Promises

Letter 9: The Story You've Never Been Told.

The story of Jacob begins in Genesis 25. When you picture the story, picture nomadic tribes with riders who look like middle eastern herdsman. Jacob is the youngest of fraternal twin boys. The author tells us that Jacob was grasping at his brother’s heel when they were born. He wanted to be first even then.

You know that Maggie’s mom, with consultation, named Maggie and with consultation I named Thomas. We picked your names based on different criteria, little thought went into naming you for your personality or having your names match who you are. Such was not the case in the times of Jacob and his older brother Esau. Esau was born with red hair and so his parents gave him the name Esau which meant: “red” or “ruddy." Jacob on the other hand was seen to be a climber – someone who would do anything to get ahead and so they named him Jacob which quite literally means, “manipulator, supplanter, or liar.”

The two boys couldn’t have been more different from each other. Esau was the rugged hunter – the outdoorsman, the man’s man, the leader and surely the best leader of the new family clan. Jacob, on the other hand was a brain. He hung out with his mother and learned to be crafty and controlling.
He learned how to be a master politician, to see the intricacies of tough situations and get ahead in them.  He would have fit well into the cast of Suits.

In their culture the head of the clan would call his children and give his blessing to the next clan leader. Jacob’s mom, Rebekah clearly favored Jacob, while Isaac, their Dad, favored Esau and was planning on passing the blessing onto him. Rebekah, hatched a plot with Jacob to steal the blessing from their Dad.

Isaac was blind. Rebekah dressed Jacob in animal skins so that he would feel like his hairy brother, Esau, had him make his Dad’s favorite stew and take it to him. The ruse worked. While Esau was out hunting to make a meal for his father to receive the blessing, Jacob, dressed in animal skins stole the blessing from his brother.

Brother and father were upset; Esau to the point of wanting to murder his brother. So Jacob, having obtained the blessing escapes to go live with his uncle, Laban up north. He stayed away for 14 years, and though the text doesn’t tell us this for sure, it is all but certain that he lost the opportunity to bury his parents; to say good bye and obtain closure. So although he carried the mantle of the family it was purely symbolic at this point.

Uncle Laban was a bit of a politician too. Jacob fell in love with his youngest daughter, Rachel and Laban tricked him into marrying his older daughter instead. He agreed to work seven years for Laban to marry one daughter, to marry the daughter he loved he had to agree to work another seven years. It appears, from the text that the he didn’t have to wait to marry his second wife, simply agree to work an additional seven years.

Now, can you imagine the family dynamic? One sister knows she wasn’t wanted, the other felt betrayed. The older sister was very fertile and started having kids right away. The younger seemingly couldn’t conceive. Talk about dysfunctional families!  So think about what all this politicking had achieved.

Now Jacob was a shrewd businessman. He cut a deal with Laban that all the spotless sheep in the flocks would be his and all the multi-colored ones would be his. Then he promptly bred the sheep so as many as possible would be his, rather than Laban’s.

Eventually Laban caught on and was pissed. Jacob and the family decided to run. Rachel, the youngest sister, stole her Dad’s idols on the way out, pissing him off even further. He chased after them and caught up to them. Had he discovered them there would have been hell to pay.  Rachel, who was as crafty as Jacob, pretended to be on her period so she wouldn’t have to get up all the while hiding the idols under her skirts. Laban left unable to find that which they had stolen from him, pissed but unable to do anything about it.

Apparently he and his men had just ridden away when Jacob is informed that Esau is riding out with 400 men to right the wrongs of so many years ago. Now we get to the story I really want to tell. It is found in Genesis 32. Jacob had sent his servants ahead to see how things were with his older brother. They returned:

"We met your brother, Esau, and he is already on his way to meet
you—with an army of 400 men!" Jacob was terrified at the news. He divided
his household, along with the flocks and herds and camels, into two groups. He
thought, "If Esau meets one group and attacks it, perhaps the other group
can escape." 

Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my grandfather Abraham, and God of my
father, Isaac—O LORD, you told me, 'Return to your own land and to your
relatives.' And you promised me, 'I will treat you kindly.' I am not worthy of
all the unfailing love and faithfulness you have shown to me, your servant.
When I left home and crossed the Jordan River, I owned nothing except a walking
stick. Now my household fills two large camps! O LORD, please rescue me from
the hand of my brother, Esau. I am afraid that he is coming to attack me, along
with my wives and children.  But you promised me, 'I will surely treat you kindly, and I will multiply your descendants until they become as numerous as the sands along the seashore—too many to count.'" 

Jacob stayed where he was for the night. Then he selected these gifts
from his possessions to present to his brother, Esau: 200 female goats, 20 male
goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 female camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls,
20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys. He divided these animals into herds and
assigned each to different servants. Then he told his servants, "Go ahead
of me with the animals, but keep some distance between the herds." He gave
these instructions to the men leading the first group: "When my brother,
Esau, meets you, he will ask, 'Whose servants are you? Where are you going? Who
owns these animals?'

You must reply, 'They belong to your servant Jacob, but they are a gift
for his master Esau. Look, he is coming right behind us.'" Jacob gave the
same instructions to the second and third herdsmen and to all who followed
behind the herds: "You must say the same thing to Esau when you meet him.
And be sure to say, 'Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.'" Jacob
thought, "I will try to appease him by sending gifts ahead of me. When I
see him in person, perhaps he will be friendly to me." 

So the gifts were sent on ahead, while Jacob himself spent that night
in the camp. During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two
servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them.
After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions. 

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with
him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the
match, he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man
said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!" But Jacob said, "I
will not let you go unless you bless me." 

"What is your name?" the man asked. He replied,"Jacob." 

"Your name will no longer be Jacob," the man told him. "From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won." 

"Please tell me your name," Jacob said. "Why do you want to know my name?" the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. 

Jacob named the place Peniel (which means "face of God"), for he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared." The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, [fn] and he was limping because of the injury to his hip. (Even today the people of Israel don't eat the tendon near the hip socket because of what happened that night when the man strained the tendon of Jacob's hip.) 

This could be my story. Laban just left with his men and Esau is closing with an army. Jacob sends the bribe to Esau, can’t sleep, packs up his family and sends them across the river along with all his possessions. Then we read these words, “This left Jacob all alone….” I don’t care how good you are. I don’t care how talented you are, eventually if you rely on that talent, those looks, those gifts to get you what you want, you will end up all alone.

Remember when I told you about Arrow. The class president, Mike, speaking at our graduation spoke to the rest of us. “Most of us at some point said, ‘God, aren’t you lucky to have me…’”

I know I did. I was good at what I did. I could communicate effectively. I was effective in arguing with people who believed differently from me on the campuses I visited. People saw me as open, honest, transparent and real.

As a young, twenty something preacher, I was traveling the world preaching on three continents, receiving rave reviews and believing those reviews. Like Jacob, I didn’t really need God all that much. I was successful using my own God given talents and abilities.

At this point the story gets a little interesting.  When I used to preach on this passage my sermon title was “Mom, God cheated!” Here is what happens: a mysterious man shows up and begins wrestling with Jacob. They wrestle the rest of the night and the man finds out that he can’t win. So he cheats. He puts Jacob’s hip out of joint. How that must have hurt! Jacob can’t pivot anymore, so all he is left with is to grab hold and not let go. The man can’t get free. “Let go of me!” he cries. Jacob says, “No! I won’t let go unless you bless me!” Then there is this non-sequitor, “What is your name?” the man asks. And for the first time we hear Jacob utter his own name, “I am Jacob.” Uttering those words he acknowledges who he is: “I am a manipulative politician, who spins things to his own advantage. I am a liar. I will do whatever it takes to gain advantage and position.”

Then the man says, “No, you are no longer that man. Now you will be called ‘Israel,’ someone who has wrestled with God and overcome.” Jews look to this story as the birthplace of their very name. They are people that have wrestled with God and overcame.

For me, as I read that story, I’m struck by the fact that God couldn’t win and so he cheated. He made it so that Jacob was broken and weak. St. Paul, who wrote much of our New Testament revealed a similar issue. He says that he asked God to remove an unnamed “thorn in his flesh” three times and God refused.

