Can't: Hard Lessons From the Foreign Classroom

I know I’m supposed to be the teacher and all, captivating my Korean munchkins with the wonders of the English alphabet, but most of the time it is yours truly who does the learning. But it isn't the kind of learning that builds on top of previous knowledge until someday one has a grand coliseum of wisdom and understanding. No, for me I've been learning the same friggin’ thing over and over. Everyday the clear-as-a-bell truth that rings in my face and rattles my heart is simple. Do you want to know what it is?


I can’t.


That's it.


Because most of the time I think pretty highly of myself. “I got my stuff together, I know what I’m talking about.” So it’s like a boulder thrown at my head every time I (re)learn this not-very-fun fact about myself: that I can’t do it. God, I’ve come to understand, doesn't want me confident. He doesn't want me confident in me. He’s made this clear. And what better way to shrink my false confidence than to put me in a place—in front of a classroom—where I come face to face with my perfect inability.


Let me break it down in no uncertain terms. When a classroom of deviant, oft-lethargic, post-lunch second graders grace my chairs with their rear-ends, I am quickly met with The Nick That Can’t, the Nick of patient-less-ness, kind-less-ness and foul-mouthed-ness, not the Nick of supreme glee and agape.


I’m needy. But not for alms, for God Himself. The real me is Beggar. But often Beggar gets crowded out by other versions I like better, the Strong me, the Capable me, the Competent me. These versions sound good but they sure as heck don’t bring me to my knees.


Thus the lessons—one, two, three, four, five, etc.—are all the same: I’m untrustworthy to produce the virtues I need to obey God. Call it Adam’s seed. The only thing you can trust me with producing is more need. There’s a harvest full. So it works out because God is not frugal with grace (charis). We

export the need and lack and He imports to us all things that pertain to life and godliness at no cost (2 Peter 1:3). Isn’t this the way it is with Him?


Some of my classes I loathe, legitimately. I told a co-worker one time I’d rather go to the dentist for fifty minutes than struggle to curb the anarchy. I have literally held and carried kids around to refrain them from wreaking havoc.


It’s here, where I'm losing my mind, I surrender to God. If my heavenly Father didn’t withhold from me—dead and sinning, loser me—His Son to set me free from sin, than surely everything else I need to live a conquering life He’s freely given. And that includes the love, gentleness, faithfulness, etc. I need to teach.


Now, I do what Watchman Nee and David Wilkerson have taught me. I rest.


It’s second nature to strive and fight and try to conjure up the things we lack. Alas, it’s vain. This is what I’ve learned. I can’t. I can’t do it. I have nothing to offer myself. No matter what I do. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me (John 15:4). Branches don’t clench their fists. They don’t foam at the mouth. They don’t strive to produce what they can’t on their own. They rest, rest in the vine and suck up everything that flows from it.


The Christian Job Description: abide and receive the flow.


We're just weary deserts of skin and bones, but the Holy Spirit, that foundation of life, flows from within. Let's be proper branches, then, and rest in His divine power to supply us with everything we need, everything we lack (2 Peter 1:3).


***

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The Mind's Giving to Things

"Truth consists in the mind's giving to things the importance they have in reality." - Jean Daniélou

About as Kind-Hearted as a Wolf

When I was a kid I took for granted that America was the greatest country in the world, if it ever was. Didn’t we hear it all the time? In movies and speeches, classrooms and hallways, it just was. It was reality. Who wouldn’t want to believe something so lovely? I felt like a hero just knowing that fact.

No one questioned it. We didn’t know that was even an option, but why would you? You can’t question something so – so true!

The brilliance of our republic was great. It was a real beckon of hope to millions of lives. No one would argue. But with such a bright history it’s no wonder so many find it (seemingly) unbearable to say goodnight to those national hopes. We don’t want to believe all that is over.

But over it is. Gone are the days when our presidents were respected, when our citizens were happy, when the world awed at our blessings. Long gone. If you haven’t realized this, you probably feel it.

Soon though it will be clear as a bell.

The reasons for the end of our glory days are many yet people I see and work with everyday aren’t aware and live as if it all means nothing. So I’m going to spend time laying out (some of) the elements, one by one. The ones that can’t go ignored.

***

"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." - Edward Murrow

I was washing dishes one morning at work – in a home with intellectually-handicapped children – and one of my coworkers can’t not have the local news blaring whether she’s in the room or not. I can’t stand that. Plus, to make things better, she’s terrifically in love with complaining about her life to everyone not interested.

From where I was in the kitchen you could look through a cutout in the wall directly above the sink and see the television in the living room. The news anchor started talking about armored vehicles or something for local police in western Washington. Hello! A jolt of information went off in me. I looked up, listening with all my life, drying some dish.

I tuned everything else out. Had to. She, the anchor, went on about the government’s new policies or some new program - maybe she said it was issued from the Pentagon, I can’t remember. Basically, local police were getting an upgrade. A militarized upgrade.

Then the next topic. That was it. So nonchalant and smooth. Accept it and move on, they seemed to say.

But how could we, especially when we know the founding fathers would whole-heartedly disapprove? Why do the local police need equipment used in war?

This has spawned heaps of books and articles and interviews with experts, one of them being John Whitehead, attorney, author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and president and spokesperson of The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit devoted to civil liberties and human rights.

American historian, political analyst and author Tom Woods interviewed John Whitehead and there is a sixteen-minute clip that lays out some of the important basics. Take 1% of your day and listen to it (watch below).

And if you like to read, two other books that may be of interest are Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces and How America Was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Warfare State. All three books are available on Kindle as well.

Bigger guns, more gear, stronger and tougher machines may not seem like a huge deal. After all, we've been told the Pentagon just had extra stuff and gave it away. That was it, simple. But why couldn't police in San Diego return their armored vehicles? I mean, let's be honest, when will they ever use them? Useful or not you don't just send back a gift from the Pentagon.

There's more going on here than just an awkward gift exchange. There's an agenda. More on that next. In the meantime, start asking questions, read some articles (there are dozens online), and talk with local police.

***



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He Said Unto Me, Dig!

It started with JFK. I didn't know much about the conspiracy to kill president John F. Kennedy until early this year. Hearing bits and pieces throughout my life was never enough to get me interested. Until... Scanning books on my Amazon app, a small addiction of mine, I came across a book by a guy named Jim Marrs called Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, which was later used by filmmaker Oliver Stone for his 1991 film JFK. Something about the book, but probably just the possibility there was an actual "plot" to murder a president, got to me. I stared at the photo on the cover and read reviews.

Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson, Jim Garrison, Jack Ruby, the freakin' Mafia, Cuba, Russia, double agents, reality doesn't get much more interesting than this, folks! I found and devoured They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK authored by Jesse Ventura with the help of researchers Dick Russell and David Wayne. It immediately became apparent (but don't take my word for it) that the "theories" of an outrageous and inconceivable plot to murder in cold blood one of our most beloved presidents were hardly theories at all. The evidence that JFK's assassination was the machinations of a top-secret and widely-

collaborated effort was overwhelming, and that's the most neutral way I can put it.

But even with gapping holes in the official story the heralds of the masses continued broadcasting their message. The official story, that Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone lunatic working by himself, murdered JFK, is no doubt less-demanding on us citizens than a conspiracy involving the highest government officials and members of the Mafia. Because if the latter is true we can't in good conscience just continue our daily routines unmoved, believing foolishly everything is hunky-dory. And if what the U.S. citizens are (still) being told are blatant lies than we have a moral issue on our hands and that demands proper reflection and action. The truth complicates.

That was almost a year ago. Since then I've zig-zagged across the spectrum of lies and coverups. I learned about John Perkins, an economic hit man, and how his whole job was ensnaring developing countries in a web of debt with the United States (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man). I learned about Project Paperclip, the secretive searching-out and bringing-over of Nazi scientists to our country during and after World War II. We gave them homes, cars and jobs in universities and invited them to continue their research and experiments in things like mind control, which led me to Brice Taylor, MKULTRA and the splitting of personalities through trauma. The deeper I went the more outrageous and heinous things got.

But even with many of these being common knowledge I get looks from people that tell me I've crossed the line. They don't want to know. Though, the terrible truth is there are weightier issues, things I've heard and wish weren't true.

In the end, everything hidden will be uncovered (Luke 8:17). But what you know and understand now just could save a life. Lacking knowledge destroys (Hosea 4:6).

Your thoughts He knows. My plans He knows. Even the birds He pays mind. Nothing escapes God. No sleight of hand is quick enough to slip pass His eyes. No game of hide-n-seek will conjure the same excitement. His knowledge of us is annoyingly and awkwardly intimate. So surely the conspiring of crooked criminals and corrupt angels God knows as well. Ezekiel the prophet found out just how heartbreakingly-thorough God's knowledge was. God had to take - literally, by his hair! - the prophet and show him what was happening in the dark of His temple, His holy house. "Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door." (Eze 8:8, KJV) Ezekiel eventually discovered, with God's help, scores of men throwing out God's commands as if an old rag, erecting images and worshipping false gods; gods unworthy of even the lower-case-"g" version of that word.

God knew. Ezekiel didn't. God showed. Ezekiel wrote.

The truth is not easily apparent, often. Add on top of that the fact that elaborate systems function to keep certain truths suppressed. If a person or a society live within such a false reality long enough the Actually Real will become un-confront-able (to a certain extent). And thus, God Himself had to baptize Ezekiel into Reality!

I have never met someone who was snatched up by God by the hair but my spirit knows God reveals truth today to those called, to those willing and seeking, to those humble and lowly. Discovering the truth will mean digging. Digging is work. Ezekiel dug. Jim Garrison dug. Splitting the Sky dug. Mark Flynn dug. They too found doors leading to secret chambers.

For the next little while, if you visit this space, I pray you will find light in the labyrinth and hear whispers through a megaphone. The evening news, the political charades, the happy-clappy mantras of collapsing empires that drown out the quiet voice of Truth end here. The bulk of my writings will be sharing what I've learned, what, by God's grace, I have read and researched, resources to learn more and anything else I think will help or inspire normal people to know and act and live in a world gone mad. After hours and hours of gathering information, in my opinion, our world and specifically the United States is ripe for major shifts and not for the better. Like I said, the truth complicates, but it also compels. May it compel you!

Jesus is the real, "the really Real" as Brennan Manning puts it, the ultimate and most invigorating Truth. Truth is a person and I love and follow Him and thus we should never shy away from that which is real, big or small, because, at the end of the day, Jesus knows all about it. If He desires He'll give us all the grace to handle and understand.

Grace and Peace to you.

***

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If the False Self Could Sing: Art With Neko Case

Oh, I would never do that!

To this a good psychologist might ask, "And just who is this I?"

Is the "I" not that which we wish to show to the world? That image of smart, strong, moral, sexually proficient - whatever it is - we are preserving, creation of our own hands, to illicit the response we want most desperately from people? Say, respect or admiration.

As necessary as that is at some level, the "I" has an issue with honesty. This is because it's proficient in lying. It's not that the "I" isn't strong or smart or hip or whatever at times. What's false is the uniformity. There's more. There's a surplus to the "I" we present to the world. These other selves (of ourselves). Which forever haunt our nice and pretty images like ghosts on strings.

And this is where we get into trouble because the fortress of our "I" doesn't have extra room (or time!) for loose, wandering selves. "We're running a tight campaign here, people! Anything that doesn't fit with our agenda - our image - must be thrown into the dungeon! Capiche?!"

What happens is the parts of ourselves that don't line up with how we want to be seen get the shaft and get roped down in the dark depths of our unconscious, rarely, if ever, to see the light of day, except of coarse by mistake (Freudian slips, etc.), so as to leave the parts in the limelight untainted. Let's face it: we all do this.

People, though, are these other parts and that's important. Repressing them only makes matters worse. A perfect and primmer image often means imminent breakdown, which, psychologically, is really good. This fortress, castle, and self-created image is what Thomas Merton and Richard Rohr and David Benner would all call the False Self.

One of the absolute worse things you could do to your False Self is to be honest. Being honest about all the parts of yourself, but particularly the parts you've hidden away, out of sight, out of mind, because they don't look good with the image you've become obsessed with maintaining, begins the dismantling of the image and the journey toward genuine change.

Try it. When quiet and alone, sit down and openly and sincerely invite all the parts of yourself to get together, no matter who might show up. Like an AA meeting of sorts. This will probably take loads of time, and several tries to get everyone there. Having removed all filters, corporate political agendas, and other truth inhibitors, hand the microphone around and give voice to everyone present. Let them introduce themselves and share a little of their testimony. Listen up.

Maturity: giving opportunity for the beautiful in us, as well as the disfigured and downright absurd, to speak and to sing.

All this really annoying talk of psychology and spiritual formation has got me thinking about my favorite musician at the moment, believe it or not.

On ANTI Record's website, I started searching for tantalizing new music to send chills tap-dancing down my spine. Or just something that didn't suck, something better than, say, Chumbawamba. Cake for a record label with the brains to sign brilliant musical artists such as Sean Rowe, Mavis Staples, The Milk Carton Kids, and Saintseneca.

