Well maybe I don't care what you think either...

Relocating

2008-04-18T17:24:00.004-04:00

After a couple of years now at this web address, I'm moving my blog to a new forum. Please update your links to show me at tyrannysucks.blogivists.com.

Hope you'll come and check out whatever foolishness I'm saying over there!

Welcome to the World!

2008-04-14T01:59:00.002-04:00

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that last week saw the arrivals of two new and notable young'uns, one born to each of my best men.

James and Heather Taylor (and their son, Joshua David) welcomed a new daughter, Sydney. Just a few days later, Chris and Tracy Beswick celebrated the birth of their first child, Daphne.

Methinks it will still be a while before Jenifer and I jump on that particular bandwagon, but I can announce that we also had a new addition last week: my new laptop, Trogdor. Not quite as exciting, I know. But until we do have kids, this is just the kind of highlight I have to offer.

Church, Vegas Style

2008-04-10T21:03:00.002-04:00

Jen and I were in Las Vegas last weekend for a conference, and we got to experience one of the more surreal church services ever. Each Sunday morning, the House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay casino hosts the Gospel Brunch. For $35 and a short wait in line, you get access to a gigantic buffet full of soul food and Cajun dishes, and you also get to be part of an exuberant service of black-church style gospel music.

On the one hand, it was the coolest service I've ever attended. It just oozed with talent and style. And the musicians definitely weren't shy about calling on people to worship Jesus, either. From start to finish, the crowd was exhorted to raise their hands to testify to God's goodness and grace.

But about twenty minutes into it, I started to get the slightest bit uncomfortable. Interspersed among the trappings of a church service, there would be the occasional, "Are you having a good time?" And every so often there would be reminders that you were in a restaurant, not a house of worship. However sincere the performers were (and I was regularly reminded that they were entertainers), they were being paid to convey an illusion of worship. However sincere some of the audience was (and I do believe that many were earnest in their praises), we were all paying for food and an experience -- our money was going to profit a non-religious corporation, not to further any ministry.

So I ended up walking out of the House of Blues pretty conflicted. For as fantastic as the experience was, it was, like so many other things in Vegas, only an imitation of the real thing.

This Kid is Off On the Right Foot

2008-03-25T22:32:00.002-04:00

Could you sing all the way through "The Lord's Prayer" when you were two years old? Yeah, me neither. But this kid can do it.

Back From Vacation

2008-03-23T09:59:00.003-04:00

You know who are a couple of great people? Carl and Shayna, that's who! They invited Jen and me to come join them in Gatlinburg to share their vacation. And it was fantastic! Over the six days of our visit, we waged epic battles in mini-golf, board games, and card games. We shared some absolutely amazing meals. And we proved our sturdiness on a hike undertaken in, shall we say, less-than-ideal conditions.

First off, the meals. Even though Gatlinburg's The Peddler has long been a favorite of my grandparents and other family members, I had never eaten there until last week. Now, it has at least tied Perini Ranch (in Buffalo Gap, Texas) as my favorite restaurant. The place has a massive salad bar to get you started off, then a staff member wheels slabs of beef by your table so you can choose your own cut, which they make right in front of you. The ribeye I had there ranks among the best I have ever eaten, and everything else about the place (particularly our seats just above a creek) was tremendous. We also ate a fine meal at the Bear Creek Grill, another creek-side place on the north side of town--I highly recommend their garlic bread (rolls coated in butter, garlic, and parmesean cheese) and their grilled rainbow trout. For a great (and cheap) local breakfast, check out the Mountain Lodge Restaurant, just north of downtown on the parkway.

If you've never been to the Sevierville/Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg metroplex, you might be surprised to know that it is a Mecca for mini golf and go carts. Last week we played a couple of different courses and had a great time on one of the go cart tracks. I highly recommend Ripley's Davy Crockett Mini-Golf--it's the best, most entertaining course I've ever played. You might also want to check out the nearby Hillbilly Golf. But really, there are any number of excellent putt-putt courses in the area.

Now, for any of you who are Spades players, I have to tell you about the incredible hand that we played on night on the trip. Carl and Shayna had been handily whipping Jen and me (partly because Jen was just learning how to play), so they were on the cusp of victory and we were more than 200 points behind. I bid "blind-nill," meaning that even before I saw my hand I was committed to trying not to take any tricks--and we would get 200 points if I was successful. Shayna, seated to my left, also bid nill. Jenifer, meanwhile, in order to give us a chance to win in the event that Shayna made her nill bid, bid "ten-for-two," meaning that our team had to take ten books without any help from me because of the blind-nill bid. Carl bid three. When I looked at the hand I'd been dealt, I was holding the Ace, King, and Ten of Spades, as well as the Ace of Diamonds. Even though I was permitted to give my highest card, the Ace of Spades, to Jen, that was still a plethora of high cards which would make it very difficult to avoid taking any books. Carl ended up taking the first three books, meaning that if Jen and I were to have any chance whatsoever, Jenifer had to take all the remaining books. And, lo and behold, we miraculously pulled it off!! Somehow, both Shayna and I avoided taking any books, Carl met his bid, and Jenifer pulled of the "ten-for-two," all in the same hand. Jenifer and I ended up winning the game by forty points.

As for the daring hike, we decided to try to climb up to the top of Mt. LeConte, via the Alum Cave Bluff Trail. The weather in Gatlinburg had been excellent for the previous few days, and it was forecast to be beautiful on Wednesday, the day of our hike. But when we got up to the trailhead, the mountains were socked in with clouds and the temperature was hovering in the low fifties. As we ascended the mountain, the temperature dropped quickly, and the wind picked up precipitously. Poor Carl had only brought along a t-shirt, so he would get cold very quickly whenever we weren't moving along at a brisk pace. By the time we reached the Alum Bluff Cave at over 5000 feet, frigid rain had been pelting us and the clouds were thoroughly obstructing any views we might otherwise have enjoyed. Much as we hated to be quitters, we decided the wisest decision was to head back down to the resort.

So thanks again to Carl and Shayna for inviting us down and being such wonderful hosts and companions! We thoroughly enjoyed our vacation and we look forward to many, many more with our friends.

Spring Fever

2008-03-12T21:02:00.002-04:00

As my beloved wife will attest (due to my incessant whining), I am no fan of the winter months. I hate cold weather and, unfortunately, the last four years have found me in cities where winters have a way of dragging on... and on... and on.... It hasn't helped at all that this has been Saint Louis's coldest, snowiest winter in some time.

So I am just unspeakably thrilled that it looks like spring--and warmer weather--is just about here. As I was walking to the MetroLink (Saint Louis's light rail) this morning, trees were starting to bud all along the streets. No blossoms yet, but it's plain that there will be soon. And songbirds have been trickling back into the area for the past couple of weeks as well. SPRING IS AROUND THE CORNER, PEOPLE! GET UP AND CELEBRATE!!!

As Good As It Gets

2008-03-01T02:12:00.002-05:00

Allow me to rave, once again, about my incredible wife. For the past couple of weeks, she's had to deal with my preparation for the Missouri Bar Exam, meaning that I was just generally unavailable to talk or hang out or do as much as I usually do to help keep the house in order. She was patient, loving, and incredibly helpful when it came to my studying, and she topped it all off by getting me a fantastic gift to help me relax now that the bar exam is over and done with... tickets to see the Foo Fighters!

Now, I love me some Foo Fighters. A couple of years ago I got to see them perform in DC with Kaiser Chiefs and Weezer, and that experience definitely tops the list of my favorite concerts. I told everyone within reach at that time that it would be worth going to great lengths to see this band live whenever they're on tour.

As misfortune would have it, however, this year's tour did not include any stops within at least a four-hour drive of our home in Saint Louis. I was crushed. I even toyed with making wild trips to Dallas or Nashville in order to catch one of the performances, but all those plans had to go by the wayside due to the fact that most of the "nearby" shows were very inconveniently timed for me. I gave up on the hope that I'd be able to see them on this tour.

In a stroke of blind, crazy luck, though, the scheduled performance in Fayetteville, Arkansas, had to be postponed due to Dave Grohl being ill. The band rescheduled that show for tonight.

I was oblivious to all this, of course. But Jenifer spotted the change in schedule and went above and beyond all expectations by snagging second-row seats for us. So this afternoon we drove the six hours from Saint Louis to Arkansas to take in the show.

As expected, it was awesome. Dave Grohl is a tremendous, energetic, and engaging performer whose motor just keeps running through the entire performance. It was also clear that he felt bad about the previous cancellation (FF has only cancelled three performances in thirteen years of touring), so the band really pulled out the stops to ensure that the concert-goers got their money's worth. The band played for more than two solid hours, with tunes ranging from amped up renditions of their newer songs, wild, enthusiastic arrangements of older, more familiar tunes, and a healthy dose of quieter, acoustic songs that have been an important part of the past couple of albums.

Of the songs played, I think that "Everlong" and "Times Like These" were probably my favorites. Even though the recent tendency has been to play a slower, acoustic version of "Everlong," for this night they ripped it out with its original electric ferocity. Even some of their more obscure selections ("Marigold," "Stacked Actors") had the audience going nuts.

While I can't say that tonight's show was quite the equal of the masterpiece from two years ago, it was an excellent evening and it just reaffirms my commitment relentlessly to pursue opportunities to see these guys again.

You Owe It To Yourself

2008-02-28T22:11:00.002-05:00

Ever since the middle of last year, when I first heard critics raving about Once, I've been really eager to see it. The film was made in Dublin on a shoestring budget by two songwriters, and it uses their music to tell a story of... well... two songwriters in Dublin. But it's so much more than that.

Once picks up with Glen busking for change, playing old well-known tunes during the day in hopes that the familiarity will inspire passersby to stop and toss some money in his guitar case. But at night, when the streets have emptied, he plays the songs that he wrote for an ex-girlfriend who ran off to London. Marketa, a young Czech woman who is also a songwriter, encounters him in this setting and they strike up a friendship. From there, the movie follows the track of their relationship as they make music together and each tries to find a peace with the influences that have burdened and inspired them.

This film is raw, unexpected, thoroughly honest, and absolutely beautiful. It is not as polished as most films, but this simplicity itself is one of the movie's strongest points. Where so many movies struggle under the weight of their own self-importance, Once is content to just tell a simple, heartfelt story. And the music that pervades the story is just magnificent. If you saw the Oscars, you likely caught the singers' beautiful performance and their well-deserved "Best Song" win for "Falling Slowly". As great as that song is, though, the soundtrack includes several others just as amazing.

In short, I think that Once might just be my favorite new movie since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You owe it to yourself to check it out.

Check Out My New Guestbook!

2008-02-25T16:30:00.003-05:00

So I swiped it from my Close Personal Friend Carl's blog... but only because it was so cool!

Take a look at the bottom of the blog's front page and see if there are other readers in your neck of the woods. Or try to guess who might be reading from where. And when you're done, add your own location so that other folks can do the same.

The Oscars

2008-02-24T23:49:00.002-05:00

I wanted to briefly chime in on this year's edition of the Oscars...

As much as I like Jon Stewart, I thought the show itself was a huge disappointment. The scripted stuff just wasn't funny at all and, while I have heard that Enchanted is actually a pretty good movie, I was completely underwhelmed by the three (really? Three?) tunes from that movie that were nominated for best song. I haven't yet seen Once, but was very happy that its song won that category and I'm now looking forward to watching it.

I was glad to see No Country for Old Men (and its writers, directors, and Javier Bardem) win Best Picture and those other awards. While I haven't seen as many movies this year as I normally watch, NCFOM was far and away the best I saw. Of course, I'm kind of a sucker for dark, introspective movies (I thought Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth were last year's best films--deserving of far more attention than they received), but NCFOM was just haunting, tense, and philosophical through and through, in addition to being beautifully filmed and acted. It's a movie that I'll definitely own when it comes out on Blu-ray.

Did anyone else watch the show? How did your favorites do?

Calling Out for Prayers!

2008-02-24T10:26:00.002-05:00

As I've mentioned previously, I'll be taking the Missouri Bar Exam. In two days. Starting Tuesday morning, I'll have the essay portion of the test, then on Wednesday I'll have the 200-question, multiple-choice Multistate Bar Exam.

I feel generally well prepared, and I've been calming myself with the knowledge that, statistically speaking, I only have to perform better than one in every five test-takers in order to pass--the pass rate is routinely above 80%, and in July 88% passed. But still, it's a very stressful event and I sure could use prayers that I will remain calm and have a ready recollection of all the things I've studied. C'mon prayer-warriors... help a brother out!

