An Appendix

There is far more information than I have space to discuss in the paper I'm currently writing. Foremost among these topics is how the church practically deals with my subject matter. This paper is a response to the validity of homosexual marriage. To begin this paper though, I have to encounter the Christian sexual ethic. It's making me question (and even reject) the validity of procreationism; it is requiring me to engage in an uncensored, honest dialog about sex and its implications within the Christian church.

This is far more terrifying than it might seem. Sex is not talked about enough, and ever mentioning sex within the walls of the often degrades into conversations about abstinence exclusively. When is the last time you've heard a sermon or a legitimate discussion about the pleasure of sex? About how good sex can include more than intercourse? No! These things do not belong in the church. And we wonder why teen pregnancies, divorce, and STDs are growing at an alarming rate within the church.

My paper begins to reconstruct the Christian sexual ethic, so I won't do that here. however, I will present a quote that didn't make it into my final paper. This section from Christine Gudorf's Body, Sex, and Pleasure: Reconstructing Christian Sexual Ethics deals with what I believe is the greatest barrier to genuine dialog about sexuality within the church:

"Unnecessary sexual ignorance is chosen in our society - by school systems which fear parental opposition more than student ignorance, by churches which see sexual ignorance as evidence of virtue, and by parents, themselves ignorant, who fear that sexual education may lead their children to sexual attitudes and choices different from their parents'."

Ignorance is chosen. Maybe if we start choosing knowledge and understanding things will begin to change and sex won't seem like such a taboo topic. And that's all I've got to say about that...at least here...

our beloved street person

I had a profound realization this morning as I was waking up and checking the news on CNN.com. there was a link to this article about how Sesame Street has cleaned up its act over the years. I highly recommend reading it.

But what struck me for the first time in my entire life was the fact that all of us had grown up with a beloved street person in our lives: Oscar the Grouch. He made his home in a garbage can that was, admittedly, a veritable oasis on the inside (though we never in my memory saw it). However, Oscar was indeed the closest thing to homelessness I can recall encountering before the Christmastime charity work of middle school.

He was certainly grouchy (it is his name). He was crude (at least by the standards of children's television). He lived in a pile of garbage (which has apparently been cleaned up on the show...way to go green Sesame Street). Yet we loved him, and so did the characters on the show. They were always kind to him, and they always (at least in my memory) showed him respect for his life decisions.

I know that this may seem overly analytical for a show meant for children, but amidst all the new television shows for kids that are simply piles of brainrot and reinforce stereotypes (Spongebob Squarepants, Chowder, Total Drama Island, Yo Gabba Gabba, etc), it is refreshing to know that there is a show that seeks to provide positive reinforcement of differences.

After all, Sesame Street has made the move into 140 countries and has been around for 40 years. In these countries they adapt their look and the way they present their message. However, the message remains the same. They have a four-fold initiative that encompasses health & wellness, respect & understanding, literacy & numeracy, and emotional wellbeing. While we may laugh at Family Guy spoofs of our beloved childhood show (due to our ever increasing cynicism...pointing the finger at myself here too), I hope that we don't forget that Sesame Street taught us that no matter what people look like, what language they speak, what their lifestyle is, or myriad other factors that define who people are, we all belong to this bundle of life. We all have the ability to love and be loved.

Happy 40th season Sesame Street. And thank you for helping build the foundation of my beliefs about the world that I am just now beginning to understand.

continuing our worship

"As we continue our worship in the daily patterns of life, may we immerse ourselves in the mystery of the Holy, and may we always seek to dwell where Love is the language most spoken and Peace is the path most taken."

For several weeks, this has been the unison congregational response to our worship at Glendale, almost like a communal benediction. This response connected with my spirit for some reason so much so that I committed it to memory and pray it each day.

But why? Why this particular response?

I think this concept of continuing worship is what first drew me to these words. I cannot begin to count how many times I have both heard and said the phrase, "Worship is a lifestyle, not an event." We do not really have to say that at my church. We belong to a bundle of life, and we live this life through one another.

And then there is this concept of "daily patterns of life." As someone who finds himself stuck in the monotony of daily schedules, reframing my life patterns as an act of continuing worship is oddly refreshing. Is it really possible for me to immerse myself in the mystery of the Holy by recognizing God in what I deem monotony? That would seem exceptionally mysterious indeed.

Of course the latter half of this response truly resonates with my soul. I have said many times before how important love is, how much more important it is than any other concept...at least to me. How can we, the global Christian community, strive to make Love our primary language? How can Peace be the path that is worn, as opposed to the road less traveled?

This prayer is so packed with meaning. As I have committed it to memory, I have been struck with the profound impact reciting it on a daily basis has had on my life. It makes me wonder what I have missed in discounting the memorization of scripture in my childhood, having nearly completely forgotten the plethora of verses from my days of Bible Drill. It is one of the reasons I love call and response in church. Communal experiences in worship help us connect beyond and through our differences.

the picture to the left

i took this picture during my time in cape town, south africa this summer. i always see it as a reminder of how the sun is always just behind the storm clouds. for some reason, this is comforting to me.

done being silent

i am struggling with what it means to be a christian in today’s world. it takes a lot of courage for me to say that. it’s something that has been building up over the last four years that i am just now in a position to verbalize (or in this case type). i look at the injustices around me and wonder what people who call themselves christians are doing in response. i wonder where we get off justifying our selectivity in encountering injustice. when did we decide that some societal wrongs are more important to pursue than others?

the christian tradition i had been exposed to for twenty-one years said that there are things that can make a person a lesser member of the body of christ. it said that some things are not worth my time to care about. it said that there are more important things.

i refuse to believe this. for a while i have thought that it is worth my time to care about the role of women in the church. that it is worth my time to care about the aids-affected of africa. it is worth my time to care about the homeless. it is worth my time to care about the poor. it is worth my time to care about the subjugated. that it is worth my time to care about those who society has rejected.

but i find myself discontent with this. i realize that i am wrong in all these statements. i should not care about any of these groups. i should instead care for these people. i have been too abstract in my passion. i have been too theoretical.

i have been too quiet.

my action does not match my passion. but i don’t have to sacrifice my academic study or ambition. hospitality trumps theology every time. and the only reason i believe this to be true is because my concept of what hospitality truly means has been shaped by the theology i have grown into.

i want to make a difference. i want the word "revival" to mean something. i want to be willing to give up everything to help other people. i want my life to be a constant expression of hope and love. i desire wisdom and discernment. i want to make a difference. and everything else will just have to take a back seat. i’m ready to be relational again. i’m ready to dream big again. and i’m not going to settle for mediocre goals anymore.

just a general update on this insanity

i feel like an adult. and i don't say that to assert my own self-worth. the thing is that i'm taking 15 hours of classes and working close to forty hours a week at teavana. all the while i'm trying to maintain relationships. i'm plugged into a new church family that resonates with my soul and the struggling of my burgeoning personal theology.

and i feel like i am balancing these things very well. of course there are moments when i just want to scream, curl up on the couch in a blanket, and watch the west wing, but for the most part i push past those moments. sometimes i just don't want to handle things anymore. however, this is the first time in three years that i have had no non-class commitments at belmont. i have significantly scaled back my involvement outside of work. i'm learning to say no.

it doesn't help that i got in a wreck on saturday. i got hit pretty hard from behind on belmont boulevard while in the midst of doing things for my friend ashley's wedding (post on that incredible experience forthcoming). the back of my car is fairly twisted up, but it is still drivable...i just have to drive cautiously. but my body pretty much aches everywhere, and i can assure you that the last thing i need is to be stiff and in pain all over.