I clicked Neko Case.

I'd seen that name before, but now I had her cover art staring at me, which I found weird. She's running, with sword in hand, toward three sketchy els. What an oddball. The album is called The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You. Plus, she's from Tacoma, Washington (where I live). What's not to love?

I bought the album eventually, having only heard two tracks. Shit, it's good. I was surprised. A country twang here. Lyrical swag there. Sometimes bold and haunting. Always alternative. Some melodies are lovely and arresting. Others almost make me want to skip the track.

But it's that very element I find so alluring in Neko Case. It's her difference. Her multifacetedness. (If I can make up a word!) Her ability to pull out the charming and unnatural. Her album lacks shallow uniformity.

If the False Self could sing it'd belt out its baritone as a created image, as a neat and tidy, all-together and presentable "work of art." The False Self cares too much about how it looks to its audience in order to make good and honest music. And oh how it loves its audience! (What's stupid, though, is I don't know if Neko Case is writing music freed from image. It's impossible to say since an individual living as a False Self is usually unaware themselves of this very fact! Her album could end up being the very manifestation of a False Self, although I don't believe so. All I know is her stupid album has got me thinking too damn much.)

It seems to me that good, mature songwriting takes place after one couldn't care less about the False Self and all image-making and maintaining. This kind of music would be honest above all else, giving voice to whatever there was to give voice to, the lovely and beautiful, the odd and absurd. No filters. No agendas. Just great music.

Go listen to Neko Case to see what I mean (or this will forever remain incoherent babble). And might she be our soundtrack to writing, painting, and dancing after having given our ears to the hidden and suppressed, odd and absurd selves of ourselves.

Be honest.

Old Man In the Library: When Knowledge Is Rendered Pointless

Late sixties or early seventies I'd guess, capped with a hat my younger brother would buy from a thrift store and dressed in a shirt and blue jeans he has probably owned for years, his big, hairy hands were frenzying about stacking and re-stacking numerous audio books he had picked out for himself atop the shelf, as if organizing them into some system only he knew. I was curiously browsing the rows, nonchalantly.

I glanced at his stack, hoping the direction of my eyes remained unnoticed by him, wondering what in the world this old man was after. War history, economics, politics, science, his interest ran broad. Toward the bottom of his stack I recognized Christopher Hitchens' Mortality and decided to comment since I had been listening to Hitchens' memoir Hitch-22 in my car that week and since he seemed inclined toward conversation.

The exact comment I made I do not recall. What I do remember is he bounced into conversation with me, as though he had been eagerly desiring it, as though he could hardly wait to tell me about his great stack of audio books. In a bewildering flurry, words and stories flew from his mouth.

He is a Vietnam veteran and a retired chemical engineer and completely obsessed with learning - that stack was all his! He told me he agreed with Hitchens. Religion poisons. I slipped in that I was a christian, which, in retrospect, I suppose was my way of informing him that I wasn't going to be hostile or argumentative (particularly since I, too, think some religion poisons quite resolutely). He wasn't phased, though I thought he might think it strange I would read Hitchens, being a popular fundamentalist atheist while he was alive.

This man reminded me of my friends Jeremy Strain and Ben Prindle and also myself, though my friends could actually hold a mature conversation. He continued talking, passionately commenting on Richard Dawkins - of course! - and having heard him lecture twice, somewhere in the area, Oliver Sacks, whose Hallucinations he recommended to me, being open to the truth, which I told him was a passion and concern of mine as well, and a variety of other topics he deemed suitable to bring up in this crash-coarse "conversation" I had been sucked into.

There was no break between his words and hardly time for taking a breath. Apparently, there was just too much to say to ease up and actually be present with another person, to receive what someone else might have to offer, however simple, however profound. Anything I wanted to say had to be coerced through his near impenetrable sentences.

His insatiable appetite for knowledge, and at his age, though at first was inspiring, quickly became, for me in that moment at least, his downfall. Once, I came close to stopping him mid-sentence - there was no other way - and offering him advice on how to actually converse with a stranger, or anyone for that matter, if he cared. Does he talk like this to everyone? My god! To me, knowledge about social and political issues, historical events, or ancient metaphysics amounts to nothing - as in who cares! - if that person is unable to hold a normal conversation with another human being.

I'm not saying this man sucks or I hate him. Nothing of the sort. If anything, I'm glad I encountered him. I just find the acquisition of facts or truth or reality coupled with the inability to shut your yapper and listen backwards. Wisdom is quick to listen, slow to speak, I'm nearly certain.

Eventually, I had to cut him off because it was time for me to leave the library and meet up with some friends who were by now surely waiting for me. I never got his name but I shook his burly hand and told him to enjoy his audio books. He assured me he would, though for some reason now I doubt he will.

Inside my mind or my heart or both there is a pitcher, sometimes empty, sometimes full, sometimes partly filled. And for a reason I am unaware and outside my control when people talk to me and for long periods of time, for me, my pitcher fills up quick. After this I begin to wane and need to pour out. But if someone talks with me, when they pour and I receive and then I pour and they receive I am energized and strengthened like little else.

This dance, this flow, this art - why, I don't know - has become a rare gift, possibly even among those in our society we should expect to find it. Like words and sacrifice emptied of love, knowledge and a searching for truth doesn't mean wisdom and maturity is the soil from which such a pursuit should flower up. It's a shame.

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Thinking on Christopher Rollston a Year Later

I've written about Christopher Rollston before, former professor of Old Testament and Semitic Studies at what is now called Emmanuel Christian Seminary, formerly Emmanuel School of Religion. Like I've previously said, my friend Ben and I became interested onlookers to the situation as it began to unravel a year ago (If you haven't already, it will be a good idea to read at least the few beginning paragraphs of my previous post).

This situation, I think I can speak for both of us, intrigued us, at least partially because we had learned together about Peter Enns, once an Old Testament professor, as well, at Westminster Theological Seminary before falling prey to it. Upon the release of his book Inspiration and Incarnation in 2005, in which he writes honestly about difficult Old Testament issues, criticism stirred regarding whether or not the conclusions he made fit within the doctrinal commitments of Westminster. Long story short: they didn't. He transitioned out, became an independent scholar, and, like a boss, continued writing important books, like The Evolution of Adam in 2012.

Ever since learning about Peter Enns I've been more empathetic toward Christian academics employed at Christian universities and somewhat interested in academic freedom, admits often strict doctrinal statements, and the possibility of a "Christian" institution.