I relate. On one hand, I had the world by the tail. I was preaching around the world; people were meeting Jesus through my preaching and events. I was hanging with the “in crowd” of Christianity. I was going to the right meetings and participating in the right events. I was speaking on the radio, and then I was having inappropriate relationships with women, all the while believing a lie that since I wasn’t having intercourse with them I was not really having sex. I created a complete double life. No one, and I mean no one, knew what I was doing, and I couldn’t stop. Lots of people don’t see it this way, but this was my hip being out of place. It was my addiction. It was my idol that I was powerless to release. And it was increasing its power over me.

In the Jacob story Jacob is completely handicapped. For me it was the same way. When my behavior escalated to the place that it was clear to even me that I committed adultery and betrayed your Mom, I went to some pastor friends.  As far as I was concerned, I was done. I couldn’t pastor anymore. I needed these friends’ help to get out. For whatever reason they didn’t let me off the hook. They told me to keep going, stop the behavior, and made me promise that if your Mom asked
any questions I would answer them truthfully.

At this point it felt as if God left the room. My prayers seemed to be bouncing off the ceiling. I knew I was damned. My view of God was so screwed up I tried to cut a deal with him. “I know, God that I’m done and am probably eternally damned. I will keep proclaiming you though if you promise to
save my kids.” I begged, and pleaded, not for my life. It was over, but for yours.

You need to understand that my view of God was completely messed up at this point, but it was all I had. For two years I held on unable to wrestle anymore. I was beaten, damned and out of the game. I hung on in a desperate attempt to manipulate God into saving you.

Then your Mom asked the questions. I gave the answers and my friends, the pastors who had told me to keep going when I was asking them to help me out, turned on me and kicked me mercilessly to the curb. Montavilla Baptist Church read out a list of my sins from the pulpit on a Sunday morning. I became persona non-grata. My bishop, part of the original discussion in ’97 denied knowledge of the depth of my depravity. I resigned all my ministerial positions. And found out who loved me. The list wasn’t very long at all.

I did not know it, but God was asking me, “What is your name?” I had to come clean, and for the first time I did: “I am an addict, powerless and out of control. I have hurt everyone I ever cared about. My life has become unmanageable and I am incapable of change.”

God wasn’t done ripping at the foundations of my idolatry though. My counselor had me read a book by Jeffrey VanVonderen, Tired of Trying to Measure Up. 
While reading it, I saw that he had written another book entitled, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse.
I picked this up to read so I could point my finger at my former bishop and the pastor at Montavilla who had so clearly abused me. Instead of getting to point my finger at them though, I found God pointing his finger at me. Not only was I an addict – the lowest of the low, I was a spiritual abuser.

That realization spun me out so hard I ended up in rehab where even the drug addicts looked down their noses at us. God asked the question, “What is your name?” and I began to be able to answer. And in answering the question I find the blessing. 

Clothing and the 7th Step

6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. 7 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

                    8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man* and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. (Gen 3:6-9 Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.)

 From the beginning of our story we have been covering up our own nakedness. We hide from each other. We hide from God. We cover ourselves in a protective act. An unforeseen danger lurks. If I see me as I am, I will lose hope, and so I hide.  If you see me as I am, you will not love me, and so I hide. If the Holy God sees who I really am, the very light of His holiness will destroy me, and so I hide.

Our fig leaves are our character defects. All the things we do to hide: procrastinate, lie, kill, steal, ignore, isolate, deride, hate, cheat, gossip, overindulge, lust, fornicate & adulterate, create idols, attempt control, image manage, etc… are the psychological weavings of an out-of-control ego that wants desperately to achieve equality with God. The cloth is designed to cover the reality of our own wantonness and seeming ugliness which ruins any hope I harbor for real connection and relationship.

Sometimes the fabric works to cover us for awhile. The lie appears to make us more desirable, but inside we know those who hear the lie desire something that is not really us and so it doesn’t count. The derision can make us feel better about ourselves and some of those who may be watching, but it really only serves to point out how we feel about ourselves. All the weaknesses we see in others are but our own shadows and point to something sinister inside ourselves that we are able to see in another because the shadow is so familiar. The murder may remove a competitor or challenger and make us feel stronger than we really are, but in the end murder, by definition can only destroy the relationship we crave.