Colbert Takes Guest to Sunday School

2008-02-14T00:55:00.003-05:00

I have always been a huge Stephen Colbert fan. So much so that, if the presidential nominations went just the wrong way, I really would've voted for the late-night, satirical talk show host rather than either of the major candidates. But the other night, he totally cemented his place in my admiration.

Colbert was interviewing Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford professor whose book, The Lucifer Effect, discusses the psychological reasons that "good" people can do absolutely horrific things when placed in positions of great power and no accountability. Toward the end of the interview, Zimbardo branched into theological matters, basically suggesting that God is not really interested in reconciliation with the sinful and that the world's evil is God's fault for "creating" hell instead of admitting that He should not have required the angels (of whom Lucifer was one) to treat humanity as having an exalted place in the creation. At that point, Colbert's Catholicism kicked into high gear and he eviscerated Zimbardo with a brief discourse on the nature of hell and its origin as the result of the free will that God gave both angels and humanity -- not God's design or desire.

When a beaten and visibly flustered Zimbardo mustered a weak, yet condescending, "Obviously, you learned well in Sunday School," Colbert busted out with my new favorite t-shirt-ready line ever:

"I teach Sunday School, mother#&*%er."

Yeah... I Could Do That

2008-02-08T20:45:00.000-05:00

And Then There Are People Like This Guy...

2008-02-07T14:20:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, I'm preparing for the Missouri Bar Exam. It's a pain in the butt for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that when I passed the Tennessee Bar Exam a few years back I reveled in the idea that I'd never have to do anything like that again. But however distasteful, unnecessary, and frustrating it all is, it must be done.

In hopes of assisting my preparation, I recently used eBay to order a large set of CDs with lectures on the Bar Exam's topics. Given that the exam is coming up at the end of this month, I was pretty eager to receive them and get to listening. So when I won my auction, on January 27th, I immediately paid the seller through PayPal and began watching the mail for the CDs' arrival. Six days later (February 2nd), nothing had arrived and I hadn't heard the first thing from the seller. I contacted him via email and asked when I might expect the CDs, to which he replied that he had mailed them out on January 30th. I was a little miffed that it took three days to get the stuff in the mail, but otherwise was just itching to have them so they could help me prepare. Yesterday, they arrived. They were postmarked February 2nd.

I wasn't happy that the seller mailed these CDs nearly a week after I paid for them, but that wasn't an especially big deal. I was really angry at the fact that he had lied to me about when they were sent. So when I went to leave feedback for the seller, I gave him "neutral" feedback, explaining concisely why I could not offer a positive recommendation for him. Apparently unhappy with my thoroughly honest evaluation, the wanker gave me "negative" feedback on the transaction, saying "Bad Bidder. Sellers beware."

You know, I am an optimist. I like to believe that almost everyone really wants to be a good person. But then there are people like this guy. And the guy who screwed my parents out of tens of thousands of dollars. And the guys who--for what they admit is no good reason--fired my dad just days before Christmas and refused to give him the money he was due for days he had already worked. And, I must admit, my faith in the basic goodness of humanity is challenged.

Surprised? [Caution: Subtitled Expletives]

2008-02-04T11:31:00.000-05:00

Super Bowl XLII

2008-02-03T22:56:00.000-05:00

If you didn't see it, you missed out. Tonight's game was one of the best Super Bowls ever!

I have to say, I was kind of pulling for the Patriots. Aside from the fact that I felt I owed it to Tom Brady, whose skills led my fantasy football team to more points scored than any other team in my league, I really respect the way the Patriots organization handles personnel decisions. I think that this year's New England team is probably the most talented, most dominant team I've ever seen. And I kind of would've liked to see that set in concrete by a victory tonight.

But dadgum if those Giants didn't put together a fantastic gameplan. New York's defensive line was spectacular, dominating a Patriots offensive line that had kept Brady virtually untouched all season. And the Giants offense proved to be clutch when it had to be, with Eli Manning calmly orchestrating two fourth quarter touchdown drives when the pressure was on. Even though Manning played well when the chips were down, I was disappointed that the MVP award went to him instead of Justin Tuck, the defensive lineman who had six tackles, two sacks, a forced fumble, and repeatedly forced Brady to pull himself up off the turf, even when he'd managed to get a pass away. If Tuck didn't get the award, I thought it should have gone to David Tyree, who caught the game's first touchdown and whose unbelievable reception on the Giant's game-winning drive is the only reason the team was in position to win.

I gotta say, though, the game tonight is the way that Super Bowls should be. Hard-fought, well-played, and in doubt down to the last seconds. Like I said... if you didn't see it, you missed out.

Wow.

2008-02-03T18:01:00.000-05:00

Fox Sports just led into the Super Bowl with a remarkably moving montage of NFL personalities reciting the Declaration of Independence. It was beautiful. Especially the sections featuring Marie Tillman, the widow of former Arizona Cardinal Pat Tillman, who quit football after 9/11 to become an Army Ranger and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

As soon as this is up on YouTube, I'll post the video. And I think I'll send a thank-you note to Fox, as well.

Just in Time for the Super Bowl

2008-02-01T20:19:00.000-05:00

I will reveal the recipe for the greatest guacamole ever.

@$$-Whuppin' Guacamole

1/2 small white onion
2 jalapeno peppers
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
1 tsp. salt
5 ripe Haas Avacados
8 cherry tomatoes
1/2 lime

Chop up the onion and divide in half.
Chop up the cilantro and divide in half.
Cut of the stems of the jalapenos, remove the seeds, and chop up.
Halve the tomatoes and remove seeds, then chop up.

Combine half the onion, half the cilantro, the jalapenos, the salt, and tomatoes in a blender.
Blend only long enough to combine the ingredients thoroughly.
Put the blended ingredients in a mixing bowl.
Halve, pit, and peel the avacados and add them to the mixing bowl.
Using a fork or a wooden spoon, mash the avacados to desired consistency and mix well with the blended ingredients.
Mix in the remaining onion and cilantro.
Squeeze the juice of the 1/2 lime into the mixture and stir well.
Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Serve with corn tortilla chips (I recommend Snyder's or Santitas, if you can find them).
Makes about 8 servings.

I've been experimenting with variations resembling this recipe for the last few months, but I think that what I've recorded here resulted in the ultimate in guacamole tastiness. Fix some up before the game on Sunday and wow your friends! And, of course, let me know what you think.

The Race for the Presidency

2008-01-31T21:34:00.000-05:00

Between Shayna's recent posts and an email from my sister, Bethany, I've done some thinking lately about how I'd rank the presidential candidates.

It'll come as no surprise to most people that Ron Paul is my favorite. He's the one candidate who really understands the Constitution and the proper limits of governmental authority. There was a fantastic moment in last night's debate where Paul (finally getting a word in edgewise) pointed out that, for all of the other candidate's talk about how they'd "manage the economy," the government's proper role is to make sure our currency has value and to get out of the way. He's the one Republican who was against the war in Iraq from the very beginning, and he's the one Republican who speaks sensibly about the fact that the terrorist threat is the result of our foreign policy, and we can't expect to end terrorism unless we are willing to change our policies. I disagree with Paul's thoughts on immigration, but on pretty much everything else he's a rockstar.

Among the other four candidates, Huckabee is my second choice. The guy is sharp, and a very effective communicator. I strongly oppose his stance on immigration and the "protection" of marriage, and I have massive reservations about some of his foreign policy stances, but he makes sense on health care, taxes, and I think he's likely to pick at least decent judges.

If one of those two isn't nominated, Obama would be my third choice. I don't think he has the faintest idea of how to pay for the massive social programs he's suggesting, and thus I don't think he has a very good grip on economic matters, but he's good on civil liberties issues, which are extremely important to me. Also extremely important is the fact that I think Obama is unlikely to embroil us in another foreign policy/military fiasco like Iraq.

A good step below these three (sorry, Shayna!) is John McCain. I respect his military service and I think he knows what's up, economically, but he pretty much sucks on civil liberties. Beyond that, he's a wild-card as far as foreign policy is concerned, and I could definitely see him continuing Bush's cowboy diplomacy.

And if the options are either Romney or Hillary? I'll write in Stephen Colbert. As I told Bethany, Romney is entirely too smarmy and oily. I don't think anyone could really predict what we would be getting with him as a president. And Hillary is the caboose of this train, mostly because I think people know precisely what they'd be getting with her as a president.

So that's my ranking of the candidates. Let me know what you folks are thinking!

Bizzare Weather

2008-01-29T21:17:00.000-05:00

The day started normally, if a bit warm for January in the Midwest. When I walked out the door this morning on the way to work, it was sunny, with temperatures in the upper-40s. Shortly after noon, when I stepped out of the office for lunch, the temperature had shot up to a balmy 71 degrees!

But it didn't last.

By 2:30, the temperature had dropped back to 50 and a mean wind was gusting up to 45 mph. By 4:00, a driving snowstorm hit Saint Louis, as temperatures had descended into the upper-20s. Now, at 8:00 pm, the temperature outside is at 15 degrees, with a wind chill of below zero.

I've seen days where the weather varied pretty wildly, but this has been the craziest twelve-hour stretch I have ever seen.

Bygones

2008-01-24T13:40:00.000-05:00

Jenifer and I are h-o-p-e-f-u-l-l-y in the final stages of selling our Washington, DC, condo. A quick word to the wise: Don't try to sell real estate in the middle of the largest housing bust in decades. It's utterly nerve-wracking and you will frequently think of what you might have commanded for your home only months before.

Still, we will come away from this deal in excellent shape compared to the housing-related trials currently being faced by thousands of people across the country. We are very thankful for that and we recognize how blessed we are to have had a home to sell.

As we've been tying up the loose ends so that the sale would be possible, I've been thinking a lot about all the folks back in DC. While I was never a big fan of living in that city, I was also fortunate that God surrounded me with some truly amazing friends. And as much as I am enjoying Saint Louis, I'm finding today that I really miss the Unusual Suspects.

To be sure, I love all of the DC crew from Fairfax and Clarendon and IJ, so I hope no one feels left out or offended, but I'm especially missing Carl, Shayna, Mike, and Christine. You guys are wonderful friends, and Jenifer and I were so enriched by the times that we all spent together. I love reading what all is going on via your blogs, but it's just not the same as hanging out together on a Sunday afternoon or going to movies and concerts together. So without saying too much more, I just want you to know how much I love you guys. You'd better come see us in Saint Louis sometime. Soon.

Justice (or, Perhaps, the Lack Thereof)

2008-01-17T17:41:00.000-05:00

Today Jenifer and I attended the arguments in a very important eminent domain case in front of the Missouri Supreme Court. This case matters because Missouri is one of the worst states in the nation for allowing cities to take one person's private property and give it away for someone else's profit, rarely, if ever, paying even remotely what the property is worth. Even if a city doesn't forcibly take title to someone's home, business, or house of worship, many people don't have the time, finances, political influence, or emotional energy to fight to save what belongs to them. Thus, they feel like they have no choice but to take what little they are offered and hope they won't have to move too far away from what was once their neighborhood.

I got really angry today at both the city's attorney and several of the judges. The city's attorney had previously (and, unfortunately, correctly) written to the court that recent legal decisions have allowed these governmental abuses of power. The attorney started off his argument by reinforcing this idea, effectively saying, "Focus only on the very limited legal notions that support my position; just ignore all those people trying to show the history of the underlying principle and real-life devastation to which it has led." And several of the judges seemed content to do just that. While the questions asked by judges in these cases can sometimes be misleading as to their ultimate disposition on a case, it appeared that more than one of the judges would rather permit injustice to continue than to rock the jurisprudential boat.

As a nation and as individual states, Americans adopted Bills of Rights in order to make sure that certain essential liberties would never be subject to restriction or elimination. Among those freedoms is the assurance that governments have no right to take away someone's property unless it is required for the construction of a road or public building. The real-life consequences when the government does take someone's property fiercely illustrates why this power must be tightly limited.

Eminent domain is rarely threatened against wealthy people or those who can fight back. Instead, the usual targets are communities composed of minorities, the poor, and/or the elderly.

In the middle of the 20th century, cities so regularly used eminent domain against black neighborhoods that the practice was commonly referred to as “Negro removal.” That offensive label eventually fell out of use, but poor, black communities continue to be condemned far more frequently than white communities. A 1989 study estimated that of 10,000 families that Baltimore displaced in the name of removing blight, fully 90 percent were African-American. Mindy Fullilove, an expert on the impact of eminent domain on minority communities, estimates that more than 1,600 black neighborhoods have been destroyed nationwide.

