Dave Ramsey's 20 Things Rich People Do...

Not that I care so much about being rich, but I thought this was a good list...

http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/20-things-the-rich-do-every-day

Actually, I'm going to start doing them right now.  See you poor suckers later.

"Ira Glass Rehearses The Christian Pitch"

I thought I had posted this before...
 

A longer (and more serious) than usual post about a trip to help with the tornado damage in Washington, IL

I’m at home after church on Sunday talking to my wife about how we handled the tornado warning that went off during the cup portion of the Lord’s Supper at our Milwaukee church.  The phone rings, and my buddy from Illinois says, “Are your in-laws okay?  I was watching the Bears game and they said that Washington, IL, was wiped out by a tornado.  Isn’t that your wife’s hometown?”.  Not that I have a lot of experience in this category, but these types of questions typically put a new spin on your day.

We make phone calls to my in-laws.  After a few no-answers, my wife gets through, and finds out everyone is okay.  The tornado barely missed the community center where her family meets for church.  It missed the community center, but, it had managed to create a path through the middle of town, through apartments, housing developments, ending in farmland.  Everything in this path was dismantled and then deposited in mangled forms all over the city.

We started looking at pictures on the internet.  The pictures could have been taken anywhere, all the landmarks were gone, everything was leveled and looked like your average pile of debris.  We eventually found out that among approximately 1,000 damaged homes, only one person had died.  For some reason this made the damage seem more bearable. 

We decided to head down to Washington to help with the clean-up over the weekend.  Friday night we arrived in Washington before the 6:00 PM curfew.  Saturday morning, myself, my wife, her Dad and brother, all went over to the Bethany Community Church to get our volunteer assignment.   However, the line for assignments was out the door, parking was backed up on the street.  Instead of waiting potentially hours in the cold to get an assignment, our crew decided to risk getting through the policed barricades and going into the affected area on our own. 

We waited in line outside of the affected area for about 30 minutes as cars were checked by the police, and, we finally entered to what looked like the aftermath of a bombed out village in a World War 2 movie.  Piles of debris were everywhere, homes gone, vehicles flipped over, walls missing, glass and splintered wood everywhere, insulation blowing around like snow flurries. 

We jumped in helping people with their homes.  And, there was a spectrum of damage.  Over the course of the weekend, we helped homes that had damage, but were still livable.  They must have felt blessed to have come so close to the tornado, but with minimal damage.  We helped people whose homes will likely need to be destroyed, but they weren’t hit hard enough that they lost all their belongings.  They must have felt blessed to have been in the path of the tornado, but still been able to have pictures, clothes, stuffed animals, memories.  And, for others the tornado made everything disappear.  I imagine they are thankful for their lives.

We attended a worship service on Sunday with a church family who had been spread out during the week.  Spread out all over Washington, but grateful to be serving, grateful for their lives, grateful that their community center is several 100 yards to the west, grateful for a higher hope, grateful for a church calendar that had been wiped clean with one thing now written on it “Help people – physically and spiritually”. We sang as a body of Christ.  We prayed as a body.  We opened God’s Word together. 

The world is a mix of happy and sad and in-between.  The world is complicated.  Some people lose their house.  Some people lose all the letters their deceased father wrote to his children for their eighteenth birthdays. Some people have their spouse die only to have their name infamously changed to “at least only one person died” and repeated 10,000 times every day all over the community.

We hear things like this and they sound unbearable.  And, in some ways they are, but over the course of my weekend in Washington, I kept noticing that the mixed feelings I was observing in myself seemed familiar.  

We, as Christians, know of a story of happiness and sadness.  In our church services, we sing about death.  We thank God for sending Jesus to die to pay the penalty for our sins.  We are told to rejoice in trials.  We’re an odd breed.  But, maybe it’s actually not odd at all, maybe it’s the only thing complicated enough to make sense of a complicated world.  A complicated world, where I hurt and rejoice at the same time.  A complicated world, where a savage tornado does something horrible and yet brings a community together in a nearly impossible way.  A world where a church can go from fearing for their lives in a hallway of a community center to having two packed services the following week and blessing the community with the spoken message of the gospel.

“We”.  That can be a beautiful word.  Knowing that it’s not all about you.  In an ultimate sense, the ultimate “we” occurs between a Heavenly Father and his children.  But, there’s a “we” in the body of Christ, the church.  And, part of the beauty of a body is that it is together.  It’s together all the time.  Sometime your hands are working fine, but you have a head ache.  Sometimes your hands feel arthritic, but there’s no headache.  Our bodies are a mix of pleasure and pain.  As a church body, we function this way. 

We know Jesus who has suffered more than anyone.  We know that God is sovereign in the ups and downs of life.   And, as we understand these things, I think we reach out to others.  We know about suffering, because our body suffers and our Head suffered.  Our faith family is full of people who are suffering while simultaneously experiencing joy and sustenance.  There’s something core to our faith that relates to your ups and downs.  It makes sense of them.  It gives them purpose. 

We can’t explain all the reasons for suffering.  But, observing life in Washington, IL, over the weekend, I feel convinced that suffering provides the home field advantage for faith of a believer.  

A couple poems - Adelia Prado & Maurice Manning

Here is a poem and an excerpt from a poem that I came across yesterday.  I think I like both of them...

Before Names 
by Adelia Prado
I don’t care about the word, that commonplace.
What I want is the grand chaos that spins out syntax,
the obscure birthplace of "of," "otherwise,"
"nevertheless," and "how," all those inscrutable
crutches I walk on.
Who understands language understands God,
Whose Son is the Word. It kills you to understand.
Words only hide something deeper, deaf and dumb,
something invented to be silenced.
In moments of grace, rare as they are,
you'll be able to snatch it out: a live fish
in your bare hand.
Pure terror.