We could go through everything on the list and the answer would prove to be the same. We see a perceived benefit. The article of psychological clothing works for us in some way. Giving it up means that we undress and bare a little more of ourselves than is comfortable.

In the story The Silver Chair, CS Lewis tells of Aslan coming and ripping the scales from the back of the boy before he is completely overcome by them, and, digging his claws in He rips the scales away. The process was agonizing almost to the point of death. Giving up our own defects is often no less agonizing.

In step six, the alcoholic / addict “becomes entirely ready to have God remove every single defect of character.” Step seven follows on, “humbly asked him to remove our defects of character.” My character defects are simply different forms of my primary addiction to myself, and I know that I am powerless to remove them. I have to have help from God. “God, help me!” becomes the ongoing prayer of the person who prays without ceasing. Often, as CS Lewis so eloquently describes the process of God taking the clothing we have wrapped ourselves in away is excruciatingly painful, but it is not without reward.

    21 And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife. (Gen 3:20-21: Holy Bible, New Living Translation ®, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.) God did not leave his creation without clothes. He made them clothes made from animal skins. He covered them better than they could cover themselves. HE promises to do the same for us

Isn’t that always the way? What we attempt to do in our finitude, God accomplishes so much better than we could ever dream. As we let go of our character defects that we have long clothed ourselves in, asking God to take them from us, we discover that God clothes us so much more effectively. But that is another post for another time.

"God, I am now ready that you have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows..."

Evangelism in Light of the 11th tradition

Tradition 11(short form): Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.

Tradition 11 (long form): Our relations with the general public should be characterized by personal anonymity. We think A. A. ought to avoid sensational advertising. Our names and pictures as A.A. members ought not be broadcast, filmed or publicly printed. Our public relations should be guided by the principle of attraction rather than promotion. There is never need to praise ourselves. We feel it better to let our friends recommend us.

Do you ever play “the people watching game” at a restaurant and try to decide the stories of the other people in the restaurant? “I bet they are on a first date… and that couple in the corner… look at them. They have been married ten years and have forgotten how to talk to one another… But what about that group at the corner table? There doesn’t seem to be any common denominator. There are seven people… and they like to laugh a lot…”

If you’ve run into that group in your favourite restaurant, you’ve probably run into a 12 step “after meeting”. It is the social gathering that often happens after an AA meeting – members will gather for a meal or coffee after their meeting for fellowship and mutual support. Nearly always these gatherings are boisterous and full of laughter and life. AA’s tend to have “bigger than life” personalities. When they gather socially it tends to be loud and laughter-filled. AA’s aren’t who you think they are.

I was talking with a friend of mine who is 19 years clean in AA. “I’d never know any millionaires if it weren’t for AA,” he said, “but now I know more than I can count. AA seems to be full of people that know how to make money and then lose it and make it again.”

Don’t get me wrong, AA’s come in all different personality types: shy, bold, introverts and extroverts, intuits and sensates, thinkers and feelers, judgers and perceivers; but all in all it tends to have more than it’s fair share of highly boisterous extroverts who don’t have to seek the limelight to find it and who tend to be the life of the party. CEO’s and high powered salespeople seem to come to AA in droves. People who are highly driven “type A’s” seem to be cursed with addictive tendencies.

Alcoholics continually sell themselves to the world. Their insides rarely match what they see on the outsides of everyone else and so they compensate by self-promotion. This tendency to talk endlessly about their own accomplishments is not unlike the child who needs everyone to know about his successes so that they will see him the way he wants to be seen, rather than the way he feels he truly is. Grandiose self-promotion looks ugly. While it is expected in car sales, a lot of insurance sales, and by preachers in the pulpits, it is a pretty ugly habit.

AA knows alcoholic tendencies and the program is one of continual growth in humility. So it follows that AA developed a tradition that goes against the “look at me” (or “look at us”) mentality of the typical alcoholic. This tradition is born of the certitude that AA effectively changes lives. Anyone looking at the life of a recovering alcoholic can see the difference that recovery makes in their life. The recovering alcoholic states, “If I have to talk about all the changes in my life so that people notice them, how real can those changes be? It is far more real for people to see the changes in my life and ask me to share about them. That is not only humility, it is also strength.” They realize that actions speak louder than words; that they are measured by their actions rather than their intentions. And what is true for the individual is also true for the fellowship.