Well, Christopher Rollston has reflected upon the last year of his life via his website, Rollston Epigraphy, a couple days ago, putting his situation in some much-needed context, context that honestly brought tears to my eyes as I read, trying to grasp the layers of grief and turmoil brewing underneath the surface of his dramatic removal from Emmanuel Christian Seminary as a loyal and inspiring teacher. I've never met Rollston, and doubt I ever will, but my heart felt for him albeit in a very small way.

Back when I first learned about it, I think my interest in Rollston's situation was made immediately compelling because of my interest in Thom Stark, a former student of Rollston's. My respect for Stark was and is huge, first because of his personal blog that, at the time, challenged some of my taken-for-granted beliefs about Jesus and other doctrines students of Scripture should find naturally alluring and second because of his important book The Human Faces of God.

Some books are entertaining and you're glad you read them, though they quickly slip into the realm of forgotten things. Others offer an affirming pat on the back: "You already believe all the right things." But every so often there's a book that will leave you stunned and even wounded, beyond repair, in the best possible way. Stark's book is this and more. It's a loaded canon purposely pointed at the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as most evangelicals have come to know it, consciously or not, which is important to me since I was taught this, more or less, at college and was the general consensus among the student body and faculty. The provocative honestly and rich substance of Thom's book satisfied me deeply. From then on I've kept an eye on Stark and his work and obviously became very interested if and when he ever mentioned his teachers. Who do people I respect respect?

During his beloved professor's controversy, Thom advocated for Rollston fervently and masterfully combated some shallow opposition to Rollston's Huffington Post article, which he obviously defended because it was true, on Religion at the Margins.

I say all this about Thom because if I respect him as I do then I should at least pause for a moment to offer my mental respects to Rollston, his teacher. If you want to know how well a teacher teaches, watch, listen, and engage his or her students. This doesn't mean that the brilliance of a teacher always trickles on down to inspire the minds of students, but it will some of the time. It's obvious after reading through many "Open Letters" from Rollston's students that his brilliance was translatable more often than not.

They wrote over and over about how Rollston taught them, inspired them with his intellectual honesty and faithful scholarship, opened up Scripture to them in a deep and profoundly impacting way, and nourished the skeleton bones of weak, unthinking Christian faith.

This stirs me up inside because I, too, have had such teachers. I recall Charles Lee, as a freshman, sophomore, and junior reflecting on his own life, faith, and doubt in ways that left me bare and astonished. He challenged us to take faith seriously, to ask the hard questions, to grow up and stop acting like pansy-ass Christians and actually follow Jesus. Or, who could forget the varsity theology couch Jim Adams with his stripped sweaters? I am indebted to his realness, his work, his life.

And it was these kinds of teachers that, for me, that had the greatest impact. It was never the ones that affirmed everything I believed nor never called me out for flimsy theology. Real teachers leave you shocked, annoyed, and often with a wounded faith, but only because the faith that was there before was impoverished or needed to be shot. Real teachers know that there's a time for building and a time for ruining. Rollston seemed to have this figured out. This is why I write about this now. We need teachers like him more than ever when institutions seek donors and their donations more than the reason they were established in the first place: to teach.

... I wasn't planning on writing a full-blown post. My plan was to simply share Rollston's reflections on this last year. Even if you're only vaguely familiar, or not at all, it could be a good read. It was for me.

Do I Like Her?

The guy in this old, blurry photograph looks like he could be asking this question. "She's pretty, but she sure don't dance like my mama taught me!"

Romantic relationships are baffling. I mean really people, how in the hell?!

I complicated things, as if potential relationships weren’t complicated enough, and always before they ever began. Thus I decided, and successfully managed I might add, to steer clear of them my entire adolescence and beyond, until now, at the dawning of my twenty-seventh year. How I was able to sustain such a lifestyle, for some, is incomprehensible.

The deep ruts of my single habits began to level-out not long after meeting her (which, I am fully aware, is a distasteful flaunting-of-a-sentence to any even mildly pessimistic single person!). But don’t get me wrong; I still overthought it all.

The big obstacle in the beginning was figuring out if I liked her, which was something I, as the man, had to conclude, and fast, according to the advice of friends, pastors, and other voices from within the evangelical blogosphere.

Yet, no matter how many times I heard this, that the guy has to get his shit together and decide if he likes her, as to not play with her heart, I had difficulty stomaching it.

Not wanting to “lead her on” and other Christian dating failures, I started obsessing about these questions: “Am I interested?” “Do I like her?” “Am I intrigued?”

Bla, bla, bla, whatever!

These questions were about as helpful as a fork in a sugar bowl. They fell flat and left an eerie echo in my head. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why the hell I would want to base my decision to “pursue” this girl on an answer to a question that was ultimately about me.

Granted I can’t just extract myself from the equation. I am a part of this potential relationship. But there’s no way I was going to be satisfied grounding my decision solely on how I felt. And yet I was stumped. I couldn’t think of anything better.

I started asking co-workers, if given a chance, about what they thought were good reasons to start a romantic relationship. Wow, lots of interesting answers came in, which left me all the more baffled, until a better question finally arrived at me.

Where did it come from? I don’t know. All that matters is that its simplicity graced the contours of my thoughts and whose answer gave me the confidence to, finally, move forward - and thank God I did.

Instead of those self-centered questions - whose answers, I hope you realize, have no substantial consequences for the girl - what about this: Would I sacrifice my life for her?

Hear me out. I’m not talking about taking a bullet for her, although that may not be a bad question to ask either. It’s more subtle. Would I lay down my life - habits, space, time, meritocracy, even dreams - to be with her?

For some it might be too early to tell. For me: lightbulb!

I was lucky. I had been getting to know this girl via email for nearly six months before I learned to ask this question. I knew her well. And what I knew I loved. I loved her dreams to help broken, hurting people, to contribute to people’s good. I loved her passion for listening to other’s stories and being compelled to weave the thread of God’s grace across hearts once broken. I loved her excitement for travel, books, and ideas. I loved her past, though grossly painful at points, her present, and where she saw herself down the road.

Did I like her? Definitely. But more importantly, I realized I was, and am, willing to support her story and hopes and dreams to the point of laying my life down, that she might flourish and live her dreams.

It was that question and that answer that turned things on for me, that made clear what was before muddied.

Yes, I want to be with her.

Death of a Salesman: Freedom and Death

“Oh, the ludicrousy of it all! The supreme senselessness!”

These words seem all too appropriate as she stands stunned, possibly trembling, her ill countenance toward the earth her once-living husband now lays beneath, the man she loved to, and beyond, death. On the last page of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, widowed Linda stutters to herself, informing her dead husband, “I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home...” And in penetrating ambiguity announces, “We’re free and clear... We’re free... We’re free...”

