Halloween: Trick or Treat?

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I LOVE this video!

Blowing up Church-Rob Naim's chapel

Today Rob Naim spoke in chapel and I loved it.  I loved it because it was exactly the thing I needed
to hear when I was sitting in those bleachers as an LW student.

Rocket back to 1989.  It was my 8th grade year at St. Mark Lutheran school.  I would sit in church every Sunday with my parents.  In the bulletin they had the order of service with all the hymn numbers and parts of the service.  I would draw long rectangles around each part of the service and then draw a sparking wick at one end.  In other words, I drew each one as a stick of dynamite.  When that part of the service was done I would "blow it up" with lots of squigglies all over the bulletin.

I didn't have some anger problem, trust me!  Church was just boring, and the Christian thing was pretty boring.  Yet, I didn't think of it as boring.  I just figured that's what faith was like.  It was a thing that you "did." 

What I loved about Mr. Naim's message this morning was how he talked about the thrill, excitement, and fulfillment that you find when you choose to live like a radical and follow Jesus.  Instead of thinking about all the stuff you'll miss out on, the reality is, following Jesus is a life of doing tons of crazy, countercultural things! 

I heard that message from a friend in chapel when I was a wee Freshman at LW in 1990.  My life has been so meaningful and fun ever since.  Don't read "fun" as in, no problems or perfect-faaaar from it.  But my life has had direction and the excitement of following an invisible Guide that lives inside of me and lets me be part of the crazy things He's doing in this world.

I hate myself

I don't really hate myself, but there have been times when I have.  It still sometimes hits me, but I've learned how to fight that impulse.  I think we all can get pretty good at hating on ourselves.  In fact, in some Christian circles, hating on yourself is seen as a sign of spiritual maturity or something. 

So, I'm reading this book called Pastrix by an ELCA Lutheran pastor who also happens to drop f-bombs and has tons of tattoos named Nadia Bolz-Weber; oh, and she's a woman.  That alone would throw many for a loop.  There are a lot of things in the book that many would be uncomfortable with.  In fact, there are things I'm uncomfortable with in it too.  Still, I love this woman's heart for Jesus and people.  As I read I'm going to post some parts of the book that jump out at me.  Here's one where she talks about identity.

(BTW, she's going to be the speaker at an upcoming Ohio ELCA youth conference)


And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."  Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."

And the Word that had most recently came from the mouth of God was, "This is my beloved in whom I am well pleased."  Identity.  It's always God's first move.  Before we do anything wrong and before we do anything right, God has named and claimed us as God's own.  But almost immediately, other things try to tell us who we are and to whom we belong; capitalism, the weight-loss industrial complex, our parents, kids at school-they all have a go at telling us who we are.  But only God can do that.  Everything else is temptation.  Maybe demons are defined as anything other than God that tries to tell us who we are.  And maybe, just moments after Jesus' baptism, when the devil says to him, "If you are the Son of God..." he does so because he knows that Jesus is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that he is insecure about his identity and mistrusts his relationship with God.

So if God's first move is to give us our identity, then the devil's first move is to throw that identity into question.  Identity is like the tip of a spool of thread, which when pulled, can unwind the whole thing...Our identity has nothing to do with how we are perceived by others.  But it's still tempting to believe.  I mean, if Jesus was vulnerable to temptation, the rest of us certainly are, whether it be temptation to self-loathing or self-aggrandizement, depression or pride, self-destruction or self-indulgence.  We are tempted to doubt our innate value precisely to the degree that we are insecure about our identity from, and our relationship to God.

To Hell With Texting! JK

One thing that I’m passionate about is relationships.  It is the one thing in life that affects EVERYTHING else.  You can be getting awesome grades, but if your friend is mad at you, the world seems terrible.  You can be a millionaire, but if your marriage sucks, the money doesn’t count for much.  I really love my job, but when my wife and I have a significant disagreement (which is thankfully uncommon), it is hard for me to stay focused through the school day.

