book club - week 1

for several weeks/months gabriele and i have both noticed that we've been having the same conversation with several of our friends, colleagues, and clients regarding the face of the Church in our world. we're almost never the ones that have brought up the topic, and sometimes we haven't even really said anything at all before the conversation turns towards it, but it is increasingly apparent that we're not the only ones dwelling on the issue.

we thought it might be cool if everyone got together and had the conversation together, in the same place, at the same time. and so, last week we started meeting with some friends to continue the discussion. since we had recently read rob bell's book velvet elvis: repainting the christian faith and felt like it was also saying the same sort of thing, we figured a good way to start would be to have a little book club.

our first time together was simply four of us eating chips and guacamole and queso, telling stories about college pranks and laughing and complaining and struggling and sharing our experiences in the church. after about three hours we actually started discussing the book itself. it was a wonderful time.

the essence of the conversation the first night was largely about how the Church has really messed things up for jesus. he came preaching a gospel of love and it's been turned into a gospel of rules; selflessness and humility into selfishness and piety. and to make matters worse, it seems the church knows they've done it. they (we?) have knowingly drawn divisive lines in the sand and said "we're over here and they are over there."

and so, whoever may be reading this, please see the hurt in the world - the poor, the rich, the hungry, the glutton, the innocent, the guilty... and see that things need to change. be thankful that love is more healing than ignorance is hurtful. be inspired by grace and love, and believe that things can return to being collaborative and unified. i know that things can be better again.

funny facebook

i was playing around with facebook this evening and got the idea to start "classifying" all my friends into the following categories:

• leander (high school)
• georgetown naz 
• minnesota
• SNU (undergrad or when i was teaching, or if you went there)
• Grad School / Life Counseling Center
• family
• brenham
• other friends (that i know via gabriele or some other connection altogether)

it was really an interesting and difficult project.  as i scrolled thru my friend list (259 of them), my memories of everyone started to blur together, and it became difficult to remember who i knew when.  it was especially difficult for people that i knew during the years i've moved (1992, 1996, 2008, and pretty much every year during college).  did i go to church and college with them?  wait...did i go to high school with them...or middle school?  or, did i know them when i was in high school but they lived somewhere else, then later we were friends again?  

a really cool tool that i've found to visually illustrate the interconnectedness of friends is the "friend wheel" on facebook.  you can see mine if you go to the 'boxes' tab on my profile.  very nifty.

the taqwacores

there was an interesting article in the ny times yesterday about the current muslim punk rock movement here in america, spawned by a book entitled the taqwacores.  i could summarize the article for you here, but it's really not that long, so i'll just let you click the link and read it for yourself.  

sit down, sit down, you're rockin' the boat

in pretty much every aspect of life, we're all concerned with people who disturb life as we know it, people who mess things up, people who "rock the boat."  we'd much rather have life be stable, still, predictable.  we want to feel like everything is under control.  

it occurred to me the other day that when you're in a boat that's moving through the water, you can feel the waves splashing against the hull.  by its very nature, a boat that's moving is a boat that's rocking.  

if it's moving, if it's bouncing through waves, if it's rocking, then that means it's moving. this is good news.  

gabriele and i were just talking last night about how life has been tumultuous lately, how it feels like we've been tossed around like a ship in a storm, and how we're ready for life to be calm and peaceful.  

i've never been in a boat that was going anywhere that didn't toss and bounce and dance at least a little along the way.  the only still boats i've been in were ones that weren't going anywhere, ones that were either tied up to the shore or floating without purpose or direction.  so it's comforting to me to think that maybe our boat has been rocking because we're on the way to somewhere, maybe on the way to somewhere nice where we can tie up our boat, get out, and enjoy the destination.  

until then, i guess we'll keep hanging on, and try to enjoy the scenery along the way.

and now for your nightly news...

my post yesterday about rogerian person-centered therapy gave rise to a couple of thoughts that i wanted to follow-up on.  in that post i said:

"sometimes i wonder what the world would look like if i heard as many sermons about loving my neighbor as i have about the sinful nature of tattoos, rock music, and sex."