AA no longer practices the promotional tendencies that described its members for large a portion of their lives. They believe that if AA really does change lives it will be incredibly attractive to drunks who want to discover that sobriety can be incredibly fulfilling. They also realize that promotion leads to compromise of the message they carry.

In order to promote, we change the language and change the message to promote it more effectively. AA realized this, and did not want a watered down message.

There is a third reason for this tradition. If a celebrity who is a member of AA comes out and talks about the difference that AA has made in their life and how it has completely transformed them and then gets drunk again. It does not speak well for the fellowship. It brings into question its integrity. When someone publicly identifies with the fellowship in the press, radio, on TV or in films; the fellowship’s integrity is endangered by the alcoholic’s own frailty.  The frailty itself is revealed in the alcoholic’s public identification. Such identification is an act of the ego. Such an act of the ego is counter to everything the alcoholic is learning in recovery. It should be counter to everything the Christian has learned from the Spirit too.

It seems a week can’t go by without a celebrity talking about being in AA. See Tatam O'Neil’s story, Lindsay Lohan’s story, or Martin Sheen’s story. All of them violate the tradition. That is OK. AA doesn't take a position on members inability to follow the traditions anymore than they hold a position on a member not working the steps. It is the individual's loss. AA is only concerned that they follow their traditions. None of the celebrities mentioned abover can stay sober. I wonder if their inability to recover has to do with their inability to fit into the culture of AA?

Notice that others follow the tradition. Michael J Fox only alludes to his recovery in his book, Lucky Man. He writes: “…over the following days, months and years, she along with an ever widening circle of friends, all of whom prefer to remain anonymous, showed me it was possible to live life without alcohol.” (p. 162) Is it any wonder all that we have heard from Fox in recent years is his fight against Parkinson’s disease and tales of how good a human being he is becoming?

Many others remain completely anonymous and unknown to everyone except those they attend meetings with. If you notice, AA never advertises, “Come hear Lindsay Lohan speak at our monthly speakers meeting about her life in sobriety,” or anything remotely like that. It would violate their traditions.

Meanwhile at the local church Kurt Warner, quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals is the guest speaker at a men’s meeting, and later that night you can see the Dove award winner for the handsome price of $55 a ticket. The church is continually advertising celebrity to get people to come into their doors.

One church in Portland has billboards up with a giant picture of their pastors on it, “Come worship with us,” the billboard implores. Five pastors are pictured, named and interviewed for the Portland Monthly magazine. If you walk into a Christian bookstore life size cardboard cutouts of Christian authors greet you at that door. Many churches now have “video venues” which mean campuses that don’t have the preacher live have a video link to see him at sermon time. Parishioners go to church to watch TV together. The preacher is the reason people gather together. Mass evangelists are using a “festival” model for city mission. In a festival model, top Christian bands play, Christian celebrities share their testimonies, and the evangelist presents the gospel and calls for a response. While there is a lot more to it: a mobilization for community service, skate parks and shows abound, food courts serve, prayer meetings form, the idea is to get people to come for the show or the celebrity of the event so that they will hear the gospel message. The church seems to focus on personality rather than Jesus in 21st century America.

While I am not making a judgment about any of these activities, AA would never involve itself in like activities because of their 11^th tradition. The model for cultural engagement that these events embrace is a model of personality first – celebrity first, gospel and Spirit second. Many argue that the Spirit is in personality, or can be (after all he made it).So we should use it to further the Kingdom.

They may be right but I do not think that Jesus would ever hold a rally purchasing TV spots which urged viewers to, “Come hear Jesus, the Lord of the universe, hope of the world.” He would not preach on TV or at a video venue. He would not allow himself to be interviewed by the local paper or magazine in order to get people to come hear one of his lectures. It simply was not his style.  His style was personal, simple, and based on people seeing the difference between his Spirit-filled life and message and the life they were living or being sold either by the religious establishment or the Roman Empire. He was very simply a King walking in an opposing kingdom, inviting people to live in His instead. The only reason they would choose to do so was that they saw life in his Kingdom was so much better than the life they currently lived. If their life was good there is little to no chance that they would choose to follow a maniac who told them to sell everything to follow him, or to die to their own desires to follow him. That simply didn’t make sense to those who already had a life that they liked.