It seems like God made us this way.  It applies to Him too.  When we’re not connected with God, there is a subtle ache that pangs inside. 

So, in the last 3 posts I hope I didn’t come off as just hating on technology.  I just want to fight against anything that harms real-life relationships. 

When you ask people what is sin, they often respond: anything against God's rules.  Maybe, but more accurately, it's anything that works to harm relationships.  All sin is like that.  Honestly, that's what hell wants: to separate us from each other and from God. 

So, texting is not inherently evil, but we've got to make it work FOR relationships. 

One of the posters made the point that we may need to put parameters around texting, for example.  Another poster commented how she and her boyfriend have made a specific effort to actually talk more often than texting.  These are awesome things.

My wife and I have a challenge when it comes to talking: lots of kids!  Sure we talk at home and at dinner, but always with four other voices around.  It’s hard to talk on a deep level that way, and, honestly, talking on a deep level is one of the great things you get to share with a significant other. 

So, we schedule a time each day where our girls know we’re off limits and we can just sit and catch up on our days together.  We also schedule a weekly date where just the two of us can go out and have fun together and talk about the deeper stuff. 

The point is: we have to take planned action to make sure the real good stuff of a relationship occurs.  Texting is fine, but consider how you can prioritize real communication (in-person or on the phone or Skype) with the people you want to be close to, whether that is a boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, cousin, parent, or grandparent. 

Easy A

Ok, so a movie about a girl lying about sleeping with others in order to help their reputations seems

to be a bit questionable.  See, here’s the thing, though-it makes tons of references to one of my favorite American authors: Nathaniel Hawthorne and his classic novel The Scarlet Letter.  So, I put caution aside and my wife and I watched it this weekend.

I was disappointed.

This movie had the potential of having something meaningful to say.  I recognize that any meaningful story that takes place in real life will be filled with “objectionable content.”  That’s true of Romeo and Juliet from the 1490s to Adam Sandler’s Click from 2006. 

But like so many movies targeted to you guys in your teens, instead of going for the heart of the film, they work so hard to make it raunchy that it loses itself. 

At the movie’s heart was a girl who found herself in a weird position to help outcasts.  Her first rumor, that she lost her virginity to a college guy, was offhandedly started by her in order to impress her friend.  From there, since she has gained a ‘bad girl’ reputation, more guys ask her to lie for them to get them out of situations or to help them not be ostracized. 

As crude as it all is, the beauty of it is that Olive has a sweet heart and feels for these guys, enough to drag her reputation through the mud for their sake.  Jesus, quite honestly, did the same thing.  He got accused of a lot of things and got labeled by a lot of popular people because he fraternized with the unpopular crowd (including so-called ‘skanks’ by the way).

The most powerful moment of the film comes when a guy honestly asks her out on a date.  She finally feels truly cared for instead of being used.  Then, at the end of their date he offers to pay her, not to lie, but to actually sleep with him.  He begins to physically take advantage of her before she finally pushes him away in disgust.

This was such a poignant moment.  I was like, “Yes!  Finally!”  Here was a girl finding out that selling her body out to guys who just wanted to take advantage of her wasn’t worth it.  She has true dignity and worth and she doesn’t ‘deserve’ to be used.  The amount of girls that are sexually abused in some way is 1 in 4.  That’s a terrible reality. 

But, instead of driving home this point, the rest of the plot devolves into the silly escapades of a guidance counselor who has a fling with a student who happens to be in a ‘Christian’ group, the weirdness of Olive’s parents’ past, and, on and on. 

So, what does this mean for us as believers?  Well, there are inequalities.  Notice that the guys in the film get better reputations because of their (false) exploits, while Olive’s reputation goes down the drain.  Both of these are problems.  As believers, we want to develop a healthy sexuality between the sexes where our attractions are honed into ways to honor the opposite sex, for guys to recognize women’s differences by treating them with both equality and extra kindness and gentleness, and for girls to honor guys by giving their affections to men who are worthy of it.