i refer to this type of behavior as the "evening news phenomenon."  for decades, news programming has presented the public with information about what is going in the world, typically with a substantial slant toward topics of concern - war, economic crises, natural disasters, disease, famine, celebrity gossip, etc.  certainly important information, but when it is the only information presented as being newsworthy, something within us begins to change.  when bad news is the only news that we hear,  then bad news becomes the only news we share.  like ellen degeneres says regarding the news headline ticker that crawls across the bottom of the television screen, we really only need one crawl going around that simply says "things are getting worse."

i often see the evening news phenomenon at work when i am counseling couples and families  parents come home from work and gripe about their day, they get onto the kids for being rowdy, and everyone nags each other about whatever comes to mind.  days and weeks go by with nary a compliment or positive comment exchanged in the home.  each person starts to feel like they can't do anything right  

i also see the evening news phenomenon occurring in our churches, though admittedly it seems be happening less frequently now than it did 5 or 10 years ago.  too often we've focused more on what people are doing wrong than on what they are doing right.  while we are quick to point out faults and misdeeds, we are also slow to show grace and to forgive.  

my apologies, i realize i'm getting too preachy.  i do want to acknowledge that i have been one that was quick to judge, quick to label, quick to insult, and slow, slow, slow to show grace.  i desperately want to be an agent of love, and thank god that his grace is never slow or insufficient.

rogerian theology

i have a great deal of respect for carl rogers, the american psychologist credited with developing the person-centered approach to psychotherapy. rogers was raised in a devout christian family and he began college with at least some intent of entering the ministry. along the way, though, something in rogers' experience caused him to shift his career path away from the ministry and toward psychology.

therapists-in-training love rogerian therapy because they believe that it's a technique that's not a technique. while rogers did outline specific techniques in his description of the person-centered approach to therapy, the true benefit of his theory is its broad applicability to all therapeutic approaches. as a colleague of mine once said, "all good therapy is person-centered."

one of the best known aspects of rogers' person-centered theory is the idea and practice of "unconditional positive regard," often simply referred to as "UPR." through his research, rogers discovered that the relationship between a client and therapist has more of an impact on the client's healing than any particular therapeutic technique.

i'm convinced that rogers' theory has application beyond the field of counseling. the core tenets of his theory - empathy, unconditional positive regard, the power of relationship, genuineness -are all terms and ideas i have often heard in the church. heard, but rarely seen or felt or experienced. why is that?

i'm curious what a church would look like that actually embraced values like acceptance, empathy, and "unconditional positive regard" in their approach to ministry. they'd have to give up some things, though, like judgment and comfort. they'd have to get used to being in a boat that rocks rather than one that just quietly floats. once word got out that a church was like that, no doubt it would attract an interesting crowd. there's a lot of people who feel that the church has a closed-mind and closed-door stance regarding their decisions and/or lifestyle, and so they don't feel welcome. it's terribly sad.

i know that there are some churches that are trying to more fully embrace the practice of acceptance and empathy and unconditional positive regard, and that's wonderful. it's the fact that more churches aren't doing it that concerns me. i can't remember the last time i heard the word "persecuted" and it wasn't referring to the church.

sometimes i wonder what the world would look like if i heard as many sermons about loving my neighbor as i have about the sinful nature of tattoos, rock music, and sex. are we really more concerned with punishment than we are with helping those in need?

lottery jesus

my morning commute takes me past a billboard that displays the estimated powerball jackpot for the upcoming drawing. the sign is in a prime viewing location; it sits on top of a slight topographical rise just off the highway, and there aren’t any buildings around the billboard to distract from the view. i’ve often wondered how much the oklahoma lottery commission has to pay for such a premium advertising spot. it’s probably worth it when compared to the amount of revenue generated by the billboard. it’s a very noticeable billboard.

most days i take note of the sign and the jackpot amount. today it was $57 million, which is $7 million more than wednesday, so it appears that no one won the jackpot this week. every time i see the billboard i start to daydream about what it would be like to win. not just what i would do with the money, but what it would actually feel like to win. i imagine a warm feeling would come over my body, my breathing quicken, my hand holding the ticket would start to quiver, my cheeks would begin to burn from holding up the enormous smile on my face. it would be a glorious moment of revelation as i embraced the freedom that i assume such money would permit.

