Growing up, local cuisine was often synonymous with potluck dinners: scalloped potatoes, Sloppy Joes, deviled eggs, some sort of meatball, some concoction of cool whip and fruit, Jell-O molds, underdeveloped lasagna, macaroni salad and other salads that never featured lettuce (but often featured mayonnaise), taco dip, three types of mashed potatoes, casseroles, fried chicken, little smokies, tater tots, and more dips and desserts than should ever be consumed (My mom, being the fabulous cook that she is, tended to make these types of dishes with a twist, often meaning they were the first dish gone on the buffet).

For all of the amazing food available in Chicago, "potluck cuisine" is hard to come by. So when, under completely crappy circumstances, we found ourselves in small-town Illinois this week and someone mentioned that there would be a potluck reception hosted by the ladies of the Methodist church, I was filled with joy and anticipation. It's my comfort food. It feeds my soul.

Sometimes I miss small towns. The town we were in was considerably smaller than the one I grew up in, but they had more in common than Burlington does with Chicago. I miss diners that serve pork tenderloin sandwiches (if anyone can tell me where to get a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich in Chicago, we'll go on me), more free time than you know what to do with, Target trips that take fifteen minutes, gravel roads under skies loaded with stars, playing Euchre under said stars, and celebrations where hodgepodges of people gather together and end up sitting in a circle laughing and enjoying their potluck cuisine.

I suppose all I want to say is that we should gather more often, hopefully under better circumstances. I count this week as a nice memory, one I'll cherish for some time to come. For those of you who were there, I enjoyed talking and laughing and crying with you. I hope we can do it again soon. If someone lends me a crockpot, I'll bring the Sloppy Joes.

photo - newyork808

Labels: Favorites, Other

This is my favorite post to write every year. There's some slightly embarrassing proof that I've been doing this since Junior High. It's nice to have an outlet for it now. I really can't remember a better year for music in the past 15 years. I had a really hard time narrowing down what I thought was absolutely essential this year, and my top five is more or less interchangeable. If you see something you don't know, MySpace, HypeMachine, Elbo.ws and YouTube will probably have you covered. Check back later and I'll add some links to places where you can hear the albums or download a song or two. I'll post a top 25 songs list sometime soon as well. Happy listening!

25. !!! - Myth Takes
There are about five or six tracks on this album that make me want to get up off my chair and dance. And for those of you who know me, that's a high compliment. Only when I'm home alone of course. !!!, thanks for providing any peeping neighbors with hours of amusement.





24. Menomena - Friend & Foe
There are a ton of ideas infused in each song on Friend and Foe, and all of those elements add up to something creative and utterly fresh.

Download: "The Pelican" (via Pitchfork)





23. Jose Gonzalez - In Our Nature
Singer/songwriter isn't my genre of choice, but I really dug Jose's trips into simple, sometimes brooding beauty.







22. Free the Robots - Free the Robots EP
It's jazzy, funky, soulful and just plain fun.








21. Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová - Once Soundtrack
It's hard to hear this album apart from the movie, as it captures the street musician creates a raw anthem spilling over with creativity and passion, but I suspect that it works even if you haven't seen it. Do note that if you see Once, you're going to want to spend ten bucks to have the soundtrack immediately, so you might as well pick both of them up on your next Target run.



20. Thomas Fehlmann - Honigpumpe
This is electronica served just as I like it - minimal but warm. Fans of the genre should give it a listen.







19. Justice - t (cross)
I don't know how to sell this album any other way than this: "Do the D.A.N.C.E., 1, 2, 3, 4 fight. Stick to the B.E.A.T., get ready to ignite." Awesome. If these guys are Jesus-people, and everything about their titling tendencies point that direction, I'm hoping they get to DJ most of the parties in Heaven.

Download: "D.A.N.C.E." (via Pitchfork)


18. Rahsaan Patterson - Wines & Spirits
The best R&B album of the year. Each track has its own influences, but Rahsaan makes each one of them his own. If you like R&B even a little, seek it out.






17. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
There's not a bad track on here, and its best moments ("No Cars Go", "Keep the Car Running") hold their own with everything on Funeral, good enough for a top 20 spot.

Download: "No Cars Go" (via PopMatters)
Download: "Keep The Car Running" (via PopMatters)



16. Mavis Staples - We'll Never Turn Back
Mavis' record of contemporary spins on protest songs that she mastered back in the day (as the lead Staples sister) is moving, passionate and still capable of mobilizing people to change the world. This is also the best worship music I've heard this year.





15. Blu & Exile - Below the Heavens
One of the best rap albums I've heard in years. The beats and music are choice, his voice is confident and distinct without being over the top, and it rewards multiple listens. Oh, and it's a ton of fun. Like, Tribe fun. As with Rahsaan, if you like hip hop even a little bit, seek it out.





14. The Ike Reilly Assassination - We Belong to the Staggering Evening
It's no doubt indebted to a host of influences, but never once does it feel like Ike Reilly is ripping someone off. He and his band are having the time of their lives writing contemporary send-offs and the occasional protest song disguised in a shawl of irony. They're from Chicago but they deserve to be known throughout the country. What a blast.

Download: "When Irish Eyes Are Burning" (via PopMatters)

13. SoCalled - Ghettoblaster
His basic, unorthodox formula is to combine hip hop elements with Klezmer and Jewish cantor music. What makes this such a beautiful marriage is that he obviously loves and knows both of those pieces so intimately. It's the most original music I've heard this year. Listen to "You Are Never Alone" and proceed to purchase the album.

Download: "You Are Never Alone" (via PopMatters)


12. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
55 minutes of pulse-thumping ecstasy, with "All My Friends" and "Someone Great" right in the middle, taking it to another place. LCD brings it.






11. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
It's at once deeply confessional and personal, and also completely over the top. They take on many personas (my favorite being Prince after a bad breakup) to tell their story. They get funky, they get intense, and on "The Past is a Grotesque Animal," they sink their claws into you and don't let go for almost 12 cathartic minutes.

Download: "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" (via Pitchfork)
Download: "Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse" (left click)


10. Burial - Untrue
It's atmospheric but not removed from this planet. This is music for walks in the rain in urban America. It's detached but somehow you get completely immersed. To wit, it beckons you to enter into its world, with its spiral staircases, its flying choirs and its cavernous tree houses, and then it gets under your skin and you want to stay there.