all of that said, i'm closing in on one of those times where it gets too overwhelming...which is why i'm extremely excited about the next two weeks. my friend laura comes up to visit from tuscaloosa thursday through sunday which is basically what's getting me through this week. and while i have to work every day that she's here, i know that we will get to hang out in the off-periods.

then, next wednesday evening, i get to drive home for the first time since august. i can't even describe accurately how thrilled about this i am. i really miss my parents. this, in and of itself, is a strange thing for me. i love my parents, but i've never really been away from them long enough to miss them. but i've been away from home long enough this time, due to my work schedule, that i'm ready to spend some quality time with them.

so, that's my life right now...fairly mundane except for the one living it. at some point i'll start writing more insightful blog entries again...

time doesn't change everything

i have been exceptionally retrospective in recent weeks. there are more factors for this than i care to go into detail about right now, but it has been interesting to look at how i have changed and been changed over the last several years. over the past two months i have re-established a friendship that is teaching me more about myself every day. i have connected with two freshmen at belmont who remind me just how un-cool i am (which is a good thing, really). i am working close to full-time while being a full-time student, and if it kills me, at least i will die enjoying both parts of my life. i have found a church that meets every qualification i have been yearning for.

all of these things have me looking backward. that friendship has me thinking over my life as a whole and the many things that have shaped who i am.

those freshmen have me thinking over my years at belmont holistically, filing through memories connected with myriad moments in my college career.

my job has me working with people who really don't care how quirky i am because we share a common passion.

my classes have me looking at the future and realizing that i really could actually use any part of my degrees successfully...and enjoy doing it.

my church is teaching me how to love christian community again and how beautiful the body of christ really is.

it is fun, in the midst of all this, to see where i was this time last year and before that. luckily, i have maintained blogs since my senior year of high school. recently, i converted all of them to this blog and retro-dated them for when they were originally written. so where have i been in september all these years?

well, one year ago, i was drinking tea and eating bagels. who knew a year later i would be working for the company whose tea i was, at that time, only a novice in.

two years ago, i was in love with the writings of brian mclaren. though i still love what he has to say, i am no longer the stringent acolyte of the emerging church movement i was once so enamored by. in fact, i have grown to love barth and merton and del torre so much more. and it is very possible that the ancient fathers and mothers of our faith may have more to say about the times we live in now than anyone living now could possibly discern.

three years ago, i had just had my first taste of what a new kind of church could look like. in fact, i proclaimed that i had truly found my church. the place that i would call home in nashville. interestingly, both the size and my own self-made complacency led to my abandoning that church for another. of course, the church that followed was an amazing community that helped me reconnect to the body of christ. however, this all confirms my claims that my relationship with the church (the institution anyway) is exceptionally cyclical.

four years ago, i was a senior in high school, a distant memory from the person i am today, reflecting on what would seem to be fickle assertions. interestingly, none of those things have changed. i was also barely 3 weeks away from encountering belmont for the first time.

so there it is, a quick look over the last four years. time really doesn't change everything, but it does change a lot of things. i think it is safe to say that, perhaps, when we look back over those things, that is when the reconciliation happens. that is when we are able to bring together who we were and who we are now.

i can't believe it took so long

"may the god who dances in creation, who embraces us with human love, who shakes our lives like thunder, bless us and drive us out with power to fill the world with her justice. amen."

i cannot believe it took me so long to find a church where i could feel the fullness of christ stretching beyond the limits that christian society has placed on a large portion of the world's population. on sunday, i attended a church where people were allowed to be whole. i know that a great deal of what this church believes flies in the face of the tradition in which i grew up. both pastors are female. one is a lesbian. a woman in the choir (who also happens to be a lesbian) stood in the pulpit and proclaimed her testimony of how this church had taught her about a god of love, as opposed to the angry god she was taught about as a child. this church used gender-inclusive language when talking about the body of christ and about god.

this church proclaimed that all people are equal in the eyes of god. it said that you can be yourself as long as that self be for god. our responsive call to worship proclaimed:

come join together, joining hands and hearts. let our hands be links of chain which hold our lives together - not a chain of bondage, but a silver chord of strength,

a ribbon of love and faith and community giving us slack to sail the wind, yet holding us in a mystical embrace, that we may be alone, but never lonely,

that we may be together, but never lost in the crowd,

that we may be one without forfeiting uniqueness.

come together joining hands and hearts, and let the spirit of the holy and the human spirit flow in each one and through us all as we gather here to share this time and space and as we walk together on the journey.

we sang only from the hymn book. the choir sang a madrigal anthem of praise. there was a chiming of the hour. the offertory was a cello solo. we sang psalms and had readings from the hebrew scripture. it was beautiful. it was traditional. but it was also progressive. it was the body of christ as i have always wanted to experience it. and it was here in nashville.

i can't believe it took so long for me to find a church that encompassed all of these things. but here it was, very nearly in belmont's backyard. how incredible is that? it feels so good to finally be home.

being healthy vs. dieting :: part 1=> tea

almost everyone i know is aware of the fact that i work for teavana...in fact, a large number of people i do not know are fully aware of this too. i'm a little obsessed. of course, in my opinion, there are worse things to be obsessed about. working at a place that stresses health benefits in every sale pitch has led to some interesting conversations and trains of thought for me. it is interesting for that for the first time in my life, i am living a healthy lifestyle as opposed to a dieting lifestyle. there are some fundamental differences.

in the past, i have been so focused on changing the way i eat that i haven't seen the big picture. yes, having a good, healthy diet is important. however, a holistic approach to health can be even more beneficial. making sure to balance protein, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, dairy, etc. throughout your day can have a positive influence on your body, even if weight loss is not your goal. increasing your level of antioxidant intake helps give you natural energy in addition to the positive effects it has on teeth, skin, and bones. antioxidants also fight free radicals which are cancer-causing cells.

white teas, especially premium-grade, have the highest levels of antioxidants of any other types of tea...yes, even more than green tea. green tea has gotten a lot of buzz in the news for its fantastic health benefits and high antioxidant levels. while these things are true, white tea really is the best for you. silver needle is the rarest of all teas, and it is an especially powerful white tea. it has virtually no taste which means you can add it to any other tea without changing the flavor or the second tea, but you also don't sacrifice the health benefits of the silver needle. what's so special about it? it contains 15 times the amount of antioxidants of any other tea.

i do not mean to slight green tea at all. it has exceptional health benefits that vary from those of white tea. while green tea does contain polyphenols (which help fight cancer), it has a slightly lower level of antioxidants than white tea. however, green tea is especially helpful in fighting cavities and gingivitis. in fact, if for some reason you forget to brush your teeth on your way out the door, just steep yourself some green tea...it actually does help with bad breath. it also helps regulate blood sugar and lower cholesterol. one of the absolute best unflavored green teas is gykuro imperial. however, one of my favorite flavored green teas is jasmine dragon phoenix pearls.

the next tea down the line is oolong tea. oolong is often referred to as the "diet tea" because it works specifically to speed up metabolism and to help with the digestion of high-cholesterol foods. it also burns up fat already stored in the body. oolong tea typically has about 15% the amount of caffeine found in coffee, so it may give you a boost of energy as well. oolong is another good cholesterol-regulatory tea. the very best oolong is monkey-picked oolong. it has a smooth flavor, and you can steep it up to six (and in some cases more) times.