it's interesting to observe those who play the lottery. for instance, my dad only buys a ticket if the jackpot gets really big, like $150 million, as if the prospect of winning that amount somehow justifies spending a dollar for a ticket, whereas playing to win only $50 million would be a waste of money. on the other end of the spectrum, i once knew a woman who would call in to the local convience store to order her weekly lottery purchase, typically totalling around $250. many more people opt for consistently playing one or two dollars each week, rationalizing that if they buy a ticket for each drawing, then sooner or later they're bound to win, right?

i think that many people view prayer like they're playing the lottery. some only pray for really big things or when they feel like they "really need it." others may pray everyday, perhaps even because they have become habitual about "praying without ceasing," but their motivation isn't because they truly believe that their prayers will be answered; they may just believe that if the pray enough, eventually one of those prayers will be heard and be answered.

despite my agnostic leanings, every now and then i whisper a few words up to God/gods/universe/Flying Spaghetti Monster/whatever. it usually feels like i'm just throwing a hail mary (pun intended) and hoping that it gets answered. sometimes i wonder what else i should do to boost my prayer to the top of god's list - as if i could do some kind of rain dance and make god hear me. i'm afraid of being one of those people who is completely convinced that god will hear their prayers and heal their sick child, only to have the child die. there are millions of devout and holy people out there who have prayed incessantly for years without receiving the answer they were looking for.

the problem is obvious, of course: we're all looking for a particular answer from god. we want to have god wrapped around our little finger, like we're alladin and he's our genie. we want to be able to pray a certain way and have god "give in" to our big puppy dog eyes and pouty lip and give us all the desires of our heart.

the end is here

if you haven't already heard about this story, here's the link.  

basically, the crowd awaiting the black friday sales outside a walmart store in new york let their greed and impatience get the best of them.  they busted in the front doors and rushed the store, trampling a 34 year-old seasonal employee to death.  then people were mad that the police asked them to leave the store.  

seriously, folks.  things have gotten out of hand.

zap!

i first met god in the walmart parking lot in athens, texas. i was five or six years old, and was spending a few weeks visiting my grandparents. while in the store, my grandmother had offered to buy me a toy. not wanting to squander the offer on just any toy, i was taking my time looking over everything and weighing my options. characteristically patient, my grandmother eventually grew weary of my selective shopping and told me we were leaving - without a toy.

this made me cry, of course, and i began to create quite the scene. frustrated and embarrassed, my grandmother issued a quick swat to my hind quarters. i tried to hold back my tears as we exited the store, my feelings of shame prompting me to mumble "i wish i could just die." my grandmother wheeled around, caught me by the arm and said with striking conviction "don't you ever wish that, andy. god might strike you down right here in this parking lot with a bolt of lightning."

i'm probably not the only person that has spent their lives in fear of what god might do to them. growing up in the church i was practially raised on the old testament stories of god's wrath falling upon the sinful: getting kicked out of the garden of eden, the tower of babel, sodom and gomorrah, lot's wife, the flood, being exiled in egypt, spending forty years wandering in the desert - and that's just in the first two books! it's easy to teach these stories to children; the characters are easily divided between good and evil, and the plots are thick with drama. love, death, guilt. they translate directly to how we want our chlidren to conduct themselves, and usually the story even adds a little incentive. do this, don't do that...or else!

but when the story really gets good, when the climax is reached, our ability to teach seems to vanish. i mean, we're good about painting jesus as the "good guy" of the story. that part is easy; we know the end of the story, and everyone likes a winner. really, it's message that jesus brings that seems to be the difficult part. forgiveness for all, love thy neighbor, acceptance, the last shall be first - these themes are more difficult to illustrate with a flannelgraph than animals walking two-by-two.

i wonder how many of us have grown up embracing justice and vengence rather than forgiveness and mercy? how often do we find reasons to reject others instead of accepting them? how motivated are we to help, and how motivated are we to hurt? and even worse, how often have we perpetuated this faulty teaching to our own children, our own friends, our own world?

starving artist

i have placed a link in the sidebar to my new page on imagekind.com where you can purchase prints of some of gabriele's and my art.  imagekind is wonderful- you can choose what size print you want, and they have hundreds of options for the type of print surface, as well as thousands of framing and matting options.  

if you or someone you know is interested in any original work, please contact me here.  