There in the margin I wrote, “Freedom and Death”... Linda's peculiar "We're free" lodged itself in my thinking.

In regards to Linda, what was she saying there by the grave? What kind of freedom was this? Was it not hugely ironic? I suppose on the one hand, Linda is “free” from her relentless mortgage payments, the bills that landed monthly in the mailbox. She is “free” to enjoy her home without the pulsing anxiety that this time next month the same amount is due, again. A “freedom” many Americans would die for - pun intended.

And yet, what is freedom without the one you love? Is she now “free” to be alone, in some house she once called home, though she would gladly choose life for her husband above all else? Is she “free” from Willy, even as she longs for him?

And what about Willy? What kind of freedom is he offered? Is he free to enjoy the peace of having paid off his house, to take up time of leisure and plant a garden, read a book, mow the grass, clean the kitchen? Or did his freedom show up as the end of life itself, the end of memory, romance, and faith? What kind of freedom, if any, lies in death?

So: Does death bring freedom? If yes, what kind? And, more urgently, could it be obtained while one still lives? Is there freedom in life? This is the question haunting me at the moment.

See, because I don’t want freedom after I’m dead - I’m not so sure there is such a thing. Freedom, if anything, must be a category of the living, for death would be the end to freedom itself.

Death of a Salesman

At times I was almost stunned by Arthur Miller’s pen, his gift for inking his imagination and making fiction so believable. The American playwright wrote Death of a Salesman in 1949, a story, it would seem to me, of/for today as much as it was then.

Daniel Mullen, a faraway friend in the state of Virginia, recommended I read it some weeks ago. I told him later, after devouring Act 1, I was caught off guard by how it resonated with me, how it played me like an instrument, the simplicity of the story, the depth of the characters (even if I didn’t realize it at first), the tumultuous family dynamics.

A tragedy to be sure, Death of a Salesman captures the absurdity, the insistence, of the American Dream, the zealous and hazardous optimism of mid-twentieth-century middle class.

After working his ass off his entire life for the same company, Willy Loman, a salesman and delusionally optimistic, now late in age and strapped for cash ironically, finds himself estranged from what actually matters at the end of the day: family and himself. Arguably, at the worse possible time Willy dies.

Biff, the eldest of Willy’s two sons, who had anything but a straightforward, healthy relationship with his father, in graveside honesty, wraps up, “He had the wrong dreams. All, all, wrong.” The younger son, Happy, passionately retorts, “Don’t say that!”

Biff responds, “He never knew who he was.”

In one line, one puff, Willy’s life is rendered vanity. Not just a bitter, insensitive conclusion from a critical son, I imagine this was the source of Biff’s inspiration - a man, according to Willy who had been perpetually caught in "finding himself" - to move beyond his father’s petty dream, a dream that rose out of a false-self, an exaggerated, untrue version of who he was. A distorted self, a distorted dream.

I finished Miller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama in two sittings. I recommend you do the same.

The Stories Jesus Told: The Parable of the Pounds pt.1

Kenneth E. Bailey, Th.D., scholar and lecturer in Middle Eastern New Testament Studies, through his fascinating book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, has been teaching me about Jesus’ parables. I’ve been enjoying this book slowing, using it mainly as a resource for my sermon series on the parables, which is just underway. If the teenagers scattered along the couches at youth group find it equally as interesting I will sleep soundly.

My preparation for next week has me reading the chapter on (what my Bible calls) “The Parable of the Ten Minas.” Professor Bailey renders it “The Parable of the Pounds.” The cultural insights available in his book inspire me to share the goodness within.

Luke explains that Jesus tells this parable to the gathered crowd because they supposed the kingdom of God was about to come, like, immediately; no doubt, in part, because Jesus tells Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house.” In the imaginations of Jesus’ hearers “salvation” and “the kingdom of God” go hand in hand. If the kingdom had come to Zacchaeus’ house, surely it’s here for the nation! But that just isn’t the plan. Thus the story.

A nobleman, so the story goes, gathers ten servants and tells them, “Hey, I’m traveling to a country far away to receive a kingdom, but I am coming back don’t worry. Take this $5,000 - a gift for you - and open up shops downtown and spend your time conducting business there in my name. Though there’s much uncertainty, I will return.” In times of such transition, Bailey explains, anything can happen. Herod the Great, in 40 B.C., set out for Rome seeking Roman appointment as king. He returned as king. The same cannot be said of his son Archelaus B.C. He was banished.

But the potential opposition doesn’t end there. In the parable, the citizens hated the nobleman and sent out a delegation, in hopes of stopping him, whether that meant undermining his mission or worse. Bailey’s literal translation here (of verse 14) reveals something interesting:

But his citizens hated him and sent an embassy after him, saying, “We do not want this…to reign over us.”

This what? It doesn’t say, the word/phrase is omitted. This is a deleted expletive. Basically, fill in your preferred profanity.

The nobleman’s servants are more than aware of the presence of the nobleman’s enemies. The servants could easily have wondered what would happen if the enemies overcame their master. What would happen to them? What would happen to their business? Activities like this are dangerous in such a heated climate of hated opposition. It might be smarter to wait it out, to see what happens, hold onto the money, keep it safe. It might not be worth the risk. The enemies could rob the shop, revile them, and worse.

Bailey writes,

No one knows how such a perilous journey will end. The nobleman wants to know, “Are you willing to take the risk and openly declare yourselves to be my loyal servants (during my absence) in a world where many oppose me and my rule? … Once I return, having received kingly power, it will be easy to declare yourself publicly to be my loyal servants. I am more interested in how you conduct yourselves when I am absent and you have to pay a high price to openly identify yourself with me.”

The nobleman indeed receives kingly power in spite of attempts of the opposite. Reasonably, he wants to know what diepragmateusanto. This Greek word is not used again in the New Testament. Primarily, it means “How much business has been transacted” and secondly as “How much has been gained by trading.”

The difference is critical. If the master wants to find out what has been gained by trading, he will ask some form of “Show me the money.” But if he is asking, “How much business have you transacted?” he is seeking to discover the extent to which they have openly and publicly declared their loyalty to him during the risky period of his absence.

Let’s experiment. If the master is after profits, the money, then the “faithful” servants are rewarded because they made the master richer. The higher the profit the more faithful the servant is. Too, the “wicked” servant is the one who didn’t make the master richer. “You didn’t open up shop, nor even invested?! You fool! Give me my money back!” But, “faithful” and “wicked” seem odd in this context, no? Particularly if the nobleman in the parable is Jesus, which Bailey affirms.