okay...that's all for me today. next time i'll talk about the benefits of black, rooibos, mate, and herbal teas. remember, "tea is instant wisdom - just add water!" (astrid alauda)

next...part 2 => more tea

i sobbed through church this morning

today i sat in church and cried. i cried hard. my friend allyson, who was sitting next to me, obviously noticed but said and did nothing. for this i am incredibly grateful because, at the time, i was really struggling with why the service was affecting me so much. but now i really know why. today during church, the interim pastor presented an opportunity for people to make themselves vulnerable. he asked any family dealing with job loss to come forward to the altar so that the church could gather around them a pray over them.

and i saw people come forward, letting themselves be honest to their church that they were struggling and were in need of prayer, i started to cry. it moved my soul. i sat on the third row of a church with which i have fairly profound disagreement doctrinally and felt the holy spirit move. i saw the church as it should be. i saw members of a christian community hurting, and i saw their sisters and brothers surround them.

from that point on i just couldn't keep it together. i sat there and thought about the crossroads before green valley. i wanted to stand up and give an impassioned speech about how green valley has all the potential in the world, but it is not using it. i wanted to tell them that the holy spirit wants so badly to work through their church. but then their interim pastor got up and said it all for me. dr. bobby dubois tells it like it is. he'll knock you flat on your ass, but he'll be the first person to extend a hand to help you up. he delivered such a challenge to green valley. it was beautiful.

but as i sat there and sobbed through most of the service, i was struck by how much i have changed over the last few years. a year ago there was no way i could sit in a service of green valley (or any southern baptist church for that matter) and expect or even anticipate that i would feel the spirit of god move because my doctrinal beliefs are so blatantly different. today i was able to see past my doctrinal differences to the core of why we were all there.

we all long for community. for each of us, it expresses itself in a different way. denominations exist because people disagree on how that community should be expressed. different churches in the same denominations exists for the exact same reason. but they exist and function because we long for community. while the message of christ is, from one perspective, predominantly about salvation, to me it is a message of relationship. they message of the christian new testament is community. ubuntu, if you will. as archbishop desmond tutu said:

"ubuntu is very difficult to render into a western language. it speaks of the very essence of being human. when we want to give high praise to someone we say, 'yu, u nobuntu'; 'hey so-and-so has ubuntu.' then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. you share what you have. it is to say, 'my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.' we belong in a bundle of life. we say, 'a person is a person through other persons.'"

that last part stands out to me most in this instance. "a person is a person through other persons." we can take that further. "a christian is a christian through other christians." that is the essence of community. that is the essence of what church should be. that is what brought me to tears this morning. i saw christians, vulnerable and hurting, being christians through other christians who surrounded them with love and comfort. they were saying, "my christianity is inextricably bound up in yours." it was beautiful. it gave me hope.

p90x - defunct

okay...as great as keeping a separate blog for p90x seemed, it was just too much to handle...BUT i am still on program and am having a fantastic time with it. i just finished my second week, and i've already dropped almost 8 pounds. so...pretty exciting...

retrospect

it is interesting to me how forcefully i ran from the life i led in high school once i graduated. i was undeniably ready to be free from spain park, and every fiber of my being longed to be at belmont. both of those sentiments remain today, i assure you. yet something in me wishes i could relive so many moments of my high school years. i wish i could go back to auburn university in early 2003 to experience coming in a surprise third place with the people who i considered my family. i wish i could spend one more night in the front seat of my best friend's car before getting my driver's license debating the finer points of theology as i knew it at the time. i wish i could sit in on "family time" at park singers retreat one more time.

a couple days ago i had a long conversation with someone who i had forgotten was incredibly dear to me. as she and i talked about everything from family to the future, i was reminded that i miss her terribly in my life. she and i had known each other since first grade, but it was during high school that we really grew close. now both our lives are heading toward adulthood, and each year we encounter more things that require us to look maturity in the face. but for some reason i know that no matter how much older we get, i will always have her as someone who makes me feel safe, who makes me feel loved.

conversations with people like that make me miss living in birmingham and, yes, even being in high school. i wouldn't trade any part of the last three years for anything. however there are moments when i want to drag people and places into the life i have here in nashville. i know that god has placed me here for a reason, and i see the fruits of my decision to go to belmont four years ago all around. but that doesn't make it any easier. i have several friends who know about my life and about my past experiences. my best friend, my brother for all intents and purposes, has only known me for three years, but we have an intimate understanding of each other. but sometimes it would be nice to not have to explain anything about the thirteen years of school that led up to belmont. it would be nice to have people around who know why i am the way i am, as much as i railed against the concept as i left for college.

so, if you are reading this and you were a friend of mine in high school, an actual friend who knew me well and deeply, know that i do think of you and miss you and wish i still had that kind of relationship with you. i know all of us have changed so much in the last three (or more) years, but i feel as though perhaps even now we would be more prepared to be friends. as we have each come in to who we truly are, shedding the outer layers of popularity and childhood, maybe now we could have an even truer friendship.

maybe i'm rambling, but it feels good to get all this off my chest. i love being in college, and i love being in college where i am. i love my friends here, and i love my life here. but i sometimes really do wish more of my true friends from high school could and would be part of this life.

alright...i'm giving myself a chance

today i started p90x...i'm pretty thrilled about this. feel free to follow my journey:

http://dan-p90x.blogspot.com/

sweet...

A feminist reaction to the parable of the Prodigal Son

The story of the prodigal son from the Gospel of Luke is one of many encounters with a male-centered parable told by Christ. This furthers the overall masculist ethos of scripture. Christian scripture was written by men toward a male-dominant society featuring a male incarnation of Christ which presents problems for women who study and encounter the Bible. As Rosemary Radford Ruether points out:

“A Christology that identified the maleness of the historical Jesus with normative humanity and with the maleness of the divine Logos must move in an increasingly misogynist direction that not only excludes woman as representative of Christ in ministry but makes her a second-class citizen in both creation and redemption.”¹

The theme of redemption found in the parable of the prodigal son is directly related to the fact that the story uses three male characters as the primary players. What if the prodigal child was a daughter and not a son? The society around which scripture was built would never have seen a daughter even consider demanding an inheritance because she would not be entitled to one. If the daughter were to leave sans inheritance then return, the interaction between father and daughter would have possibly looked something like this:

“When she had spent what little money she had, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and she began to be in need. No one would hire her because she was a woman from a foreign land, even though she was well versed in the tasks of daily life. So she was forced to sell herself into prostitution because her body was the only thing the men around her saw as having worth. She was beaten, abused, and raped for a poor pittance. And eventually she thought, were she to return home, at the very least she would be welcomed into her father’s house as the lowest of servants.

But as she approached the house, she saw no sign of her father, for he was not waiting daily for her return. When finally she approached the door of her father’s home and knocked, a maidservant answered. The daughter asked to speak to her father, her head hung in shame. Her father appeared and she fell to the ground before him and cried out, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your daughter. I have lived in debauchery and have sold my body to save my life time again.’ Her father stood in silence before her, his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed. ‘Let me be as one of your hired maidservants. I will work your fields and tend your home.’ But her father no longer saw his daughter but a harlot who had given herself up, and he called for her to be stoned immediately in accordance with the law.”

A woman may be able to see the lesson of redemption being presented through the parable today, but the concept of redemption by a father for sins such as those implied of the prodigal son would be unimaginable for a woman during the time of Jesus. There would be no inheritance. There would be no forgiveness.

There is, however, redemption of a different kind. Mary Ann Beavis reminds us of a passage earlier in the Gospel of Luke where a woman of ill repute comes to Jesus and anoints him with oil.² Even if the story was told about a prodigal daughter who was stoned upon her return, I believe Jesus would have been able to reframe that story as one of empowerment for women. When the woman comes to anoint Jesus in the seventh chapter of Luke, he lifts her up before all the men around and anoints her with his words of affirmation. This outpouring of love shows that God is not like the father in my story but rather the father that girl deserved. Whether the prodigal child is male or female, the divine Parent waits with outstretched arms and runs to meet the long lost child.

