Bob Barker. And, along with them, something totally unexpected...

A surprising amount of emotion.

For the first 10-15 years of my life, when people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say (without hesitation): "A game show host." And The Price Is Right, as everybody knows, is the king of all game shows. I would watch it any chance I could get and then quickly run upstairs to try to recreate the games using playing cards on our sofa. Part of the benefit of missing school on a sick day or snow day? I got to see The Price is Right. I was a fan. And that has continued, to slightly lesser degrees, even since. I remember watching The Price is Right in the Union at college and getting oh-so-close to going to it live for my bachelor party (Bob was having surgery at the time). I've always loved it...

And as I watched on Friday I realized that a big reason it still makes me feel good is that it hasn't changed. They played the game with the car and the seven one dollar bills on Friday, and Plinko, and they spun the big wheel...all games I tried to recreate when I was still learning to write cursive letters. The music, the games, and the host...fun, inviting, and unchanging for over 30 years...for my entire life.

About an hour after the show was over, I got a call. A 90-plus-year-old parishioner was in the hospital. I went to visit and ended up spending most of the afternoon with her as she was moved from room to room awaiting her diagnosis. When we finally "landed," she made a comment: "Don't ever, ever grow old. Everything changes all around you...and all you can remember is what was. And there are times when all you can manage to do is just miss things that have gone away."

I've been preaching a lot about change over the past few weeks...trying to bring home to the congregation that change is both exciting and terrifying, but that God is always in the middle of it, working to stretch us into new, more Christ-like people. Change and new life go hand-in-hand. What I am realizing is that I think I have it better than most. My parents still live in the house I grew up in. My hometown hasn't become a ghost town or a suburb. My friends and the majority of my family are still healthy and in touch. But there are still those times that it slaps this naive small-town boy in the face...that things change, even the things I love.

And so God told me something on Friday through, of all people, Bob Barker: As the things around us change, we cling to those things that somehow have held on...and then we mourn them all the more when they finally do give in.

The question is if we will look beyond what have lost to see what God is giving us here and now. And while that may be easy for a relatively young man like myself; the tally of what has been lost is much longer for many of us...and it becomes more and more challenging by the day to get beyond the mourning.

I woke up Saturday morning without a sermon. I leafed through those I wrote in seminary and decided to recycle one on Caleb and Joshua reassuring the Israelites that even though it seems impossible, God will take care of them as they enter the Promised Land. And I realized that it was a sermon that I need to hear, too:

That even though I'm getting older, even though I miss so much, even though the world is constantly changing...

The promises do not.

Red Tape, No Scissors

Today represents a first for me. This is the first day that I have wanted to shut everything off, scream, and go home. There are three major items that I have been working on today:

1) Making my opting out of Social Security official
2) Making the changes to my Terms of Call because of said opting out official with the national office
3) Trying to get the Nominating Committee put together so that we can fill two sudden vacancies on our Session.

I have been here at work for a little over three hours...and I'm just about ready to either cry or take a baseball bat to something. Knowing my nature, it would probably be the former...but if I get put on hold again, it's going to be the latter. Here's what I've been up to this morning:

I received a phone call yesterday from a man named Jeff who works for the IRS. He informed me that they have received my paperwork, but it is incomplete. I had evidently misread the completely convoluted and confusing letter and the person I did talk to about it gave me the wrong advice (I believe it was, "Just sign the thing and send it in...you don't need anything else.") Jeff, in a spectacularly IRS-perfect nasally-robotic tone, informed me that I would need to supply him with copies of a couple of forms that would prove the tax-exempt, non-profit status of the church. He fired the alphabet soup of form numbers at me...and I waited until today to check the files. I can't find any of them...the Treasurer doesn't know where they are, the chair of Finance doesn't know where they are...and I'm tearing through the church files like a man possessed. You want copies of the minutes from the June 1945 meeting of Presbyterian Women? We got that...can put my finger on it in three minutes. The forms granting us non-profit status in the eyes of the US Government? Not so much. After a little over 45 minutes of ravenous searching, I gave up and realized that said document would have probably had to have been procured in the late 1800s for this church. I called Jeff. Hold. Two minutes go by. I hang up.