Download: "Ghost Hardware" (left click) (via IODA)


9. Ned Collette - Future Suture
When all was said and done, Ned created my favorite album of 2006, the one that I played the most this year, and one that continues to grow on me. This is another grower, more so than last time, but the songs eventually reveal a beauty where, once you see it, it's hard to turn away. Stick with it. It's rewarding.




8. Pantha du Prince - This Bliss
It's an electronic album that I imagine would play as well in a warehouse as your headphones, only it constantly morphs into new shapes and ideas instead of lingering in atmosphere where so many recent electronica albums linger ad nauseam. And by using the same musical palette for the entire album, he develops a musical language that goes deeper than most wordless albums can go, especially ones created on a computer. I get lost in this music.


7. John Vanderslice - Emerald City
The crunch of his guitar ("White Dove") is tempered by his simple harmonies, the compelling percussion ("The Minaret") and his general songwriting skills and wordcraft. I love this album more each time I hear it.

Download: "White Dove" (via Vanderslice's Official Site)



6. Feist - The Reminder
Sometimes when I'm listening to The Reminder, I forget that I'm not sitting in Leslie Feist's living room.







5. Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
Andrew Bird got more cohesive, but no less daring. He put the guitars at the forefront to give the album some broad connecting tissue, and cut down on the wordplay, but upped the passion and heat. Andrew and his partners in crime absolutley cook on this record. I've listened to this at least once a week for the better part of a year, and it kicks off five albums that could've been #1.

Download: "Heretics" (via PopMatters)


4. Marco Mahler - Design in Quick Rotation
I've had this on pretty steady repeat since I first heard it. Some might argue that since I first heard this in December, it doesn't deserve to be in the top five, but I actually think that if I had heard this six months ago it'd be even higher. This makes the winter a little warmer. The eleven tracks are diverse in just the right ways, all sharing a lullaby quality that is sure to stir you and warm your heart. I love the lyrics, I love the fingerplay, I love the small choices he makes to flesh out his music without sacrificing any of the intimacy. I'm captivated.

Download: "Design in Quick Rotation"


3. Radiohead - In Rainbows
If it looks like a gimmick and smells like a gimmick, make sure it's not Radiohead before you draw conclusions. In the midst of pricing innovations, web sites, webcasts, discboxes and general hype, it's nice to know that they are still making some of the most original and challenging music out there. And even though they're arguably getting more accessible in their old age, the quality of their music is at an ethereal high.


2. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Critics like to use words to describe Spoon like 'economical' or 'efficient'. I think a better word is subtle. They leave space in their music for you to claim. It's your little cave where you can curl up and tap your feet happily. Spoon is one of my two favorite bands and this is the best introduction to them I can think of. So, if you haven't yet picked it up, allow me to recommend, without reservation, the absurdly titled (say it like machine gun fire) Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.

Download: "The Underdog" (via PopMatters)


1. The National - Boxer
You know that part of the day just before dawn when the sky is a gorgeous but ominous shade of blue? If you listen to "Ada" at that specific moment, you'll have a clear sense that everything is going to be okay. This is the soundtrack to late night drives, after work train rides and all of the pensive moments of our lives. Each song builds to the next, with Matt Berninger's baritone playing tour guide and Bryan Devendorf's drums taking every song to a higher level, to the point where even when he drops out of the picture entirely, you feel his presence, a phantom conductor leading you into the wee hours of the morning. In one of the best years of music that I can remember, nothing bested this. It's perfect.

Download: "Fake Empire" (via BeggarsGroup)

What'd I miss?

Related: Best Songs

Labels: bestof2007, Favorites, music

Every time I sit down to write something on my blog, I have really good intentions of writing something of substance, but I almost always end up writing something, published or not, about music or television. I'm not sure I've ever actually posted about television, save for a year-end list once, but something I saw this morning made me want to devote some space to television. That link will come at the end.

I like episodic television. More than movies even. It's a writer's medium - unlike a movie where great directors can cover up a lousy script and the best actors can make a bad script worth watching, the shows that are remembered are generally well-written and written with devotion and passion (great casting and direction certainly can push a show into that all-time category). I love following characters through well-developed arcs and watching them grow and mature (or not mature). I love the mythology that some shows develop over time. And I love the cliffhangers, the game-changing reveals, and just everything that's unique to a story lovingly told over many years. The reason I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was younger - the moment it went from fun-little-kid dream to maybe-i-actually-want-to-do-this dream - was entirely due to a television series. And when I was writing scripts in high school and college, I was predominantly writing for television - following one set of characters over 20-80 hours or so.

For me the best shows all share two broad qualities, regardless of genre. First, you're compelled to watch every time there's a new episode - maybe because you are so excited to see what happens next, or because the laughs are so consistent. Second, you can watch the best shows over and over again - often catching something new, or just paying closer attention to the jokes now that you're not concerned about what happens next (The Office benefits from re-watching more than any other current show).

Now that we're in the NetFlix/Blockbuster Online era, it's somewhat more realistic to recommend television shows. So many of the best shows are at their best when you watch from the beginning, and that's more doable now (unfortunately, a bunch of the best shows have been on HBO and feel a need to be different than network shows - and most do it in, um, not-so creative ways). There are a host of shows that I've been borderline-addicted to over the years, but if I had to choose a top five favorites, it'd have to be a top six, and it would have to include:


6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Now that it's widely acclaimed as one of the most important shows of the modern era of television, I feel better about sharing this on my blog: I went out of my way every week to see this show. The story of a teenage girl just wanting to be a teenage girl but instead being drafted into this strange world where she is responsible for constantly saving the world, and her friends, as much for a sense of belonging as for devotion to their friend, come along for the ride. Season one is fun, but it really found its voice in season two. There are plenty of good stand-alone episodes, but the reason it was required viewing was the season-long story arcs, the development of the three main characters, and especially the way it was juxtaposing vampires and all things vampire-hunting with high school. A show about a vampire slayer shouldn't be one of the most important commentaries on growing up in America, but that's exactly what it ended up being.