[1] Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 134-135.

2 Mary Ann Beavis, “’Making Up Stories’: A Feminist Reading of the Parable of Prodigal Son,” in The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom, ed. Mary Ann Beavis (New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 99.

thinking about sam

about once a year i write a blog about my friend sam. he was my best friend in elementary and middle school, and we remained close through high school even though our paths didn't cross as much as either of us would have preferred. sam is a marine. he has been fighting in iraq since december of 2006. i have been lucky enough to maintain, at the very least, occasion contact with sam via facebook. in december when we went to the birmingham airport to pick up my sister and brother-in-law, i was surprised to run into sam coming home on furlough. i was exceptionally awkward in the encounter because i just could not believe he was there.

it is no secret that i do not agree with the wars being fought by the united states in the middle east. i am a bit more of a pacifist than i was just a few years back and grow ever more so each day. i kind of feel like jesus meant turn the other cheek, and, as cliche as it is, when jesus said "love your enemies" he probably meant don't kill them.

but you will NEVER hear or read any words of mine that lambaste the men and women who are fighting in these wars. they are brave, and they are consistently in harm's way. it takes immeasurable courage to go out and fight a war, to volunteer your life so utterly.

my roommate blake and i have been watching an unhealthy amount of band of brothers, one of the most brilliant cinematic masterpieces i think has ever been attempted. it is a gritting, true look at the 101st airborne division (easy company) from world war two. every time we watch an episode, i think about sam. i think about the difficulty of every day life as a soldier. i think about how it must utterly suck to be so far away from home and comfort. i think about the courage it takes to get up some mornings.

i said it last year when i wrote on this, and i'll say it again. sam is a hero. and sam gives me a face to think about in the midst of any criticism i may have about the war. seeing his face in my mind reminds me that war is not an abstract concept. it involves that concrete lives of many people, including people who are very dear to me.

so thank you sam.

i can hear jesus saying...

“I can hear Jesus saying to us:

I was sick with AIDS and you did not visit me. You did not wash my wounds, nor did you give me medicine to manage my opportunistic infections. I was stigmatized, isolated and rejected because of HIV/AIDS and you did not welcome me. I was hungry, thirsty and naked, completely dispossessed by HIV/AIDS and globalization in my house and family and you did not give me food, water or any clothing. I was a powerless woman exposed to the high risk of infection and carrying a huge burden of care, and you did not come to my rescue. I was a dispossessed widow and an orphan and you did not meet my needs.

We, the church of this era, will ask,

When Lord did we see you sick with AIDS, stigmatized, isolated and rejected, and did not visit or welcome you in our homes? When Lord did we see you hungry, naked and thirsty and did not feed you, clothe you and give you water? When were you a powerless woman, a widow and an orphan and we did not come to your rescue?

The Lord will say to us, ‘Truly, I tell you, as long as you did not do it to one of the least of these members of my family, you did not do it to me.’”

-Dr. Musa Dube in "Theological Challenges: Proclaiming the Fullness of Life in the HIV/AIDS & Global Economic Era"-

just a reminder

hello friends! just a reminder to check out my blog about my journey here in africa.

http://buinafrica.blogspot.com

okay...switch over folks

alright...i leave for africa in a little while, so i'm going to ask those of you (like 4 people) who follow my blog to switch your sights over for the next 3 weeks to my new blog that will chronicle my time in africa. thanks!

http://buinafrica.blogspot.com

graduation

today is belmont's graduation. it is strange to think that one year from today a huge number of my friends will be graduating, and i will sitting in the bleachers watching them pass by. there is no part of me that regrets the fact that it will take me 4 1/2 years to complete my degree. yet there is a part of me that regrets the fact that it is not taking some of my friends that long.

but today is a happy occasion as all of my new roommates are granted their diplomas. it is funny to me that a large portion of my friends, much like in high school, are older than me. some graduated last year, but most of those older friends will graduate today. it is harder to believe that brandon, blake, jamie, and james (the new roommates...minus james who is getting married tomorrow) are all getting ready to head into the "real" world. even harder to wrap my mind around is the forthcoming lack of seeing certain people in the SOR lounge on a regular basis.

i am actually fairly good with change. in fact, i welcome it on most occasions. but graduations (less often my own than others seeing as the only one i've ever had left me elated to be free of sphs) have a tendency to leave me a bit sad. it's like hermione says in the less-than-sub-standard goblet of fire movie adaptation, "everything is going to change now, isn't it?" well, everything is going to change now...as it does each semester. people finish their college education and are thrown in myriad directions. it is my most sincere prayer that all of these people would find prosperity and joy in the journeys that have ahead of them.

africa blog

hey folks. i leave for africa on sunday, may 17th, and since belmont isn't hosting a blog for us this year (as far as i know), i've set up my own. check it out: http://buinafrica.blogspot.com/

changing things up

so i promise i'm not copying my friend ann by changing the look of my blog, or by changing the theme color to green...i just happened to have decided to make this change.

there is actually reasoning behind it. belmont has been caught up in this whole going green thing for some time now. i'll be the first to admit that it seems a bit forced at times and a little too publicity-driven at other times (i mean, come on, our grass is one of the greenest things about our university and that doesn't exactly speak toward our water conservation efforts). however, my recent forays into the environmentally friendly landscape have offered new insights on how i see the world.

so much, in fact, that i have joined up with the new belmont community garden wherein i will have a plot for growing things like tomatoes (which i don't eat but will grow while wearing a funny hat so i can give them to people...steel magnolia reference), rosemerry, mint, beans, etc. i'm unbelievably excited about this opportunity. i'm also taking eco-justice and faith this fall with one of my favorite professors who happens to be the head of the belmont go-green initiative. one of our texts for this class will be the green bible. i'm a fair bit thrilled at the prospect of taking this class and growing in a deeper understanding of how my belief in god should inform my view of god's creation.

so i now have a visually green blog. it's quite honestly mostly an aesthetic choice. the whole black motif was getting depressing, and i needed a change of scenery. that's all i have for now, but expect to see many updates (or, dare i say it, another blog altogether) about my growing (small pun intended) awareness of the natural world around me.

a poem...

tomorrow sun
by me

if tomorrow is like yesterday
then i'll be hoping today will never come
as the days slip around me with hushed steps

"i'm really okay," i whisper to the
slinky breeze that would tousle
my hair if i had any left

it's not like i didn't expect time
to keep moving on without me or
at least without my consent

but it's really okay this time
for me to move on to something new
without looking back too hard or too often

the future isn't that bleak or that exciting
this time around as i make the decision
to just keep going forward

i put my hand in yours and feel
the breeze whispering sweet words of
comfort in my ears

and you pull me along in spite
of where i tell myself i want to be
in this messy dénouement

you make me okay with today
when i can't reconcile it in my own
tumultuous minding game

so we press forward with each step
and move away from our shadows and
into tomorrow's sun

dayenu!

what an incredible thing i just experienced. tonight i attended a passover seder. this is not the first time i have done this though. in fact, last year my community group shared a passover seder together. it was incredible. but tonight...oh tonight...it is hard to describe such an awesome event...

you see i celebrated the passover seder and feast at green valley baptist church, my home church in hoover, alabama. that's right. green valley. for a good while i have associated the baptist churches of my upbringing to be synonymous with backward thinking and staunch southern baptist traditionalism. i can't do that anymore. green valley branched out tonight in a way i would have never expected in a million years. four hundred people came together to celebrate passover.

four hundred. they were expecting maybe half that. to me, one hundred would have been sufficient. dayenu - it would have been sufficient. how interesting. over the course of two hours tonight we worked through a twenty-seven page haggadah. I have never been more proud of green valley. i feel like i'll write a more substantial blog on this and passover in general later, but i just needed to get those initial feelings out.

