On Holidays

At the outset of the holiday season, it seems important to take some time to consider what holidays are. Holidays aren't just a break from the every day grind; that's a vacation. As the name implies, these are holy days, set apart for remembrance and reflection. A 24/7/365 world tends to blur the seasons and anniversaries that give a year shape. The more hurried we all become, the more we risk losing the significance of our connection to prior generations who celebrated these special days of the year not only as markers of time but as opportunities to gather, feast, and give thanks. If we could take the time to reflect and refocus, we may find that life is bigger than our needs and schedules.

ESV Study Bible

I purchased an ESV Study last night and am pretty excited about it. It's gotten excellent reviews and I think it will be a great aid for teaching and personal study. It did strike me though how expensive this bible is. Granted, I spent a little extra for the faux leather as opposed to the Dictionary-looking hardback version. The former retails at $74.99 and the latter at $49.99. I might not have taken plunge except that Lifeway was offering a 20% discount. Specific numbers aside though, I wonder about the ethical ramifications of producing and marketing a super-bible with a high price tag. I'm all for not muzzling the ox, but I really hope that these price points were considered in terms of kingdom impact and not just margins. I applaud The Standard Bible Society for making the ESV text freely available and searchable online. In this regard, anyone can read it.

The importance of friends who challenge

I recently had an hour-long conversation with a friend I've been trying to catch up with for at least 7-8 months. So finally after one of the worst games of phone tag in history, we had a chance to not just run each other through the list of updates in our lives but to go deeper and talk about what had effected the changes. As she shared about some of her recent experiences, she talked about the importance of having people in her life who knew her and challenged her to move forward, taking on and overcoming roadblocks that had been in place for years.
I have to question sometimes if I really seek out this kind of friendship in the ways that I invite others into my life. It's uncomfortable to have my sore spots and roadblocks challenged by others. It's easy to convince myself that they don't understand my situation and that somehow my inaction or lack of growth should be protected. I need to be reminded that it's not. I need my excuses repeated back to me to hear their hollowness. I need friends who are invested in my growth and rely on me for the same.

Hierarchy of digital communication

It seems like there's a certain hierarchy of digital interpersonal communication. It's almost innate as new technologies become commonplace. Some events warrant a text message but not a phone call or an IM but not an email. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I am at least trying to limit it to interpersonal communication, excluding modes like blogging, conference calls, etc. where there are multiple recipients. I'd actually be curious on how others perceive the order and even additional interpersonal modes to those below. Here's my top down list.

Video Teleconference
Phone Call
Push to talk / walkie-talkie
Email
Instant Message
Text message
Private social network message (facebook message)
Public social network message (facebook wall)

Rich people are spending less

According to an article on CNN.com, the slumping economy is impacting the consumption of extravagant luxury treats. No need to feel sorry for the rich, but it hurts the workers who provide the goods and services. So now for the ethical question: should we want rich people to live more indulgent lives so they can support low and middle income wages?

My car the car magnet

This weekend I paid the final payment on my car which means that for the first time in about 11 years, I'm finally driving a paid off vehicle. This morning on the way to work, I was rear-ended by an enormous truck. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and amazingly, my car didn't sustain any damage.

I am a little concerned though. The last paid off vehicle I owned was the trusty Ford Tempo which endured a spree of accidents, none my fault. This poor car was backed into at school, hit head on at an intersection, rear-ended on the way home from school, and finally backed into by Mom. I'm really hoping that I haven't ushered in some new curse of the paid off vehicle :)

My friend is no longer listed as married on facebook

I've seen this a couple of times on facebook in the last week. "friend's name here" is no longer listed as married. What's troubling is I'm not sure how to interpret that statement when I'm not very up on their marital situation to begin with. Is their marriage really over, or did something just happen on facebook? Seems a little awkward to ask.

John Piper on the Prosperity Gospel

Headlines can be deceiving

Headline on CNN: Gasoline Prices Slip Again
My Reaction: That's good news
Actual Article Content: "The average price of unleaded gasoline fell to $4.096 a gallon from $4.104 the previous day. The nationwide average is down nearly a penny from the all-time high of 4.108 a gallon."
Revised Reacation: This is not news.

Nearly a Penny? Thank goodness for this relief at the pump. How is this relevant? Seriously, are gas prices really slipping when they fall by 8/10 of a cent? I know math & business sticklers will say yes, but this is not news.

The Reflexive Nature of Senses

Even though our senses are primarily extroverted, it's interesting that they can reflect back their own nature. Our eyes can see themselves; our hands can feel themselves; our tongues can taste themselves; our noses can even smell themselves; our minds can think about themselves.

