Late Night Blogging!

It's around midnight and snowing like the dickens outside! I should be sleeping, but I'm listening to music and don't want to give up the groove! I've decided that I just need to listed to whatever Zach Braff is listening to. I love Joshua Radin and and starting to get into The Shins and other artists to be found in various Scrubs episodes and the Garden State soundtrack.

Speaking of Garden State, I just watched it for the third time in a week. It's Zach's first writer/director effort and I really loved it. The whole movie opens like a flower as Zach's character comes alive through the film. It starts out with a numbness that's not unlike that in Lost in Translation. I can relate to that feeling of detachment, where everyting around you seems to move in slow-motion and competes with the sound of the blood rushing through your head. "When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse, out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child has grown; the dream is gone."

Life is pretty good. Christmas is coming and we're wondering where we're going to find the money for presents. There things we'd like to get for friends and family, but we have to balance that desire with others. I'd like to make a fewe year-end contributions to causes. At the same time, we're trying to reduce our debt!! It's like we're the country, dealing with our own financial crisis! Still, God is good and we're are more blessed than most.

I just finished reading the short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener, by Herman Melville. It was so Dickensian that I kept forgetting Melville was an American until the narrator would mention paying for something in dollars. It was good, but nothing spectacular. I haven't found another piece of fiction to read, yet. I may try some Nabokov again, or something like A Christmas Carol, to fit the season!

I've just started listening to my first song by Jump Little Children. It's pretty cool! Napster rules! Good night!

Assorted Reading

I've been forcing myself to set aside time for personal reading. It's tough, as my days and nights are filled with work, family and Guild Wars. Still, I've managed to get though a few things in the past few months.
I just finished Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I read it (along with most of H's other books) about 20 years ago, and it's still good! Hemingway's great for a quick read. It's brutal, like a jab to the ribs, without a lot of subtext. I felt hung over when it was done.
I started and finally finished Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It took me a while to really get into it -- it starts slowly. By the time I was 2/3 through it started to pick up. What I had to learn is that it is one of Dickens' two historical novels. This means that the pacing and characters are not what you'd find in David Copperfield or Great Expectations. When I finished it last week, I was just grateful to be through it (like I was with Anna Karenina a few months ago, a book it's taken me a solid decade to read). As I've been thinking about it (and reading a bit of criticism), I'm coming to appreciate it more. It's ending is almost ethereal, you almost feel as if you are Sydney Carton.
Right now I'm reading Joseph Girzone's Joshua, a modern-day parable of Christ's return to a small American town. It's very profound and a quick read. I'm liking it a lot.
On the non-fiction front, I'm getting back into John Keegan's The First World War. I'm a big fan of his WWII history (and think it's the best one-volume history of that war to be had). It's tough going in the early pages, but I'm getting through. It's my car book at the moment, meaning I read it when I'm in restaurants alone.
What are you reading??

Democracy in America

I feel great this morning, and not just because my candidate, Barack Obama, won the presidential election last night. I feel great because it was a great example of American democracy at work. I feel great because of the record turnout all over the country (and hope it's a trend that continues in future elections; I think it will). I feel great beacuse, after a bitterly-fought campaign that got a bit negative at the end, both candidates showed remarkable grace last night.
John McCain's concession speech was powerful and re-affirmed his commitment to country and to public service. How we lose is just as important as how we win, and McCain showed the world what it's like to concede with class. It was bittersweet--he would much rather have given a victory speech--but in his concession, I saw the... well, presidential McCain that I'd been looking for since August.
Barack Obama's victory speech hit just the right notes. It was celebratory without being triumphalist. He acknowledged a fact that is overlooked or ignored by most victorious candidates, that he must be the president both of his supporter and his detractors. Were I to assume elected office (which I hope never to do), I hope I would always remember my duty to all the people: those who voted for me and those who didn't. I'd even go so far as to suggest that elected officials have a special responsibility (duty?) to listen to the voices of their political adversaries. President-Elect Obama acknowledged this last night.
Anyhoo, I feel great today. Hopeful.