How great is God's goodness to us! For wach of God's acts of mercy and kindness we declare dayenu - it would have been sufficient.

If the Lord had merely rescued us,
But had not judged the Egyptians,

dayenu!

If God had only destroyed their gods,
but had not parted the Red Sea,

dayenu!

If God had only drowned our enemies
but had not fed us with manna,

dayenu!

If God had only led us through the desert,
but had not given us the Sabbath,

dayenu!

If God had only given us the Torah,
but not the land of Israel,

dayenu!

But the Holy One, blessed be God, provided all of these blessings for our ancestors. And not only these, but so many more.

Blessed are you, O God, for you have, in mercy, supplied all our needs. you have given us Messiah, forgiveness for sin, life abundant and life everlasting. Hallelujah!

failure...

i am sitting here taking yet another break from this stupid new testament exegesis paper. i have been pouring over this thing for the last two weeks trying to turn the exegesis of four verses into a six page paper. i can discuss exegesis and methods therein for hours, but for some reason turning those thoughts into a coherent paper is eating at my soul.

there is always that issue i have with basing my academic worth on the opinions of my professors in their grading of my papers. it doesn't help that i have way more going on in my head that is unnecessary for this paper than i can sort through. the basic idea is to use exegesis to support and refute an interpretation of this passage. that's all well and good, but i can't find the words to make this paper seem effective.

i know this is a rant in the midst of a poor state of mind, but i just needed to get all that off my chest. okay. back to typing...

summer reading...

yeah...it's true. i'm already starting my summer reading list. it is most certainly not complete, and it does not include the books i have to read for my study abroad classes. however, this is what i have thus far:

callings: twenty centuries of christian wisdom on vocation edited by william placher

this unprecedented anthology gathers select passages on work and vocation from the greatest writers of christian history. william placher has written insightful introductions to accompany the selections — an introduction to each of the four main historical sections and a brief introduction to each reading. while the vocational questions faced by christians have changed through the centuries, the book demonstrates how the distilled wisdom of these saints, preachers, theologians, and teachers remains relevant to christians today.

tsotsi: a novel by athol fugard

athol fugard is renowned for his relentless explorations of personal and political survival in apartheid south africa — which include his now classic plays master harold and the boys and the blood knot. fugard has written a single novel, tsotsi, which director gavin hood has made into a feature film that is south africa's official entry for the 2006 academy awards. set amid the sprawling johannesburg township of soweto, where survival is the primary objective, tsotsi traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader.

when we meet tsotsi, he is a man without a name (tsotsi is afrikaans for "hoodlum") who has repressed his past and now exists only to stage and execute vicious crimes. when he inadvertently kidnaps a baby, tsotsi is confronted with memories of his own painful childhood, and this angry young man begins to rediscover his own humanity, dignity, and capacity to love.

the omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals by michael pollan

it's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. you'll certainly never look at a chicken mcnugget the same way again. pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." all food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi.

all you needed to know about the music industry by donald passman

an entertainment lawyer whose clients include many from the top of the music charts, passman has written a book that sets out to give musicians, performers, and songwriters the tools to hire advisers, market their careers, protect their creative works, and generally cope with a complex industry in a state of flux. passman explains boilerplate language, the complexities of royalties and advances, and label and distribution deals; a section on record deals begins with an overview of the business and works through all the steps. the "adventures in cyberspace" chapter is a helpful summary of the way cd-roms and the internet are affecting the business.

six characters in search of an author by luigi pirendello

play in three acts by luigi pirandello, produced and published in italian in 1921 as sei personaggi in cerca d'autore. introducing pirandello's device of the "theater within the theater," the play explores various levels of illusion and reality. it had a great impact on later playwrights, particularly such practitioners of the theater of the absurd as samuel beckett, eugene ionesco, and jean genet, as well as jean anouilh and jean-paul sartre.

let your life speak by parker palmer

the old quaker adage, "let your life speak," spoke to author parker j. palmer when he was in his early 30s. it summoned him to a higher purpose, so he decided that henceforth he would live a nobler life. "i lined up the most elevated ideals i could find and set out to achieve them," he writes. "the results were rarely admirable, often laughable, and sometimes grotesque.... i had simply found a 'noble' way of living a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart."

thirty years later, palmer now understands that learning to let his life speak means "living the life that wants to live in me." it involves creating the kind of quiet, trusting conditions that allow a soul to speak its truth. it also means tuning out the noisy preconceived ideas about what a vocation should and shouldn't be so that we can better hear the call of our wild souls. there are no how-to formulas in this extremely unpretentious and well-written book, just fireside wisdom from an elder who is willing to share his mistakes and stories as he learned to live a life worth speaking about.

telling secrets by frederick buechner

a father's suicide and a daughter's anorexia exemplify the sort of secret that radically modifies an individual and, in turn, can be modified by being told. the fiction of noted theologian/novelist buechner ( a long day's dying, lj 1/1/50) has been called "psychological." his nonfiction, too (including whistling in the dark, lj 7/88) explores his comprehension of the soul rather than exhorting. this slim memoir does well what buechner has become noted for doing: showing with subtlety the stark nature of being one thinking being among many. his prescription for the church to look at alcoholics anonymous for a modern model is compelling. this minister is not preaching to the converted but can attract the ears--and hearts--of any reader interested in acknowledging the spiritual aspect of human nature.

so there it is, my list for the summer. like i said, it is subject to grow and change. i’m pretty excited.

all descriptions/summaries/reviews courtesy of amazon.com

Mark 1:29-34

This is a brief (and admittedly unpolished) response to Mark 1:29-34 and the gospel commentaries of Dr. Emerson Powery from True to Our Native Land and the commentary included in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible from Abingdon. I wrote this for my New Testament and Exigetical Methods class , but I liked what I had encountered in the text and decided to post it here.

Mark 1:29-34

It is interesting to note not one but multiple instances of women existing in extraordinary ways in the Markan gospel. Each has significant impact on the ministry of Jesus, but few are named by the author. Again we have to note the context in which the book was written. Even though the author may have been able to see the importance of these women (which is obvious considering their inclusion), they are still mired by the cultural view of women thus leading to the ambiguity of their naming.

The story I focused on is one that has never really had significance to me before now: the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law. The story in Mark 1:29-31 to me is one of the more minor passages within the gospel though it does speak for liberation in scripture. It is interesting to me that the author of Mark follows through with a concept that is consistent throughout this gospel: that of women as ministers.

As Dr. Powery reveals in TONL (also discussed in NISB) to those of us who are not Greek scholars, the author of Mark only uses the term diakoneo in relation to the Son of Man, angels, and women. This was particularly shocking to me coming from a Southern Baptist background. Here in Mark we have the author characterizing women as deacons and ministers! In light of this idea, I wonder if the women Jesus encountered in his journey really became the grassroots followers of his ministry. We obviously have more examples of women serving in this capacity in Mark (i.e. the woman who anointed Jesus and Mary Magdalene). I find it comforting to my own theology of liberation to find instances of women being such important components to Jesus’ ministry in scripture (while still struggling with other passages like Mark 7:24-30).