I exhale...calmly exhale...and move on to the next order of business. I start to fill out a form of "change of call" from our beloved Board of Pensions. I don't understand a couple of things on it at all. I place a call to the home office in Louisville. Hold. A minute goes by. I hang up.

And so I move to the project I have been dreading the most. We have had one elder move and another resign because of health concerns over the past month. The one elder happens to be taking an at-large member of our nominating committee with her (her husband). My mission was to find out what stipulations there are in the church by-laws for appointing new members of nominating committee and to see what hurdles there were that we needed to clear before we could convene as a nominating committee. There are none...none written at least. My calls produce three nobody-at-homes, two I-have-no-ideas, and a twisted web of positions that have yet to be filled from the various organizations of the church. This is all simply to put the nominating committee together...we haven't even started asking for elders yet. That process last fall, in and of itself, was like trying to find someone on the Rockies who can pitch in the 8th. And so, after about a half hour of calls, I hit another brick wall.

I try Jeff again. Out to lunch. He must be recharging his batteries. Call back tomorrow. I call our clergy tax advisor. He won't be in until Friday, and doesn't answer questions over the phone. I need to make an appointment on my day off to come in to ask him, "What forms do I need?" A parishioner walks in to ask me about to forms you need to fill out for camp scholarships...it takes me a little over eight minutes on the presbytery's convoluted website to find the forms.

And so that's my morning: a black hole of productivity where any project I begin is met with a wall of red tape and Don Henley hold music. As I go out to make an adjustment of the church sign, I half-expect a police officer to roll up and ask me, "Do you have a 606R Religious Display Authorization Form for that?" and then sing me "End of the Innocence" as I try to ask him questions.

I didn't sign up for this. I hate this. This is what I was trying to avoid...the forms, the desk work, the administrative red tape. It just makes my blood boil. I stare at my desk: the church by-laws, the book of order, tax forms, and Board of Pension documents are thrown haphazardly across the surface. And I stew...and I get angry.

But then I choose to write. And while I didn't know where I was going when I started this post, I realize something as I write. This is the first day in nearly 9 months that I have felt this way. When I worked at my former jobs (particularly in secondary education), I could have written a post like this every day. I hated it, and hated my job as a result. Here...I've had one bad morning of bureaucracy in, what, 9 months? Wow. I guess that I've avoided it for so long that I've lost my ability to tolerate it.

And so I will now shut the computer off and stop calling the Jeff-O-Tron 5000. I will go down and have lunch with a fellow minister. I will walk away. I will realize that those questions will eventually be answered. And, more than anything, I will realize that red tape and bureaucracy are not the norm in small church ministry. And I will thank God for that.

Getting "Tagged": Random Stuff About Me

I recently received the web equivalent of a chain letter...a.k.a. I was "tagged" to share 8 things about myself on this blog. I have hemmed and hawed about whether to actually do it or not...and I have decided to participate without passing said "tag" on to 8 people (per the instructions). This gives me a nice halfway point. I am, in fact, recognizing and responding to the wishes of a friend while at the same time avoiding burdening 8 of my friends to do the same. So, without further ado, the "tag" disclaimer (the rules):

1) I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2) Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3) People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4) At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5) Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
6) Don't tell anyone about Fight Club.

I added that last one myself. Anyway...here are the 8 random topics and some even more random comments on them.

Food: When it all shakes out, give me pizza. Sure, I like other food. I like to cook, love eating Julie's food, love eating out. But at the end of the day, there is nothing better than something that is delivered to your house, is covered in cheese, requires no utensils, and often has absolutely no nutritional value. Make it a deep dish Chicago-style pizza from Giordano's and, hey, I'm in heaven. Runner up: The Johnny Cash Ring-Of-Fire Burger at a local eatery. Buffalo sauce, jalapenos, and blue cheese on a 1/3 pound burger. Appropriately named because it is the gastrointestinal equivalent of doing a concert at Folsom prison: risky, but worth it. Walk the line, baby...walk the line.