Olive seems to kind of get this at the end.  She finds that sexuality, at its best is romance, not just sex.  Yet, so much of the movie shows what most of us already know: that our sexuality is often used as a means of blackmailing, using, pressuring, and abusing.  God has given us a gift.  Let’s not let it get dragged through the mud like that.

Why You Should Dance

Dancing.  Some people love it.  Some people hate it.

Some people seem to have no rhythm.  Some people just seem good at it.

Remember that movie Hitch?  Will Smith’s character is trying to help this uncoordinated guy get a girl, so what does he do?  He tries to teach him to dance.

I’m convinced that people that are just good at dancing got it from their family or culture.  Ever notice that Hispanic people seem to all be able to dance?  It’s a part of their culture.  Early on, they are around dancing.

Next, take the average white male.  Dancing is absolutely unusual!  The first time most of us were in a setting to cut a rug was at some awkward middle school dance.

Still, even those of us who find dancing to feel like visiting the dentist, we are all awed when we watch someone do it well.  It is both powerful and gentle, sensual and graceful, provocative and touching.  How awesome it is to watch two people hit all the right moves at all the right times.  It’s

no wonder that a style, like ballroom dancing, which most people once considered an ‘old folks’ thing’, became such a huge hit on TV with Dancing with the Stars.

How the heck do you get good at it then?

Practice…Try and fail and try again…Learn from others.

I actually dance.  Yet, I used to hate doing it.  Trouble is this: I married a white girl with a Hispanic heart.  Beth lived in Venezuela for a year after high school and caught the Latino bug.  I’m a white German who grew up headbanging to AC/DC.  I had to do some learning.

We’ve taken ballroom, salsa, and merengue classes.  We dance in our kitchen, we dance at weddings.  I can’t say I’m awesome at it, but I’m finding that it’s kinda fun.

I practiced, tried and failed and tried again, and learned from others.

To me, this is what life is like: we all want to be the one who can hit all the right moves at all the right times.
This is true, especially of our relationships, including the one we have with God.

 

How do you connect with God?  You practice.  What works for you?  Is it praying in the morning, at night, on the car on the way to school?  Is praying going through a list, or just chatting, or both?  Does reading the Bible help or is it confusing?  Would listening to music or drawing connect you closer to God?  Practice.  Try things out.  Ask others what works for them.  Learn from others.

The same is true of relationships with others.  Everybody wants to figure out the dating thing right away.  Guess what?  You have to dance.  You’ll have to practice, try and fail, and learn from others.  How do you get close to someone?  How do you deal with hurt feelings?  How can you show affection without going further than you want to?  What do you do when you start feeling different about someone? 

Dance, dance, dance. 

Practice, Try and fail and try again, learn from others.

Here are the lyrics to a song by one of my favorite artists, Pierce Pettis.  It’s called “To Dance.”

 

 

To dance
A prospective of bones
Musical bath
It's clearing a path of one's own

Blue jeans and muscle
Or crinoline rustle
You learn it in class or alone
To dance

To dance
It's a gravity thing
Shoes to the earth
Pulling toward a verse that is beckoning

Oh, the dizzy affect
Of rhythm and sweat
Flying like a kid in a swing
To dance

Arms in a moment
Some worried connection
Telling of hearts
Where they don't need protection

A journey in place
A private affection to share
To dance

Is swimming in time
Where passion, and public, and prudence can somehow align

Moving like lovers on top of the covers
Everyone knows it's alright
To dance

Touch without touching
Love without breathing
Hold on and let go without anyone leaving

All of part of the beat you're receiving
And sending back out through your feet

In itself it's complete
God it is sweet
To dance

To dance
The movement confines limbs in a language
That is spoken in three quarter time

And is suddenly gone at the end of the song
And you knew you were safe all along
To dance