So this is the problem for Christians in West. Unlike the alcoholic /addict they have good lives, are comfortable and have little need of God. The alcoholic / addict is at the bottom already. The only reason anyone has for becoming a member of AA is an acknowledgement that they are powerless and their life has become unmanageable. I believe that is also the only reason anyone chooses to follow Jesus.

The church is fighting to share Jesus with people that don’t want to hear, who don’t think they need to hear and so knowing that the church has changed strategies. “By all means reach some,” my parents used to argue. I am not sure that their mantra is in line with Jesus though.

Though AA’s 11^th tradition may be too stringent for the church, I think its self imposed limitations force AA to operate closer to the methodology of Jesus than the church’s lack of limits in this area. Changed, peaceful, hopeful, joyous lives are contagious. Communities full of people with those qualities who also love each other and their world are amazingly attractive. I wonder if we need to move so that we more closely resemble the methods of Jesus?

Judasizers

I've been reading Walter Wangerin's book, Jesus. I self righteously told myself that I had the gospels so I avoided it for a long time. I had no need of a fresh take on Jesus by Lutheran pastor from the Midwest. I was wrong. I love everything Wangerin has written. This story of Jesus is no exception. I am seeing Scripture in new ways and am seeing things I never saw in the Jesus story before, like Judas…

Judas is not one of the characters in Scripture with whom I could easily identify – until now. He thought Jesus was the answer to everyone's problems. He knew Jesus was going to put right all the wrongs and in the process make Judas somebody special. He knew exactly what he expected from Jesus, and when Jesus let him down, he turned on him.

Recently, I've been thinking about all the people that prayed a prayer, called themselves Christians, and then decided it was all a farce. I could easily have been one of them. My brother is. When Jesus doesn't come through for us we go away sad and even deny his existence. I demand Jesus be who I want him to be. I want him to be this friend that I talk about having a personal relationship with, and then when "he doesn't come through" or "seem to" we jump to the conclusion that he must not exist at all and we slide toward atheism. We become Judasizers.

When I was on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, was being courted to join the ALP, was traveling the world preaching, and generally was "making it" by being a professional Christian, I knew that there had to be more. I traveled to Chicago to visit a friend who I knew received "pictures" from God. He'd already received one word of knowledge for me, I wanted more. I knew that there had to be more. At one point, riding with a very successful college pastor friend across Portland I said to him, "So when are we going to tell them that everything we have been teaching them is a lie?" Without missing a beat he said, "Sshh, we're not supposed to tell." In moments of honesty many in our profession knew that the reality of what they taught never met the reality of what we lived. That seemed dishonest to me and I wanted more. I was a Judasizer. I wanted God to meet my expectations. I wanted my Christianity to "work for me".

On the wake of my divorce, my therapist, himself a pastor, said to me, "Do you know why you were such a great evangelist? … You desperately needed to see people experience that which you wanted to believe was true."

It is seven years later… I'm a nobody by the church's standards. Few pastors want anything to do with the likes of me. I am tolerated in their congregations. I seem to be a pariah to my former colleagues and friends. It is as if they are afraid my sin might be contagious.

And God is my everything. The experience I was willing to travel three hours by car to try to catch is settling on me. Everything I wanted and more is mine. God has made me content. I am somewhere on this journey of discovery of the Immanently Transcendent One. The more I get to see the less I know and that's just fine.

I do know this though. Jesus is the transforming one. He gets really upset and really jealous. He doesn't like it when I try to fit him into my plans rather than trying to fit into his. He wants a lot of my attention. He can't seem to get enough. He doesn't buy the fact that he is there for me. He wants me to be there for him. When he doesn't get enough attention he mopes, at least it feels that way. Jesus moping is a pain in the butt. It doesn't end up working for me.

Maybe there is more of me in Judas than I care to admit. I think I'll keep trying to emulate Peter instead.

Subaru Drivers

Why is it that such a high percentage of Subaru owners insist on driving slowly in the fast lane...?

Personal DNA

My Friend Dustin linked to this page so I tried it... it isn't exactly right but interesting enough...

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