Family: Yes, I have one. I love them all very much. Dad, Mom, my two sisters and their families, and (of course) the woman who keeps me afloat, Julie. I'm also quite fond of my extended family on both sides and have had some really great times with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and the like. I fancy myself a pretty good Son-In-Law, too...I like spending time with Julie's folks and all her New Zealand extended family. And I would be remiss, of course, unless I mentioned Shadow, our beloved dog who is now climbing fences in the great beyond (and hopefully getting walked more than once a month.)

Exercise: Yeah. I get on the elliptical trainer (a.k.a. "The Suicide Machine") every once and while, but I am afraid that I'm one of those strange people who doesn't like discomfort. I'm still looking for a way to make staying in shape fun again. I used to play pick-up basketball, football, and ultimate Frisbee in college. The only way I can play those now are in Rec Leagues filled with people who take it considerably more seriously than I do. I'm going to try running again here soon. Stop laughing. Don't make me come over there.

Profession: I am the King of the Diamond! Oh...wait...I get it. Presbyterian Pastor.

Obsession: Probably high on this list would be the James Bond movies, along with my life-long vision of designing, financing, and the building a corkscrew-shaped building. You think I'm kidding, don't you? Oh, and one other thing. Every time this clip comes on TV, I must stop and watch:

There is amusing, there is very funny...and then there is "Kneel Before Zod!"

Faith: See: Profession. I try to do the best that I can to love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength and my neighbor as myself...and I try to make sure that everyone knows that I am broken...but healed every day in God through Christ.

Ailments: For all the exercising I do, you'd think there would be quite a few, but other than male-pattern-hair-recession, a still-growing mid-section, and a strange friend nicknamed "Hambone," well...I'm doin' OK.

Games: I love to play games with family and friends. I've already mentioned my affinity of sports, but I also love board games. Whether it be dominoes with Mom and Dad, Cranium with the larger family, Settlers of Catan with Julie, Texas Hold-'Em with friends, Rail Baron, Pinochle, Pitch, Hearts, 500, or PS2 on my own...I like a good game. A handful of game moments stick out in my mind, though (along with code names):
--Two-on-two basketball outside in the middle of winter (The "Frozen Tundra" series)
--Playing basketball in the old Heartwell gym (The night of the "Dog Pound")
--Playing pitch all the way home from skiing ("Paycheck")
--Playing Tecmo Bowl on Campbell 2nd North (The quest for the Neirmann Memorial Trophy)
--Bowling on East Campus (No ball over 4 pounds please)
--Cranium with my family (The "It's A Small Nose, After All" incident)
--Going all-in blind when a certain line was uttered (see: above) while playing Hold 'Em (The "Zod Hand")
--Playing multi-tap video games in seminary ("Day-lo")

Good times...every last one of them.

Well, there it is. I'm not passing this on, but I hope you've learned a little something about me. Something, that is, other than the fact that I'm a cop-out artist.

Ranking Things: Cars, Good and Evil

As mentioned in the previous post, Julie and I made a never-before-done-as-a-couple major purchase a couple of weeks ago: we purchased a car...rather, a vehicle. I hesitate to call it a "car" because it is a (gulp) SUV. Granted, it is a Honda CRV (a parishioner called it a Half-UV the other day)...but it is still (as the Rev. Dr. reminded me) something that I gave him an exceedingly hard time about buying nary a year ago. I, of course, blasted him with the "Soccer Mom" and "Kiss Your Manhood Goodbye" comments...never knowing that I was predestined to move into a glass house in mid-2007.

You see, out here in Colorado we have a little thing called "snow," and this past winter we had a whole heckuva lot of it. Needless to say, the 1997 Honda Accord and the 1997 Toyota Tercel, while formidable in their own ways (well...no...that's a lie), are not what you would consider "rugged" or even "snow-functional beyond 5 inches." Changes needed to be made...and so we looked into something with 4-wheel drive, that could fit more than 2 people, and didn't drive or use gas like like a front-end loader. Enter the 2002 Honda CRV (As pictured above, only dark blue).