Frozen and the Pleiades

It's just after 10pm and my favorite episode of House, M.D. is on. It's titled Frozen and guest-stars Mira Sorvino. Very good ep. It's the third in a row on the USA Network tonight. I seem to watch all my TV in marathon form these days. One episode of anything just doesn't cut it.

I also just took the dog out for her night-time tinkle. It's a cool, crystal-clear night in Western New York; the best kind. The stars are out and shining bright. I saw one of my favorite constellations, the Pleiades (or the Seven Sisters). It's a cluster of beautiful, distant stars. One thing about the Pleiades, however, is that it's just at the limit of human visual acuity (or at least my visual acuity).

Human vision uses different receptors (rod-shaped and cone-shaped) on the retina. Cones function best in bright light, rods in low light. The center of our vision is predominantly cones and the periphery has more rods. What all this means is that when we look in the night sky, the Pleiades pops into our vision at the edges. When we focus our eyes on it, it fades from sight. When we move our eyes to the side again, it pops back. This back-and-forth is due to the distribution of rods and cones on our retinas.

All of this is fascinating enough, but it's also a great metaphor for some thinigs we encounter in life, things that seem to retreat from view just as we concentrate our attention on them. Some things in life we are destined never to see straight-on. We need to learn to use our peripheral vision, to see the "Big Picture." Ironically, some things can only be seen against the landscape of a greater whole. When we put them under scrutiny, they disappear.

Anyhoo, that's the end of my philospohical musings for the night.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

That's right! SNOW!! We had some flurries yesterday and this morning they're continuing. As I pulled up to the church, I saw a car coming from up on the hill with an inch of snow on it! Yipee!! Winter Wonderland her we come!! This is why I came to Western New York, dang it!
But seriously... Fuel prices are a concern. With Alexzander in the house (our 9-month-old foster child), we've had to keep the place warmer than is our wont, especially at night. I know it's going to hike up our gas bill. I'm also concerned about others in the community and the bills they face. I'm praying for them.
Tomorrow is a big boys' soccer game in the village. I want to go, but I also way to not freeze. I'll need to plan accordingly!

Double Blogging! How to Keep Up?

Well, I can barely manage to post to this blog once a month and I've gone and started a new blog! Ack! I started a blog for my church. I was on the fence about posting church-related stuff on this, my personal blog. Now, I have a clear separation. Hopefully, I'll post more to each. We'll see...

Back from the Res

I suck at blogging! I got back from my mission trip to the Navajo Nation. It was a good trip. I worked on the concrete teams. I had to set forms, mix concrete and pour two small pads and a very long ramp. Altogether, we mixed over 8,000 pounds of concrete. This year's work site was in southeast Utah. It's the first time I've spend significant time in Utah, and I must say that it's a lovely place. I hope to go back soon!

I'm now back in the office, trying to jump back into my normal like. Part of me doesn't want to. I'm trying to preserve a bit of my mission lifestyle back in The World.

This week is my church's Vacation Bible School. Five nights of fun with the local kids. It's going quite well, but it throws our schedule off and is tiring. Still, it's a good time.

More soon...

Mmmm... Beautiful Morning

We had a pretty steamy Summerfest weekend in Arkport. Friday and Saturday were hot and pretty humid. On Sunday morning, just before the community church service in the park, it started raining, becoming a downpour during the service. Fortunately, we were covered. This morning, however, it's cool and clear and beautiful.

I'm sitting in my office with the windows open, enjoying the breeze. It's awesome. Now I need to get ready for the next few weeks. I'll be in Utah the next two Sundays, so I need to make sure things will run with out me!

Mission Trip Coming Fast!

I'll be leaving in less than two weeks to go to the Navajo Nation. I'm part of a large team that will be doing construction on a United Methodist church in Utah (near Four Corners). I'm usually excited by these trips, but this year I'm distracted and unprepared.

Part of the distraction is due to the arrival of our foster child, Alexzander. He's been with us almost a month and just celebrated his six-month half-birthday. He's changing the way we do everything around our house! Kristen was supposed to go on the trip with me, but she's staying home to care for The Boy.