[edit:  i'm also working on updating some of the older electronic media stuff i've done so that they look better in larger sizes.  i'll post again both here and on JOINTogether when i get that done.]

various versions of me

i've often attempted to be a hipster, though without much long-term success. i nearly always fail at being a hipster, though. it's not because at my core i'm not a hipster, but more likely because i am lazy, and achieving the hipster's effortless look is such hard work, and i never seem to know about any unknown bands worth bragging about.

in these moments of post-hipster failure weakness, i usually settle for simply being a "professional," which i suppose is appropriate seeing as i have a graduate degree and usually work in an office. in my heart, though, i feel that i am "just" being a "professional," and that i am not "being true" to "who i really am," and other phrases that necessitate the use of excessive punctuation to set them apart as important lables of distinction, even when they're not.

countering this drab exterior of being a professional usually takes the form of jeans, t-shirts, and flip-flops (or, occasionally, cowboy boots) whenever i have the chance, or more typically, whenever i can rationalize that the [closet] post-moderns in the oklahoma city are open and accepting of casual dress for nearly all occasions. i then try to pair my appearance with appropriate theme music, which could be anything from red dirt to pearl jam to frank sinatra.

today, however, i wore a suit. early this morning i sat alone in my car in the parking lot of a salvation army thrift store, sipping a starbucks house brew and listening to a staccato-voiced NPR reporter (markedly distant from any of the aforementioned theme music), my mind awash in economic and political news and dreaming of who i wanted to be when i grew up. as if i still hadn't decided on embracing the hipster, the professional, or the weekender persona, but believing that at some point i would have to choose just one, and that whatever i chose would then be "me" forever.

of course, the reality is that i am always "me," no matter how i dress or speak or act. we choose to express and portray ourselves in different ways in an effort to represent all the different facets of our personality. this behavior is fascinating, and it is one of the primary reasons i chose to study psychology rather than finance.

yearbookyourself.com

that last one is freakishly realistic.  thanks to casey and justin for doing this first.  

good golly

my apologies for being so absent lately; it's been busy around these parts! most notably, we're moving back to oklahoma city!  brenham has been lovely, and we'll miss many aspects of our small town life down here.  however, we're greatly looking forward to finding out all that God has in store for us next!

in other, not-about-me-at-all news, tomorrow is election day!  i hope everyone will take time to vote.  gabs and i did some early voting last week, and are anxious to watch the results tomorrow night.  [okay, i am...gabs isn't really a politics aficionado.]  obviously healthcare is a huge issue in our household, so if you don't personally feel like you have something to get behind, you can consider picking that one. ;)

two good bits of news: 

1. free starbucks tomorrow if you tell them you voted.  [thanks mike.] hooray! 
2. really cool photo set of the london tattoo convention courtesy of joe plommer.  [thanks marisa!]  the album contains a lot of profile shots that show off the people as well as the art. 

speaking of art, stay tuned for more news about my own art in a few days.  i have some uploading to do...

a walk and a march

apparently i've had a bit of post-hurricane downage in the blogging department.  my apologies.  but seriously, you all read more stuff on jointogether anyway.

anyhoo, two exciting things coming up, both involving bipedal movement:

1.  arthritis walk in bryan/college station this coming saturday.  we have a tremendous team of friends and family walking with us.  should be very exciting.

2.  got an email today confirming that there will indeed be a 2nd annual march of 1000 flaming skeletons.  (for posts on the first one, look here.)  needless to say, i am very excited.

HURRICANE IKE - Saturday

well, that was fun.  

gabs and i arrived at work at 7pm last night, thankful to find all the individuals pretty calm and ready for bed.  one of the other psychologists decided to stay the night at work, so the three of us made rounds, joined a supervisor for a joy ride on a golf cart, watched balls of fury, and just generally sat around doing nothing.  the servers were closed down at 4pm, so we couldn't really get any work done, other than just conversing about various behavior plans and bemoaning our difficulty in trying to get our plans carried out with any consistency.  

so, the storm blew in, folks napped a bit, and i read several articles in the winter 2007 edition of the journal of applied behavior analysis.  yes, i'm a nerd.  

it rained, it blew, and we were very happy to leave at 7am this morning and come home for some much-deserved sleep.  gabs' mom has been cooking all weekend, which today included some pasta, salad, fruit, and gumbo.  we lost power around 6am (the state school has generators for all the buildings), and then our power at home went out as we turned the corner onto our street.  it came back on about 4 hours later, and our cable finally came back on around 7pm tonight.  

since then, we've been busy looking for news about the marina where gab's mom & stepdad live on their boat.  i happened upon this blog that gave info and a picture of their marina, which calmed our fears.  

now we're headed to bed.  you know you've been watching too much weather coverage when you say things like "hey, that storm looks like a kitty cat."  yikes.

