God Sez...

When someone tells you that God told them something, one of two things is happening.

1. They have had a connection with something big, scary, and real. Somehow, someway God has spoken.
2. They are uninterested and/or afraid of any feedback or pushback. They are, in reality, saying, "Don't ask me any questions about this thing."

The World's Hardest Question (for dudes)

Big Love, an HBO show, is great. It centers on a polygamist family living life in the modern suburbs of Utah. My wife and I have been watching on DVD for a month now and are hooked. It's a show that brings up great conversations about family, love, faith, and morality. However, it also brings up THE WORLD'S HARDEST QUESTION (for dudes). I will now recount a conversation I had with my wife a few nights ago...

Me: This is such a great show.

Wife: I also love the show.

Me: ...what?

Wife: What do you think about polygamy?

Me: What do you mean?

Wife: You know, what do you think?

It was at this moment I realized that this is THE WORLD'S HARDEST QUESTION (for dudes). Were I to say, "I kind of think it's cool," you can imagine the follow up. However, were I to answer, "I think one wife is enough," well, you can imagine the follow up to this. The question is unwinnable. Here is how the convo concluded...

Me: You know, I believe that we have just stumbled upon THE WORLD'S HARDEST QUESTION (for dudes). All I know is I love you.

Wife: You answer wisely...

Two of My Favorite Things

My son and an heirloom tomato we grew together.

A Thought on Eternal Destiny

From the Christian perspective, you've got three choices (simplified).

• Exclusivism: You must say the name of Jesus in this specific way in order to be saved.
• Inclusivism: God knows the hearts of everyone living and dead and will be the final judge.
• Universalism: God will save everyone.

I realized today that both Exclusivism and Universalism are really two sides of the same coin. They both purport certainty about something that cannot be truly known. They're both ultimately judgemental. Inclusivism isn't really even in the middle of these two; it's a whole different game (yes, this is where I fall on this issue). Also, it's kind of funny to think of a fundamentalist right-winger and a loosy-goosy left-winger as one and the same.

Advice From Jayber Crow

This is a reading from Jayber Crow, a novel by Wendell Berry. Anyone who interacts with kids about school and academic performance would do well to listen. The passage describes Jayber's adolescent experience in school.

Although I can't say that I liked school, when I wanted to be I was a good enough student.I liked learning, especially learning that could be got by reading. I made fair grades, but I and my teachers knew that I could have done better. I was, they said, like a good horse who would not work; I was a disappointment to them; I was wasting my God-given talents. And this gave me, I believe, the only self-determining power I had: I could withhold this single thing that was mine that I knew they wanted.

From Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Kierkegaard Opens Up a Can

...the parsons canonize bourgeois mediocrity. We Protestants have done away with the Catholic canonization of ascetics and martyrs, etc.--as a substitute those interested in the bourgeois corporation are canonized and of course they are canonized by the last clerical order to appear in Protestantism: the office seekers and place hunters.

From Christ the Offense

Zoinks!

Carry the Fire

I read The Road a few years back and have begun rereading it for a book discussion I am hosting in a few weeks. The book is about a father and son on the road after the apocalypse. So basically, it has my two favorite things in it: significant and meaningful relationships and an exploration of "the end times." I grew up in a faith system that was moderately preoccupied with the "end times," prophecies found in the book of Revelation, and our faith group's important role in this. Relationships, particularly family relationships, have always fascinated me. The book focuses on the survival of this pair, physical, emotional, spiritual. Throughout the story, the father reminds his son that they are people who"carry the fire." They remain good in a bad world. They choose right when wrong is everywhere. They go hungry instead of eating people (yes, this is a dark, dark book). On the eve of father's day (and my youngest son's first birthday), I am faced with this question: If I carry the fire (and I hope I do), how do I help my kids learn to carry it? Thanks to my three littlins for reminding me there is a fire. Thanks mom and dad for teaching me to carry the fire. Thanks Cormac McCarthy for writing such an amazing and haunting book. Thank God for the fire.