5. The Sopranos - There were blips along the way (the entire fourth season and the 'first half' of the sixth season were mostly forgettable), but this show sustained an incredibly deep level of storytelling for almost a decade. The main characters demanded your sympathies and like all the good mafia movies, their world was glamorized, but the show's creator, David Chase, never let you forget how evil and warped their world truly was, and he regularly dismantled the characters and made you rethink your loyalties. It was beautifully orchestrated with a collection of maybe the finest acting ever to grace the small screen. This was a morality tale, and a complicated one at that. And if you were watching so you could see who got killed next, you were watching for the wrong reasons. Now that it's on A&E, you can watch it sans most of the vulgarity and debauchery, although, be warned, it's still a show about a violent and entitled mafia boss and his family.


4. My So-Called Life - The aforementioned show that made me want to be a screenwriter. When this show was first on, I taped them all and would play them until the tape wore out. It spoke to me. The characters were flawed. The ones we rooted for would make bad choices (and the occasional good ones). It was tragic, poignant, charming, and the characters were so real and complex, that when they canceled it after one season, there was a real sense of loss from the fans, because this show was helping people make sense of chaos. It was years ahead of its time, even though nothing has nailed high school as well as MSCL. Even if the exact circumstances looked nothing like your high school experience, surely you will recognize the emotions, which were never exploited, but instead were resonant and redeeming.


3. Arrested Development - It's been five years and we still quote this show several times each week. It just keeps getting better every time I watch it too. This is the type of show where they set up jokes early in season one that they would pay off late in season two, and it would make every episode in between take on a whole new life once they did. Every scene was so jam-packed with little gags, that after watching each episode at least a half-dozen times, I was still catching things for the first time. It was so skillfully crafted, the writing and acting was so brilliant, that I don't think any comedy will ever best it. I really don't know how to talk about this show without going into 'Chris Farley Show' territory where I say a quote and then collapse into hyperbole about how great said quote was. The price keeps going down at Amazon and Target, so there are less and less reasons for you to avoid it.


2. Lost - Prior to May, I wouldn't have been ready to put this on my all-time list. There was too much potential that they didn't know where they were going, or that they'd stretch it out for years and years. Then they announced that they're doing 48 more episodes over three seasons of 16 episodes and that's it. Now they get to cut the fat and tell the story they want to tell. When the show returned after a meandering first six episodes of season three, it became clear that they knew where they were going from day one. The show got this swagger that it wore well. After all of the moaning and complaining about the running in place, we were finally going somewhere. And then the season finale of season three happened and it changed everything and we were all utterly convinced that this is going to be worth devoting Wednesday nights to for the next several years. No show has rewarded the time you spend with it more than Lost. Clues are everywhere, and they all add up to something. There are probably a hundred reasonable theories on what will happen next. I'm emotionally invested in almost every character, and the shows two greatest strengths (Benjamin Linus & John Locke) appear to be on the verge of 48 mind-blowing episodes. Unfortunately the writer's strike might mean we only get eight episodes of Lost in 2008. That may drive me (and millions more) crazy. This is the show I'm most compelled to watch out of anything that I've ever seen. Wednesday evenings are an event.


1. The Wire - After the umpteenth "Greatest Show Ever" review, I hijacked a trial NetFlix membership and wailed on these DVDs. It's the unbelievable tale of the Baltimore crime scene - the police and the criminals and the politicians. It spends equal time with all three, creating this complex world where the good guys become bad guys and the bad guys occasionally become good guys. It's a show that always remains real, and never goes for the easy hook. And it's told (masterfully) like a novel. Often times an hour will go by and you'll wonder if anything just happened (not that you weren't enthralled at every turn, just that this is a different type of television show). The first ten episodes often exist for the final two or three (and going back to rewatch them is all the better because of it). In season four, it went to an even higher level when it went into the schools and followed four boys over the course of the year, and showed you exactly how the cycle keeps repeating.

This isn't a show where you wait in hope of a happy ending. The writers are former members of the press, the police force and the schools in Baltimore. They're telling a story that is based on the actual reality they experienced and are experiencing. They threw out the book of television clichés (which all of my other top six were guilty of at one point or another). I'm convinced that season four was the best twelve hours of television ever crafted, putting it right up there with the best movies and books and plays and every other work of fiction. Which creates high expectations for the fifth and final season - ten episodes starting in January. Which brings me back to the beginning - today they posted three shorts on Amazon.com that aren't precursors to season five, but do provide some background on some of the shows main characters - Prop Joe, McNulty & Bunk, and the greatest character the show has created, Omar. As a warning, it's an HBO show, and so there's some swearing in the shorts.

There was a teaser promo for season five they released a few months ago that, for all of the devotees of The Wire, had us at the edge of our seats constantly recounting how much time we had to wait for the premiere. That this simple and somewhat gloomy promo inspired me to verbally express my excitement while home alone in our living room should give you an idea of how great this show is. Amazon recently had a crazy-big Monday-after-Thanksgiving sale on every season so thanks to some birthday money, I'd be glad to host a viewing party for anyone who is interested. (If anyone has HBO and is a fan - we don't, so seeing the episodes will be tricky. Hence, I'm looking for a friend to watch them with - I'll buy the snacks).

So there you have it, hundreds of hours of entertainment recommended by yours truly.

Labels: Favorites, Other

A few weeks ago, Verity & I went snorkeling in the ocean off of Calica, Mexico. It was one of the most profound experiences I've ever had. We saw beautiful coral, a flounder, hundreds of fish (that came right up to us - shoo, fish, shoo!) and even a sea turtle, which I'm told are very rare to see (I didn't take the picture featured here, but it did look similar).

As I hung out in creation, I had this beautiful paradoxical reaction:

I was overwhelmed with how small and insignificant I am. God made this earth some 4.5 billion years ago. Now, scuba diving and the rest are fairly recent inventions, especially relative to the age of the earth. As are the Discovery Chanel, documentary crews and IMAX theaters. So there's all of this earth and sea that God seems to have created solely for his pleasure. And it's gorgeous. I've been obsessed with programs like Planet Earth and The Blue Planet since we got back from snorkeling, and I'm amazed at what's out there, all created not for us to marvel at but just for God's pleasure - at least for the first 4.5 billion years. Compared to the earth, the solar system, the universe... I am just one guy sitting in a cubicle dreaming of the future. I am so preposterously insignificant that my words will never properly sum up just how insignificant I am.