HURRICANE IKE - Friday

ahoy!  still nothing really going on here in brenham - it's overcast with only brief moments of sunshine.  the wind has definitely picked up, though it's still in the 10-15 mph range.  gab and i slept in this morning and just took a 2 hour nap, as we try to load up on sleep before pulling a 12-hour shift tonight.  buddy (her mom's cat) is holed up underneath our bed.  

down at the coast, now, things are a different story.  all the houston news stations are showing hurricane coverage 24/7, so naturally all their reporters have donned brightly-colored wind breakers and ill-fitting hats for broadcasting from the various mandatory-evacuation sites.  haven't seen any of them blow over yet, though i just heard that one lady had to move because she got hit in the head with an airborne 2x4.  niiice.

seriously though, it appears that ike has an unusually large storm surge, which basically means that the water level at the coast (and espeically in the bay) has been steadily rising since last night.  in fact, it's already close to the top of the galveston sea wall, which, is around 15 to 18 feet above sea level.  and the storm's still 150 miles away.  i'm willing to bet that most - and possibly all - of galveston island will be under water by tomorrow morning.

here's a pic for you visual learners:

HURRICANE IKE - Thursday

okay, so it looks like i'm going to have to put the god talk on hold, as we have a hurricane headed our way. some info from today:

• it's still really hot and mostly sunny, and the wind has been picking up throughout the day. it's still a pretty light breeze, but getting more steady every hour.


• richmond state school evacuated here, so we're trying to cram 900 people into a 400 person facility. plus staff, who have to bunk in our gym and training buildings. we've got folks in hallways, offices, classrooms, etc.


• since we have all these extra people, all of our staff have to work 12-hour shifts. gab & i are on 'til 7pm tonight, then will be back friday and saturday nights from 7pm to 7am.


• we went to walmart at lunchtime today...that was a hoot. mind you, walmart is on the corner of hwy 36 & hwy 290, and both of those roads are primary evacuation routes. lots and lots of 5th wheel travel trailers. people at walmart were buying all kinds of stuff...mainly lots of bread, water and booze. and candy. sugar up the kids, self-medicate the parents.


• on a related note, this was overheard at the "stop-n-bye" convenience store: "if i'm going to be stuck in the house with my wife and kids all weekend, i'm gonna need 2 cases of beer."


• gab's mom & step-dad are evacuating to our place. they live on a sailboat near kemah, tx, which isn't exactly where you want to stay and ride out a hurricane with a larger-than-usual storm surge and wind pattern.

and so that i can compare myself, here's the most recent predicted path:

here is a link to the National Weather Service webpage (aka NOAA...aka my "weather nerd webpage") for the houston area. to save you the time, here's the link to the info on ike, and for bathroom reading, the actual discussion of what's going on. no promises on those exact links being updated.

stay dry!

quick & off-topic

this has no relation to the current discussion, but i wanted to share a fun fact - my dad is now a blogger! stop by and give him warm blogger welcome! hi dad!

is there anybody out there?

while some of my friends are having a comment-aquisition war, i'm over here blogging for peanuts with nary a comment to be found. no worries...like so many before me, my greatness will likely be unappreciated until years after my death.

i wanted to follow up on my last post regarding the future of the church and its ability to remain relevant in our culture, but i'm not exactly sure where to begin. i suppose my original intent was to enter into a pseudo-intellectual discourse about goal and purpose again, but after giving it some thought, i'm not sure that's the direction i want to go.

instead, i want to be a bit more transparent and acknowledge that i'm developing a blister in my spiritual life, caused by the constant friction i feel between church doctrine and the essential nature of christ's teachings. to prune that down, i'll define the "essential nature of christ's teachings" in his own words: to love god with all your heart, and to love your neighbor as yourself. "church doctrine" is simply all the other stuff that the church holds dear, for one reason or another. if you've been around the church for much time at all, i'm sure you can likely identify several issues that fit into the latter category.