But then there are elderly people. In New London, Connecticut, where I helped represent homeowners in the now-infamous Kelo v. New London case, Wilhemina Dery was an 87-year old still living in her family home, in which she was born. All she wanted was to live out her final days in those beloved, familiar settings, but the United States Supreme Court held that her property could be taken from her and replaced with luxury condominiums. She eventually did get her wish, but only because she died before the city got its chance to kick her out. Our clients in Norwood, Ohio, included the Gambles, an older couple who received their condemnation notice just days after they were finally able to retire. They were uprooted from the home in which they had raised their family and built their American Dream, separated from their nearby family and friends and forced to move into a small apartment miles away. After a grueling three-year legal war, the Ohio Supreme Court vindicated their rights, but the stress drove Carl to his grave and left Joy is such delicate health that she couldn't return to the home she had sacrificed so much to save. Just today a friendly reporter in Missouri told me about an elderly couple in Rolla who simply couldn't physically deal with a move when they were threatened with eminent domain. The wife had Alzheimer's disease and the husband was terrified to complicate her dementia by moving her to an unfamiliar environment. Unmoved by their plight, the city tried to make it look like they were just holding out for more money and one councilmember said they should just move to a nursing home.

It just makes my heart hurt. Someone's home represents their stability and shelter, both in physical and emotional ways. It is the centering location in their life, the place to which they should be able to return each day and know that they have their own place in the world. These things are especially important for people who can claim ownership of very little else. And instead of protecting their rights, both courts and legislatures are content to sacrifice them in the name of "progress" or, more coarsely, so they can be replaced with a wealthier class of people.

It is not just unconstitutional -- it is unjust, immoral, and abhorrent.

Little Pleasures

2008-01-16T21:09:00.001-05:00

There are a lot of things that I enjoy about living in Saint Louis. I love the space that we have in our house, being able to come home before 6:00 on most days, our new church...

But you know what I have been surprised to find that I enjoy more than most anything else? Cooking.

When I was young, I frequently helped out around the kitchen, chipping in when my mom was making dinner or occasionally making snacks, cookies, or pies. But even when I moved out on my own and had the time and facilities to cook, I never dedicated much time or effort to it. Sure, I showed off every now and again by cooking for some girl I was trying to impress, but I took very little pleasure in it.

That has all changed since Jenifer and I moved to Saint Louis. Most every week I go to the grocery store, and I really enjoy choosing items that I know I'll be able to incorporate into something tasty. I've spent a bunch of time perusing our cookbooks to hunt up recipes that look especially enjoyable. And I have come to find it so relaxing to spend a half-hour or so most evenings to prepare meals for us.

I've found a handful of quick, fairly simple recipes that have had really great results. For example, last night I fixed pan fried pork chops with a peach-dijon mustard sauce, served with a side dish of green beans, chopped onions, and tomatoes. Man, was it good! The way the peach and mustard flavors blended was really unexpected, and Jen and I agreed that if we didn't know what had gone into it, we might not have even been able to guess that peaches were the sweet element of it.

So this post doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of substance, but I hope y'all will appreciate just this little window into our life in the STL.

One More Thing...

2008-01-06T22:44:00.000-05:00

I thought I would dedicate a separate post to announcing that Jenifer and I have (finally) found a new church home! For the past several months we have been visiting a number of different churches throughout the Saint Louis area, and in the last few weeks we had narrowed it down to a decision between two very cool congregations.

The Journey is a church with a dynamic worship service geared primarily to young professionals, although there were a fair number of middle-aged folks there as well. We loved the music and the relavent, thoughtful, and scripture-intensive sermons, and we felt like it would be a place where we could really be fed, spiritually and intellectually.

But ultimately we have fallen in love with New City Fellowship. This congregation is so exciting in so many ways! It's extremely diverse, with large minority and immigrant populations, and accomplishing reconciliation across racial, social, and economic lines. They have several amazing ministries, including The Freedom School, a private Christian academy with a special heart for children of immigrants, refugees, and economically disadvantaged parents. They also sponsor missionaries in Africa, Peru, and England. Ultimately, we see in New City Fellowship a place where we will not only be fed, but where we will be able to serve God in ways that just wouldn't be as available elsewhere.

So we're just really excited and we feel tremendously blessed to have a new church family to get to know.

Post-Holiday Roundup

2008-01-06T20:19:00.000-05:00

Jen and I have finally settled back into our schedules after the holidays, so I figure I'll let y'all know how it all went.

We started off by spending several fantastic days with the in-laws in Mexico, Missouri. Jen's siblings came the weekend before Christmas since we had promised the actual holiday to my family. Lucky for us, we had a white "Christmas"! Snow rolled in the night before our big celebration so when we woke up in the morning the fields were covered in a beautiful icy blanket. While, as most of you know, I generally prefer not to receive gifts, I have to say that Jen's family always does an exceptional job of finding things for me that I will really enjoy. This year, in addition to a generous donation to Heifer International, I received several books that I've been planning to get for a long time. In the meantime, Jenifer also got lots of fun stuff -- incuding her new Nintendo DS. She already has roughly three times the number of games for it than I have for my PS3...

On Christmas Eve we lit out for Knoxville to celebrate the holiday with my family. We got to share Christmas morning at my little sister's house with her, my parents, and my niece Abbie. It was a real simple affair and we all had a really nice, relaxed morning. That evening we went over to my grandparents' house for a big dinner with the extended family. It's kind of funny, because before my parents moved back to Knoxville, every time I went I got to spend lots of time with my granparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since my parents moved, however, it's just kind of natural to spend most of my time at their house, meaning that I see everyone else less frequently even though I'm in town more often. That said, I really cherish getting to hang out with them all.

Most of the rest of the time in Knoxville was devoted to a special legal project for my dad, but all of my sisters, nephews, and nieces came up for our big nuclear family celebration on the Friday after Christmas. Let me tell you... I love all the young'uns in the family, but when you get together seven kids all under seven years of age, only one word describes it: CHAOS. Man, there were kids everywhere, usually hollering or crying. Jen and I have decided that we'll wait a few more years to have babies of our own.

Now, Jen and I had agreed that our big Christmas present to each other this year would be a trip to a bowl game. Since Missouri was ranked higher and was playing in the Cotton Bowl, which is conveniently located close to one of my best men, we opted to head there rather than down to Florida for the Outback Bowl. We lit out for Dallas the day after the big family celebration, but I ended up knocked out by a 24-hour bug and we had to overnight in Little Rock. Once I recovered and we arrived in Dallas, the party was on! Chris and Tracy were wonderful hosts, and we had a lovely New Year's Eve with them... until Jenifer came down with an illness similar to the one I had. Unfortunately, she hadn't recovered by New Year's morning, so we had to abandon our plans to attend the game. But it was an adventure! And we did have a very good time, whenever we weren't feeling physically ill.

So that catches you up on the current happenings in the Roland household. Hope everyone is doing well!

Ready for the Holidays!

2007-12-20T09:42:00.000-05:00

Jenifer and I kick off our holiday vacation tonight! We've been building up the excitement for a couple of weeks now, having gone out and purchased our Christmas tree and decorating it with the first ornaments that we have purchased together. We also have been watching some of the old Christmas movie standards every couple of nights. I have to say, this is the most I've looked forward to Christmas in some time.

So tonight we're heading over to her parents' farm in Mexico, Missouri to spend the weekend with her family, and on Christmas Eve we'll drive down to Knoxville to spend a few days with my family. It'll almost be like an entire week of Christmas! After that, Jen and I will be driving to Fort Worth to see Beswick and to attend the Cotton Bowl, where Mizzou will be playing Arkansas on New Year's Day. It'll be quite the road trip!

Now, I'll make a plug for two things that keep me from dreading all that driving. First, we'll be cruising in our sweet Honda Civic Hybrid, so we should average about 48 miles a gallon--cutting our gas expenses in about half. Second, the car has XM radio. Let me tell you... I never much had an interest in satellite radio before we got The Smug (I hope my friends will catch the South Park reference...), but it is awesome! Pretty much any kind of music or talk or sports you could ask for, right at your fingertips. And you don't have to keep finding new stations as you drive across the country, either. If you haven't tried satellite radio yet, I do strongly recommend it.

So what are some things y'all have been doing to get in the Christmas spirit? Have any big plans for the holidays?

Have You Exercised Your Constitutional Liberties Lately?

2007-12-15T17:55:00.000-05:00

Today is a little celebrated occasion... Bill of Rights Day! As a civil liberties junkie, I figure I would be falling down on my duties not to mention it and offer this historical tidbit from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1791 that the Bill of Rights was adopted by the United States, thanks in part to a man who hasn't gotten a lot of credit, George Mason. He was a lifelong friend of George Washington's who wasn't interested in politics, but when Washington was named Commander of the Continental Army, George Mason reluctantly took over his friend's seat on the Virginia legislature. And then Mason was assigned by chance to the committee to write the new state constitution.

Mason had read the philosopher John Locke, and he liked Locke's idea that all people are born with certain rights, and that government's purpose should be to protect those rights. George Mason believed that the best way to protect those rights would be to list them in the constitution itself. And so he put together Virginia's "Declaration of Rights," the first government document in history that specified the absolute rights of individuals. Mason's ideas about rights and freedom influenced a 25-year-old legislator named James Madison, who passed them along to his friend Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson would go on to use Mason's ideas in his own draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Mason was asked to participate in the Constitutional Convention after the war, but he disagreed with the other delegates on numerous issues, especially slavery, which he thought should be outlawed in the new constitution. He fought for the inclusion of a list of rights, like the "Declaration of Rights" in the Virginia Constitution, but his idea for a bill of rights failed by a wide margin.

And so, when it came time to sign to the new U.S. Constitution, George Mason was one of the only men there who refused. He said, "I would sooner chop off [my] right hand than put it to the Constitution as it now stands." His decision ruined his friendship with George Washington. The two men never called on each other again. But he hoped that his protest would encourage an eventual passage of a bill of rights, and it did. His former protege, James Madison, introduced the Bill of Rights into the first session of Congress in 1789, and Madison used Virginia's Declaration of Rights as the model.

Even with the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution didn't provide full citizenship to blacks or women, among others, and it has had to be amended again and again over the years. But when we think of what it means to have a free country, most of our ideas about the meaning of freedom come from those first 10 amendments, adopted on this day in 1791, which include the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to a fair trial. George Mason died in 1792, a year after those freedoms and rights became law.

Two Internet-Related Items

2007-12-13T15:24:00.000-05:00

Those who know me know that I deeply resent the fact that major college football is about the only sport whose champion is not determined on the field. Every year new proposals pop up for a college football playoff and organizations like ESPN and Sports Illustrated post mock-brackets that let fans imagine what might have been. This year, however, there is a new twist! Accuscore, an organization dedicated to crunching sports-related numbers to predict the likelihood of various sports scenarios and contests, has developed a playoff simulator that lets you create your own bracket and see how statistics say it might play out. I find this much more satisfying than listening to Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit pontificate, although the first time I ran it through it named the Clemson Tigers as the National Champs. Kind of unlikely, of course--but the fact that it could happen is what would make playoffs so exciting!!

In other news, slate.com is hosting a back-and-forth among video game critics. Several have put forward their picks for game of the year, including one unconventional entry: Desktop Tower Defense. This free online game is very simple in concept, surprisingly difficult in practice, and completely addictive. The first time I checked it out I ended up playing for four hours straight. You've been warned.

For Those Who Weren't Able To Make It...

2007-12-10T17:01:00.000-05:00

Check out these pics of the wedding!

We had a spectacular morning for the big day. Although it was a wee bit cold and blustery, the Shenandoah Valley had just started to bloom and the setting could hardly have been more beautiful. I just wish I had remembered to put on sunscreen that morning. That was an unfortunate omission, and I paid for it throughout the honeymoon in Maine.

It was nice and bright that morning... which is why we are all squinting in this picture.

The ceremony was held under an arbor made of river birch from the Zeigler family farm. Jen's Dad made the arbor himself. Mama Roland made Jen's spectacular dress.

My groomsmen and I were inspired by "Faith + 1".

Jen's bridesmaids were lovelier than everyone but the bride herself.

We had a fantastic local bluegrass band as the entertainment for the reception. We also served barbeque, cheesy potatoes, and Asian coleslaw for lunch, and I don't think I've ever heard so many compliments about wedding reception food!

I just really like how this picture turned out. It totally captures the sweetness and romance of the day as well as the love that occasioned it.

Long Time Coming

2007-12-09T14:11:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gents... It's been awhile.

For those who have been out of the loop, let me catch you up on things in my world:

I got engaged over Labor Day weekend in 2006 after a comedy of errors in which I broke up with Jenifer, realized my foolishness, and showed her I was serious about becoming the man of her dreams. We were married on May 6, 2007, in a beautiful, outdoor Sunday morning ceremony officiated by my grandfather.

Toward the end of the summer, an opportunity opened up for us to move to Saint Louis, closer to both of our families. As readers of this site will remember, I never really felt cut out for Washington and had always looked forward to the day that I'd be back in the real world. With the chance to start our family close to the Zeigler family's farm and within fairly easy reach of my folks in Tennessee, we knew that this was a great move to make. We left DC in early September and have since been settling into our new jobs and our new home.

While my personal blog has been quiet for some time, part of my job as an analyst with the Show-Me Institute is to regularly post to the organization's blog with my thoughts on various matters of public policy. I can't say that these are as fun as some of my prior posts here on theological matters, but they do tend to rouse debate among the wonky-types in these parts. If you have any interest in state politics, you might want to check it out.

I Have Seen the Future of Rock and Roll...

2007-01-23T16:20:00.000-05:00

and it is Japanese!

For All You Weird Al Lovers Out There

2006-10-19T18:00:00.000-04:00

Slate.com has posted a really fascinating assessment of the career and genius of Weird Al Yankovic.

"Troubadork: Twenty-five years of 'Weird Al' Yankovic" discusses why the artist's fame continues today, even after so many of the pop entertainers who first inpired Al's brilliant parodies have gone on into obscurity. How is it that a 47-year-old, intentionally square entertainer remain so relevant to our society? Sam Anderson's answer is simple: Yankovic provides a welcome reality-check to balance out the over-the-top, scarcely-believable lifestyles promoted by the purveyors of popular culture.

The article is a fun read. I hope you'll check it out.

One Year Ago Today...

2006-10-18T13:47:00.000-04:00

I went on my last first date. Because on October 18, 2006, I had dinner with the woman that, some six and a half months from now, will be my wife.

Now, there's been plenty of dispute about whether our dinner strictly qualifies as a "date." It came about partially as a "thank you" dinner -- Jen wanted to express her gratitude for the help I'd offered her in preparing for an interview with the Institute for Justice. At first, I didn't know what to make of her "I owe you a drink or dinner or something," but when she later (and without encouragement from me, I might add) pressed on with "So about that drink I owe you... you'll just have to let me know when there is an opening in your schedule," I figured that her interest in the endeavor was more than purely social.

We tossed the date together almost as an afterthought. We were both tremendously busy (some things never change, right?) and it just so happened that the best time for us to get together was just a few hours after we started trying to figure out a good opportunity. I recommended that she meet me at El Paso Cafe in Ballston, my favorite Mexican food place in the area.

The dinner was fantastic. I got my first real taste of her very-long-but-oh-so-endearing style of storytelling, but also got a glimpse into her wonderful heart, mind, and spirit. So the next day I let her know that I wanted to get together again. And that started the long and eventful chain of events that led to the miracles of our love and engagement.

I haven't always been the best about sharing my feelings with her, and, to be honest, for a long, long time I wouldn't allow myself to have any real, deep feelings for her. But God is good and faithful and it is thanks to the prayers of many of you that God finally broke through the walls that I had built up around my heart so that I could realize the love that Jenifer so richly deserves. But now, thanks to God's work and Jen's patience, I can now happily say that I'm as excited as I can be that I will get to marry the wonderful, beautiful, precious woman who has come to be my closest friend. I love you, Ginger, and I can't wait until you're my wife!

In Memorium

2006-09-11T07:22:00.000-04:00

Alok Mehta, once a classmate and teammate of mine at Huntsville High School, was a second-year MBA student at Hofstra University. He had recently started an internship with Cantor Fitzgerald in New York City and was working in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001. He was 23 years old.

"For the Falling Man"
by Annie Farnsworth

I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized
that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there's more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting--
I know you were someone's lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you'd come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
--but we can't help ourselves--how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.

Belief-o-Matic

2006-08-17T16:56:00.000-04:00

According to the Belief-o-Matic Quiz at Beliefnet.com, the following three religious groups are the most similar to my own personal faith:

1. Bahá'í Faith (100%)
2. Reform Judaism (98%)
3. Liberal Quakers (96%)

Personally, after looking at each of the descriptions, I think that I'm actually most in tune with the Liberal Quakers. But if I was going to construct a sort of "What Dave Believes" along the lines of what Beliefnet provides for each of those faiths, it'd look kind of like this...

• Belief in Deity - I believe in one personal God Almighty, creator, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent--incorporeal spirit.

• Incarnations - Jesus was the uniquely authoritative, chosen Son of God whose supernatural wisdom and insight, revealed in his life and teachings, provide an ongoing example of how God calls us to live and relate to him. That said, we are all sons and daughters of God, and our main focus should be on experiencing and listening to God, whose love, presence, and direction are accessible to everyone.

• Origin of Universe and Life - God created all from nothing and controls all phenomena that modern science reveals about the origins of the universe and life. Science serves to reveal rather than dispute God's awesome creative powers.

• After Death - While I don't claim any certainty about the details of the afterlife, I do believe that those God deems to be faithful will find eternal reward and that those who reject God will be punished. I think our primary focus, however, should be on what we are called to do with the lives we have been given, not on what might come afterward. As the Liberal Quaker description put it: God is love, love is eternal, and our actions in life should reflect love for all of humanity.

• Why Evil? - I do not believe in the traditional notion of original sin and I have numerous questions about the idea of Satan. I believe that our physical nature is animalistic and that our tendency to selfishness is rooted in that fact, rather than in the external influence of a malevolent spiritual entity. Beyond our physical being, God has given us a spiritual nature through which he calls us to transcend our selfish, animalistic instincts and instead to live selflessly in love for God and each other. God gives us free will to choose between our selfish instinct and our transcendent calling. Sin, evil, and separation from God results when we choose self-interest.

• Salvation - I believe our main focus should be on living the kind of life that Jesus modeled and described. While no one can remedy their shortcomings and sin by their own actions, we have assurance that God is merciful and forgiving. That means that when we live our lives in faithful, prayerful obedience to the principles that Jesus announced as the Greatest Commands and when we approach God in humble repentance for our sins, we can have hope that he will find favor in us and redeem us in spite of our failures.

• Undeserved Suffering - God gave humans free will to cause each other either pleasure or pain, and an unfortunate consequence of our free will is that we frequently choose to live in such a way that we inflict suffering on each other. Even where natural events occur to create suffering, I do not believe that they should be understood as God's causing suffering for some punitive reason. I believe that God suffers with us and that he is also able to turn even very negative circumstances into something instructive or otherwise beneficial. Understanding that suffering is unavoidable in life, our goal should be to act as God's instruments in bringing comfort and healing where suffering exists.

• Contemporary Issues - I believe that human life and liberty are gifts to be valued. To the extent that abortion ends human life, I believe it is wrong. I believe that women and men are equally valued in God's eyes and that neither gender enjoys a monopoly on spiritual gifts or talents. I believe that God does not love homosexual people any less than he loves any of the rest of us. While I do not fault those who in the spirit of love express their belief that homosexual behavior is inconsistent with God's will, I believe that the question is not easily answered and ultimately rests solely between God and the individuals involved in that kind of behavior. Above all else, I believe that God's grace and forgiveness is sufficient to cover the sins of anyone who is sincerely trying to follow him, despite any imperfection in our understandings or actions.

Swiped from Elise's Live Journal

2006-08-10T18:03:00.000-04:00

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

I ended up with:

"We need say no more about the likeihood of men in a free society submitting to such control-- or about their remaining free if they submitted. On the whole question, what John Stuart Mill wrote nearly a hundred years ago remains equally true today: 'A fixed rule, like that of equality, might be acquiesced in, and so might chance, or an external necessity; but that a handful of human beings should weigh everybody in the balance, and give more to one and less to another at their sole pleasure and judgment, would not be borne unless from persons believed to be more than men, and backed by supernatural terrors.' These difficulties need not lead to open clashes so long as socialism is merely the aspiration of a limited and fairly homogenous group."

WE WON!!!

2006-07-26T09:16:00.000-04:00

The Ohio Supreme Court today, in a unanimous opinion, ruled that under the Ohio Constitution: 1) "economic development" is not, by itself, a public use that would justify the exercise of eminent domain powers; 2) Ohio courts must apply "heightened scrutiny" when reviewing statutes that regulate the use of eminent domain powers; 3) the use of the "deteriorating area" standard to justify a taking is unconstitutional "because the term inherently incorporates speculation as to the future condition of the property... rather than the condition of the property at the time of the taking"; and (as a bonus) the statutory section that ostensibly prevented appellate courts from preventing the destruction of homes after the trial court's ruling in favor of the government is also unconstitutional under the separation of powers doctrine. This opinion appears to be an unequivocal home run for property owners in Ohio.

Most importantly, this means that Carl, Joy, Carol, Joe, Matthew, and Sanae will all get to go home. After living in exile for more than a year, they will get to return to where they belong. I thank everyone who in the last couple of years has offered up even one prayer on their behalf.

The Book of Leviticus

2006-07-14T16:24:00.000-04:00

Another fantastic post from David Plotz at Slate. He discusses several chapters from Leviticus, including passages that he loves and respects as well as some that he has real problems with. Toward the end of his entry, he has this to say:

"Where do I get off deciding certain Levitical laws are glorious and universal, true 4,000 years ago and true today (You shall not render an unfair decision; do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich), while others are archaic and should be tossed away (Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence.)? Fundamentalists solve this problem by accepting all the laws as true. But the rest of us—both those who believe the Bible was inspired by God and those who believe it's just a book—don't get off so easy. Unless you're willing to live in a Taliban-esque world of moral absolutism, in which adulterers and homosexuals are dragged from their beds and murdered, you have to pick and choose. We talk about the Bible, as if there is only one. But if there's anything I've learned from the e-mails you're sending me, it's that we all have our own Bible. We linger on the passages we love and blot out, or argue with, or skim the verses that repel us. My Bible, I suppose, has a very long Chapter 19, and a very short Chapter 18. What about yours?"

I think that's a very difficult question, and I'm interested to hear your responses. Do you think that all biblical laws and passages are still authoritative? If so, why? If not, how do you (and I mean you, personally) decide which biblical laws/passages are authoritative and which are no longer useful or binding?

What We Are Promised

2006-07-12T16:49:00.000-04:00

From a letter that was forwarded to me by a friend:

"Why is God so fickle in whom he chooses to save or touch or heal? What does it take to get God to pay attention? Is it living right? Is it making promises to Him? Or does it even matter what we do or don't do? It doesn't seem to. Because there are people out there who do the best they can and still end up losing a child or a spouse or being hurt in some other way. And when it mattered to them to hear God or see Him working, he didn't show up.

"So people and the church talk about God's power, but it's as if they are saying or should say, 'Here's this great big God with all this power. Believe in Him because that's the right thing to do, but we can't promise that he is actually going to come through on the important stuff. We can't really tell you that all of the power we talk about applies to you or will be made visible in your life.' I feel like that's the more honest response to anyone who is wondering about the power of God."

My response:

We are never promised that things will be easy or happy for those who choose to serve God. In fact, time and again the Bible demonstrates that God's "favorites" (Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul, etc...) quite frequently have very difficult lives. As much as televangelists would have you believe that wealth, health, and happiness can be had if only one says the right prayers or contributes the right sum, these promises are illusory.

The rewards that God offers to those who choose him are wholly different than what we would imagine if we were choosing them for ourselves. God offers a life of meaning, hope, and joy. When we choose to surrender ourselves to God, we are offering our lives as sacrifices to a greater good than is easily imaginable. We are deciding to abandon the personal desires and pleasures that we would otherwise hold so dear so that we can be instruments of God's love, peace, justice, and mercy to the rest of the world. As we follow God's calling, we are no less likely to encounter hardships, frustrations, and difficulties -- but these are balanced out by the assurance God places within us that our struggling and our pain is not in vain. Once we open ourselves up to God, we can have hope and joy in the knowledge that God will redeem even the most difficult of our circumstances by turning the things of this world to his own glory and by offering us confidence of the eternal life and salvation that he will provide us in a world beyond our current comprehension.

The first part of the letter's question asserts that God is unpredictable or inscrutable when it comes to bestowing blessings, and it asks what anyone can do to tap into God's blessings. I'd argue that we all have God's attention, and we all have God's love. But as I've pointed out, the only thing we are guaranteed in this life is the comfort and assurance that comes from trusting in God and acknowledging that our own understanding is imperfect. This sort of radical trust can be very, very uncomfortable for someone who has their own idea of what would be best - for themselves, for the people they love, for the world at large - and who isn't used to trusting in things that they can't readily understand. But when you take that leap of faith - when you believe that God can and does bring good out of situations that seem hopeless to us - you begin to appreciate how that God's ways truly are higher than our own.

As for what is expected of us, Jesus put it very simply: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments." Matt. 22:37-40. Promises are important, because in becoming Christians we are asked to commit ourselves to live the way that Jesus taught, in the service of God and for the expansion of the Kingdom that Jesus announced. Belief in God and in the authority of Jesus is also valuable, because it propells and reinforces the commitment you make in becoming a Christian. But what should be remembered above all else is that the gifts we receive from God, both earthly and eternal, are the result of God's overflowing love and grace rather than the result of anything we do. The Bible promises us that when we turn to God, humbly recognizing our own failures and inadequacies, accepting the love, forgiveness, and peace that God so freely offers, and endeavoring with our whole heart to conform ourselves more perfectly to the ideal demonstrated by Jesus, God will prove trustworthy and will work within our lives in ways we could never previously imagine.
--------------------------

What do y'all think? There are definitely places in the Bible that might seem to suggest that worldly prosperity sometimes follows from spiritual excellence, and we are also told in some places that God will grant requests of the truly faithful. Am I selling God short by suggesting that we aren't really guaranteed any material success? On a separate note, when you are talking to a non-Christian about the benefits of the Christian life, what are the points that you emphasize? Are there subjects or questions that you choose not to talk about with non-Christians?

The Ten Commandments

2006-06-28T09:41:00.000-04:00

I've been reading, with great interest, a series of comments by David Plotz (the Jewish deputy editor of Slate.com) on his reading of the Torah. With the "Blogging the Bible" project, he's attempting to go chapter-by-chapter, carefully considering the text and offering his own impressions of it as someone who has never otherwise given a great amount of thought to it. The results are frequently fascinating, as is demonstrated by an observation he had today.

We're all well acquainted with the traditional Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai, as recorded in Exodus 20:1-17: 1) You shall have no other gods before me; 2) Make no graven idols; 3) Don't misuse the Lord's name; 4) Remember the Sabbath; 5) Honor your father and mother; 6) Do not murder; 7) Do not commit adultery; 8) Do not steal; 9) Do not give false testimony; and 10) Do not covet. We have this enduring image of Moses carrying these ten basic laws to the Israelites on the stone tablets given to him by God. But is that image correct??

God said, in Exodus 24:12, that he would give Moses "the tablets of stone, with the laws and commands I have written for their instruction." He did not say that those laws and commands included the Big Ten. After God actually hands over the tablets in Exodus 31:18, Moses destroys them at the foot of Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:19) because of Israel's faithless veneration of the Golden Calf created by Aaron. In Exodus 34, God promises to re-create the original tablets, but read the chapter for yourself and see what God actually conveyed to Moses...

Exodus 34
The New Stone Tablets
1 The LORD said to Moses, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. 3 No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain."
4 So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the LORD had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. 5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. 9 "O Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes," he said, "then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance."

10 Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. 11 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 12 Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. 13 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. [a] 14 [1] Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

15 "[2] Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

17 "[3] Do not make cast idols.

18 "[4] Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt.

19 "The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. 20 Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons.
"[5] No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

21 "[6]Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.

22 "[7] Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. [b] 23 Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel. 24 I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God.

25 "[8] Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning.

26 "[9] Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God.
"[10] Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk."

27 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." 28 Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

Plotz pointed out in today's post that, while it does include the familiar commandments concerning other gods, graven images, and the Sabbath, this set of ten commandments is radically different from the one with which we're so familiar. But the text seems strongly to suggest that this second set is the one by which God intended to establish the covenant with Israel. What do you think about this? What could it mean? How does it affect the way that you think about the traditional Ten Commandments?

[[Addendum 6/29/06 - I looked in my copy of the Oxford Bible Commentary for some additional insight into Chapter 34. The commentary notes that these provisions are drawn from the "Book of the Covenant" which is elaborated in Exodus 20:22-23:33, following the original Ten Commandments , with expansion of some of the ideas. According to the Commentary's author, this shorter list implies that the initial terms laid out in the earlier passages are not void, it is just unnecessary for the author of Exodus to rehash the entire list of laws and commands. As for the question of what, precisely, was written, the Commentary says, "Up to this point the implication has been that it would be the words in vv. 11-26, yet the text adds that it was 'the ten commandments'. This can only mean 20:2-17. The likely explanation is that someone has added the words 'the ten commandments', remembering that in Deuteronomy 5 it is these which are written on the tablets and trying to make Exodus and Deuteronomy agree."

I am normally quite persuaded by what the Commentary has to offer in explaining passages, but for some reason this one seems shallow. Reading the text of Exodus 34:27, it seems very plain to me that God is referring to the words just spoken. They were preceeded with the statement, "I am making a covenant with you," and bookended with, "in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." The Commentary fails to even discuss this point and offers no explanation why the immediate reference to "the ten commandments" "can only mean 20:2-17." Later readers have certainly inferred that it means 20:2-17, but I don't think it's at all clear, particularly given the unambiguous language of chapter 34, that the author was referencing anything other than the commands God gave in this section. What are your thoughts on this?]]

Allow Me To Present...

2006-06-26T23:04:00.000-04:00

the most horrifying thing I've ever seen. If you can stomach more than two minutes of Olympic champion Carl Lewis' "music" video, you'll get to see him (apparently) hooking up with a 70-year-old woman in a steam room. And no, I'm not kidding.

Hope

2006-06-24T22:32:00.000-04:00

Hope: Desire accompanied by an expectation of or a belief in fulfillment.

I've been thinking a lot about Hope these days.

In many ways, this particular virtue is one that I have excised from my own religious life. Several years ago I came to the conclusion that if I was truly going to trust in God, to believe that He would guide me on the pathways that would ultimately be best and most useful, I should choose not to ask God for my own desires. I came to this conclusion based on a handful of ideas: 1) God already knows the things that we want, 2) God also knows what would be best for us, and 3) sometimes God grants us our desires, even knowing that they would not be best for us. By choosing not to ask for what I want, I reasoned, I am truly demonstrating trust that God will not lead me wrong. If I don't get what I want, that just means that God could best use me in different circumstances. So in my prayers, my request is for God to give me peace, patience, wisdom, and strength to deal properly with the circumstances in which I find myself. The end result was that I just don't develop Hope in a religious context, because I don't allow myself to have that expectation or belief that my desires will be fulfilled.

My paradigm is being seriously challenged. In the past three weeks, a conviction has been laid on my heart -- a conviction that I believe has come from God -- and I find myself filled with both an overwhelming desire for one particular outcome and the expectation that God will bring it to fruition. But even as that Hope has arisen, I'm presented with a predicament, because while I truly do believe that the conviction itself is from God, the path to that outcome is difficult and unclear and, despite my firm belief that this is the direction in which I'm called to go, there remains the possibility that I'm somehow misinterpreting God's guidance.

For once, however, I find myself feeling that even if this conviction is not really something that God has laid on my heart, I'm not willing to just abandon my desire. Where normally I would not have let myself really invest in what I wanted, here I have. And knowing that God does sometimes grant our desires even when He's not the one driving them, I really, really want to pray for this all to work out. But how can I do that while still remaining true to my commitment to trust simply in God?

Love Languages

2006-06-21T19:39:00.000-04:00

Over the past few days I've been reading The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman. In the book, he proposes that there are five primary avenues through which people give and receive love: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. His theory is that many couples struggle to make each other feel loved because they are wired to give/receive love differently than their partner.

Toward the end of the book, Chapman encourages the reader to list, in order of importance to them, the ways that they experience the love that someone else is offering them. After thinking about it, I think I'd rank them as follows:

1) Physical Touch - While there are times that I can be stand-offish, I'm usually a touchy-feely kind of person. I really love being able to be in close physical proximity to someone that I care about.

2) Acts of Service - This one is kind of ironic, because on one level I like to be totally self-sufficient. But on another level, it totally meant the world to me when Jen took care of me when I was sick, even when I was acting grumpy about it. A few weeks ago when I was being a complete butthole towards her, I felt awful and ended up staying home from work. She offered to come check on me and bring me food and medicine. I'm not proud of my response (just like I'm not proud of much of anything about how poorly I acted for so long), but I told her not to bother because I just wanted to be left alone. At the same time, nothing could have more clearly told me what a truly good friend she wanted to be for me. I hated myself for telling her to stay away.

3) Words of Affirmation - This one is also a weird one. I usually have a very positive self-image (perhaps overly positive...), so that the last thing that I would want or need is for someone to throw more fuel on that fire. Flattery will get you nowhere with me. At the same time, I love to be encouraged - particularly when someone confirms that I was successful in an effort to make them happy with something I did. So if someone offers me honest words of encouragement, it can mean the world to me.

4) Quality Time - Again, my overdeveloped sense of self-sufficiency cuts into the usefulness of this language for me. I can spend long periods of time away from those I care about, even without talking to them on the phone or anything, and not feel like anything is missing in our relationship. And even when spending time together, I struggle to not multi-task. I wonder if my assessment of this language is a little skewed, however, because since I let down those walls a couple of weeks ago I'm finding a renewed appreciation for Quality Time.

5) Receiving Gifts - If you know me, you probably saw this coming a mile away. I have to admit that Carl was right a couple of weeks ago when he said that even I liked getting gifts every once in a while. There have absolutely been times when I have gotten a gift that made me very happy because it demonstrated that someone really understood me, what I like, what is important to me. I hate to single just one out, so I hope that nobody feels like I forgot/didn't appreciate their gifts, but last year for my birthday (you know, when I first announced that I'd rather not receive gifts) my sister, Rebekah, sent me a gift that she'd purchased before my decree: a Homestead Grays baseball cap to match the Grays jersey I'd recently bought. It was a fantastic gift because it showed that she had really paid attention to something (the jersey) I said I was excited about and had put a lot of thought and effort into choosing something that would complement that. I was very, very impressed and I really felt loved as a result of that gift.

So that's my list. What do you think is your primary love language?

Amazing Article

2006-06-16T11:17:00.000-04:00

I've always been a fan of Tony Dungy, the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Ever since he was coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I've thought that he exuded knowledge, class, and a connection with his players that went well beyond football. Last winter, in the midst of an absolutely incredible season, Coach Dungy's oldest son committed suicide. An article posted today on ESPN.com offers an in-depth look at how Coach Dungy has relied on his faith in God to get through the unbelievable pain of that loss. It is the most impressive discussion of the power of God to comfort and heal that I have ever seen in a major secular publication. I highly recommend it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/feature/featureVideo?page=amazinggrace

Jen

2006-06-12T13:58:00.000-04:00

If the past few months have revealed anything about me, it is the fact that I am a flawed person. Particularly in regard to a couple of the relationships that are dearest to me, I've been unbelievably selfish, short-sighted, presumptuous, and condescending. These things, amplified by pride and stubbornness, have caused me to inflict numerous injuries on others even as I was completely (and perhaps willfully) blind to the havoc I was causing. I am terribly, terribly sorry for this, and I want to do everything I can to bring healing where I have been causing harm.

In particular, I need to apologize to Jen. For seven months she patiently tried to persuade me to work with her as a partner in our relationship. But I don't like to rely on other people - even when they only want to help. So I consistently refused to think of the two of us as a team. I insisted that I would be my own man, regardless. And worst of all, I threw up barriers around my heart in order to keep her at arm's length, fending her off no matter how hard she tried to love me. That finally led to me breaking up with her about a month ago, because I would not let myself love her and I had convinced myself it was really "for her own good."

I held on to that conviction for a long time. I pray that it wasn't for too long.

Last week, all of my carefully maintained defenses crumbled around me. It became apparent to me, with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, how wrong I have been, how poorly I've acted, and how horribly I've hurt her. And in the sorrow and remorse that I felt in the wake of that epiphany, something entirely new dawned within me. My heart opened up in a way that I'd previously been so careful to prevent, and I realized that I love her.

I love her for the strong, amazing, beautiful woman that she is. I love her for her passionate commitment to God and the way that it compels her selflessly to serve others. I love her for her fantastic sense of humor and her keen inteligence. I love her for the fun that we have always have together and for how she blends so seamlessly with my friends and family. I love talking to her, learning from her, and worshipping with her. And I love her for putting up with me so long, even when I was doing everything I could to push her away.

The irony, of course, is that this realization comes after I've made so many horrific mistakes. I fear that I've made so many that Jen may not be willing to give me another chance to prove that I can be the man that she always knew I could be. It will take an awful lot of work to overcome the damage that I've already done, but it is a task to which I'm committed, heart and soul.

The Difficult Kind
by Sheryl Crow

I think I was wrong
I think you were right
All my angry words
Will keep me up at night

Through the old screen door
I still hear you say
"Honey, won't you stop
Treating me that way."

If you could only see
What love has made of me
Then I'd no longer be in your mind
The difficult kind
'Cause babe I've changed

Tell it to me slow
Tell me with your eyes
If anyone should know
How to let it slide

I swear I can see you
Coming up the drive
There ain't nothing like regret
To remind you you're alive

If you could only see
What love has made of me
Then I'd no longer be in your mind
The difficult kind
'Cause babe I've changed

I crossed the canyon a thousand times
But never noticed what was mine
What youll remember of me tonight
Well, it almost makes me cry
Yeah, it almost makes me cry

Oh ballbreaking moon and ridiculing stars
The older I get, the closer you are
Don't you have somewhere that you need to be
Instead of hanging here making a fool of me

If you could only see
What love has made of me
Then I'd no longer be in your mind
The difficult kind
But you won't see the change in me

If you could only see
What love has made of me
But I'll forever be in your mind
The difficult kind
But you won't see, no you wont see
The good in me
But babe I've changed
Cause babe I've changed

Farewell, Tamerlane

2006-05-29T19:32:00.000-04:00

Today begins a new experiment for me. Following up on a conviction I had several months ago, I sold my truck. Starting now, I'm officially vehicleless! So for the foreseeable future, I'll be relying on ZipCars, Metro, the kindness of friends, and my own two feet for all of my transportation needs.

And now, I'd like to invite you, gentle reader, to share your favorite memories of my trusty Dodge Dakota, Tamerlane.

Alaska Recap

2006-05-22T21:14:00.000-04:00

Alaska? Amazing.

After a long, long flight from DC to Dallas to Anchorage, we were there. On a truly spectacular Sunday morning, Tiger and I drove north to Talkeetna, where we hopped on a small Cessna for an up-close look at Mount McKinley.

The flight-seeing trip was probably the best money I've ever spent. We got to spend two hours swooping over the Alaska range, looping behind the behemoth that shoots 20,000+ feet up from the surrounding plains. The pilot tipped the wings as we soared past so that we could fully take in the Wickersham Wall, the most dramatic incline on the face of the planet. After that, we landed on a glacier in the Ruth Amphitheater, just southeast of McKinley's highest peak. We got to run around on the ice and snow, taking pictures and such. It was incredible.

Once we were back on the ground, the next stop was a bed and breakfast in Healy, Alaska, just north of the national park's main entrance. It was a pretty sweet location, right on Otto Lake, just below Mount Healy. The lake was still mostly iced-over, but there were ducks, geese, and the occasional eagle all out around the areas where the ice had melted.

On Monday we took a bus tour as deep into the park as possible. The views were spectacular, and we got to see some Dall sheep, lots of caribou, ground squirrels, snowshoe hares, a porcupine, and a handful of different birds. But Monday was just a prelude to the magnificent, spur-of-the-moment trip to...

Barrow, Alaska

(The Northernmost City in North America)

Barrow could also lay claim to the title "Dirtiest City in North America" because the melting snow and ice on the permafrost renders any ground that shows through a sloppy, muddy slush. During the summer, it's also the "Sunniest City in North America" because the sun never really goes down. This was a phenomenon we encountered everywhere we went in Alaska. In Healy, the sun would drop below the horizon at around 11:30 and rise again at 4:30, but the sky always stayed light enough that I could read without turning on electric lights. In Barrow, it just doesn't set at all for about two months. Really, the best thing about Barrow was the idea of being as far north as you could get without a boat or plane, and dipping our feet in the Arctic Ocean -- because how many people can claim to have done that?? It was a very cool part of the trip, and Tiger and I proved an endless source of amusement to the others on the tour.

On Wednesday, our last day in the state, we decided to tackle the Mount Healy Overlook Trail, the most difficult established trail in Denali National Park. It was... um... difficult. The day had turned cold and drizzly, and the trail was extraordinarily steep and muddy in places. But we persevered! (That stack of rocks in the picture designates the highest point on that mountain.)

After that, it was just the long, beautiful drive back to Anchorage to catch our flight. We stopped off at a great little seafood restaurant where we had shrimp, king crab legs, and hallibut. Very, very tasty. And then we went off to the airport to get on the plane. But not before I'd hollered at some bears.

So that's the story. This was definitely one of the coolest vacation's I've ever taken. I highly recommend it, if you get the chance.

NFL Draft Excitement

2006-05-03T13:22:00.001-04:00

I don't mind telling you - I'm thrilled with the outcome of last weekend's NFL Draft for my beloved Tennessee Titans. With our first choice, we picked Vince Young, the positively electrifying quarterback who almost singlehandedly carried the University of Texas to two Rose Bowl wins, including last year's magnificent national title game against USC.

In the second round we got LenDale White who, despite some questions about his work ethic, led the nation in touchdowns last season (including three for USC in the aforementioned national title game) and averaged 6.6 yards per carry.

Mark my words: with these two in the backfield, the Titans will be a force to be reckoned with in a couple of years.

P.S. - I'm really glad that the Titans didn't pick up Matt Leinart... and his newly-acquired baggage. (Two words: Paris. Hilton.)

A Chance To See Me In Action

2006-04-19T14:57:00.000-04:00

For those of you who didn't know, I found out Monday that I would have to fly to Nashville on Tuesday to offer testimony on an eminent domain bill that the Tennessee Senate Judiciary committee was considering. Of course, y'all know that I jump at any opportunity to go back to Tennessee. Luckily for anyone who was ever curious to see me actually at work, the Tennessee Legislature keeps online streaming video archives of its committee meetings. Go to www.legislature.state.tn.us, click on "Senate" at the left hand side of the page, then "Video Streaming". Under the "Video" option, look at the "Committees" options on the right. Select "Jud. 04/18/06" and it should open up a media viewer that will run the video. My testimony begins at 1:28:45 [[you can fast forward to that spot by adjusting the slider-you don't have to watch from the beginning]] and runs for about a half-hour.

Also, you might light to check out http://lastcar.blogspot.com/2006/04/ed-and-ij-in-senate.html. I had a nice visit with Tennessee Representative Stacey Campfield (R)-Knoxville, and he posted an entry on his blog about my trip. For the record, I think it's totally cool that a political official is willing to be so public about his opinions and about the wheeling and dealing that all-too-frequently allow our legislatures to sacrifice what is right on the alter of what is politically expedient.

Eminent Domain, Chinese-Style

2006-04-17T10:20:00.000-04:00

Pictures are worth thousands of words. This BBC news report puts a human face on the struggles that poor Chinese citizens face when the government decides to take their homes for commercial developers.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0%2C%2C31200-china_p10436%2C00.html

The thing is, the eminent domain situations in China and the United States are only different because most American property owners are less desparate than their Chinese counterparts and because our governments are prevented from being half so aggressive as the Chinese. But the same basic human anguish is meted out all over our country - in the name of "progress." Check out the following report from the Chicago Tribune:

Tinley house sits in the path of $65 million development: A plan for condos, shops and a parking lot could take away a couple's longtime home
- Jo Napolitano, Chicago Tribune

Apr. 14--Peter Dennis was so in love with his small, turn-of-the-century Tinley Park home that when he took a job as a mechanic at O'Hare International Airport, he endured the hourlong commute for 16 years rather than uproot his family.

He and his wife, Frances, have lived in the house near the village's old downtown since "The Graduate" was first playing in theaters and President Lyndon Johnson was molding his Great Society in 1967. They chose the location because it was near the train station, their church and schools, making it ideal for their two young children.

The Dennises learned in early 2003 that Tinley Park had a massive development plan in the works, but it wasn't until months later that village officials uttered the phrase "eminent domain," leaving them to wonder about their future there.

For the village, development equals progress. The project calls for an 11-screen movie theater, 115 condominiums and 40,000 square feet of retail space, a mammoth structure that critics say belies the town's quaint feel.

For the Dennises, development equals heartache. A 600-space parking lot would be built on their property. It would put to an end the dream of having their children live on both sides of their house. The couple own another house on the same lot, which their son had occupied for several years.

"You dream about it for your kids and then someone says, 'We're going to build a parking lot for a cinema,' and I guess your feelings don't count anymore," Peter Dennis said. "That's kind of sad."

When asked if the village could rework the plan so the Dennises could keep their home, Assistant Village Manager Mike Mertens said, "the [Village] Board needs to look at the bigger picture, the impact on the community and the public need.

"The main option we are looking at is to try and acquire their property," Mertens said, adding that eminent domain "is always an option, but we'd rather negotiate with the family."

The $65 million redevelopment project has gained approval from the village's long-range planning board and is likely to come up for a vote by the Village Board in late spring or early summer. The private development is being funded by L&H Real Estate Group of Chicago.

The Dennises, of the 6600 block of 173rd Street, have spoken against the plan at hearings and met privately with the mayor, but they have been unable to persuade the village to reconsider.

"I'd like them to show some compassion toward my parents," said their daughter, Dorothy.

Norman Sheehan, whose family has owned a home near the Dennises since 1962, doesn't want to live across from what he calls "a monstrosity" at Oak Park Avenue and North Street.

"The traffic situation here is going to be absolutely horrendous," he said, adding that he would move if the developer gets the go-ahead. "There are a lot of people here, working-class people, who can't afford to go anywhere else, and they're going to be put out of their homes."

Peter Dennis, staring over the dividing line of his bifocals while sitting at his living-room table on a recent afternoon, said he promised himself as a younger man that he would own a home by age 30. He kept his word.

By the time he bought the house, he was a forklift mechanic earning less than two bucks an hour. The $19,000 he paid seemed like a million.

Theirs is a small house--and it fits. The Dennises are both under 5-foot-5 and move with ease under low passageways and basement ceilings that force the tall to crouch.

They've had nearly four decades to tailor-make the home, adding a sewing area in the basement for Frances to work on quilts while her husband keeps an extensive collection of tools--hanging from hooks on a far wall--that would make any do-it-yourselfer envious.

In the neighboring home, which the Dennises bought six years ago, they converted an old closet into free-standing storage space for Frances' crafts while her husband shows off a bench-size woodworking tool tucked behind a white curtain.

Beyond the craft space and tool nooks, there are things about the house that just cannot be replaced, such as the garden. Over the years, it has grown into more of a mini-farm than a seasonal hobby.

With its rows of tomatoes, onions, beans, grapes, strawberries and at least a dozen other plants, many nursed from seeds, it's almost enough to sustain the family. Frances spends days canning, preserving their harvest for the winter.

Their memories are rich and plentiful, but that may not be enough to stave off the parking lot. Like the plants in their greenhouse, all they can do is wait.

A Red-Letter Date

2006-04-11T15:32:00.000-04:00

My Birthday is November 5:

Events

1605 - Gunpowder Plot: A plot led by Robert Catesby to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is thwarted when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building. Fawkes was later hanged, drawn and quartered for his role in the conspiracy.
1955 - Dr. Emmett Brown invents the "flux capacitor" after an interior decorating accident in his bathroom. The flux capacitor is what makes time travel possible.
1979 - Ayatollah Khomeini declares the USA to be "the great Satan".

Births

1885 - Will Durant, American historian (d. 1981)
1911 - Roy Rogers, American actor (d. 1998)
1971 - Jonny Greenwood, Guitarist (Radiohead)

Deaths

1942 - George M. Cohan, American musician, actor, writer, and composer (b. 1878)
1975 - Edward Lawrie Tatum, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1909)
1979 - Al Capp, American cartoonist (b. 1909)

The Last Six Years, In a Nutshell

2006-04-11T15:06:00.001-04:00

There's an excellent essay about Barry Bonds' inevitable eclipsing of Babe Ruth's home run total, posted on the Page 2 section of ESPN's website. I highly recommend reading the whole thing. I was particularly impressed with the following passage:

"In November 2000, the United States held a presidential election, and nobody knew who won, so we just kind of made up an outcome and tried to act like that was normal. Less than a year later, airplanes flew into office buildings, and everybody cried for two months. And then Enron went bankrupt, and the U.S. started acting like a rogue state, and "The Simple Life" premiered, and gasoline became unaffordable, and our Olympic basketball team lost to Puerto Rico, and we reelected the same president we never really elected in the first place. Later, there would be some especially devastating hurricanes and three Oscars for an especially bad movie called "Crash."

"Things, as they say, have been better."

From "The Breaking Point" by Chuck Klosterman, writing for ESPN the Magazine.

"Pom-Pom Prefers the Single Deuce."

2006-04-10T20:41:00.000-04:00

But my left hand currently looks like Doctor Frankenstein's been at work.

Several weeks ago a doctor confirmed what I'd suspected for some time. I had a bone tumor in the middle finger of my left hand. So Friday I went under the knife to have it removed. The doc says the surgery went well and that I should be as good as new in a few weeks.

A Dream Soon To Be Fulfilled

2006-03-21T11:20:00.000-05:00

For years I've wanted to travel to Alaska and to see Denali National Park. Well folks, it's going to happen. Last night Tiger and I bought plane tickets and made reservations for what will be a spectacular six-day adventure in May. We're going to fly up to Anchorage on Saturday, May 13th, then spend four days in and around Denali before taking an overnight flight back to the lower 48 on Wednesday evening. I am stoked!

Homo Sapiens 2.0: Ethics and Biotechnology

2006-03-08T18:23:00.000-05:00

I've played it safe for a while with my blog postings. It's time to have some fun again. ;-)

“…if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we? What's wrong with it? …Evolution can be just damn cruel, and to say that we've got a perfect genome and there's some sanctity to it? I'd just like to know where that idea comes from. It's utter silliness.” –James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.

Advances in genetic technology have brought humanity to the edge of a new era in the existence of our species. Whereas the earliest incarnations of biotechnology (basic agriculture and the domestication of animals) allowed humans to shape the destiny of various plants and animals through selective cultivation and breeding, the resultant changes were the product of patience and the passage of time. The technological developments of the last few decades, however, have permitted us to act directly within the genetic structure of different life forms to immediately bend them to our own design. Using this technology we have created crops that are resistant to disease and endowed with the ability to grow under harsh circumstances, as well as animals that have been altered to provide more food or other useful products for our health, comfort, or consumption. The final frontier, it seems, is the one that collectively we are most hesitant to explore – using the technology that we have acquired to directly modify our own genes.

The advantages would seem to be numerous, though proponents almost always couch genetic technology’s potential in terms of an opportunity to provide medical benefits and thereby to relieve the suffering of genetically-linked diseases rather than in terms of the general improvement that might be available to the entire species. Modifications to the human genetic code could potentially bring about stronger, more intelligent (not to mention better-looking) future generations who, in addition to being less susceptible to diseases that had previously been passed from generation to generation, are less prone to chemical imbalances and allergies.
A number of authors have observed that opinion about the use of genetic technology can be described as falling into four different quadrants that relate to the type of modification (somatic v. germline) and the purpose of the modification (therapeutic v. elective). The results of a worldwide poll about attitudes on the reasons behind the use of genetic technology found overwhelming optimism and support for its potential medical uses, while 83% said that these were its only proper uses. In short, many would support therapeutic uses of the technology who would oppose its use for the kind of “designer babies” that have been promised (threatened?) by the media. While the proponents of modifying the human germline are loath to admit it, the likelihood is that technology that would allow genetic alterations for therapeutic purposes would very quickly be converted to the sort of commercial purposes that many find so repugnant.

Regarding the different types of alteration, the first (and more generally accepted) way of affecting these types of changes is the less-permanent somatic cell treatment. Somatic cell gene therapy incorporates new genetic material into cells for therapeutic purposes, while somatic cell genetic mutation (also called acquired mutation) actually changes the genetic structure. In either case, the adjustments would not be of the type that could be inherited by the children of the treated person, but rather would be localized in their effects (whether positive or negative) to that individual. At the species level, this technique is the evolutionary equivalent of being satisfied with treating the symptoms of a disease rather than undertaking a course of treatment that potentially might bring about a cure. Those who claim that this is the only ethical type of genetic modification usually invoke the necessity to contain potentially catastrophic mistakes that could be made due to an absence of foresight on the part of the scientists re-forming the genome, as well as the potential for lawsuits to arise from the genetically modified offspring should anything go wrong. Practically, however, any attempt to distinguish ethically between this type of modification and the next is of questionable validity because the difference is one of scale rather than of kind.

The second (much more controversial) way of using genetic technology in the pursuit of an improved human condition is to engage in inheritable germline modification, which would result in a permanent shift in the course of human development. By creating changes to the genetic structure that could be passed from one generation to the next, humanity would be moving from the limited version of natural selection that we already exercise in the selection of our sexual partners to active, unnatural selection of the genetic traits that we desire for our offspring. There is still much research to do before this sort of routine is truly viable on a large scale, but experimentation has already taken place in animals and human trials are conceivable in the not-too-distant future. It is in the potential for this type of radical reconstitution of the human gene pool (as well as the likelihood that its benefits will be restricted to the wealthiest nations, widening the gap between the world’s haves and have-nots) that is the most apparent source of concern among those who oppose progression toward this goal.

What are your thoughts on human genetic modification? Are you for it or against it? What ethical/religious issues do you think it raises? If you could ensure certain genetic traits in your children, would you do it? Why or why not?

[As always, I have plenty of thoughts on this. I'll share them after we've gotten some responses.]

This Thing Really IS Accurate...

2006-02-28T10:16:00.000-05:00

the Adventurer

you chose AX - your Enneagram type is SEVEN.

"I am happy and open to new things"

Adventurers are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world.

How to Get Along with Me

Give me companionship, affection, and freedom.
Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.
Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories.
Don't try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.
Be responsible for youself. I dislike clingy or needy people.
Don't tell me what to do.

What I Like About Being a Seven

being optimistic and not letting life's troubles get me down
being spontaneous and free-spirited
being outspoken and outrageous. It's part of the fun.
being generous and trying to make the world a better place
having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures
having such varied interests and abilities

What's Hard About Being a Seven

not having enough time to do all the things I want
not completing things I start
not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career
having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies
feeling confined when I'm in a one-to-one relationship

Sevens as Children Often

are action oriented and adventuresome
drum up excitement
prefer being with other children to being alone
finesse their way around adults
dream of the freedom they'll have when they grow up

Sevens as Parents

are often enthusiastic and generous
want their children to be exposed to many adventures in life
may be too busy with their own activities to be attentive

A Pronouncement

2006-02-27T23:23:00.000-05:00

You simply have not lived until you've listened to an enormous, dreadlocked, black cajun accordion player perform a zydeco version of Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman"... in French.
If you ever get the chance to see C.J. Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band, I highly recommend it.

Speechless

2006-02-22T09:27:00.000-05:00

I don't know how he found it, but my good friend Dan just sent me the following link:

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=eca154e1-542d-4dc1-9703-dd5938ec33f6&f=06/64

I really don't want to make fun of Mr. T - mostly because he knows all, sees all, and would probably come to crush me - but also because he has always seemed to be such a genuinely good guy. This circa-1987 video, however, is just crying out for derision.

Watch the clip, then share your favorite memories from the 1980s in the comments.

Lord, I was Born a Ramblin' Man...

2006-02-17T15:20:00.000-05:00

I realize that I am not posting very frequently these days. This frustrates me, probably far more than it frustrates any of you out there reading my thoughts. Blogging has been a fantastic way for me to process things about which I'm thinking, to bounce ideas off of people. Unfortunately, my time constraints have been such lately that this avenue just hasn't been easily available to me. I hope to do better.

Over the next few weeks I'll be doing a lot of travelling. I love going places, even if it's for work. On Monday I'll be flying to Tulsa to speak with a minister whose church may be condemned for a Home Depot. The following week I'll be going to New Orleans to hear from people faced with the prospect that their city won't let them rebuild - instead it intends to give their property away to commercial developers to create the "new" New Orleans. Then I'll be flying to Texas (with Tiger) to see one of my best friends for a couple of days. And in April I'll spend a week in North Carolina, speaking to people about the importance and constitutionality of school choice.

In honor of these adventures, I present an appropriate piece by Billy Collins, one of my favorite modern poets:

Passengers
by Billy Collins

At the gate, I sit in a row of blue seats
with the possible company of my death,
this sprawling miscellany of people—
carry-on bags and paperbacks—
that could be gathered in a flash
into a band of pilgrims on the last open road.
Not that I think if our plane crumpled into a mountain
we would all ascend together,
holding hands like a ring of skydivers,
into a sudden gasp of brightness,
or that there would be some common place
for us to reunite to jubilize the moment,
some spaceless, pillarless Greece
where we could, at the count of three,
toss our ashes into the sunny air.
It's just that the way that man has his briefcase
so carefully arranged,
the way that girl is cooling her tea,
and the flow of the comb that woman
passes through her daughter's hair...
and when you consider the altitude,
the secret parts of the engines,
and all the hard water and the deep canyons below...
well, I just think it would be good if one of us
maybe stood up and said a few words,
or, so as not to involve the police,
at least quietly wrote something down.

Cuteness Galore

2006-02-09T00:23:00.000-05:00

In this post, I play the role of the absurdly proud uncle. Cuteness lies ahead:

This is my little sister's baby, Abbie, sleeping with my favorite puppy dog, Shamus. Darlin', no?

Last weekend Tiger and I got to drive down and visit AC, Len, the baby, and the dog. It was a fantastic afternoon!

This is Bethany's son, Isaac Levi. Otherwise known as "Shmoo". Ain't he handsome? Bethany sent another picture with Isaac and his big brother, Elijah, bathing together. It's cute and all, but I figured I'd let the kids reach puberty before they have to deal with their family members showing everyone pictures of them naked in the bathtub.

This is another pic of Abbie, all bundled up and ready to go somewhere. Is there anything cuter than a baby wrapped up so that all you can see is their face and the pacifier crammed in their mouth? Well, maybe that pic of the puppy with a broken leg. But that's about it.

And to the right is a picture of Sweetbaby's lil' one, Sweetpea. James reports that Joshua David is more and more like him every day, which I can only assume means that he sleeps a good twelve hours and is rapidly developing an appreciation for barbeque ribs.

Oh, and if you ever do something really stupid and tick off your wife or girlfriend, I highly recommend that you immediately email them a copy of this picture of a Jedi Hamster. How can she be mad when she's looking at a picture of a hamster holding a mini-lightsaber?

Oh, and Sometimes I'm a Butthead

2006-01-28T17:11:00.000-05:00

Tiger and I had a fight this week. And it really was all my fault, but it took me a long time to recognize that. Things are fine now, but I still feel pretty bad about it, because I never want to be that guy, know what I mean? And there I was, being that guy.

Compounding the issue is the realization that part of the reason I was (unwittingly) being a butthead is that my long-standing commitment issues are rearing their ugly heads. I love being around Tiger and spending time with her - she is absolutely wonderful - but every so often something pops up from my subconscious that tries to derail our relationship. I hate that. It's not something that I want to happen, and it makes me kind of mad at myself that I have so little control over it because it's totally not fair to her. We've talked about it and we're trying to work through it. The fact that she's willing to put up with me even when I'm being kind of a jerk is amazing and endearing to me, and it makes me very much want to be the kind of man who is worthy of such patience.

Sweetpea

2006-01-28T17:05:00.000-05:00

Oh, man. The world changed a little bit today. Sweetbaby James Taylor is now a proud daddy. This morning his lovely wife, Heather, had their baby, an 8 lb., 4 oz. little boy that they have named Joshua David.

James is my oldest friend, one of the people closer to me than anyone else in the world. And how weird it is to think that he now has a kid! I mean, it was weird when I realized that all of my closest friends are now married, but the idea that there's a lil' baby version of James that'll be biting ankles in a matter of months... it's kind of a lot to absorb.

Still, however strange it is to think about right now, I'm very, very proud of my Bubby and I am determined to help him be an absolutely fantastic father. And I'm very much looking forward to being Sweetpea's doting "Unkie Dave".

Brokeback Mountain

2006-01-17T22:57:00.000-05:00

Last night I read aloud to Tiger Annie Proulx’s shortstory, “Brokeback Mountain,” on which the movie is based. I wasn’t sure what Tiger would think about it – she didn’t really have any interest in seeing the movie beforehand, and I don’t know if she’s any more interested in seeing it now that she’s heard the story – but she was in tears by the time I finished reading.

The story is profoundly moving, whatever you might think about the forbidden love that it details. It speaks to the loneliness and emptiness that you sometimes feel, even in the company of the one you’re the closest to. It contrasts Ennis’s decision to pass up a life that he desperately wants – a decision initially borne of his sense of duty to each man’s wife and children as much as from his fear for his and Jack’s safety – with Jack’s feeling that some things simply have to be worth the risk and hurt that they seem certain to bring on. And it speaks to the (perhaps inevitable) tragedy and regrets that result from Ennis’s decision.