One of the best parts about going on a mission trip is stepping outside your normal life and routine. It's a chance to take a vacation from yourself. I'm hoping it will do me good!

Heat Wave Over (For Now)

It's been a long time since my last post ("Bad blogger!"). We had super-high temperatures this past week, like most of the country. Record highs were set in Arkport with temps in the high nineties. I don't know if we'd have made it without our neighbor's pool. We swam around a few times a day, mostly just to drop our body temperature. It worked!

Just got back in the office from my week's vacation. We spent a few days with Kristen's parents, then came home to visit with friends up from Virginia. A great time off. Coming back to work, I have to contend with Annual Conference this week. Next year, I'll make sure NOT to schedule my vacation immediately before or after conference. Live and learn!

My Guild Wars life is progressing. James and I are pushing our characters through Factions. I've got almost all the Kurzick outposts mapped (just one to go), and am making headway on the Luxon ouposts. I'm still gathering Kurzick faction, however, so the Luxons will have to wait. In Prophecies, I need to push my characters through the final few quests. Liu Kiri's the only one who's completed Hell's Precipice. Lots to do, too little time! I've created a User Page on the Guild Wars Wiki, to help people follow along.

Who Controls the Weather?

I've been amazed at the wonderful stretch of weather we've been having in Arkport. Warm, breezy days (perfect for baseball) and cool nights. Even the odd patch of rain is a blessing. It's been great here, but the weather has not been so great around the world.

In the past weeks, tens of thousands of people have lost their lives in natural disasters in Myanmar (Burma), China and here in the US. More are homeless and in need of aid. How are we, as a people of faith, to make sense of this? A more difficult question may be: are we supposed to make sense of it? Is it fair to put the responsibility for every drop of rain on God's doorstep? It's too easy to say that God is in control of everything (and therefore responsible for everything), when we know this is not the case. In giving the gift of human freedom, God also gave over some control of the Way Things Are.

To complicate matters, while we may have once been able to put matters of weather and climate firmly in God's domain, human beings are coming to recognize the effect they (WE) have on creation, and the responsibility that comes with the power (literally) to change the world. What impact have our own choices had on recent events? What responsibility do we bear? Again, perhaps this is another Easy Answer, shifting the blame from God to ourselves. Perhaps no one is to blame.

Creation itself is still in the process of Becoming. The Apostle Paul says that creation itself "has been groaning in labor pains" (Rom 8:22). Rather than being "finished," it is still changing. This struggle, which seems to be built in to the very fabric of creation, can be violent. Real change, real transformation, is seldom easy. We inhabit a world that groans, bends, and occasionally breaks under the pressure of it's own Becoming. Perhaps we need to come to terms with a world in which terrible things happen and nobody is to blame.

What are we to do? Rather than pointing fingers (which accomplishes little), we should concentrate on our own response. Instead of crying, "How could God do this?" perhaps we need to ask, "What can I do?" Our first response must be to pray that the victims of these tragedies find relief from their suffering. Prayer, however, is not enough. Our next response is to act. We must learn to become the hands and feet of Christ in a world that desperately needs healing. We must become part of God's ongoing work of redeeming the world.

Time Flies!

It's been four weeks since Easter. I can hardly believe it. Things have been going great at the church. Attendance has been up and we're getting some return visitors. This past week was the 125th anniversary of the first meeting to elect trustees to start our church. It's an exciting and important anniversary.

Spring is coming. It's barely here, but it's coming. I nearly froze to death at the boys' varsity baseball opener two weeks ago. To top it off, we had snow this past Sunday. It melted right away, but it fell for hours in the morning.
Maybe it was winter's last gasp. Still, we're below freezing each night and in the fifties in the day. My mom would love this weather (she's coming in a few weeks, I hope it's still cold enough for her).

The change of seasons brings a change in life. People are out and about. This is Spring Break for the kids, so they're all over the town. It's nice. We love Arkport! More very soon...

