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I don’t really know that much about Marcion, but after reading about Moses and the Israelites (or would it be more clear to say Moses versus the Israelites) in the first five books of the Bible, I have to say that I can see why Marcion had questions about the Old Testament. Though I don’t agree that there are irreconcilable differences between the Old and the New, I sense the confict and quesitons.

As a piece of dry grass proudly daring to approach the sun, it is a terrible thing for uncovered man to experience the intense, consuming fire of G-d’s holiness. Pride is humiliated and returns to the dust from which it was formed. Yet we are not without hope. In Christ, we are covered. In Christ, the bush burns eternally yet is not consumed.

The “nine to five” part of my life’s been pretty busy lately. Too busy. Maybe it’s related to my obsessive side, but when there’s a problem that I’m partly responsible to solve, I can’t just let it stay at the office. As a result, when I’m home I’m not all the way home – just “mostly” home… and “all the way” tired.

Not only do my busy times at the office diminish life at home, I’ve noticed that my motivation for change seems to be reduced as well. No nagging questions about simplicity or community. No desire for the people of Honduras. Hopefully, the “stirring” is still there… somewhere latent within. Is it so tied to my career that it will not resurface until things at the office are slow again, and I start feeling bored?

Will’s crying in the other room. Time to go be a dad.

An excerpt from “Following Jesus” by N.T. Wright:

It is because of him that we know – we don’t just hope, we know – that God will wipe away all tears from all eyes. And in that knowledge we find ourselves to be Sunday people, called to live in a world of Fridays. In that knowledge we know ourselves to be Easter people, called to minister to a world full of Calvarys. In that knowledge we find that the hand that dries our tears passes the cloth to us, and bids us follow him, to go to dry one another’s tears. The Lamb calls us to follow him wherever he goes, into the dark places where tears blot out the sunlight, the places where tyrants pave the grass with concrete; and he bids us shine his morning light into the darkness, and share his ministry of wiping away tears. And as we worship, and adore, and follow the Lamb, we join, already, in the song of Revelation 5.11-14, the song that one day the trees and the mountains and the whales and waterfalls – the whole world, reborn on Easter morning – will all sing with us:

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain…
to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and blessing!

To him who sits on the throne and the Lamb
be blessing and honour and glory and power for ever and
ever, Amen.

Sell the house. Sell the cars. Sell the boat. Learn to speak Spanish. Build homes. Help physicians care for folks. Play guitar. Teach English. Fish. Play. Purge. In short, move to Honduras for two years.

Can’t really say that I feel “called” to do this. Then again, I can’t really say that I’m not. It’s just one of several ideas on the radar, and of the companion possibilities, it’s the one that seems most interesting or exciting at the moment. Something in the back of mind says that I must be able to answer the question “why” before doing something so… crazy, big, and different. Well… Mr. “Gotta-Hava-Reason”… howsabout you answerin me this one:

Why not?

Before starting my day at the office, I usually read the latest entries on several design weblogs. This morning, an entry on the Stuff and Nonsense site caught my eye, and I thought I’d try to answer the question it posed – why do I do what I do?

With that said, here are some random thoughts:

• I’m a hopeless organizer/categorizer.
• I enjoy the satisfaction of explaining (at least when I’m able to communicate clearly and get the sense that what I’ve said makes some sense).
• I’m OK at drawing, singing, and playing the guitar.
• I’ve been in web/cd-rom technology for over 15 years.
• I love meeting people from other places.
• I feel most alive when contributing/serving.

I guess the list above doesn’t really contain answers to the question. Maybe they’re best held in contrast… the real question being – what should I be doing?

“Music serves a grand function in this crazy old world, and all of us, one way or another, are singers. Let your song fly. The rest of us need it.”

- Kelly Joe Phelps

“We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”

W. H. Auden

Due to my underlying suspicion of the people’s motives (and other smokescreens I use to justify my general avoidance of anything requiring discipline), I’ve always steered away from memorizing scripture. However, in a recent lapse into militant mode, I decided to join a few friends at 7:00AM once a week to memorize entire chapters of the Bible. The boys and I are currently two weeks away from finishing the fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, and questions are unsurprisingly simmering up in the kettle.

For instance, is it consistent with the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount to infer “life for life” in the “eye for eye – tooth for tooth” section? If so, am I willing to stand against capital punishment? Another question relates to litigation. Is it simply wrong to sue anyone? If so, what do you do if you’re a Christian attorney faced with such a case? Or for that matter, what does Jesus mean when he says, “Do not resist and evil person”? This statement seems much more far-reaching than the courtroom. Another question relates to taking oaths. In today’s world, does this mean that it is immoral to sign a legally binding contract? If so… wow. Or why is it that people who claim to be Christian divorce as frequently as those who don’t? Lastly, related to the specifics above is the larger question – to what extent have I rationalized the teachings of Jesus so that I might be more comfortable?

Enough for now. Next week, we’re supposed to memorize the section on loving our enemies. Joy…

Spreading her wings above a large section of my front yard is a vary large and very old oak. My family and I have lived under her influence for over seven years now, and I’m convinced that there is a not messier tree in all of God’s creation. She drops her acorns in the fall, her leaves in the winter, and her pollen in the spring, but it’s her sticks and twigs that she scatters across my lawn on a daily basis.

I have to say that I’m embarassed by my response to the routine. If there was ever any question that I have a perfectionistic, compulsive bent, it is surely answered every time I walk outside to my car. I imagine the neighbors gathering around their windows and rolling their eyes as they watch me succomb to my riptide desire for a clean front lawn, scurrying around as I gather the new day’s deposit like a mother baboon in preening mode.

I’m not exactly sure where to go with this thought, but something about it seems worth remembering. Maybe it’s another reminder to me of some other “less popluar” repetitions in life such as cleaning the dishes or doing the laundry. Maybe it’s my desire to carve out at least one small niche of order within the chaos that is my property. Whatever the case may be, life consists of “messes” — both large and small, repetitious and random — and despite my frustration or lack of willingness, I believe that taking steps to bring “cosmos out of chaos” (to borrow a phrase for Madeleine L’Engle), is a fundamentally good thing. When viewed from a larger vantage point, it is the Gospel.

Back to work…

I have recently been reintroduced to a man named Clarence Jordan (If you visit this link, I recommend watching the 7-minute tribute). The following quotes continue to cut and turn within me like a plow to the soil:

“But you know it’s hard to reshape our lives to conform with the Gospel. It’s so much easier to reshape the Gospel to conform with our lives.”

“Faith is not belief in spite of the evidence but a life in scorn of the consequences.”