Though if the master is concerned with how much business the servants conducted in - how much they publicly risked themselves in the master’s absence inspite of opposition - and not primarily with the extra cash in his pocket, “faithful” and “wicked” are rendered quite differently. The question is not how much money but how much business. Essentially, quantity not quality. Thus the most “faithful” is the servant who conducted the most business and “wicked” is the servant who didn’t at all.

This parable can easily be interpreted about money, particularly if we fail to consider Bailey’s insight about the word diepragmateusanto. But in light of this word, the minas the servants gained should be seen as how much business they conducted in. Because it’s not hard to imagine that first servant getting lucky one day and selling to a rich man. Perhaps he made ten minas all in one transaction while the second servant made only five minas but conducting business over many weeks. In this case, the latter servant - the one who only made five minas but conducted more overall business - is more “faithful.” If diepragmateusanto is to be interpreted as Bailey suggests, the minas should then represent business conducted.

But why did the “wicked” servant make such difficult accusations toward his master, calling him, essentially, a thief? This question is more troubling if we assume the master is Christ. With professor Bailey’s help, to that question (and more) I will turn to next.

Take Heart: Preaching to Ten

Tonight all I was given were looks of boredom. Granted it may have been unintentional, just the uncomfortable facial expressions of teenagers sitting in a muggy room. And I know how torturous that can be (especially when it’s amazing sunny out). Like trying to crank out math problems - or anything with a fair amount of mental strain - in a stuffy room. My palms are sweaty just thinking of it.

So, if I am to perfect this art, this calling, called preaching I need not be easily influenced by looks that say to me, “Ugh, why are you talking?” or “I’m bored, entertain me!” or “You just keep repeating yourself” - yawn. These are only my interpretations, though some may be right. But let’s be optimistic for a moment. Who me?

What if even one teenager out of those ten, sitting in the shape of a horseshoe in front of me, experienced something profound? Wait, is that too optimistic? Ok, what if one teenager learned one thing that’s going to stick with her for the next week? (God, at least one week!) Or what if just one is convicted and experiences grace, or freedom or some other divine gift that opens him up to love God more properly? I mean, who knows what could be going on underneath those crimpled faces, in the dark unknown of their souls, that in the moment test everything I am made of.

Driving home I had an idea to take a bunch of close-up photos of people’s bored and tired faces, print them out and pin them up somewhere, maybe on the wall of my room and practice preaching to them throughout the week to hopefully someday overcome the feelings these faces stir within me. I feel this could actually help.

I’d rather stand in front of a hundred people or a thousand. I’m not just saying that. A few years ago I preached during chapel at college on fearing God from Job 29. A couple hundred were present. Times like this the individuals coalesce and I only see a hunk of bodies, a giant mass. It’s as if their gazes are lost on me. But when there’s twenty or fifteen or ten the dynamic shifts dramatically with eyes afire acutely penetrating all I am.

Preaching has always assumed courage. Just getting up there can be daunting, especially following that awkward silence after the last worship song. But this is it. The call to preach is a call to courage, to heart, to stiffness of character. We pray and hope and believe that somehow the Holy Spirit embeds conviction, encouragement and freedom in our shaky words that die when fallen upon tender soil to usher new life, something that wasn’t there before, something which at first is remarkably small.

On (Not) Understanding My Own Way

"A man's steps are directed by the Lord; how then can anyone understand his own way?" - Proverbs 20:24

You want to know something crazy?

Last summer, as a part of an internship I routinely questioned (to myself) my involvement in, I was a jr. high cabin leader at a Foursquare summer camp. Under my care, for better or worse, was an eclectic collection of boys, some of which my heart broke for. Why? Because of where and to whom they were going home to after camp was complete. I remember reminiscing on God's justice and shalom, and how these might flow again to bring life to broken family skeletons, callous and heart-broken communities, and the other crooked people and twisted systems that raised these kids. After the week was done all I could think was, “God, be with them.”

Now for the crazy part.

Throughout the summer I kept telling people my plans for after the internship: teach english abroad. I still remember, late in the summer, using the church's behemoth copy machine to make doubles of important background check info and finger-printing docs for preparation to get hired overseas. This wasn't just some whimsical dream. But, the youth pastor ache lurked in the shadows. Eventually, it was too overwhelming to calm with a pill or chill with an icepack. I gave up my search for a school in a foreign place and looked for youth pastor jobs.

Alas, I couldn't find crap. Clarification: I found some, but none found me. After several months, I came to loathe phone calls to pastors I've never met, disorderly application packets, sending emails with no reply, and, oh ya, getting told, albeit nicely and with blessing, no.

So, once again, I gave up. I even thought about taking up my old search again, to teach my native language to the world, a noble cause I urged myself.

Then, one day while I was lying down on the couch in my parents' living room, home alone, trying to get some quick shut-eye in, my phone vibrated on the coffee table. Urked, I looked to see who. The name of the youth pastor I'd been serving under flashed along my screen. He tells me, in my half-awake state, that a pastor in Auburn is looking for a youth pastor. “Can I give him your name?” I've learned not to get my hopes up, but I told him yes, of coarse.

Come to find out, yes, things work out. I'm going to be a youth pastor. But that's not all. The current youth pastor I already know. He was at the same jr. high camp I was, teaching one of the break-out sessions on city involvement and outreach. Small world. But the world is smaller still. The boys that were in my cabin that week, yes, the ones that raised hell for me (I should clarify that it was only some, not all), are from this guy's youth group. These kids are going to be mine.

Sure, a bit of panic set in remembering how insane that week at camp was, but I realized that youth group is only once a week.

Usually I'm the guy dismissing coincidences other people find in their lives, but I started to do the same and defaulted back to the days when I believed God orchestrated everything in my life. Regardless, I'm stunned at the current circumstances, at how my hand could have never brought this about. And it's a strange thing looking back on a chunk of life you didn't understand in the moment now with, essentially, eyes to see. It turns out understanding isn't a prerequisite for direction.

The Beckoning of Lent: Note to Self

Dear Self,

I’ve been watching you lately and - I hope you don’t mind me being so frank - think it might be best if you take a little break. You know, kick your feet up, be free from “to-do” lists and remember why. And, if you’re feeling up to it, maybe you could follow the dry wind to where the concrete turns to grass, and then beyond that to the sand, to the desert. But only for a short while.

The desert gets me everytime. I always get thirsty. But that’s why we go, right? To discover, again for the first time, that we’re thirsty. And oh, how painful the thirst really is - well, when we rid ourselves of those other drinks. Those other liquids don’t quench diddly. Gosh, we forget don’t we?