The Calm Between Easter Storms

It's 8:45am on Easter morning and I'm between services. At 7:00 this morning I gathered with about forty souls in the village's cemetery to celebrate Easter and the dawn of a new day. I had feared all kinds of wintery conditions, but the only thing we had to reckon with was cold; the village thermometer read 16 degrees when we began! Still, that's much better than what I secretly feared: freezing rain and mud. By the time we were half-way through Christ the Lord is Risen Today, I was getting warmed up!
After a brief worship service (about twenty minutes), we adjourned to the church, when the men had prepared a warm, delicious breakfast for us all! We filled up the fellowship hall with conversation and praise. A good time was had by all.
Now I'm sitting around, waiting for the next events to begin: Sunday School at 9:45am and worship at 10:45am. I hadn't figured on so much down-time this morning. I though I'd be running from one thing to the next, but here I am with an hour and a half to kill! I dare not go home and relax--I might never get back up! So, I'm in the office, thinking Easter thoughts.
In the long history of the Church, Easter is the time when adult converts (who have been prepared throughout the season of Lent) are baptized and get to partake in the Lord's Supper for the first time. Easter is supposed to be a communion service and that's what I'm doing this year. I don't think it's the usual turn of events, but I'm confident in the traditions.

White Easter? (plus a Maccabean history lesson)

I've been enjoying the Western New York winter, even going so far as to make fun of the local who gave me such a hard time about the winters when I arrived from The South. We have a fair bit of snow over the past few days, about eight inches. It didn't all fall at once in a blizzard-like rush, it's been snowing slowly and steadily. It's a beautiful picture-postcard-style snow: big clumps of flakes drifting slowly to the ground.

Then it occurred to me: it's Easter in two weeks and there's a half-foot of snow on the ground. I'm leading our village's Easter Sunrise service outside, in the village cemetery! Ack!! I really don't want to sing Christ the Lord is Risen Today in my snowboots! Well, we'll see how things develop. In the event of actual bad weather, we'll move the service inside. If it's just cold, we'll tough it out and head for the cemetery.

I'm getting ready for Palm Sunday. We're getting proper palm leaves for our Hosanna procession. I've always had real palm leaves on Palm Sunday, but I've been spoiled. This will be the first time in recent memory for this church.

I preached on the Lazarus story yesterday. In John's Gospel, the raising of Lazarus is the straw that broke the back of the Jewish leaders. After they heard about it, they began actively plotting Jesus' death. Next Sunday, Palm Sunday, we see Jesus entering Jerusalem in triumph. The crowds wave palm fronds and sing Hosanna! What's lost on most Christians today is that this was a radical political act in Jesus' time. It had been generations since the Jews had actually ruled their own country.

Back in the second century BC, Israel had been ruled by the Hasmonean Dynasty. These Jewish rulers had revolted against their Greek rulers and won true independence for Israel for the first time in hundreds of years. They pushed back the borders, reclaiming territory last held in Solomon's reign. But, for all their success, the Hasmoneans had difficulties. First of all, they were not of "proper" lineage. Tradition demanded a king of the House of David and a high priest of the House of Zadok; they were neither. Secondly, there were bitter internal rivalries among them. In the end, it got so bad that battling princes sought outside held to shore up their own positions. They sought the power and influence of Rome. Once the Romans were invited to to the party, things fell apart rapidly. When the dust settled, the Hasmoneans were gone and the Romans ruled the land. (You can read about the Jewish revolution in 1 and 2 Maccabees.)

I mention this brief history lesson to shine a light on the political tensions of Jesus' day, and also to point to a powerful symbol of independence. On some coins minted during the Hasmonean Dynasty--the last time Israel ruled itself--appeared images of palm leaves. Palm leaves also appear on some other coins of the period. It seemed to be a national symbol of Judea. It may have been a symbol of the Hasmoneans and of Jewish independence from foreign rule. Waving palm leaves as Jesus enters the city may have been seen as a blatant political act, like waving a red flag in front of a (Roman) bull.

If the raising of Lazarus got the Jewish leaders plotting Jesus' death. His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, amid waving palm leaves, set him at odds with secular authority. Jesus had run afoul of each of these authorities (religious and secular) before. Antagonizing both of them was like bringing together gasoline and fire. The result was explosive, and quicly cost Jesus his life.