This passage continues on to the healing of many people and casting out demons in verses 32 through 34. It is interesting that neither the NISB commentary nor TONL discuss this mass-healing passage in much detail. In fact, Dr. Powery skips right over it and moves into the following verses about Jesus praying in the morning. NISB simply describes it as a “summary of many healings performed by Jesus” (p 1807). The significance of this double omission is a bit cloudy to me, though perhaps neither commentator discusses the silencing of the demons here because the passage preceding this one deals with the same concept (Mark 1:25,26).

a new code

i am a star wars fan. not one of those, "i watch star wars once or twice a year" kinds of fans but a, "i have a couple costumes, a lightsaber, and all the books" kind of fan. i am completely unashamed of this. you see star wars has been an essential part of my growing up. the concept of the jedi and what they stand for has always been something i've related to. but in recent time i have begun to look at the jedi in a different light. i've noticed their mistakes and the shortcomings of their philosophy. my best friend and i sat and rewrote their code a little over a year ago, and for some reason it has come to mind today. the original jedi code follows:

there is no emotion, there is peace.

there is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

there is no passion, there is serenity.

there is no death, there is the Force.

our updated code is much more inclusive and helps to reconcile some of the shortcomings the original jedi code perpetrates:

there is no fear, there is peace.

where there is belief, there is reason.

there is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

where there is passion, there is will.

there is no rage, there is serenity.

where there is truth, there is harmony.

there is no death, there is the force.

i rather like the new code. we allow for emotion and passion. these things are essential to the human condition. they are expressions of who we are.

i know this is a bit of a strange post, but it's just where my mind is today.

how exactly does one coordinate worship?

it is a well-known fact back in hoover that i led worship for my church youth group. this is not necessarily a well-known fact at belmont. it is a well-known fact at belmont that i have issues with musical worship. this is not necessarily a well-known fact back in hoover.

where is this leading? for too long these two aspects of myself have been separated. i miss leading in worship. i can't really stand what musical worship has become. where does that leave me? it is quite a conundrum.

an interesting prospect was put before me today. it is a well-known fact that i think the world of my university ministers. i think they are incredible, and they give me spiritual direction in spite of myself (and in spite of the fact that i don't always listen to what they have to say). but today guy put the idea in my mind to apply to be a worship coordinator at belmont.

yeah. he's crazy. really. because who in their right mind would suggest that i be in leadership over times of musical worship???

but then i started to think about it even further. guy and i had talked about my renewed passion for liturgy and sacred practices which got me thinking about how i could have an influence on reshaping the worship experience at belmont. how cool is that? i just have to weigh that against other commitments for next year and other sacrifices that would would allow me to serve in a leadership position with university ministries. there is also the distinct likelihood that i would have to, at some point, deal with people that i just don't agree with on worship (and myriad other things). and sometimes even people who just plain piss me off. it happens. especially when i'm involved in something that has church roots.

anyway...i have a lot to think about on this.

spring break...ish

well spring break has come again to the jolly land of belmont. and, yet again, i am staying in nashville and working in admissions. this is the 3rd year in a row i have done this, each time by personal choice. so, basically, i cannot complain. i'm honestly excited about the opportunity to work in admissions until 430 each day and then spend the rest of the time doing things for myself. i'm going to read for fun a little bit and work on some of my writings. i actually spent some time tonight re-writing the beginning of all my love which was very fulfilling. it is somewhat thrilling to revisit the story of emma ellis that my fifth grade class began ten years ago. it's like spending time with an old friend, only this time i have the opportunity to get to know her better.

that is why i love writing prose. it isn't really about coming up with new ideas or fantastic characters. yes, those things are obviously important, but what i love is finding just the right character and just the right situation and just the right setting. when you combine those things as an author, the story isn't really yours. i get to be a bystander who chronicles the journey. i get to live emma's story again and in greater detail. i get to cry with her. i get to laugh with her. i get to love her and her precious children (jj and lily ann). i get to spend time with one of my all-time favorite literary characters: lucy ellis (emma's sister-in-law) who in my mind is represented by my friend ann (in appearance and disposition).

so spring break is promising. and really it is just a dress rehearsal for the summer when my time will be dominated by working for admissions and writing books. i'm pretty thrilled about it. i'll try to blog a good bit this week in an effort to keep myself accountable with my writing goals. my main focuses are editing what i have so far in all my love and completing writing plans for learning for life and i grew up in alabama...and i turned out alright. check out all my writing projects here.

i'm blessed...but i'm also pissed off...

it staggers me how god continually chooses to work in strange ways. i'm on the tail end of leading a group of middle school guys through a disciple now weekend at a church just north of nashville. i have had an unbelievable time, and i've also been around a baptist church of which i could actually see myself being a member at some point (maybe...or something along those lines). the students are great. the church is thinking progressively. all in all it sounds like a dream.

but i just can't help but get pissed off sometimes (maybe righteous indignation is a better verbiage) when working with middle school kids. i love middle school kids, let me go ahead and say. i have a passion for working with them in large groups. i really do. but society and church has screwed them up. society has given them all these "toys" that just get bigger and better every four months. how can god stand up against that in the mind of a 13-year-old???

it's no wonder that kids are more excited to play college basketball on xbox360 than to have a 30 minute bible study. i don't blame them. our society gives them more distraction than should be allowed by decency. i always thought having action figures was a problem...these kids have probably never played with an action figure for more than 5 minutes in their lives.
the high tech distractions are unbelievable...you can see the basketball players SWEATING on the court! it's freaking awesome.

and the church isn't helping things. it tries to add basketball courts and video game stations and all that crap to drawn in students. but it sends the wrong message. jesus is not a fad. but we keep spoon feeding these kids the idea that god can fit into our mold of technological advancement. god is so far beyond that. it is almost embarrassing to have to wade through the muck of our failed efforts to meet society where they are.

i'll be the first to admit that i used to think this was a great idea. but tonight i had to remind my middle school guys that we were actually on this retreat to study scripture and have conversations about god. we didn't have to have a deep theological debate here folks. we were talking about love...how god loves us and how we are supposed to love god and other people. so i took the plug from the xbox360 and the wii, and i laid it out there plain and simple: if they were only here to play video games then they shouldn't have come. i told them they were making a mockery of god by just going through the motions of the bible study just to get the opportunity to turn the tv back on. it pissed them off. and i didn't care.

i have no idea how to fix this situation. you can't (and shouldn't) take students out of culture and society. that just isn't healthy. but there has to be some kind of compromise. how can we make it so that students actually yearn after god? what would it be like to encounter a youth group of middle and high school students who truly sought after god? i want to experience that. i want to be a part of that. i want to walk hand in hand with a group of students who take the charge of 1 timothy 4:12 to heart.