And though others might not hear from you and they’ll be waiting. Let it be. The desert is important, but like I said, only for a bit, not forever. Deserts are only as good to the degree that one returns. So go, go on! And remember. Remember why it is we thirst, and all the pain involved. Remember who you are and why you’re here. Shut everything down and seek the sand. Remember the story we both know so well, when he goes and feels the pain and hears his words and triumphs and returns.

He returned and you will too.

The Logic of Trauma: James K. A. Smith and Body Hysteria

The last couple months an interest in trauma studies has been slowly brewing in me. It all started to stir about when, this past summer, someone told me I had a trauma imprint in my brain. Huh, me?… Come to find out, this wasn't some unwanted wrinkle or strange brain blemish. It was a psychological scar from a moment in my past my brain associated with embarrassment and trepidation. Ever since, I've been somewhat intrigued with how, specifically, the body handles and reacts to situations that remind the brain of a past traumatic experience.

Going to sleep is usually the time my brain chooses to turn-on. And so, while laying on the ground in my sleeping bag at my friend's house, I had this thought.

What does trauma have to do with James K. A. Smith? For instance, could trauma count as an example for Smith's argument in Desiring the Kingdom? (Don't bounce 'cause you ain't familiar. Give me a second to explain.) Smith wants to prioritize the body in matters of education, and faith as well. He claims that education, and Christian education at that, should be less about filling the head with information than forming a kind of people, by the heart, through the body. Education shouldn't limit the body to passively sitting in a chair. The body then could be the key to "learning" (he's working with a broad definition of education), to being formed for a way of life, for the Kingdom and for love. He talks along these lines because, he argues, humans are fundamentally animals of desire. We are lovers at our core.

So, what does this have to do with trauma? Yes, good question. I'm not convinced it has anything to do with trauma. I'm only speculating, playing with my thoughts. I'm wondering: If Smith is right in critiquing modernity's emphasis on the head--"I think therefore I am"--and thus taking serious the body's role in faith and education (and life!), then I wonder if trauma could be a good conversation partner.

Traumatic experiences have a wide range. But it seems, no matter what the origin of a traumatic event is or how it came about, an "imprint" is made in the brain. When situations, afterward, arise that remind the brain of this prior traumatic event, the body reacts, usually hysterically: sweaty palms, stomach aches, twitching, trembling, fainting, etc. What is so interesting, to me, in the moment a traumatic imprint flares up and the body reacts is often the person is caught totally off guard by the "intrusion" of the body's hysteria. The body reacts without any regard for reasonableness, rationality, or logic. For instance, the person, in such a moment, can offer him/herself the following thoughts, "Hey, this is no big deal. Everything is fine. This is simple. Calm down." Alas, nothing. The body does not falter nor acquiesce to the rational. It overrides it, overwhelms it. All willpower is, at once, lost.

Though, it would seem, logic falls short in such a situation, is it possible that trauma and body hysteria have a "logic" all their own? What would it mean that the mind, though it offers rightfully corrective thinking (i.e. "It's ok, this is perfectly safe", etc.), is overridden, overruled, and overwhelmed by the pre-rational currents of the body?

If I believed we were fundamentally thinking things, or even believing things, I would be tempted to be optimistic of the mind's abilities to calm the body down. If humans ruled from the head, then, wouldn't trauma be a failure to correct the body's hysteria via willpower and/or cognitive reasoning? Now, I'm not suggesting the mind, corrective thinking, etc., have no part in the healing process, only they can't be the sole target/methodology/approach. This begs the question: What part does/should the body play in the counseling process/healing procedures of trauma patients?

So, does the body hysteria of trauma victims work well with Smith's thesis? It's hard to say since Smith is working this philosophical anthropology out for Christian educational purposes (see his Desiring the Kingdom, which I've mentioned before), and for a theology of culture (see his second book in the trilogy Imagining the Kingdom). I have my doubts. Regardless, if he's right, the implications are far-reaching, thus this connection to trauma. If anyone would like to dialogue about this or has/knows of corresponding resources I would love to be contacted. Thought-experiments need multiple pairs of ears!

By Kennedy Space Center [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Political Theology Musings: Amos Yong's Cosmopolitical Liturgics of Resistance

That's what he calls it anyway.

Looking closely at passages like Acts 12:3-5 and 16:25, where early Christians respond to imprisonment and persecution with prayer and praise, Professor Amos Yong, in his book In the Days of Caesar, draws some interesting conclusions for the Church's liturgical practices today, and he does so with his pentecostal sensibilities fully engaged. He writes, "For starters, the prayers, songs, scriptural recitations, and sacramental modalities of the liturgy are formative of human habits, character, and agency", which means liturgy shapes both ethical and political agents (this makes me wonder whether Christians who are disengaged, for whatever reason, from the political consequences of Christian faith are being shaped by liturgy. Perhaps, using Yong's language, some liturgical practices are not "dense" enough?) (155). Also, liturgies are memorial and anticipatory. Anticipatory in the sense of "enacting the promises of Scripture with regard to how the world should be" (156). Basically, singing songs of praise and praying in corporate worship shape the body, and individuals, for political engagement and are in and of themselves proper political responses.

Yong's perspective is that worship, prayer and exorcism--did I fail to mention he is working towards a distinctly pentecostal political theology?--are not apolitical, but actually robust alternative political practices. This may ruin any "clean" Christian's understanding, who's goal is to remain unscathed by the whirlwinds of our world's political affairs. But if Yong is right, "worshipping God" and singing those Sunday morning hymns is, and has always been, thoroughly political in nature.

"Praise is the distinctive liturgical moment where believers adore God, extol God's majesty, and glorify God's name" and, quoting William Stringfellow, "'exposes the scandal of emperors deemed divine, or principalities treated idolatrously, of national vanity displacing God, of death extolled.' In this light, all of Christian praise enthrones God above every other power. Simultaneously, praise de-absolutizes the historical, the national, and the mundane; praise dethrones the powers, or at least identifies their creational status and place under the lordship of God; and praise exposes the idols of our lives" (157). Adoring God above all can sometimes seem empty of the denouncing-of-false-gods aspect, but it is always there. When I open my mouth and my lips announce the Lordship of Jesus, all "Caesars" of the day take a knee alongside me.

So, if worship is not, then, "a private act accomplished by isolated religious persons, but a public celebration that is lived out as a communal form of life" as an alternative political practice, how would prayer be situated within its political dimensions? I mean sure, sometimes church leaders--the Christian Right is famous for this--will pray explicitly political prayers for the purification of the state or the obedience of our leaders to God's will and so forth. But Yong wants to look pass these moments into the more subversive political nature of prayer.