I'll be the first to admit that I'm now well through my dinner-sized helping of crow. We really like the car; it handles well, gets decent mileage, and is comfortable. But as we prepare to put our two-door Tercel up on Craig's list, I can't help but sigh a bit that we're selling our dependable, gas-sipping, bandbox of a car for a Yuppie Chariot. And so, as an attempt to justify myself, I give you two short lists:

Top 5 Cars That Would Destroy My Soul/Will To Live

5. The Urban Pickup
One of my new favorites here in Colorado. We have a guy on our street with a Chevy that could flatten our house...dual "Dooley" back tires on the back, massive clearance, dual exhaust, and a cab that must require a smaller car to get up into. I would place it's origin somewhere in the late 90's...and there's not a scratch on the thing. It is always perfectly washed, even has mud flaps for that oh-so-muddy trip over to Hays Market. Meanwhile, the real farmers and ranchers around here are trying to find two pennies to rub together as they struggle to keep the 1984 Silverado going.

4. The PT Cruiser
Let's call it what it is: A minivan rolled in a mid-life crisis that is really nothing but a hatchback with bad aerodynamics. In other words, the new Gremlin.

3. The Minivan
I know, I know...I have a friend who just bought one, other friends who have owned them forever...and, yes, I know, they have V-8s with some pick-up. Yes, I know that some of them have DVD players. Yes, I am quite aware that they are exceedingly functional for large families. But the fact remains: It's a minivan. You don't get to watch the DVDs as you drive....and, at the end of the day, V8 or not, you are driving a small bus.

2. The "Extended" SUV
I get the logic here. I don't want to be un-cool in a minivan, so I'll buy a 4-wheel drive minivan. The problem is that these things are high-clearance, barely-converted tractor trailers that crush anything in their path. When I'm driving around in the Tercel, and I see a Yukon or Expedition merging without looking, I see my life flash before my eyes. These things are impossibly huge...and getting larger. Plus, after looking at some mileage reports while Julie and I were looking for a car, well, geeze. Instead of a little "Unleaded Fuel Only" sticker on the gauge, they should have a government warning label that reads: "You...yeah, I'm talkin' to you...you are why we are dependent on foreign oil. Thanks for that."

1. The Hummer
The unholy spawn of all of the above. Take three parts "status-mobile," four parts "I'm a real man...really," two parts "I want to run over anything that gets in my way," nine parts "hey, it's not a minivan," two parts "gas is like my line of credit, right...it won't ever run out," and there you have it. The ultimate driving machine.

So what, you might ask, would I get if my family rendered the CRV insufficient? Two words: Station. Wagon. Yeah, you heard me. Let me throw another couple at you: Wood. Panelling. There is a family in our church with three kids that has a Chevy Caprice Classic wagon with wood panelling...it even has the extra backwards-facing seat for extra family bonding/nausea. Spectacular.

Now...so not to end on an overly-critical note:

The 4 Greatest Cars I Have "Owned" or Driven Extensively

4. The Red 1997 Honda Accord (a.k.a. "The Old Kentucky Shark")
Still in active service, this car is most notable for it's Cal Ripken like ability to keep going out there every day. Has weathered five-plus moves, a handful of baseball trips, daily commutes in KC and here in CO, and me nearly ripping the front bumper off on a parking island. Is starting to show some signs of old age (it "wheezes" if you idle with the AC on), but is still punching the clock every day.

3. The mid-to-late 80's White Pontiac Bonneville (a.k.a. "The White Beast")
A warrior-poet of a car. Passed down from my sister, the Bonneville initially functioned as one of the first cars I drove after getting my license and later served a tour of duty as my school car. I never had a problem with it (which, for a Pontiac, is nothing less than an act of God). The car served our family well...and was given away at or near 200,000 miles (again...divine intervention for a Pontiac). It continued to drive, somewhere down in Louisiana, for a while. I like to imagine that it is still going...pushing 500,000 miles...saving orphaned children as it drove through the eye of Katrina and pulling "one-armed-Jessies" into the new millennium. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if it is.