Something Better

It's an interesting phenomenon in Christian and non-Christian circles alike, that when something sad or disappointing happens, a friend will reassure the discouraged that there's something better waiting for him/her. I think there is a little bit of Biblical justification for this, in regard to God working all things together for good, but I'm not sure that there is any type of one-to-one ratio on this. In other words, if you apply for a job and don't get it, it might not be that it was a bad fit or even that God has a better job in store. It might be that it just didn't work out, as opportunities sometimes don't. There is likely something to be learned in the process of disappointment that contributes to sanctification, but I'm not sure if there is a promise beyond that. I only point this out to be realistic, not pessimistic. Treating disappointment as a rain check for a future blessing, while temporarily reassuring, can lead to a sense of entitlement that may or may not yield a result. If we intend to encourage, and not merely console others we should be careful in how we exhort others to handle disappointment.

Travel (reprise)

I have to echo my August 11, 2007 post about travel, ie: that I like being other places much more than the travel itself, especially when it involves airlines. I'll add at this point that a head cold with sinus congestion makes this even more true. My ears still haven't gotten over our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet.

Painting

After painting most of my house, I can't get away from the reality that everything surrounding the painting is really most of the work. Taping, covering, cleaning, redundant trips to Home Depot, etc have been much more tedious and time consuming than rolling and brushing paint onto the walls. Insert life application here.

The Question

It had been a while since the question had come up. “Your brothers are both so musically talented. Why don’t you play anything?” I used to get the question a lot at the church where I grew up. My dad was one of the pastors at the biggest church in town, so my brothers and I were sort of like local celebrities, but in none of the good ways. Imagine the weather guy from the local news channel that you see in the grocery store; he’s not anyone you’d brag about meeting, but you might look over your shoulder to see what kind of cereal he buys. And if you saw that he was buying Lucky Charms, you might have the thought that a guy like that should have better sense than to buy sugary cereals. All that to say that it seemed that everyone had an opinion about us, and it’s something I’ve had to spend some time getting over. The question itself is benign, it’s a curiosity to most people, but I don’t like what it implies, ie: that because my brothers were musically gifted beyond belief that my lack of the gift is some sort of intentional staying of the hand of God. I don’t know the answer; in fact I’m not sure there needs to be an answer. I got some other pretty good gifts, and I get to enjoy their music without the burden of performance. All of this is a bit difficult to explain, and probably a bit much to drop on someone for an honest question, but if you’ve read this post, you now know me a little better.

Patience

Much of life comes too late for me. When it does finally come it doesn’t always feel that way, but on the front-end there isn’t much patience. It’s hard to say that. I feel like I’ve done a lot of waiting so that should equal patience, but patience and waiting are probably two different things. Several aspects of my life have involved much waiting, but admittedly, little of it has been patient. I’m not sure whether waiting is a virtue or not; it would seem unfair to only be credited for the times when I really had peace about the waiting.

Postmodern

At times I get tired of the term postmodern. It seems that everything is called postmodern these days. I guess even defining postmodern is somewhat 'modern' as it seeks to draw boundaries, but I would still contend that the term is overused on a large scale. Like true cynicism, true postmodernism is impossible to maintain, unless of course, it's converted to a buzzword that means what we decide that it means.

In possibly the longest sentence ever, sociologist Dick Hebdige discusses the term:

When it becomes possible for people to describe as ‘postmodern’ the décor of a room, the design of a building, the diegesis of a film, the construction of a record, or a ‘scratch’ video, a television commercial, or an arts documentary, or the ‘intertextual’ relations between them, the layout of a page in a fashion magazine or critical journal, an anti-teleological tendency within epistemology, the attack on the ‘metaphysics of presence’ a general attenuation of feeling, the collective chagrin and morbid projections of a post-War generation of baby boomers confronting disillusioned middle-age, the ‘predicament of reflexitivity, a group of rhetorical tropes, a proliferation of surfaces, a new phase in commodity fetishism, a fascination for images, codes and styles, a process of cultural, political or existential fragmentation and/or crisis, the ‘de-centring’ of the subject, an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’, the replacement of unitary power axes by a plurality of power/discourse formations, the ‘implosion of meaning’, the collapse of cultural hierarchies, the dread engendered by the threat of nuclear self-destruction, the decline of the university, the functioning and effects of the new miniaturised technologies, broad societal and economic shifts into a ‘media’, ‘consumer’ or ‘multinational’ phase, a sense (depending on who you read) of ‘placelessness’ or the abandonment of ‘placelessness’ (critical regionalism) or (even) a generalised substitution of spatial for temporal coordinates: when it becomes possible to describe all these things as ‘postmodern’ (or more simply using a current abbreviation as ‘post’ or ‘very post’) then it’s clear we are in the presence of a buzzword.

Top 5

What are the five most important things in your life? They could be ideals, activities, people groups or feelings. I'm pondering mine.

Pain of loss

I read an interesting quote in an article today:

The deep fear behind every loss is that we have been abandoned by the God who should have saved us. The transforming moment in Christian conversion comes when we realize that even God has left us. We then discover it was not God, but our image of God that abandoned us.... Only then is change possible. - When God Interrupts, Craig Barnes