And therein was the paradox. In this insignificance, I felt more empowered than ever before. First, the tasks at hand seemed smaller in scope, even when they were of the world-changing variety (or at least the Chicago-changing variety). Second, I had a new sense of this being God's world and me simply stepping into His plan, His creation, what He's doing. I can accomplish anything He sets before me. It wasn't until I was floating around in the ocean, trying not to swallow water through my snorkel, staring at a sea turtle that this truth really came alive for me. To steal a phrase from Mother Theresa, who am I but a pencil in God's hand?

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

A new drug is being introduced to fight obesity in our pets.

Obesity.

In pets.

Growing up, I had two schnauzers that I loved dearly, Maynard and Bernie (Maynard after jazz trumpeter and frequent aural stratosphere visitor Maynard Ferguson, and Bernie as a combination of Bert and Ernie, of Sesame Street of course). Now, my parents made the decisions about the dogs when it came to medicine, but if it were up to me I can't necessarily say outright that I would be unwilling to spend a ton of money keeping my dog alive for years. As fellow dog lovers will understand, they were close friends.

But when I hear about all the medications being prescribed to dogs and cats and the rest, including anti-depressants, I fear that we've taken that phrase "man's best friend" a bit too literally. And in light of the dog bakeries ("Barkeries," I'm told they're called), and the fact that the store for pets in the little shopping district near our house was packed on Saturday, I find myself with a question that I'd just like to ask out loud.

Is this trend a reflection of our society's affluence or our increasing isolation?

Treating your pets like family isn't a new concept. This is simply another example of the market filling a perceived need. But in an age where 25% of Americans have no confidant, I think it's worth noting that people want and are capable of deep, loving relationships. Maybe we've just fast-food-ed our way to having a dog actually be our closest friend. And regardless of your love for dogs, we must all admit that a dog isn't a substitute for real human intimacy and relationship.

Of course, the flipside is that we're one step closer to America's Next Top Dog Model. I'm not sure which topic is more urgent.

[Note: Photo is of neither Maynard nor Bernie, but he does make a compelling case for spending a ton of money on your pets.]

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

Why are there thousands of blogs?
Why of those thousands of blogs do most of them consist of a recap of the author's life?
What need are blogs filling in people?

Celebrities who our society worships go through great trouble to keep their life private. Does hanging your life out for all to see give people a sense of being a celebrity?

The authors of blogs get to choose what information they share about their lives. Are we preempting others asking hard questions by controlling the direction of the conversation?

Online communities such as MySpace and Facebook connect you to hundreds or thousands of people just like you. So that you can exchange links and tally the number of people who want to know you. Is this our substitute for real community? What about the online gaming communities like World of Warcraft? Is it a place to play a game or a substitute for real community?

I spend lots of time on this blog recommending music. Am I just hoping that my opinion matters to someone?

I use it as a forum to talk about the things God is talking to me about and visa versa... but how much of it comes up in my real live friendships? Even something that seems noble to me - becoming a better writer and communicator, sharing what God is teaching me in hopes that it will help someone - is it actually just scratching an itch to matter? Assuming that said itch is God-give, is this blog satisfying that itch?

I look at the world around me and I see lots of alcohol and not a lot of meaningful conversations or memories you'll cherish when you're older. I see lots of casual sex but few committed relationships that challenge each other to grow and really know each other.

I can't decide if technology is enabling people to be a part of a global community, blogs helping people to be vulnerable in life-giving ways (and giving introverts a voice), or if we're just nursing a sea of surface-level friendships and taking an easy alternative to something hard like being vulnerable and real in the name of getting the world off our backs.

Is the Web 2.0 the community God had in mind?

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

Round two.

There are two trends that I see in real life on a regular basis that hit a spot in my soul that goes "I don't feel so good..." First, I see on the internet, in the news and in my community that Christianity as a movement is despised. This is due to a number of factors. Our self-appointed spokespeople over the last six years aren't helping with their God-invoking rhetoric and actions that don't seem to line up with anything Jesus said (It's hard to make disciples of all nations when we're killing them instead so that we can enjoy our Grocery-Carrying-Hummers and Dog Bakeries in peace and safety).

And we have this political machine that villainizes the left and demonizes two not-so-black-and-white issues that are close to the hearts of millions of Americans. Regardless of your stance on those issues, I think we can, as mature adults, admit that no one should be surprised by people not wanting to be a part of what they perceive as a close-minded and hate-filled church. Our tactics haven't always come from a place of love, mercy and grace.

However, what bothers me more about the state of Christianity in America is that while we're actively hated as an institution, as individuals and local movements, we're often passively and casually dismissed with an "Oh, that's nice" attitude of those we're trying to reach.

My understanding is that our way of living is to be so counter-cultural that people will persecute us for our beliefs. I don't feel very persecuted though. I mostly feel ignored. And that bothers me.

What I don't want is for our Savior to be synonymous with hate and hypocrisy. What I do want is for the Gospel, words that are still radical today, to overwhelm the community I am a part of. So all I know to do in this conversation is to turn the light on me and ask:

How am I putting God's truth on display in my life?
How can I better live out this faith?
How can I, as one believer in a community of many believers, reclaim Jesus and be a movement for unquestionable good?

I feel like I'm saying things that not all of my friends agree with, so please, engage me in the comments. Do you see it a completely different way? I want your voice to be heard as well. I'm not here to debate but to talk about these things. The Body of Christ is supposed to be unified, but I feel split wide open by some of these topics, to the point where they feel taboo to even raise. But I think it's important to talk about this stuff. So, please, remember that we're called to love one another and then comment away.

Be blessed... be loved...

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

As I've pondered the James Cameron announcement (see the last post), I've come to the conclusion that we've got to think about our role in this mess. If the Church concentrated on making the world more like Heaven, if our number one goal was to end hunger, create shelter, provide heat and clothing, and then move into realms like education, health care and then into even broader arenas like human rights and creating equality, I think the world wouldn't be interested in spending time disproving Christianity. I imagine they'd celebrate the work of God on display.