there are rules, and there is The Rule, and i'm tired of the the rules being held as prerequisites to the kingdom. membership to the church no longer hinges on a belief in christ, but rather rests on our willingness to adhere to a set of doctrinal views. the idea that "we are all brothers and sisters in christ" does not extend as well from demonination to denomination as we like to believe. we make rules to define ourselves as a group, to create a sense of belonging to those inside...and too often forget that we may also be creating a sense of exclusion to those outside.

i grew up in the church of the nazarene, attended a baptist church with my grandparents when visiting them, and spent several years in a state where nearly all of my friends were lutheran or catholic. my wife was raised presbyterian, and we're currently attending a nondenominational-ish church with baptisty leanings. it would be impossible to follow all of the doctrinal rules for the different churches - issues like alcohol, tobacco, gender roles in the church, and sexual relationships vary widely enough, and if you add in more "religious" issues such as the nature of our relationship with christ, grace, and sanctification, things get more tortuous than my stomach can handle.

i've had religious leaders tell me directly: that the church is more forgiving of someone driving drunk than they are of two unmarried people living together, that alcohol is okay but tobacco is not, that female clergy are sinners, that god could strike a child dead for acting up in public, that without the church you cannot have a relationship with god, that you don't need the church to know god, that once you're forgiven you're always forgiven, that you can never be totally forgiven, and that if you are a good enough christian, you can reach a point where you never need to be forgiven because you no longer sin.

it's no wonder more people say they believe in god than believe in the church. only one of them can be infallible, and it ain't the church.

so what's a person to do? there's three options: (1) attend a church (2) don't attend a church, or (3) start your own church. they all have respective drawbacks: (1) limitations on your involvement and risk of being socially isolated, (2) loss of opportunities for fellowship with other believers and coporate worship, (3) being labeled a cultist and risk of recreating the same problems, among others. you lose regardless of your choice, but thus far i've opted for #1, as it seems to have the least number of drawbacks...or at least its drawbacks are the most comfortably familiar. it's shameful that we are comfortable and familiar with the church having shortcomings.

i don't really have any answers, just more questions. i am, however, thoroughly convinced that striving to embody love to others each day is not only the best way to live, it's the way of life that christ modeled for us. i'm less and less concerned with doctrine and more and more concerned with love. so, take all your rules, write them down, hang them on the wall, and try your hardest to follow them. i'm going to try my hardest to follow christ.

brint and bell

i just added a link to a blog by a former professor of mine, brint montgomery. he's a super bright philosopher with a sharp wit, and it comes across well in his writings. hope you'll take a few minutes to peruse his most recent post regarding "the real problem in afganistan."

also, i recently started reading rob bell's first book velvet elvis. i'm curious who else out there has already read it - i know it's been on my list for a couple of years and i'm just now getting around to it. like most of rob's stuff, it manages to strike a strong balance of challenging, compelling, and amazingly sensical.

the thing i like about rob bell is that he seems very...i don't know, real, or normal, or something. he asks questions, he expresses doubts, he takes a pretty open approach to the faith. and sure, maybe he's not - maybe it's just a fancy front he puts up to attract people to what he's doing so that they'll buy his stuff and he can get rich.

the thing is, and i think we're all aware of this, is that this type of behavior - being transparent, being open & honest, being willing to say that we don't have all the answers - that is attractive to others. i appreciate rob that maintains an appreciation for the mysticism that our judeo-christian heritage promotes while also acknowledging that throughout history, the church has gotten things really wrong many times.

for example: in 1633, galileo was excommunicated from the church for teaching that the earth revolved around the sun. think that's silly? the catholic church didn't formally apologize and admit that galileo was correct until 1992.

i have no doubt that the church will continue to flex and stretch with culture. if it doesn't, it will surely die, and if there's one thing the church wants to do more than anything else, it's live.

which raises another thought: i'm making a distinction between the goal of the church and the purpose of the church. the purpose of the church has forever been to spread the good news of christ by teaching his prescribed way of life - the goal of the church has pretty much been to not die, which is done primarily by getting more people to agree with what they're saying. ideally, fulfilling the purpose ensures the goal will be achieved, but there are so many occasions where the church's direction strays from the original purpose and instead treats the goal as the purpose.

i have some thoughts on what the church needs to do in order to stay alive in our culture, but i'll wait to get some comments on this post before i post that. until then, here's a ridiculous anti-obama video that is definitively not the right approach to things: