Scary

My wife’s grandmother is 83 years old and was just diagnosed this morning with a descending aortic aneurysm. Left untreated there is a 30% chance of sudden death. And apparently the size of the aneurysm is unusually large. The surgeon said that 98% of aneurysms that size have already ruptured, so she is very lucky it hasn’t yet.

83. And facing major, major surgery. Not good at all. Please pray for her.

What’s my Nineveh?

I’ve decided that August must be “Preach From Jonah Month.”

The church we visited two weeks ago had a sermon based on the book of Jonah.

The church we visited last week studied Jonah in the kid’s program

The church we went to this morning had a lesson on… Jonah (and the following goofy graphic in black and white in the sermon notes):

http://www.pitts.emory.edu/woodcuts/1570BiblC/00002833.jpg

Next week we’re going to a cook-out at my parent’s church, where they are going to show… yes, you guessed it, the Veggietales Jonah movie for the kids(at a special presentation hosted by Phil Vischer, the founder of Veggietales, who also goes to their church). It’s going to be great.

But, this has to be more than coincidence, right?

And if so, then what is God trying to tell me? My daughter has figured out her application - God lives in the belly of a whale. But, I’m guessing I should be hearing something deeper than that.

Which makes me wonder, what is my Nineveh? Is there something I am trying to run from?

Or maybe I’m already in my Nineveh, but whining and complaining too much?

Or what?

CNN reports that the UN wants Iran to stop work on activities that could lead to the production of nuclear weapons.

To which the Iranians will no doubt be thinking, "Or what?"

They don't care if the US or anyone else imposes sanctions.

After the Iraq war debacle nobody is going to be invading Iran any time soon.

So, what exactly does the UN plan to do?

It's like that old Robin WIlliams impersonation of a British policeman trying to arrest a bank robber:

"Stop! Or I'll say 'Stop!' again!"

What did I miss?

Ever step into a conversation or debate and realize you have no idea what the two sides are arguing about? I had that experience this morning when I read the following short article by a Chicago-area pastor.

Why I’m Not Emerging: A Brief Response to the Emerging Church

Very odd.

I like to think I’m up-to-date with what’s going on in the world, but I feel like I missed something here.

Now, I know there is a movement afoot called the emergent church, and I know Brian McLaren is the unofficial spokesperson, and his book, A Generous Orthodoxy has generated a lot of debate.

However, I guess I was just a bit surprised at this pastor's tone. He sounds as if he feels attacked in some way, or threatened by the emergent church. It's almost as if he had just read something implying that all churches and all Christians should sign on to McLaren's point of view. Which, from what I can gather, would be pretty antithetical to the whole emergent church vibe.

I suppose I have just been completely sheltered from this debate, so it's hard not to feel like "what's the big deal?" Which is exactly the kind of comment which would apparently push some people right off the edge...

I am not a fly

When I married my wife, I naively imagined it was just the two of us (like the song from Austin Powers with Dr. Evil and Mini-Me, except more romantic and less creepy). Anyways, I soon learned that I wasn’t just marrying my wonderful wife. No, apparently marriage is a package deal – not only did I get her immediate family, but I also inherited her extended family at no extra cost! In our case that’s like 40 people for the price of one.

Which has actually been great, for the most part, because there are some really cool and interesting people in that group of 40.

But, as in life, there are some people that just rub you the wrong way. And it can be hard to deal with that in a family setting.

Take religion for example. Out of that group of 40 you find the following:

Very conservative Christians
Moderate Christians
Liberal Christians
Unitarian Universalists
Muslims
Hindus

Not too shabby eh? That hits most of the major world religions. Believe me, family reunions can be quite a challenge at times.

Which brings me to my question. My father-in-law was at a family reunion recently, and went for a walk with some folks. He absently swatted away a wasp at one point, and commented out loud that he was going to have to put out his yellow jacket traps soon. Then he continued,

“yeah, last year we must have caught several thousand wasps over the course of the summer.”

At which point one of my wife’s cousins, who is part of a Hindu sect, said,

“the life of a wasp, the life of a dog, the life of a human – what is the difference?”

Now, that’s a conversation killer if ever there was one.

For someone you meet on a bus or a plane, you might just roll your eyes and walk away. But with family, what do you do?

Do you just blow them off and move on to another topic? Do you try to engage them in a philosophical discussion about life? Do you try and point out to them the enormous gaps in their world-view? How do you remain loving and sincere and honest all at the same time?

My first inclination is too mock them for being so stupid. But, that’s not really loving.

Then I want to mock them some more, to prove how superior I am. Again, not loving at all.

Then I want to mock them in front of other people so they can see how funny I am.

You can see where this is going.

But, this is actually kind of a serious problem. I really do struggle to accept some of these views and find a way to converse with the folks who hold them. I don’t want to blow them off – they’re family. Talking about football and the weather just seems so lame. But pretty much any other topic always involves getting into conversations about values and beliefs. And then we hit a brick wall. Like my father-in-law did. And in his case he was just making idle chit-chat.

There’s a family wedding coming up soon, followed by a reunion in October. This is something I have to work out soon.

Perfect timing

Kids. You gotta love them.

Last night I was having a pretty deep conversation with my father-in-law about the Holy Spirit. We were talking about how God guides us, and then we got talking about specific moments when we felt like the Holy Spirit had led us to do this or that. It was a really deep, totally awesome, and at times, very serious, conversation.

So, my father-in-law starts telling me this story:

"When I was about your age, and we were living in this rickety old house a few miles from here, I was really stressed out and got up early one morning. My whole body was tense and I couldn't sleep. It was really awful. So I got up and went for a walk all around the neighborhood, then I came home, had some devotional time, and then started working out. I was hoping the exercise would helpclear my head. I had been praying a lot, and then, out of the blue, clear as a bell, it was like I heard this voice in my head. It was amazing. And what I heard was..."

At which point my eldest daughter comes sprinting into the room, screeches to a halt on the tile right in front of us, and with the hugest smile on her face says at top volume:

"HI GUYS!!"

And then races back out again.

I mean, I think professional actors struggle to get that kind of timing right. It was amazing. I mean, she interrupted my father-in-law at exactly the right moment for absolute maximum comedic effect. Incredible.

How to choose a church

First we traded in our California license plates for Illinois plates.

Then we closed out our California Wells-Fargo bank accounts.

Then we had to pay for some new local resident photo ID cards so we could use the local park district swimming pool.

(Which, by the way, was the best $10 I have ever spent. When it is 100 degrees and 70% humidity, the ONLY places to be are in a refrigerator or in a swimming pool. )

Pretty soon we’ll have to trade in our CA cell-phones for Illinois phones, and before you know it we'll be talking about "da Bears"

Lots of changes.

But so far, these have all been pretty easy. You need a cell-phone? Go to the cell-phone store. Need a new driver’s license? Go to the DMV. But what do you do about churches? New license plates don't really impact your life in any way, but I can't think of anything more influential in our lives over the last 7 years than the churches we attended. Finding a new church is a really big deal.

According to Yahoo, there are 10 churches of various denominations just within a 2 mile circle of where we are staying right now. Expand that out to the entire Chicago area and you’re talking thousands of churches.

Now, of course you can pare that list down fairly quickly. We’re not Catholic, so that cuts the list down. We are also looking for an English-speaking church, and not a Greek Orthodox or other ethnic variety church. Not because there’s anything wrong with Catholic, Spanish, Polish or Greek churches, but that’s not we’re looking for right now.

Then it’s a matter of choosing your flavor of Christianity. That cuts the list down even more. For us, we ruled out Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Mormon and Seventh-Day Adventist. Then you have to consider Presbyterian or not? And if so, which brand? Do you want PCUSA or PCA? Apparently I am told there are Big Differences there so we have to be careful not to mess it up.

But now what? Just go visit a new church every weekend? There’s only 52 weeks a year, assuming we are never sick or out of town on vacation, so in reality we’re talking like 45 Sundays a year.

That severely limits the number of places we can visit. Because, after all, one visit is rarely enough to know for sure if a church is a good fit, right? I mean, what if the main pastor is out of town, or they have a guest speaker? And besides, don’t all churches have good weeks and bad weeks?

And what do we judge the churches on anyways? Music quality? Seat comfort? Whether or not they offer free donuts?

OK, so I think I have a good “feel” for what I am looking for, but shouldn’t I be able to verbalize those criteria a bit better than just “I like the feel of this place” or, “I didn’t like the worship”? Aren’t those lame excuses? Or are they legitimate? Does God really like the idea of me comparison shopping for churches? OK that’s a rhetorical question, and given the country and culture I am living in, our dilemma is nothing out of the ordinary, and it’s not really sinful. But it does seem like we are wasting time…

We visited one church recently that is a fairly conservative Presbyterian church, with a pretty formal service style. I was really having a hard time focusing because it was so rigid and stiff. For the sermon they always use a quote from the OT as well as a quote from the NT. This sermon included an excerpt from the story of Gideon and the fleece. And just above that was a tiny 1 and half inch square black and white picture of something that looked like a bunch of Spanish conquistadores standing around in their suits of armor.



Then I looked at the little inscription and it said it was a woodcut made in 1570.

1570

At that moment I knew this church was not going to be a good fit for me. Woodcuts are for museums, not Sunday morning church services. I mean, I don’t want to offend any art historians out there, but I can’t think of anything more astonishingly boring than going to church and looking at a 450 year old woodcut drawing in the program. What exactly were they thinking? Is it supposed to liven up the otherwise graphic-and-color-free program? Is it supposed to help me visualize what was going on when Gideon put the fleece on the ground? (apparently Gideon wore a lot of fancy armor and sported a finely groomed mustache and a long ostrich feather in his helmet).

Maybe it was supposed to remind me that they have been preaching sermons about Gideon for almost 500 years? Or to put me in a serious mood of contemplation so I pay attention to the serious sermon? I have no idea. But the point is that I can’t see myself attending this church on a regular basis because my sinful, arrogant, cynical, snooty, post-modern self would just get too frustrated about this kind of thing.

BUT

As incredibly boring and sleep-inducing as the services at this church are, they have an amazing sense of community. It’s a very small congregation, but it’s clear that the people really do care and pray for each other. And have done so for years. One man gave a powerful testimony at the end of the service about the powerful impact the church has had on his life over the last 25 years, supporting him in missions work, in parenthood, in marriage, and in his walk with Jesus. It was awesome. Exactly what you would wish for in a church.

So, that leaves me perplexed when it comes to finding a new church. I still don’t think this particular church is the right place for us. But what is?

The joy of kids

I love my two daughters very deeply. But that doesn't mean they don't cause me some stress occasionally. Last night, for example, my youngest daughter, who is 9 months old, woke up every hour for the entire night. And her big sister, who is 2 years and 9 months, tossed and turned all night long because of a stuffy nose. Which wouldn't be too bad except she woke up and insisted on sleeping (aka tossing and turning) in our bed.

And who is going to tell a sick child to go sleep in their own bed?

Oh well. Thank goodness there is a Starbucks around the corner from us. You know, the prevailing theory about the discovery of coffee is some rubbish about a goatherder in Ethiopia who observed animals behaving in a rather excitable manner after eating coffee berries.

Poppycock!

There's no way a goatherder discovered coffee while out strolling the hills. What does he need coffee for? He has it easy. No, it was a parent, brain fried from lack of sleep, tired, cranky, and irritable, desperate for something, anything, to perk them up.

mmmmm....

....Coffee

Gotta go brew some right now.