But in the past couple years we've seen Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion plastered all over Barnes and Noble. We've seen the author of The Da Vinci Code publicly stating that it is a work of fiction, and then at least thousands of people exploring if it was true or not. We've had Oprah's The Secret speaking to thousands of people looking to fill a void in their life that God wants to fill so badly. Just as we are seeing a waning interest in The Da Vinci Code, all of these things will soon be forgotten and Jesus will still be capturing the hearts, minds and imaginations of millions of people around the world. But I think to dismiss all of what's happening without critically examining our role in it would be to do the Church a disservice.

It seems like people are fed up with Christianity in America. How did we get this far? Certainly we are to expect persecution, but this doesn't feel (at least to me) like a kingdom's power being threatened. This feels like people with good intentions wanting to make the world a more tolerable, more peaceful place, and the way they've deemed most efficient to accomplishing that end is to disprove Christianity.

And when I read the Book of Acts, all I can think is... "Huh?"

We're supposed to be a movement of people making disciples of all nations. We're supposed to be preaching good news to the poor, restoring sight to the blind. You know, proclaiming and demonstrating the Kingdom of God. Instead, we're running multi-million-dollar building campaigns and getting in bed with political parties.

Case in point: The following story is from USA Today on November 28 of last year:

The president-elect of the Christian Coalition of America has declined the job, saying the organization wouldn't let him expand its agenda beyond opposing abortion and gay marriage.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, who was scheduled to take over the socially conservative group in January from Roberta Combs, said he had hoped to focus on issues such as poverty and the environment.

"These are issues that Jesus would want us to care about," said Hunter, a senior pastor at Northland Church in Longwood, Fla.

Hunter announced his decision not to take the job during an organization board meeting Nov. 21. A statement issued by the group said Hunter left because of "differences in philosophy and vision." Hunter said he was not asked to leave.

"They pretty much said, 'These issues are fine, but they're not our issues, that's not our base,"' Hunter said.

I find myself asking questions like "Are we being good stewards of the faith?" And, "God has clearly blessed America... have we used that blessing in a way that glorifies Him?" Let's keep talking about this. I welcome your feedback, whether you agree or disagree with me. More soon...

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

This is my cop-out post. Rob Horning author of the Marginal Utility blog at PopMatters.com wrote an essay that's been marinading in my head for almost a year. The whole iSolation series was birthed in that essay. I've got tons of thoughts I want to get on paper and share with you, but every time I read his article, I can't figure out a way to say it better than him. So I'm going to share a piece of it today, and we can continue our discussion of the topic next week (we'll start with MySpace). It's a long essay, and I'm only posting half of it here. I might suggest that you copy and paste it into a document and print it out. It's long but it's worth your time. Read the whole essay at PopMatters.com.

Often during my subway trips I'll encounter someone who's wearing headphones and he — almost always a he — will be air drumming or dancing in his seat or mouthing the words or, in the most extreme cases, singing out loud… after a moment of thinking he's ridiculous, I'll start to develop a weird admiration for him. After all, here's someone who just doesn't care about looking like a fool; that's how passionate he is about the music he loves — which I generally imagine to be something like Rush or the Scorpions. This guy always seems entirely unembarrassed, comfortable in his skin with the reassurance of his favorite songs. He will generally have the satisfied look of someone who thinks he's been rather impressive. The onus is on those around him to be embarrassed for him, which is always an enormous waste of emotional energy.

In general, what this guy is doing is taking the prerogatives one normally has in the interior of one's own car — you can sing along to your radio and pretend you're the only person in the world inside your little bubble — and bringing it to public transportation. In fact, the gist of a lot of technology for personal use is to eliminate shared space and make every place private, one where you can control the environment. We travel through public space as though we are always in our own private car, even if we're only walking down the street with our hands-free Bluetooth earpiece in, jabbering away at 20 decibels about how we're not up to much, you know, just walking down the street.

Compare this guy with another person I sometimes see on the N train, only more often late at night. While the train is underground in Manhattan, she — typically a she, usually the same sort of woman who wears sunglasses even when the train's below ground — clutches her cell phone, gazing pensively at the screen, sometimes scrolling through information on the screen, who they know, who they've called. Perhaps they are contriving text messages to send, e.g., "on the train. bored." She seems to be using the phone as something to focus on. Maybe it helps with ignoring the creepy guys (like me, I guess) who might make eye contact with her, who will make her feel scrutinized and thus insecure.

A phone works better for this than a book, because a book reveals important information about oneself and almost invites conversation. ("What are you reading? Oh, I've read Da Vinci Code too. Can't wait for the movie. Have you read Digital Fortress?") A phone reveals next to nothing; a palm conceals it and its screen discloses details to the possessor alone. No one can ask you what you are doing, because the phone effectively sends the message that it's private, that you are checked out of the space you are in, and dreaming of being somewhere else.

As we come above ground in Queens, she'll immediately listen to messages or put in a call to someone she will likely be going home to in a matter of minutes, joining the collective murmuring of the inconsequential conversations that seem to take place on cell phones at every possible public moment. "Hey, I'm on the train." This comes across as an attempt to reject the world, or at least the reality of one's solitary presence in it, in favor of the illusion of constant companionship.

The phone, which makes it clear that one has people to contact in case of an emergency, people to summon for protection, works as a shield, as a seemingly concrete lifeline to safety, ready to pull you out of the unpleasant and possibly dangerous world of strangers. Extending the aura of privacy the phone generates, the familiar voice piping through the earpiece strengthens the cellular force field that obliterates the present space one actually occupies along with all the unpleasant or inconvenient people in it. Whereas the air drummer, in his flamboyance and his indifference to how he is perceived, sends the message, "You are not here", the cell-phone brandisher seems to send the message that "I'm not here".

These two figures typify the process by which public space is dissolved into a million private spaces delineated by headphones and cell phones and PDAs, under the presumption that it's both more convenient and safer to act as though the reality of shared public space was optional. True, it may be wrong to conflate the purgatorial way stations of public transportation with public space as it's usually idealized -- the N train is not a town square. And perhaps the behavior I've just described has an idealistic component to it in its refusal to recognize as public space any place that doesn't live up to the Platonic notion of it as a zone where people choose to come and linger and discuss contemporary issues: the mythic Habermasian coffeehouse where the bourgeois public sphere was born. But nevertheless, public transportation can still roughly serve as a laboratory where the effects technology is having on the way we conduct ourselves in public can be observed.