"do not let anyone treat you as though you are unimportant because you are young. instead be an example to the believers with your words, your actions, your love, your faith, and your pure life."

i guess i was just disappointed in the fact that i saw such potential in the group on friday night just to have it ripped to pieces tonight. it breaks my spirit. but maybe one day they will get it. maybe one day the will understand exactly what god's love for us means. because, in truth, i have no words to do it justice.

this probably won't end well...

i am increasingly aware of just how different and unaccepted my beliefs would be if i was still living in the world in which i grew up. i read things written by those who were influential in my life at one point or another, and i am struck with the fact that my systems of belief have changed. at times it honestly freaks me out. i wonder if i have gone too far down a dangerous path that will lead me to destruction.

and then i calm down a little bit and realize that it is perfectly fine for me to form my beliefs and for them to be different than the beliefs with which i grew up. but i would like to take a moment to assure those who are reading this that despite the differences in my peripheral beliefs, i still believe in the triune god of christian faith and claim jesus christ as my savior and lord. not that i have to justify myself to you, but i feel like what follows can be far more productive if i throw that out on the front end.

anyway, i have read a good bit of commentary lately on how people in the faith tradition of my upbringing are so worried about homosexuality, gender rights, property rights, abortion, rights to education, poverty, and race that they are using their belief system to define their positions on these things. now, i have no problem with this on a basic level, but it comes into conflict when i realize that the faith tradition they are using is the same tradition i hold. so, obviously, there is a disconnect. you see, i have found that on most of these subjects my opinions and beliefs fly in direct contradiction to those of my more socially conservative (and more religiously conservative for that matter) friends.

i just feel like the jesus i worship meets people where they are and loves them regardless of their circumstance. jesus just seems so much more divine to me if i look at him as a liberator of the oppressed. all of the oppressed. not just some of them. if i look at the character of christ in this way i cannot help but see the answers to my beliefs on homosexuality, gender rights, property rights, abortion, rights to education, poverty, and race. i can see god wanting me to give money to the poor. i can see god wanting me to see those of other races as completely equal to me in all ways (or, to be properly inclusive, to see myself as completely equal to other races).

now i’m not going to put my opinions on all these things up here because that’s not the point i’m trying to make. the point is that i’m tired of people saying that because my beliefs are different from theirs that i am unethical, immoral, or unwise. to me, that is just ignorant. you don’t have to say it directly to me to make the point. you may not have said, “dan, i think your beliefs make you immoral.” it is as simple as saying that about someone with whom i share similar beliefs. if “john” believes that education should be accessible and affordable for everyone and you say that “john” is unwise to hold this belief, then you say i am unwise to hold this belief. it is quite easily transitive.

okay, at this point i realize that i’m moving more into a ranting motif, and that’s just not productive. i really have more to say on this, but i have a couple papers to work on, and i need more time to flesh out more of this. so i’m going to quit, and disable comments. if you want to talk about this more, actually get in touch with me. i can’t handle another blog argument.

i genuinely miss it

i have tried for far to long to pretend like i don't miss performing. i am a member of an ensemble of music majors who don't give a shit about what they are doing. our group could be incredible, but no one cares. i don't know how to handle that. i really, honestly don't. i have memories of the group to which i belonged for four years, the group to which i still belong, of people who genuinely love to sing. people who love to perform. i am in love with music, with performing, with the idea that music is the great equalizer. people sing in latin and french and german and english just as people across the world do the same. i can sing in the affluence of belmont just as the children of sub-saharan africa sing in their poverty.

i miss being a part of something greater. i miss being on stage. i miss singing with other people who want to sing. i miss the costumes and the hair and the competition and the joy of victory. but i also miss the sweat and the tears and the rehearsals and the lectures. i want that again. and i don't think i'll be truly happy until i have it again. it is not some high school memory of which i can't let go. it is a piece of who i am. i'll never be a star performer. i'll never be a successful solo artist. but none of that matters to me. i don't want that. i just want one more opportunity to perform with a choir that loves what it does. that loves each other.

i learned it from my mom

people want to feel needed. people want to feel loved. people want to feel as though they matter. it is this very concept that i learned from my mom. i can debate politics and argue theology all i want. i can go to school for the rest of my life, but it is the simple truths that my mother has always exampled.

more often than not i find myself striking up conversation with people who work jobs i, to be completely honest and transparent, feel are less than me. and even that idea makes me shudder with shame. but far too often these people are shunted aside by people like me. they are transparent. they are "the custodian" or "the cafeteria worker" instead of sonya or michelle. they are people. they are more than their title. they are more than their job.

my mom has never been the one to stand at the front of any situation or organization. yes, she'll head a committee or organization, but when it comes to time to receive credit in open forum, she's never been concerned with it. she is an incredible woman. she will work tirelessly to make sure something is done right, and that something is done best. more often than not she does so without thanks. she is the poster-child for servant leadership.

today as i struck up conversation with my friends who work in corner court on campus (i call them my friends because i am genuinely concerned about who they are), i couldn't help but think about how i was putting into practice something my mom has always said. people want to feel like that have worth. and it can be as easy is asking how someone's morning is going.

too often we place ourselves on imaginary pedestal because we think we are a certain class or come from a certain background. to that, my mom would say, "just because you are titled doesn't make you entitled." how incredible.

we are all equal in the eyes of god. we are all people. we all have needs. we all want to be wanted.

i learned that from my mom.

could it really be that easy?

i have, all of a sudden, found myself surrounded by guys who i consider friends. to be quite honest, it has come as a complete surprise. i can't tell yet if i've let my guard down a little or if these guys just don't care.

i have a couple of guys that i have breakfast with once a week. we talk about life and love and hobbies. and we talk about scripture. right now we're in judges because i kind of feel like the old testament gets neglected. we sit and enjoy runny caf eggs and chocolate milk. anyone is welcome to the table. i look forward to that time every week.

i have a workout buddy that has become a bit of a bromance. whether it be ensemble rehearsal or gym time i see him almost every day of the week...completely by accident. we invite our girlfriends to go on our dates sometimes. all four of us (me, him, and both our girlfriends) are going to cape town, south africa together in may. and, yes, we are going to be buff one day.

i have a friend who may very well be a younger (and much cooler) version of me. it is a bit odd really. he knows how to have fun, but we can also have deep discussions about faith and god that stagger even the cynic in me. he also makes me go to accounting which, in and of itself, is a miraculous appointment. i am as much enamored of his coolness as i am humbled by his attitude for life. its a winning combination.

and then there is my best friend. my brother. i think he and i have experienced enough extremes together in life to realize that, in some form or fashion, we will always have to be in each other's life. we understand each other enough to be okay in disagreement. we also have the same sense of humor which gets us into more trouble than should be legal (and sometimes isn't). i honestly do not know what i would do without him. he is a blessing in my life.

so, i guess i can't whine about not having guys in my life that i connect with. it was easier than i expected, and (as i always predicted) it came out of nowhere.

"Be Brilliant"

“Be brilliant!”

It is a small urging that is packed with yearning, affection, and (to be quite honest) inescapable sternness. It is a statement that we grew all too familiar with during our sophomore year of high school, a statement we more often than not failed to follow. It was, of course, joined by sayings like “carpe diem” which were tossed to us not-to-casually by an educator like I have never since encountered.

Ms. Susan Bank was a bastion of knowledge packed into the body of a little woman. She was fairly easy to please as long as you put forth your very best effort. Though, admittedly, I rarely put forth the effort her class deserved. She was a professor of literature and writing. She was a scholar of scholars. And she was a tenth grade honors English teacher in an Alabama public high school. She introduced us to the likes of Ayn Rand and her anthem, Henry James’s naughty turning screw, Stephen Crane and his courageous blood-stained badge, and Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s heartwarming little prince.

I was consistently staggered by the depth of her knowledge and insight. She was stern. And I’ll be the first to admit that I vituperated against her on more occasions than I care to discuss. As always though, one comes away from a learning experience with more than he or she ever realizes is possible. Either way, we always knew that her goal was to impart as much of her storehouse of knowledge and wisdom to us as she possibly could.

On Saturday, January 29, 2005, Ms. Bank passed away having fought a brief but bitter battle with cancer. I sat slumped against a cold concrete wall in Auburn, Alabama, listening to a tearful message from Jill Sturgeon, another English teacher at my high school. I sat in the bitter cold that January evening, tears streaming down my face in utter shock. I remember the stillness around me, the quiet. No sounds but my hushed sobs could be heard. The land of tears is, after all, a secret place.