2. The Gray 1989 Oldsmobile '98 Touring Sedan (a.k.a. "The Enterprise")
My first car. An unfittingly posh automobile for a Sophomore in college, the Olds featured leather seats, cigarette lighters for every passenger, a strange/cool center shifter, and an iron will. It was an "old-man car" forced into the role of college car. The Olds made it through three unobservant backing incidents, multiple brake reconstructions, and once drove from Kansas to Nebraska with a massive deer-inflicted dent down its left side, inspiring awe from all who drove by. An excellent road-trip car with a primo engine...I drove it hard, and died hard. It met its end, suddenly and violently, via a timing chain in a Target parking lot in Olathe.

1. The Blue Pickup
Recently promoted to "Iconic" in my mind's eye. The seminal mowing vehicle of our family's vast yard maintenance empire. A manual-transmission, wood-bed, rust-damaged, powerhouse of a truck that provided years of enjoyment, even in the midst of work. Once took a full-on blow from a Chevy Citation without giving an inch. Powerful engine was more than able to throw Marcy out the back while she was dumping grass. Whether completely covered in Little Debbie wrappers or destroying the Andersons' mailbox thanks to over-zealous ice-driving, the Blue Truck took on all comers. "What you did was so amazing," indeed. Dad sold the Blue Truck for a runner-up on this list (The Brown Chevy Scottsdale), but it will never be replaced.

And so I place the CRV somewhere between these two lists...a needed compromise that sticks my toe into the chilly waters of the yuppie/grown-up pool. I'm optimistic, though, because above all else what makes a car great are the stories...and I know there are more of those to come.

Divine Timing

Well, now that was something. I have had a whirlwind two weeks here that have consisted of the following (not necessarily in this order):

A long-time member of the church passed away (funeral on Wednesday).
I was asked to preach for the Presbytery (Saturday).
I am the "leader" of a Family Camp this weekend at our Presbytery's camp.
Julie and I purchased a new (to us) car.
My parents (and two nephews) visited.
It was my lovely wife's birthday.

That, friends, makes for one whale of a fortnight. In the midst of all of this, I had probably the most difficult day, emotionally, of my life as a pastor so far. Wednesday's memorial service was emotional for me (I am starting to realize that these get harder the more I actually know those involved), and so I arrived at home exhausted around 4:30. The phone rang. It was a woman who needed help...and lots of it. Through a terrifying set of circumstances stemming from cancer, she has been left without work, income, physical strength, or hope. I drove over to her home.

I walked in the door to find the accoutrements of faith all over the walls, the dresser. Crosses, books, Bibles, frames of her family saying "God loves you...and so do I" around them. But she sat at the table...crying. I asked, "What's wrong?" It took an hour and half to answer. I sat there as she cried and cried and cried...stories of weeks spent looking for work, stories of family apathy, stories of being turned away time and time and time again. It just poured out of her. I sat, mortified...no idea what to say. She finished by asking, full of hurt, "Why does God hate me so much? Am I being punished?"

I wanted to run and hide. I wanted to run and hide because, ultimately, I couldn't blame her. I have those same questions about why she is suffering. I wanted to know why, too. We sat for what seemed like a long time in silence. Then I muttered something like:

"You are not alone. You are loved. By God. By me. By the church. We care about what happens to you. See, we get together...in all our fear and hurt and doubt...because we know we can't do it on our own. We need God...and we need each other.”

Then I showed her Isaiah 40 and Ezekiel 37, explained their contexts a little bit, and drove home...feeling shaken and completely inadequate. Wondering how much of my faith is contingent on my car, my nice house, my health, and my all-in-all favorable circumstances. I didn't sleep well...so I rolled into the office early, anxious about my impending sermon for a house full of preachers.

But I sat in my chair...tired, sad...and didn't feel much like a preacher.