The Woman at the Well

This past Sunday was the Third Sunday in Lent. The traditional story for this Sunday is John 4, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well. If I were to take a survey of my pastor friends, this story would rate very high on their list of Great Stories of the Bible. It's powerful, artfully written, and (perhaps most lf all) preachable! I'll make a confession: it doesn't do much for me.

I'll readily admit that it's a great story and an excellent example of Jesus transforming the lives of an entire community of outsiders. Still, it doesn't do it for me. I'm much more drawn to the story of Nicodemus, in the preceding chapter. The two encounters, Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, are placed back-to-back for a reason; they're meant to be examined together.

There are similarities and start contrasts between the two encounters. The most obvious being their settings. Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night, in secret, in private, under the cover of darkness. Jesus himself comes to the Samaritan woman in the bright light of day, in public, for all to see. John's gospel is filled with images of light and dark, day and night, good and evil.

Despite the differences in setting, the conversations they have with Jesus are very similar. In typically Johannine fashion, they take place on two levels. When Jesus speak about being born again (in chapter 3) or about living water (in chapter 4), he is taken literally when he is speaking metaphorically. It takes some time in conversation before the different meanings start to become clear (something we should note, the role of Holy Conversation).

The stories end quite differently. The Samaritan woman rushes away to tell her neighbors, who come themselves to see and hear Jesus. Nicodemus goes away unsatisfied, much like the rich young man who Jesus instructs to give away everything. Maybe I'm drawn more to Nicodemus because I see him more often when I look around (or when I look in the mirror). Perhaps each of us comes to Jesus by night, to ask what's really required of us. Like Nicodemus, most of us go away unhappy.

As for the woman at the well, hers is a simpler story. She has an encounter with the Living Water and is transformed. She doesn't understand it all, but she understands enough. She gets it enough to tell her neighbors, and to ask the daring question, "Could this man be the Christ?" Each of us may encounter Jesus at our own wells. If we can't summon the nerve to ask that same question, we may never recognize him. This woman did and her faith transformed her entire community. It's a good story. A great story. Ultimately, they're both great stories.

They're both great because the story of Nicodemus doesn't end here. He comes back at the very end of John's gospel, after Jesus is crucified, to claim his body along with Joseph of Arimathea. The two were both members of the Jewish leadership who were secret followers of Jesus. They dared not claim him publicly for fear of their positions (and possibly their lives). Still, when most believed the story of Jesus to be over, they step out in a very public way, claim his body and see it safely laid to rest in Joseph's tomb.

Much of religious life, including Christian life, is guided by self interest. We ask, "Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" which is clearly an expression of our own self-interest. Some are never able to see past this, exulting in their own salvation (many even triumph in their neighbor's fall, so secure are they in their own victory). While our salvation may be personal, it is never private. It is never to be viewed outside the context of community (Christian and otherwise). This vain triumphalism ultimately betrays the Gospel.

This is why the actions of Nicodemus and Joseph stand out. They had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by standing up to be counted among Jesus' followers after his death. Believing (rightly|) the Master to be dead, their actions have no self-serving purpose. This is what John Wesley called Christian Perfection (by which he meant Perfection in Love), a love that thinks only of the other, with no regard to the self. Jesus was dead. He needed to be buried. These two men--who had worked so hard to hide their discipleship while Jesus was alive--now set all secrecy aside to perform this one service of Love after his death.

Many shake their heads at Nicodemus and the other "secret disciples." I do not, for when the time came, he stoop up to be counted. Ultimately, his faith transcended Jesus' death and he became a true Servant of the Master.

Go now, do the same...

Sad Birthday

I heard on the radio this morning that today is Kurt Cobain's birthday. Thinking about him always takes me back to the early nineties. David and I were living and working at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. Our friends were all college students and we got to hear quite a bit of college music from our neighbors (football-playing frat guys). I liked Nirvana at the time, one of the first music phenomena I was with when it was actually popular. I liked the whole college/alternative music scene of the early nineties, actually.