----------
The Nature of Things
by Maurice Manning
...Do Lord, O, do you remember?
I've asked and asked again, and Yes
has always been the answer, Yes
unsaid, but even the unsaid says;
the answer needs the question...

The Coach Who Never Punts | Grantland Features

Across the Border - Springsteen quote

This is more Twitter-esque, but I was reminded today of this Springsteen lyric:

"For what are we without hope in our hearts that someday we’ll drink from God’s blessed waters...?"

From "Across the Border"...




Across the Border

Tonight my bag is packed
Tomorrow I'll walk these tracks
That will lead me across the border

Tomorrow my love and I
Will sleep 'neath auburn skies
Somewhere across the border

We'll leave behind my dear
The pain and sadness we found here
And we'll drink from the Bravo's muddy waters

Where the sky grows grey and white
We'll meet on the other side
There across the border

For you I'll build a house
High up on a grassy hill
Somewhere across the border

Where pain and memory
Pain and memory have been stilled
There across the border

And sweet blossoms fills the air
Pastures of gold and green
Roll down into cool clear waters

And in your arms 'neath the open skies
I'll kiss the sorrow from your eyes
There across the border

Tonight we'll sing the songs
I'll dream of you my corazon
And tomorrow my heart will be strong

And may the saints' blessing and grace
Carry me safely into your arms
There across the border

For what are we
Without hope in our hearts
That someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters

And eat the fruit from the vine
I know love and fortune will be mine
Somewhere across the border

Elephants

Living on a Prayer

Breast Cancer - Angelo & Jennifer Merendino

Makes me want to give my wife a hug when she gets home....

http://www.upworthy.com/a-husband-took-these-photos-of-his-wife-and-captured-love-and-loss-beautifully

Raiders of the Lost Ark - The Adaptation

There's something in me that is quite glad that this exists...



More on the topic, if you are interested...
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Raiders-Lost-Ark-Shot-Shot-Fanmade-Remake-Getting-Its-Own-Feature-39840.html

The Permanent Endurance of Art - Joseph Conrad

"The artist appeals to that part of our being which...is a gift and not an acquisition...and, therefore, more permanently enduring."

...good stuff.  I especially like thinking about the difference between gift and acquisition, and, how to touch the 'gift' side of the spectrum with art.

"The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn." - Joseph Conrad

Disney movie pitch...

"Let's make a children's movie where we get the kids emotionally attached to some puppies.  Then, we steal the puppies from the parents...put them in a situation where a crazy lady wants to kill them and skin them...and, make a coat out of them."

"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!  It will become a classic."

- Possible sales pitch for 101 Dalmatians

Primer - Good Time Travel Movie

Primer is a movie in which I couldn't understand pretty much anything the characters were talking about, they could have been speaking in another language.  I couldn't really understand the chronology of the plot.  Basically, in general, I couldn't understand much of anything that was going on in the movie.  But, I loved it.  And, I keep thinking about it.  If you like short, brain-teaser movies, this is one for you.

And, after you're done, here are info-graphics for you:

Best one:  http://qubitrot.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/primer.png

Also good: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Time_Travel_Method-2.svg

Here's the movie's webpage:  Primer

Here's a blog all about Primer: The Primer Universe

From This Valley - The Civil Wars

From This Valley

Oh the desert dreams of a river
That will run down to the sea
Like my heart longs for an ocean
To wash down over me

Oh won't you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love


Oh the outcast dreams of acceptance
Just to find pure love's embrace
Like an orphan longs for its mother
May you hold me in your grace


Oh won't you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love


Oh the caged bird dreams of a strong wind
That will flow beneath her wings
Like a voice longs for a melody
Oh Jesus, carry me


Oh won't you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love

Want to Go To Mars?

If you want to go to Mars, I have two options for you:

1. Short(er) trip - www.inspirationmars.org

2. Long trip - applicants.mars-one.com

Let me know if you end up going.

On the Overratedness of Being Rational

Here's a paragraph from Stanley Hauerwas defending the irrationality of faith in God.  He's not claiming that Christianity will make sense to everyone.  He's also not claiming that it will always make the world run more smoothly.  He is claiming Christianity is true...and, that there's a bit of arrogance to believing that we can discover on our own power what is right or wrong or true about the world. 

"An ethic claiming to be 'rational' and universally valid for all thinking people everywhere is incipiently demonic because it has no means of explaining why there are still people who disagree with its prescriptions of behavior, except that these people must be 'irrational' and, therefore (since 'rationality' is said to be our most important human characteristic), subhuman."  - Resident Aliens, 101

Favorite Scene from The Cosby Show

To all the 'regular people' reading this blog post,

My favorite episode of The Cosby Show is the very first episode.

The clip below is my favorite scene.

Enjoy...

Bill Hybels - "This is Church"

There is a simple concept (axiom) that I heard from Bill Hybels called "This is church".  I think of often, almost every week.  "This is church" means that you and I don't define what it means to 'do church'...there's an element of trusting that the situations we come into every day are God determining what the "job" actually looks like.  Church life as a pastor (or, a church member) is not simply important projects, lesson planning, etc.  It's the interruptions as well. I think this principle is true for anyone in any career.

I think this link may take you to that chapter in Google books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=hSn4DcOav-MC&pg=PT60&dq=bill+hybels+%22This+is+Church%22+axiom&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FqcGUbm5AorgyQGpx4HYDw&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAA

Here's an older blog post that covers the same principle.  It's short and worth your time...

http://lp.willowcreek.com/WCA-Blog/December-2012/Our-most-valuable-asset-sits-63-feet-ahead

Going to Disney...See you soon...

Alterra > Colectivo? This seems an April Fool's joke

For the Milwaukee reader(s)...