On that morning and the next morning, two things rolled in through the mail. The first was a simple, wonderful, completely pointless card from a good seminary friend that caused a long, hard chuckle and a good dose of therapy along with it. The next day, as I pondered my Wednesday encounter and I tore my hair out trying to compose an IMPRESSIVE sermon...the following bit of prophetic intervention showed up via another wonderful friend:



Spectacular. And with these two seemingly random, silly gestures I was, at once, reminded of two wonderful truths:

That God still wants me, not some super-pastor. God, even with all my scars and limitations and hurts...even in my "Scottness," can share the hope and love of Christ in and through me.

And that it is community, even across thousands of miles, that best demonstrates that love and gives us hope, encouragement, and perspective when we need it most.

The Glass Half Empty

Julie and I were at home watching the news the other night, when back-to-back new pieces nearly blew my mind.

The first, titled something like "The Consumer Pinch" had the usual news lead-in: "Americans work hard to get by every day...well, now there's a growing concern that hits home in a way that reaches each one of us..." Cut to a story about rising milk and grocery prices. They lead with the statistics first...how milk has gone up nearly twenty cents a gallon, with other staples following the lead. Groceries on the whole are up. They interview a couple of store goers who are concerned about the high cost of milk. Now they cut to the chase. The culprit? Rising corn prices brought on by the production of Ethanol. The report then draws on a talking head from Iowa State University who gives the "doomsday" prediction that corn prices are going nowhere but up as Ethanol production increases. The reporter, chagrined by this information, makes a standard final comment bemoaning that there "is little relief in sight from the American consumer."

The next story? America's crisis of high gas prices. Now, I don't know if some terribly ironic genius put them back-to-back to make a point or if it simply went over their heads. It was your trademark run-of-the-mill "Why are gas prices going up?" story where the reporter interviews the lady who is "suffering" by spending $125 to fill her TankUV so that she can drive it, by herself, to work in Orange County. This particular report did actually touch on the whole supply-and-demand logic that I haven't seen much (the prices are going up because we will pay them)...but the majority of the report was spent simply bemoaning high fuel prices with no mention of carpooling, bicycling, walking, or simply buying a vehicle that won't be confused with an aircraft carrier.

It blew me away. The first report, through a simple change in sequence and narration, could have been an exciting report on the increase of Ethanol production and consumption in the United States. You could absolutely include the hard fact that yes, groceries will go up as corn goes up, but what about the benefits? If you asked everybody outside of the supermarket to give thirty cents to help farmers and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, I bet they'd be all over it. But here, instead, we get Ethanol as the enemy. It's taking money out of your pocket, America! And then, to top it all off, a report detailing the astounding amount of gasoline this country alone burns through in a day. In the past few days, I've heard more reporting on this "grocery crisis," and few take them time to mention the benefits of Ethanol.

You can probably tell by now that I'm not the biggest fan of the mainstream news media...but it's becoming something more than their truly amazing ability to make decent human beings want to kill each other by polarizing them politically. The more I watch, the more I am discovering that whatever they do...be it telling you how "liberal" or "conservative" their untrustworthy counterparts are, be it sending Matt Laurer to third world countries to show us how cute poor people are, be it Bill O'Reilly milking human tragedy to look more noble...it's all about selling you Pledge, the new Dodge Stratus, and a crate of Lunchables. It's all about the money. And they're not dumb...they know that the way to get us to watch is to appeal to what we want...that very same money. And so stories don't focus on increasing Ethanol production or how to change our habits when it comes to consumption...they focus on the regrettable, but relatively minor side-effect of rising grocery costs and the long, slow whine of a rigidly gas-addicted culture as they fill up their Hummers.

And so I'm taking a media break. I'm tired of TV and radio news. I'm tired of hearing about how Liberals/Conservatives want to eat your children and destroy the world. I'm tired of problems without solutions. I'm tired of all the crises. I'm tired of all the blame. Most of all, as I learned the other night, I'm tired (and discouraged) by the fact that this is, ultimately, what we evidently want. Myopic, self-centered, blame-passing news about the one place and the one thing any of us seem to care about:

Our checkbooks.