Though we typically use technology to blot out our surroundings, paradoxically enough, we often conduct this blotting out rather ostentatiously. For example, the air drummer, though he seems as if he has to have forgotten he is in public, is more likely actually searching for attention. What he explicitly refuses is not attention but interaction. (In this, he's like the cell-phone talker.) Generally, the entertainment we consume has habituated us to a division of the world into watchers and performers, a dichotomy that sheds notions of interaction, shared activity, communal action, all of which have been reconceived culturally as disruptive hassles. Both performing and watching have their perks: performers can be showered with attention and validation, no matter how banal their performance (c.f. the celebrity of reality-show participants); whereas spectators can hover godlike above the fray, lazily enjoying whatever spectacle they deign to notice among the many begging for their attention.

As a result, we find ourselves perpetually split between watching and doing; as a result we improvise ways to try to bridge the rift. The air drummer seeks spectators but presumably knows he has no real skill to warrant that attention, at least not on the subway. So he tries to garner our attention by taking his own spectatorship to the level of performance. He acts as though he's so convinced the music he's listening to is cool that it gives him a free pass to do whatever he wants, or what's more, the music he likes and the device he by which he listens to it are so cool that he must gesticulate wildly enough to call everyone's attention to how much he's able to enjoy it. That he looks like some kind of crazy mime to the rest of us who can't hear what he does is apparently immaterial. With so few ways to earn validation from peers or contribute to society, it's no surprise we have to resort to stunts like this.

Since we often regard our jobs as compulsory, something we'd love to shirk if we could (and an annoyance much like sharing public space), we can't seek social validation directly for what we spend much of our time doing. In the absence of any other socially validated work, taste and our ritual display of it must be considered as the only real meaningful social work we all perform. Because so much status resides in the signaling function of the consumer products we display, the most significant contribution we can make to the world around us is to build the prestige of brands. This is what it means to live in a consumer society. We can aspire to little more than being showroom dummies.

As Jürgen Habermas explains in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (MIT Press, 1991) public space went from being a realm of "rational-critical debate" to an arena of commercialized leisure. This destroys the possibility of a public identity independent of our private one: "Leisure behavior supplies the key to the floodlit privacy of the new sphere, to the externalization of what is declared to be the inner life." Our inner life is now the opposite of private; it consists of the collection of consumer and leisure choices we make in order to appear as something, as anything, in the devolved and oversaturated public sphere. Any expectations we have about being noticed outside the home are always in terms of our consumption choices, and typically these fleeting moments of notoriety are not on our own terms. We never know when someone will notice us, judge our clothes, our face, who we're with, how we're acting. The air drummer, at least, taking matters into his own hands, sought out his moment.

The rest of us instead tend to be defensive, like the cell-phone brandisher, trying to deflect attention, or meet some minimal standard so as to pass anonymously, while wondering at the same time how come no one notices us. The problem is the anonymity we aspire to for safety makes us in a larger sense disposable, interchangeable -- which is itself dangerous in a capitalist economy that's most profitable when it can treat individuals the same way, and give them no security or stability. (This is sometimes called "creative destruction".)

Thus, one of the cell phone's security-blanket functions, above and beyond giving us access to emergency services and friends is the psychological reminder that though we might seem lost in the crowd, we could at any moment be selected for attention in the form of our ringtone (which ideally we will have carefully selected to be au courant). The cell phone seems to provide a means by which we can control how and when we will be singled out and noticed, a comfort that conceals the fact that it is essentially a tracking device that allows our movements to be constantly surveilled. But rather than suspect the phone has undermined our privacy, we feel as though it has secured it, giving us a chance to carry our private worlds with us.

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

Being alive is not meant to be a solo gig; God created people to be relational. Yet, as technology advances and becomes more integrated in the name of making our lives “better”, there are trends that move us away from community.

The iPod has made it socially celebrated that someone walks around with a pair of headphones on all day. I ride a train to and from work each day with the same group of people, and none of us have ever said a word besides "excuse me" to each other. We do everything we can to be quiet and look forward. Read a book, play on your computer, listen to your music.

People go to clubs where the music is too loud to promote conversations, and even in a group, everyone is isolated. Television and the internet are too often the bulk of our non-working lives, and even as we are more connected globally, our community vanishes. I don’t even have to leave my house to rent a movie anymore. Online, people join communities like Second Life or they play games like World of Warcraft, where communities become a series of playing pretend. That’s fine in doses, but for millions of Americans, it’s a primary means of connection. Food comes to us, delivery style. At my gym, each new treadmill has its own television – we don’t even have to watch TV together anymore.

Our personal universe gets more isolated. Cell phones allow you to take your world with you, enabling you to remain at the center of your universe at all times and isolating yourself from the world around you. There’s an add on TV now where you choose your top five friends for the sake of cheaper calling. Rarely do friendrankings add to a sense of brotherhood – ask anyone who has had to choose a wedding party. Scot McKnight raised concerns about jogging with headphones and not taking in the sounds of the world.

Technology does present new forms of community – online groups for anything under the sun, Facebook, MySpace, online dating, instant messaging with video, international and domestic long distance calling made cheap, and communities like Second Life.

But even here we move towards isolation. I read that today’s youth assume that their lives will be public anyway, so they take the first step and put themselves on a community like MySpace where they give everyone in the world access to their lives. It’s the spiritual cousin of being a celebrity – your life as a product for others to consume. But celebrities seem to be amongst the most isolated people on the planet, with so few relationships that revolve around their humanity and so many that revolve around their success.

Community isn’t just about companionship, it is also about being known. Not being known deeply is lonely.

If I go to work and sit in my cubicle all day, toss my headphones on, get on a train, go home, turn on my television and fall asleep, how many days in a row can I do that before I start to lose touch with an essential part of being alive?

Or if all of my friendships remain at a surface level, and I use my blog or profile as the way I let people in, am I known?