Losing Ms. Bank was my first true foray into grief. Since her death I have lost several more people in my life to sickness and tragedy. The beautiful irony of those struggles is that I have always come back to The Little Prince to ease my pain. It almost feels like she took time out of our sophomore year to prepare us for the eventuality of experiencing death, though I doubt she knew it would be her own.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t make use of some form of Ms. Bank’s teachings. Sometimes it’s simply telling myself to “be brilliant.” Other times I throw words like “boondoggle” or “cogitate” into conversation. Other evenings find me curled up on my couch with Anthem in hand. And every time I prepare to kill a cockroach I think of Metamorphosis. These were not idle lessons but living instructions, mind-expanding teachings. And I am not only a better student, but a better person because of them.

Thank you Ms. Bank.

"Selling 'Star Wars' toys 20 years ago an ill-advised financial decision"

So this is one of the funniest articles I've ever read. Please enjoy. (oh, and here's the original link)

Jeff Vrabel: Selling 'Star Wars' toys 20 years ago an ill-advised financial decision

By Jeff Vrabel

GateHouse News Service

I decided as a child many years ago that forming meaningful interpersonal relationships was not something that would ever be important to me, so I got really into "Star Wars" toys.

But turning such a developmental corner in the early 1980s meant two things: 1. My toys were the ones from the reasonably good movies, not the forehead-slappingly stupid prequels about taxation and meadow-rolling-around and that four-armed diner alien that talked like Harry Caray for some reason; and, 2. My toys were TERRIBLE in comparison with the warehousefuls of "Star Wars" junk being produced in sweatshops all across the galaxy in recent years.

I don't want to sound like sour grapes here, but seriously, the stuff we had then was basically made of particle board and held together with wadded-up Bubblicious.

For instance, I owned a TIE Fighter that, when you tried to apply decorative stickers to it, burst immediately into flame, probably due to its being coated entirely in lead paint. There was a Chewbacca action figure I owned that looked like something my dog produced the night she demolished a full 12-pack of chocolate Santas. And frankly, the lightsabers that my brother, friends and I were supposed to use were JOKES, laughable glorified PVC pipes with a few sad holes in them. They were supposed to create that swooshy sound when swung through the air, but instead produced a sad, asthmatic sort of "snuh" noise, sort of like when you catch a kitten in the Dustbuster.

And no, I'm not just saying all this because I may, hypothetically, possibly, have lingering rage about selling the entire minivan-load of "Star Wars" junk I'd collected via a series of ill-advised garage sales. I hadn’t realized that someday people who were bigger nerds and had fewer girlfriends than I could buy themselves gold-encrusted yachts selling stuff like that on eBay and/or "Star Wars" conventions. That was the first of what's turning out to be a lifetime of extremely poor financial decisions, the latest of which is my successful bid to purchase the Chicago Cubs.

None of this is the case any more, of course — the kids these days have merchandise that is FANTASTIC. My son's lightsaber, for instance, has the right sound effects, ignites in a respectable-looking fashion and makes the sweet hrnuhnhrr sound effect when swung in the air, as well as the clashing-metal noise when it hits something, such as the couch, my spine or a cup of grape juice, which resulted in Jake's learning an extremely important lesson about Jedis: I don't care which benevolent society of galaxy-protectors you belong to, you will mop up the grape juice.

Anyway, I'm mentioning this because today's children might not ever have to bother with the incredible inconvenience of picking up a lightsaber with their hands. A new toy called the Force Trainer, coming soon, consists of a headset and a 10-inch-tall training tower with a ball inside it, the idea being that the headset collects brainwaves that allow you to move the ball WITH YOUR MIND, as long as your parents don't mind you hooking up your curious little sponge-brain to an electronic device designed somewhere in George Lucas' house.

The Force Trainer is one of the first mass-market direct brain-to-computer products. Lucas Licensing president Howard Roffman told USA Today, "It's been a fantasy everyone has had, using The Force." (Note that some of our fantasies involve doing so in a way that would make Jessica Alba come by the house more, but whatever.)

It may be only the first: Mattel plans soon to introduce a game called Mind Flex that purportedly uses brainwave activity to move a ball through an obstacle course on a table top. And other companies are hoping to develop games that mean using brainwaves to do something cooler than move little spheres around, which is like the lamest thing you can do with brainwaves, people, seriously.

"Ooh, look at me, I can harness the untold and deeply mysterious power of human thought to make a ping-pong ball turn left in a mouse box; ooooohhhhh." Come ON, people. The ball thing is cute, but please, drop me an e-mail when you produce something that will let me shoot lightning out of my fingers, or, at the very least, float a beer from the fridge to the couch.

Jeff Vrabel is a freelance writer who sold a Millennium Falcon in a garage sale in 1988, but it's OK, because he couldn't have put his kid through college with that now or anything. He can be reached at jeffvrabel.com or by emailing jeff@jeffvrabel.com.

freedom and justice for all

“i have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

i have a dream that one day on the red hills of georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

i have a dream that one day even the state of mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

i have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

tomorrow barack obama will be sworn in as president of the united states of america. tomorrow, for the first time in history, a black man will hold the highest office in our nation. tomorrow part of dr. king’s dream will be realized. i am a white man who was born and raised in the south. i am educated. i am a christian.

and i am dumbfounded by the rhetoric that still exists in my southern home of alabama. today i read the phrase, “america can quit belaboring the civil rights movement now.” i don’t even know what to do with that statement. i cannot even process it fully. is this really where we are? do we really find ourselves in this place?

sometimes i sit and process through what i know about my history. how do i fit into the story of america? i am a twenty-year-old white male from alabama. i was born and raised southern baptist. i was educated in one of the finest public school systems in the southeast. i am enrolled in a prestigious mid-sized university in tennessee. there i am pursuing degrees in music business and religious studies. i am an immigrant. and even though my family immigrated from england and germany so far back i cannot even tell you the year or the generation, i am, like almost every american, an immigrant.

over the last few years i have found myself confronted with issues of poverty, justice, race, gender, preservation of the environment, etc. i have spent time assessing my belief systems and reorganizing my positions on everything from how i like my eggs cooked to what church should look like.

i used to be exceptionally confrontational when someone brought my beliefs into question. i cannot count how many times i slammed a fist onto a lunch table while arguing in middle and high school. that’s not who i am anymore. i don’t like to argue. i don’t like to lambast the beliefs of others. it just isn’t who i am. i can respect just about any belief held by someone. i can respect those who voted for john mccain just as easily as those who voted for barack obama.

i cannot, however, stand idly by when the concept of civil rights is called into question. the fight is not over for social equality. it’s not just about black and white. women still stand a heads length below men in most arenas. latinos are maligned on a level not seen since the early struggles of the 1960s. native americans have never been given proper due in this country.

so do not tell me that the civil rights movement has been belabored.

as to the bible, it speaks of how we were all created in the image of god. that places us all on an equal level in the eyes of god. no matter gender, race, or social class. we are all children of god. and thus we all have rights to equality. but it goes beyond that. look around you. this nation is made up of parts and pieces that make it whole. american culture is as varied as the people who comprise this country.

and for my southern brothers and sisters who are worried about losing your heritage: i will go out on a limb and assure you that black democrats are not trying to take away your antebellum dresses or your camouflage hats.

so while i prefer not to be confrontational, i simply cannot stand silent when ignorance reigns. it violates my very core beliefs and values. the civil rights movement is not over as long as people are told they are less than equal members of our society because of their race, gender, or social class. and i will fight for the equality anyone who is subjugated by our society, whether they are black, white, male, female, straight, gay, etc. everyone counts here.

“and if america is to be a great nation, this must become true.”

-quotations from dr. king’s “i have a dream”-