I remember when Kurt Cobain died. It wasn't a where-were-you-when-JFK-was-shot moment, but I remember hearing the news and seeing the effects. My friend Amina was devastated; I watched her cry as she stared at the cover of Rolling Stone (above) that week. Perhaps that's what gets me when I think about Cobain, how his death hurt those around me. He was a gifted songwriter and musician in a great band. I can't say that he was the modern Mozart or the next Elvis, maybe he was just the canary in the coal mine. All I can say is that when I think about him, it makes me sad.

As a Christian, I struggle with the suffering in the world. More than anything, I hate Easy Answers that overlook the harsh realities of life (or, worse, blame those realities on the people who suffer them). One of my least favorite is "God never gives us things we can't handle." I think this is a kind of wishful thinking, an expression of how we hope God will treat us, but I can point to countless example of people who were given more than they could handle, people who bent and broke beneath the load.

A convenient [un]Christian response is to blame the victim, to say that a person simply didn't have enough faith (or perhaps not the right kind of faith). While there are times that this might be true, it's heartless to think that everyone who has ever been overcome by despair lacks the faith to see it through. Men and women of sincere faith can and have been driven to the edge and beyond by life, and perhaps by God.

Nor is it helpful to look at Cobain's life and death as nothing more than tragic vanity (this is what I may have done at the time). On the surface, his inability to cope with fame and the insane expectations of American consumer culture seemed like just another Counter-Culture Pose. An eternal optimist, it's too easy for me to dismiss such pain as self-induced. It's too easy to say, "Cheer up, stupid! Life getting you down? Change it!" Such Can-Do platitudes ignore complexities, they also ignore the realities of genuine mental illness. Worse than ignore, they place the blame for them squarely on the shoulders of those who suffer from them.

While I'm hesitant to make a messiah out of Cobain, I'm not afraid to ask the daring question: Did he die for us? I can't help but see his death as a warning to all of us against the invasive effects of consumerism and greed. We're all subject to the same ambitions our culture presses on us. We chase after success, wealth, power, and influence at the same time our subconscious is telling us to run away. We are in the exact place where Jesus was, when he was tempted in the desert. When offered the chance to be powerful, influential and important, as he was, we want to say "Yes!" But the true path leads us downward, not upward. We're meant to head towards humility and selflessness, until the only thing left is love. This is True Power.

Do we have the courage to say "No" to the enticements of the world? How are we to think of those who say "Yes?" What about those, like Kurt Cobain, who are caught between the two choices? Ultimately, his death may be a warning to all of us. Whatever else it was, is and may yet be, his death was a tragedy for his friends, his family and for me. Not because of who we has, but because:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. (John Donne, Meditation XVII)

That's what's on my mind this morning. Love to all.

Back from Vacation! Whew!

We got home last night from a week in Virginia. We spent the week hanging our with friends, doing some home repair at my Mom's place, and eating out! It was pretty exhausting. We took Baby, our dog. We had to give her doggie drugs for the long car rides, but she seemed to enjoy the trip.

At my Mom's we removed a bathroom sink/vanity, then relocated a sink from another bathroom and replaced it with a new sink. Lots of annoying work in very tight spaces with me flat on my back on tile floors. In the end, all sinks were working and fully installed. They look pretty good.

For my next vacation, I need to go somewhere without distractions and do nothing. I'd like to visit Yosemite National Park one day; I think that could be a good vacation. We discussed with friends a trip to Nova Scotia as our next group vacation. I have an old programming friend who lives in Halifax and he has always told me how nice it is.

I also want to try to do a bit of camping this year (we went to REI, which always inspires me). Nothing dramatic, maybe just some nights at our local NY State Park, Stony Brook. It could be good practice for future vacationing. I haven't been camping properly since I was a kid.

Cardiology

This past Sunday, I sat in on my church's adult Sunday School. The passage we read was the Anointing of David by Samuel (1 Samuel 16:1-13). This is a fabulous text and it sparked good conversation. As we were talking, I thought about the perplexing issue of David. God chose the young shepherd as the replacement for Saul, the king who had been chosen by the people. David and Saul are often held up as example of good and bad. The actual text, however, is less black-and-white.