My iPod keeps me out of conversation with God, too. It's frigid right now, and the cold made it necessary to cover my ears with something more substantial than headphones. And as I walked to work in the freezing cold, I found myself in a meaningful and life-giving conversation with my Creator that fueled an entire day of goodness, insight and clarity. It occurred to me that this isn’t a daily experience for me, even though it could be. My choice.

So is technology creating isolation, or is technology simply meeting a consumer demand to be more isolated?

The implications run deep. More soon.

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

Matthew 6:25-34:

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

"Yeah, but you're Jesus"
I read this stuff and I can't help but think "That's easy for you to say - you only had three years to live!" and then I grumble about not being able to blow thousands of dollars on a 58-inch widescreen plasma TV without a guilty conscience. But as I've thought about that time span - three years - I realized that not only did Jesus live this way, but His disciples did too, only they didn't know their fate from day one. After His resurrection, they threw caution to the wind, commonly putting themselves in dangerous situations in order to spread the message of Jesus. According to Church history, all of the apostles but John died a martyr's death, often gruesome, and John only avoided this fate because when they boiled him in oil, he miraculously survived so they sent him into exile on the Island of Patmos where he had his Revelations).

I think that when you live as if you could die tomorrow, all of these things - clothes, food, money - they just sort of fade into the background. They're unnecessary because, like Jesus, your mission is defining your choices - demonstrate and proclaim the Kingdom of God and try to ensure the message will continue to spread after you're gone - and all of those things are sort of irrelevant to that aim.

I wonder if the message has become so neutered and the lifestyle so safe, that we simply aren't living the way the Apostles did, which forces me to ask the questions:

Should we be?
Is that what Jesus intended?
What does this have to do with the abundant life Jesus came to give?
What does a life devastated by the Gospel look like?

How do I live it in a neighborhood in Chicago?
This isn't a call to go put your life in harm's way, but instead a call to proclaim and demonstrate with abandon. To let Jesus be the Lord of your life in a meaningful way. To not just not worry about where your food and clothes will come from, but to have an entire lifestyle that makes those choices irrelevant. How can we simplify our lives? What small things could we do right now that would change our priorities? Maybe it's a simple as getting involved in The Harvest or the refugee ministries at the Evanston Vineyard, or the equivalent at your churches. Maybe it's working with kids who don't have a dad around, or giving up your Friday night so that a single Mom can have her's back. Or perhaps it's as simple as diving so deep into your community that your first instinct is "What can I sell, what can I give, how can I help so that we can keep this going?" Let's talk.

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

"A year from now you may wish you had started today." - Karen Lamb

Sometimes the timelessness of the Bible overshadows the time of the Bible. Jesus' public ministry was three years, which is actually kind of a long time. When I pick up the Bible and see how short the four gospels are, I can confuse their economy with the span of time they take place in. It feels like three months, not three years.

It's hard to get my hands around the idea that these things happened. It's somehow become easier to see them as stories that have meaning for my life today than as something that took place on this very earth, albeit 2000 years ago. But they happened and that stirs up all sorts of questions.

When Jesus turned water into wine for his friends' wedding, did He already feel the weight of what was coming three years later? If I were in His shoes, it seems like it'd be a far-off concept, not an approaching reality. What was the second year like? In that borderline heretical part of my mind, I think it might have been kind of tedious at times - like "Okay, let's get this thing going!"? But was it always thrilling? It sounds like it would be, but it also sounds like it happened in a few months time. What was the beginning of year three like? Was it starting to get more real? Had it always been real? Was there a new sense of urgency to His work?

Imagine how close you'd feel to a small group of people after three years of constant togetherness. Imagine how much you could get done if you set out with aims that you would judge all of your choices by: Demonstrate and proclaim the Kingdom and take your disciples deep enough that they'll continue the work.

In three years, Jesus set enough things in motion to change the world. I'm not Jesus, but I am invited to be crucified with Him. I'm invited to continue His work. What has that meant for my life?

What could I do in three years? Could I change Chicago? My neighborhood? My building? My office? A year from now, what will I wish I had done less of? What will I wish I had done more of? How does my place in God's story inform my choices? What could I do in three years if I took seriously God's call?

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

Then [Martha] returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, “The Teacher is here and wants to see you.” So Mary immediately went to him. - John 11:28-29

Some Background Information
Here’s what we know about Mary. There are three stories in the Bible that are very similar, but each a little different. In Mark 14, Luke 7 and John 12, Jesus is eating in the home of someone (a sinful but cured Leper named Simon, a Pharisee named Simon, and Lazarus, brother of Mary, rose from the dead, namesake of this series). In each story, a version of this happens: A woman pours expensive perfume on Jesus. In each story, someone is upset that this has happened - in the first text it is several people in the room, in the second text, it is Simon the leper Pharisee (apparently), and in the third story it is Judas Iscariot that speaks out against what’s happened.

In the first story, people are outraged that she’s wasted such an expensive jar of perfume, which could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus replies:

“Leave her alone. Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time. I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and discussed.”

In the second story, “the woman knelt behind Jesus at his feet and she was weeping. Her tears fell on his feet and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.” Simon the Pharisee, the host of the meal, doubts Jesus is a prophet, because he’s allowing a sinful woman to touch him. This of course becomes more interesting if the Simon here is the same Simon from the first story, the one who Jesus healed of leprosy. Anyway, Jesus replies:

“Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”

“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.

Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

“That’s right,” Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.

“I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

The plot thickens.

In the third story, after they are finished eating in the house of Lazarus (where Martha once again served dinner, which we’ll get to in a second), Mary pours a jar of perfume on Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair. Judas (the apostle who betrayed Jesus) gets angry that she wasted an expensive jar (remind you of another story?). Jesus replied:

“Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

I did some digging, and it seems as though scholars agree that this is the same woman in each story, our Mary. Remember also that Mary, in the book of Luke, sits at Jesus’ feet while Martha works and cooks. Jesus says that Mary has found the only thing worth being concerned about.

So what do we know about Mary? She’s a sinner whose been forgiven a multitude of sins. She displays a ton of emotion and passion. She’s dramatic. She understands Jesus to be her Lord and Savior, and she’s let that sink deep down into her soul. This is good to think about as we return to the Lazarus story.