"On the one hand, prayer reflects our casting aside our own schemes, plans, efforts, power, etc., and our reliance upon the power of God; in other words, prayer acknowledges our weakness and dependence on God. But on the other hand, prayer recognizes that our opponents are, scandalously, not only other human beings and institutions, but the principalities and powers, and that therefore the most effective weapons, even in the domains of the social, economics, and political, are spiritual" (157). Prayer, it would seem, as suggested by Yong, has a life outside church walls. Implications? Indeed...

But there is one last element to Yong's (tri) politico-liturgical exposition: exorcism. Though the word may inspire cringing, Yong wants to redeem it (word and practice), carefully coming against Western churches' "disregard of the important ritual function of banishing the powers of darkness" (159). While keeping in mind that for the first 1,000 years of Christian faith a "renunciation of the devil, and in some cases an elaborate rite of exorcism, was part of the liturgy of holy week", Yong offers a dose of imagination stretching. He might ask: "Where have the angels gone?" Following Eric Peterson's lead, Yong wants to attune the church's liturgical imagination to the songs of angels, and help us realize that our worship is never alone, or a merely human affair (Rev. 4 and 5, and Isa. 6). Our worship is participation with angelic songs. "[B]ecause the angels are related to the politico-religious world in heaven, they imbue the liturgy of the Church with a relation to the political realm" (159). And if the angels are watching, then perhaps, also, the principalities and powers.

In addition to opening time and space for rituals of exorcism and saturating our imaginations in the heavenlies, Yong suggests that exorcism can serve the wider public square, having in mind the burning of pagan books in Ephesus (Acts 19:19), Jesus' cleansing of the temple, and "the Catholic Worker Movement in inner-city Philadelphia in response to church and school closings, and by the New York and Northern New Jersey conferences of the United Methodist Church confronting the spirit(s) of Apartheid at the South African consulate in New York City" (160). Obviously, Yong is working with a much broader view of exorcism than some will be used to.

Being a pentecostal, I am finding immense energy in Amos Yong's work toward a constructive pentecostal political theology. I'm only halfway--and I'm reading slowly--so I'll do my best to continue to summarize his unique contributions in each chapter until the end.

"My First Contact with the Theory of Nonviolent Resistance"

Reading The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. this month has helped me to appreciate this holiday more than I have in the past. It has been fascinating discovering the early intellectual influences on King's moral vigor. As a fifteen year old, on September 20, 1944 King began his freshman year at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia where he would receive a bachelor of arts degree in sociology on June 8, 1948. It was there King was introduced to Henry David Thoreau and his profoundly impacting essay "On Civil Disobedience".

Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

I am perturbed by the question of what this means today, to not cooperate with evil. And yet wherever the answers lead I find inspiration in this man's life. Today we celebrate his 84th birthday.

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via photopin cc

Town to City

I like to hide. But this is because I don't like attention. Certain kinds of attention, not unlike other people I suppose, freak me out.

Last weekend I travelled to a place I've never been and met people I never thought I would, all for the possibility of work. I'd rather not give much away, since the whole thing, whether I'm being offered the job or not, is still up in the air. I'll say this, though. The town was small, smaller than what I'm used to lately. I have my fair share of years growing up in the boonies, where your closest companions are trees and occasionally wandering animals, but the last several years I've gotten used to concrete and steel, streets and neighborhoods, places where trees are planted every twenty yards in squares of dirt in sidewalks and animals are on leashes. Now, granted, where I went isn't the boonies per se. It's more like a small rodeo town in the middle of nowhere, where long roads connect places over vast land.

I remember thinking to myself immediately while getting off the highway and entering the town, "I don't know if I can do this." It's hard to say for sure what caused my initial fright, but I got ahold of myself and was soon enveloped in my stay. I met some great people, ate Mexican food, where my host knew half the people we saw, introduced myself several times, was asked loads of interesting and surprising questions and delved into fun and constructive conversations. I enjoyed my stay in this small town, and tried to imagine living there for a time.

After eating pizza and conversing for a bit at lunch, I soon realized time had flown by. It was time to say good-bye, possibly not for good. I gathered my things, gave hugs, shook hands, placed my bags in my car and soon left. I had done it. I had done what I set out to do, and with triumph.

On my way back I had a brilliant idea to see a friend who lived three hours from where I was. It was on the way. But the place she situated herself was of significant difference to where I was coming from. After driving alongside slushy snow alongside icy water, my lonely road transformed into a busy concentration of red and white lights, mimicking my veins and blood cells. I felt a rush of excitement and opportunity. I was in the city.

The building was lit, as I could tell from the open windows, as I drove up the parking lot. An Episcopal church is where I was meeting my friend, it's where she goes. Immediately, I thought, "No, no no no, this isn't right." I knew this was the place, but the "Episcopal" I read on the illuminated sign out front didn't correspond to what I was hearing. It was the lyrics and melody of the pop worship song "Give Me Faith." This was surely no typical Episcopal service, if it was one at all. It wasn't, come to find out. My friend's church community only meets there. I walked in and was slammed by this feeling. Shoot, what was it?

I stood at the back of this beautiful sanctuary, the long A-frame kind. Wood, pews, city-dwellers my age. Ah wow! I took a deep breath. The last song was sung and I looked for my friend during the meet-someone-new time. Surprised, I spotted her in the wake of shifting bodies and seemingly-shifty pews. We hugged and she introduced me to her friend. At last, I made it.

This community felt good and right, healthy and real. The preacher got up. He had glasses and wore and blazer. I was seated too far back to make out his facial features. I found myself shallowed up in an exposition of a passage in Hosea of all places. Gosh, I hadn't heard anything from Hosea in years, when a pastor preached in our college chapel reenacting Hosea's life in first person narrative. This word would be almost as memorable as that one.

Later I ate the dinner saved under foil for me. After service and dinner I stood in a hallway and talked poetry with the guy my friend introduced me to. They had worked together. He was thoroughly Portland. Long hair under faded beanie, scruff, scarf and painted nails. He's studying music I think. After, we drove him home and got milkshakes. This trip from small town to big city has highlighted something about myself I hadn't really known before. I like the city. Now, this isn't to say I don't like small towns or the one I came from, only that there is something about a city that, for me, is alluring, something beyond all the interesting people, shops, fashions, flash and ideas. Not like in a small town, in a city I can escape. Dreams of "Making It Big" drawn all kinds of people to cities. Money. Fame. Status. For me, I'd go there to hide.