David is not perfect. He is an adulterer and murderer, who uses his God-given position and authority to cause the death of his mistress' husband, Uriah. Saul, likewise, isn't all bad. As God's favor turns away from him, I can't help but feel sorry for him. He is earnest in his desire to rule well. Comparing to David's transgressions to Saul's, it's sometimes hard to tell who's the good king and who's the bad king.

Yet David is special. He is "a man after God's own heart" (1 Sam 13:14). This "heart" talk is repeated in chapter 16, when God tells Samuel that men and women "look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Sam 16:7). The heart is important to God. Something in David's heart appeals to him, while something in Saul's does not. It might be as simple as that. As were were discussing the text, the image of the cardiologist--the heart doctor--came to me. God is the Divine Cardiologist.

As the Cardiologist, he's interested in our heart health. Are we exercising it enough? How do we exercise our hearts? Walking, cycling and running are good for our hearts, but God is looking deeper. We must work out by loving more, caring more, feeling more for those we see (and those who we'll never see). Compassion is the exercise of the heart that the Divine Cardiologist prescribes. Quite simply, we must become more like Christ in the way we think, feel, and act. We must conform our heart to His. It's quite a workout. It gets easier the more we do it (like most exercise), but it never becomes automatic. We must always choose.

The right author (e.g. Maxine Dunham) could probably write a devotional book or short-term Bible study on God-as-Cardiologist. I'm probably not that guy. Who knows?

This Week's Lectionary

I've got some meaty choices this Sunday, and I want to choose early in the week, rather than later. I'm attending an all-day conference on Youth Ministry at Houghton College on Thursday, and would like to have the reading locked down before that. The big choice is between the Gospel and Epistle readings.

The Gospel reading is Matthew 4:12-23, which tells the story of the calling of the first disciples. The Epistle reading is First Corinthians 1:10-18, an exhortation to unity among the believers in Corinth. Both are great stories.

The Isaiah reading (Isaiah 9:1-4) brings a bit of confusion, especially when paired with the Matthew reading. The versification is unclear here. In most modern Bibles, Isaiah 9:1 doesn't seem to flow into 9:2. The text seems to change gears between the verses. In fact, the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint both number 9:1 as 8:23, tacking it on to the preceding chapter. This makes better sense as I read it, though it's still not crystal clear. How the modern Bibles got the verses changed can probably be traced (as so many things can) to the Latin Vulgate Bible. Saint Jerome labels the Hebrew Isaiah 8:23 as 9:1, and most modern (post-Vulgate) Bibles cleave to the versification of the Vulgate. Why Jerome deviates from the Hebrew and Septuagint numbering is beyond me.

Anyhoo, this is more than just an interesting [to me, at least] detour in textual criticism. The Matthew passage (Matthew 4:12-23) cites the Isaiah text. Matthew's citations (where they can be identified) are universally from the Septuagint. In this case, he connects verses 8:23 (the modern 9:1) and 9:1 (the modern 9:2). Modern readers with modern verse numbers will find these two verses connected (9:1-2) in their Bibles and not blink an eye. The author of the first gospel, however, would have to explicitly make the connection between verses in two hard-to-connect chapters (8:23 and 9:1).

I'm generally underwhelmed by the author of Matthew's use of Scripture, and this citation is a perfect example. While I admire his excellent use of Typological Prophecy in some of his citations, he often seems to be straining to connect the story of Jesus with the stories of the Hebrew Bible. Many of these connections don't seem to make sense at first (or second) glance. The connection cited in Matthew 4 between the lands of Zebulun & Naphtali and the coming of the great light in the darkness is forced, at best. The only connection in the base reading of the text seems to be the fact that the verses are adjacent. Hardly a deep, theological connection.

Because of this textual confusion and the less-then-clear connection between the verses cited, I'm leaning towards the First Corinthians passage. I'm not afraid to tackle tough textual issues, I just wonder if the best place to do it is a ten-minute sermon. I suspect it would leave people uninspired, not to mentioned confused and perhaps annoyed.

The Psalm for this week is great (Psalm 27), but the lectionary does it's standard hatchet job on it. They suggest reading verses 1 and 4-9. I hate it when they do this. What did poor verses 2 and 3 do? They mention evildoers and enemies, strife and calamity. Without those two verses, we get a watered-down Happy Sunshine poem of praise! It's the curse of the Easy Answer all over again (I need to write an essay on the Easy Answer and the huge problems it causes). Ah well... Maybe I need to preach on the Easy Answer this week? Hmmmm...

Quiet Sunday Morning

This is my favorite time of the week. I'm in my church office, overlooking the Sanctuary. I've come in quite early to prepare for this morning's worship, but now all my preparations are complete. I've got some time to just sit here and think.

I'm nor preaching this Sunday, which is odd. The retired pastor from our community, Rev. Howard Warriner, is preaching the story of the Good Samaritan. I'll be leading worship, doing everything I normally do except preach. It give me different things to think about this morning. I'm also doing special music today, singing If I Had a Hammer for/with the congregation. It's a great song for Human Relations Day (which is today, in the United Methodist Church).

We got a dusting of snow yesterday, with a bit more coming in the next few days. Nothing dramatic, but it looks nice.

New Day Off

This week I started taking Thursday off. My previous day off was Monday, but I changed to to match Kristen's work schedule. It was pretty great. I didn't go anywhere or do anything. I took a nap on our spare bed, which has a delightful high-density foam mattress. It was delicious. I hope to have a more meaningful post soon.

Two Kings!

I'm preaching this morning about the Magi, or Wise Men, from Matthew 2. Last night I was reading the New Interpreter's Bible and an idea struck me. The author of the NIB Matthew section, M. Eugene Boring, writes about the problems caused when the Magi come to Herod, the "king of Judea" and ask him where the "new" king was to be found. Herod was understandably upset. Who was this new king and why hadn't Herod heard about him before this?

The commentary goes on to nicely contrast the two kings and the two kingdoms that will be played against each other throughout Matthew's gospel. Herod's realm is an earthly one, Jesus' is much more than that. Despite this, the threat to the established order (Herod's) is quite real.

When reading this, my mind was cast back to the fall of 2000, when I took Intro to the Old Testament under Dr. Stephen Cook at VTS. I wrote a paper on First Samuel 16, where the Lord instructs Samuel to go to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse, and anoint one of his sons. This is a radical act. Anointing is what you do to kings, and there already is a king in Israel: Saul! The two texts both contrast two kings and two kindgoms. In the Samuel story, God has grown disappointed with Saul and has decided to select as a new king someone after His own heart. Davis is this new king, but he is anointed as a child, while Saul still sits on the throne. Fortunately for David, his anointing is kept secret while he grows up and eventually ends up in Saul's court. Still, the tension between Saul and David begins soon after they meet ("Saul has killed his thousands and David his tens of thousands!") and continues throughout their lives, soon erupting into violence.

Anyhoo, I'm NOT preaching on this parallel story, but I wanted to write it down before I forgot it!

Happy New Year!

Well, it's 2008! It's been a whirlwind since Christmas. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve service at the church, then we dashed off to Saint Mary's, Pennsylvania Christmas morning, where we spent a few days doing not much at all. It was just what the doctor ordered!

We had some friends from Virginia visit over New Year's. They brought their three dogs, so it was an exciting adventure keeping them separate from Baby (they did not play nicely). We saw I Am Legend in the theater. I liked it well enough, but thought it was a rip-off of The Omega Man. I went home and looked it up on Wikipedia and they were both adaptations of the same novel. No wonder!

Now I'm getting in the swing of this new year. I got a good bit done at the office. I'm preparing for the church's annual Charge Conference, which will be held on Monday night. Lots of paperwork. Ug. Still, I'm getting my hands around the church's membership records. Fun, fun, fun!

It was 17 degrees this morning, with a bitterly cold wind. I took the dog out at 6:30 in sweatpants, which were not up to the challenge. I almost froze before Baby took care of business. The temperature dropped from there. It was up to 18 degrees on the Steuben Trust clock/thermometer sign this afternoon. Brrrrr... I think I'm OK coat-wise, but I really don't have any special cold weather footgear. I need to work on that.