Mary and Jesus

Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. When the people who were at the house consoling Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’s grave to weep. So they followed her there. When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. - John 11:30-34

Now, Mary chose not to go with Martha the first time, and I assume she knew where Martha was going. Martha has to come back and basically order her to go see Jesus. She’s been weeping, she’s torn up. Again Jesus makes her come to him.

What was that walk like? This is the other side of the same coin that is the Martha/Mary relationship. Where Martha tells Jesus she’s disappointed and then immediately qualifies that she still thinks his will is good, Mary doesn’t add the qualifier.

The crowd follows Mary, who left in a hurry, but they didn’t follow Martha. Given what we know about the two of them, this isn’t that surprising, as Mary would almost certainly be showing more emotion - her highs almost necessarily reveal her lows. And I feel like she lets Jesus have it. She, too, isn't fuzzy on what Jesus is capable of.

(Brief aside: You have no idea how badly I want to compare this to Connie-Michael scene in the Godfather after Michael’s had her husband killed. This is nothing like that, which I can't stress enough, but I imagine Mary feels a bit like Connie did. So if you know the reference, take what’s worthwhile there and throw the rest of the comparison away)

And Jesus responds to her in a much different way than Martha. With Martha, he gave her a chance to work through some stuff in her head. But Mary collapses and weeps, and the rest of the crowd starts to wail, and Jesus responds with a deep anger, which I’ve always understood as his response to the agony and grief caused by the fall, sin and death.

The Mary Side of Healing
When it comes to healing and relying on Jesus, there’s a Martha side to me and a Mary side to me. The Mary side of me understands that Jesus is so severely beautiful, that I can’t fathom why he doesn’t answer every prayer for healing that gets sent his way. There’s grieving and getting mad at God. When God doesn’t come through the way I wanted Him to, there’s a sense of betrayal. Like Mary falling at his feet, I experience this emotion blend with a sense of reverance. That’s a tough place to be. And I imagine that most Christians feel this at one point or another, although I bet almost none of us would admit to it, for fear of sounding doubtful of God’s goodness.

But as I read through the Bible, especially the Psalms, I recognize that God isn’t afraid of the hard questions. He seems willing to work in those questions some miraculous answers. He only asks that you ask those questions in front of Him.

I watch Jesus respond to that feeling by being angry and troubled, and it gives me hope that in our darkest moments, sometimes Jesus will say “Where have you put him?” and begin a story of redemption where before there was only pain.

Labels: Favorites, Jesus

In the Lazarus story, the women take center stage. Let’s look at Martha today, and then we’ll look at Mary later on. Setting the scene: Bethany is close to Jerusalem, so a big crowd has gathered to mourn with Mary and Martha over the death of their brother, which happened four days prior.

Martha and Jesus
Martha goes to meet Jesus outside of the village. Jesus doesn’t go to her, but instead asks her to walk to Him. I wonder what that walk must have been like for Martha. She is disappointed that God didn’t come through the way she wanted Him to. I imagine that stings for her in a deeper way since these are people who have shown love to Jesus since the day they met, and people who know what He is capable of. They know His heart is to cease suffering and pain, and they’ve watched Him perform miracles, they know He can heal and wants to heal.

She gets there and says: “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”

That sounds like a distant relative of the backhanded compliment. She acknowledges what He was capable of doing but chose not to do, but it has not caused her faith to cease, and her understanding of who Jesus is allows her to find hope amongst deep loss and sadness. Of course, we find comfort in knowing that what Jesus asked for was for Lazarus to be rise from the dead.

When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. Bethany was only a few miles down the road from Jerusalem, and many of the people had come to console Martha and Mary in their loss. When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”

“Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.”

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”

“Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God.” (John 11:17-27 NLT)

Some Background Information
Here’s what we know about Martha: In the book of Luke, Jesus comes to a dinner with her and Mary, and she spends their time together cooking and working, while her sister Mary sits at Jesus' feet. "Doesn't it seem unfair that Mary sits while I cook?" she asks. Jesus tells her that she's focused on all of the details, but that there is only one thing worth being concerned about, something that Mary understands; something lasting that won't be taken away.

Martha spent that day doing and performing and trying to please everyone, rather than stopping and living in the moment, just being in Jesus’ presence. Sounds like someone who tries their whole life not to sin, but never talks to their Creator the way a child would talk to a parent. The Von Trapp God. Martha reminds me of someone who is ignoring the wonder and excitement of life, as well as the deep sorrow and grief that comes with it. She reminds me of someone who hasn't really given much thought as to how huge this man she calls Messiah is. I know people like that (sometimes I am people like that). They (we) don't question, don't think, don't read beyond the surface of the page. She's not the psalmist, questioning and yelling and crying and praising. What I've seen in my life is that if I let that numbness set in, as a defense maybe, it makes its way into every area of my life, until I reach a point where I either blow up or deflate.

On the flipside, Martha still believes Jesus is the Son of God. I think it takes great strength and fortitude to not toss your faith aside when it comes to a loved one dying, especially if you’ve relied on God and believed God and served God faithfully. Martha is someone whose own faith challenges mine.

The Martha Side of Healing
Jesus speaks something on two levels - metaphorical and literal - her brother would rise again - and Martha hears or understands only the metaphorical, future part of it (that certainly still happens today). Then Jesus responds to her in that Jesus-y way (where He answers a question she didn’t ask, or responds to a statement she didn’t make). I wonder what his purpose was with this statement. Was it to give Martha a chance to remind herself who He claimed to be? Was it to make sure that His eternal messages weren’t tossed aside given the hugeness of the miracle He would perform that day? Was He teaching Martha?

When it comes to healing and relying on Jesus, there is a Martha side of me and a Mary side of me (which I’ll go into next). The Martha side of me keeps pleasing, keeps ignoring, keeps moving. I need a Jesus who will ask me to walk to Him, a Jesus who will give me opportunities to think about what I believe. I need a Jesus who recognizes that what I’m doing, I do out of a desire to serve and love Him, even if there are more ideal ways for me to experience His love.

He meets us where we’re at. He knows what we need, even when it doesn’t seem like what we need. And when I see only eternal messages where there are also messages for here and now, it’s good for my soul to know that the here and now doesn’t need me to grasp the here and now in order for it to happen.

Labels: Favorites, Jesus