Tiger and I spoke for some time after I finished the story. We agreed that one of the amazing things about it is that it takes characters that are in so many ways unsympathetic and makes you yearn for them to find some degree of happiness or satisfaction, then breaks your heart with the reality that that kind of completion simply wasn’t meant to be. We disagreed, however, with which character ended up being the most sympathetic. She related to Jack, who showed his willingness to risk everything if it meant being with the person he loved, only to have his dreams shut down by Ennis. I, on the other hand, related to Ennis, who sorely wished that things could work out differently, but felt that the circumstances and realities of their situation would never allow them to be together and happy.

Today I purchased the movie’s soundtrack off of iTunes, and as I’ve been working in the office today, I’ve listened to “The Maker Makes,” by Rufus Wainwright, several times. Its melancholy tone captures almost perfectly the feelings of any person who has ever felt themselves to be the butt of one of God’s jokes because of a love discovered, then found to be unattainable. These are the lyrics:

“One more chain I break
To get me closer to you.
One more chain does the Maker make
To keep me from bustin’ through.

One more notch I scratch
To keep me thinkin’ of you.
One more notch does the Maker make
Upon my face so blue.

Get along, little doggies...
Get along, little doggies...

One more smile I fake,
And try my best to be glad.
One more smile does the Maker make
Because he knows I’m sad.

Oh Lord, how I know...
Oh Lord, how I see...
That only can the Maker make
A happy man of me.

Get along, little doggies...
Get along, little doggies...
Get along.”

Pick a question and answer in the comments… Have you seen Brokeback Mountain? If so, what did you expect and what was your reaction? If not, is there any reason in particular that you don’t want to? Have you ever passed up the possibility of being with someone you loved because you just didn’t see how it could work? Have you ever pursued the possibility of love, but later come to regret it? Have you ever felt like the words in that song?

Bananas: Pro or Con?

2005-12-27T02:29:00.000-05:00

I recently came across this dialogue, which I thought was hillarious...
--------------------------

Debater #1 says:
Pick a topic.

Debater #2 says:
Bananas.

Debater #1 says:
Pro or con?

Debater #2 says:
I'm pro.

Debater #1 says:
Why?

Debater #2 says:
Bananas are good things. Attractive in the kitchen and tasty with a bowl of Cheerios or ice cream. Plus, they're a versatile fruit. Portable, with a unique wrapper that you can leave on until you're ready to partake.

Debater #1 says:
But that wrapper can cause numerous accidents, not to mention disposal problems. And they're not terribly portable, considering how easily they bruise. In addition, they've got those stringy things, turn brown in a question of days, and are likely to create feelings of male sexual inadequacy.

Debater #2 says:
Stringy things are a matter of inconvenience. They don't get brown if you eat 'em. As for the inadequacy thing... ummm, speak for yourself.

Debater #1 says:
Not like you can just throw them in your knapsack. What’s the fun of a delicate fruit? Takes all the excitement out of consumption.

Debater #2 says:
I think it's really a question of how rough you expect to handle your banana. Generally, I find that I can haul them around just about anywhere with little trouble or negative side effect. Besides, the dangers of banana peels are grossly exaggerated, unless you're smoking them or something. They're just not that slippery. And remember, with no bananas there would be no banana pudding... no banana splits... no happy monkeys... These are all wonderful things, which should definitely be borne in mind.

Debater #1 says:
Banana pudding is highly overrated.

Debater #2 says:
You've obviously never had my grandmother's banana pudding.

Debater #1 says:
And really, the best part of a banana split isn't the banana. That’s what you add so you can pretend it's healthy.

Debater #2 says:
I'd concede that the banana is not the crowning glory of the banana split, but neither would the delicacy be the same without it. So, in summation, I am a huge banana fan, and I fully support their further propagation and consumption.

Debater #1 says:
Highly overrated fruit. Should definitely be approached with caution.

Debater #2 says:
I must also add that scientists are figuring out how to genetically engineer bananas to contain vaccines that can be distributed to kids in poor nations. If you're anti-banana, you're in favor of poor kids getting malaria.

Debater #1 says:
Well in that case I’ll have to concede. I do recall hearing something to that effect. You win.

Debater #2 says:
HOORAY FOR BANANAS! If any fruit has to make me doubt my sexual adequacy, I'm glad it's you, banana!
----------------------------

So the question for you, gentle reader, is where you fall in this crucial debate. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Credit Where Credit's Due

2005-12-26T16:31:00.000-05:00

Last Wednesday I woke up with the second-worst headache of my entire life. It was excruciating, and I had to take a sick day. Tiger, being the incomparable girlfriend that she is, used her lunch break to come and baby me. She made sure that I had a good meal, industrial-strength headache medicine, and plenty of sympathy. It was really wonderful.

To top that off, on Thursday she drove me to Union Station so I could catch my plane to the airport. We got to spend about an hour together, having lunch and chatting, before I had to jump on the train that would take me up to BWI for my flight down to Alabama. It absolutely made my day to get to spend that time with her, knowing that it'd be about a week before we were in each others' company again.

So that's my post for the day. Tiger rocks, and I can't wait to see her again later this week.

Okay, I'll Play

2005-12-24T21:58:00.000-05:00

So this is my map for where I've been in the United States. I've only got a dozen or so more states to visit, most of which I could hit with a hard day's worth of driving in New England. I've also spend a little time in Canada, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. But that's it for my travels - they're limited to North America. I hope that at some point in the (not-too-distant) future I'll be able to visit Europe and South America. Africa, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica will all have to wait.

Congressional Absurdity

2005-12-19T15:11:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty certain that I would find plenty on which I'd disagree with Representative John Dingell (D-Mich.), but he recently read the following poem to the entire House of Representatives on the occasion of their passing - by a vote of 401-22 - a resolution "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected for those who celebrate Christmas." It's nice to see that someone in Congress has managed to maintain both a sense of reality and a sense of humor about the ridiculous "war on Christmas" thing.

"'Twas the week before Christmas and all through the House,
No bills were passed 'bout which Fox News could grouse.
Tax cuts for the wealthy were passed with great cheer,
So vacations in St. Barts soon should be near.

"Katrina kids were all nestled snug in motel beds,
While visions of school and home danced in their heads.
In Iraq, our soldiers need supplies and a plan,
And nuclear weapons are being built in Iran.

"Gas prices shot up, consumer confidence fell.
Americans feared we were in a fast track to ... well.
Wait, we need a distraction, something divisive and wily,
A fabrication straight from the mouth of O'Reilly.

"We will pretend Christmas is under attack,
Hold a vote to save it, then pat ourselves on the back.
Silent Night, First Noel, Away in the Manger,
Wake up Congress, they're in no danger.

"This time of year, we see Christmas everywhere we go,
From churches to homes to schools and, yes, even Costco.
What we have is an attempt to divide and destroy
When this is the season to unite us with joy.

"At Christmastime, we're taught to unite.
We don't need a made-up reason to fight.
So on O'Reilly, on Hannity, on Coulter and those right-wing blogs.
You should sit back and relax, have a few egg nogs.

"'Tis the holiday season; enjoy it a pinch.
With all our real problems, do we really need another Grinch?
So to my friends and my colleagues, I say with delight,
A Merry Christmas to all, and to Bill O'Reilly... 'happy holidays.'

"Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas!"

Storytellers

2005-12-13T18:34:00.000-05:00

There is little I love more in this world than listening to good storytelling. I remember when I was just a little, little boy listening to Grandmom (my father’s mother) weaving stories about my cousins and I getting into some scrap of trouble, and how her dog, Shiner, would come to our rescue. I remember Pa (my mother’s father) sitting me on his lap and reading/telling me Uncle Remus’ stories about Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear, drawn from the folk tales that slaves use to tell on the plantations. I remember hearing in my elementary school, storytellers from the East Tennessee mountain tradition, spinning yarns with the twang of fiddles and dulcimers hanging in their voices. I loved it all, and each of these influences still surface in my own efforts at storytelling today.

One storytelling influence, however, stands out above the rest. When I was growing up, Saturday nights always meant my family listening to Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. Keillor is one of the great storytellers the world has ever known. Every week on his radio show, he takes 15-20 minutes to talk about events in his (fictional) hometown of Lake Woebegone, Minnesota. His stories are populated by Norwegian bachelor farmers, Lutherans, and other good-hearted, stolid Midwestern types – after all, in Lake Woebegone “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above-average.” Keillor’s stories are mellow and subtle in their humor, and they are full of warmth and feeling. I could sit for hours, listening to Garrison talk, and many of his monologues stick in my mind long, long after they spilled out of the radio.

A couple of years ago, I discovered that A Prairie Home Companion has on its website an archived collection of old shows, which stretches back to 1996. There is a segment-by-segment breakdown of each show, including “The News From Lake Woebegone,” which is where the magic happens. By following a link, you can listen to them on your RealPlayer. For anyone who has the time and patience to listen to them, I encourage you to check out the stories linked to below:

A great monologue, including the story of a family portrait taken in Garrison’s youth – [http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/20020413/]

The achingly-beautiful tale of Prohibition-era parents who had to give up their daughter for adoption, and how the father later tried to seek her out - [http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/20020302/]

How Lake Woebegone got that year’s Christmas tree, which was grown by a WWII veteran – [http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/19971213/]

Ummm... Maybe.

2005-12-13T12:30:00.000-05:00

Character Analysis of: DAVE

You are a conformist who likes to do the 'right thing'. Sudden change in your day-to-day environment unsettles you, leading to insecurity if protracted. Likely to see complex issues as black or white rather than shades of grey. [I definitely do like to do the "right thing." I just tend to have some unusual ideas about what it means to do the right thing. My initial reaction to the last sentence was to disagree. But the more I think about it, I do tend to resolve my ideas about issues into black and white - they may start out as "grey," and I may have my own way of thinking about them, but they do usually get sorted out.]

You like to surprise people especially when they start to think that they understand you. You possess a good sense of humour, delighting most in witty jokes or stories which have a 'slice-oflife' flavour to them. This trait may be an asset to you in dealing with problems or pressure. It gives you the ability to see the 'other' side of something seemingly serious. [This is definitely right on target. I love to catch people off-guard and I love to tell stories. My sense of humor is tremendously useful in keeping things in perspective. And I also like to think that I do a pretty good job of seeing multiple perspectives, even if I'm not necessarily persuaded to change my own mind.]

If some people can be described as 'very materialistic' then you represent the ultimate opposite. No amount of wealth or rich possessions could tempt you away from your desire to live as you wish. For you, happiness is built on spiritual foundations; some people with this trait may occasionally be a bit naive. [Absolutely.]

Others find you non-hostile and easy to approach. This is due mainly to the image you project of being receptive to others. This does not mean that you suffer fools or enemies gladly - merely that you give them a chance. Those who willingly wish ill against you, or mistake your receptive manner as weakness, are soon stunned by your rebuke when you find out about them. [This is definitely what I'd like to believe about myself... but I don't know if it's always true in practice. Depending on when someone sees me, they may not think I'm that easy to approach. The rest of it? Right on. So don't piss me off. ;-)]

Much of what we become is formed in the early years of our life by our parents and family. When you were young your mother was always there for you: very loving, generous, and warm. She put her family first, before all else, and you respect her greatly. Surprisingly, this has not been a major factor in shaping your character and the person you are today. Other major factors in your childhood or adult life have been more influential on you! [This sounds about right. For all of my jokes about Mama Roland, she is a wonderful, amazingly caring person and I respect her immensely for that. But I agree with the report that her influence on my own development has been limited.]

You do/did not know your father deeply, but perceive him as an uncomplicated person. He was (or still is?) a lovable, jolly dad. He was normally there when you needed him most. This has had some affect in the past on forming your character. Parental traits, affecting how you like to deal with life, come from your father (a little) but more from other factors. [Hmmm... It's true that I don't feel like I know my dad deeply, but I do think of him as somewhat complicated. He's definitely lovable, but "jolly" isn't a word that I'd use to describe him. He can be kind of gruff and distant. My sisters tell me that they see some of his personality in my own, although I don't know that I see the same thing. Still, their perspective is probably superior to my own in that regard. The biggest thing that I've inherited from my dad is his fierce sense of loyalty. One of my friends in college once said I was "more loyal than any dog" (not particularly a compliment in that context, either), and that's something that I come by honestly.]

Your picture indicates that your mother and father were very close to each other. [For the most part, I think this is accurate.]

You can be very introspective, often thinking deeply about life and it's purpose. Your picture indicates you possess a major capacity for reflecting on a variety of subjects especially on philosophical or possibly emotional issues. You posses a strong belief in at least one specific discipline: religion, sexual equality, science, animal rights, politics etc. [I dunno. Has anyone ever known me to be introspective or reflective on philosophical, religious, scientific, political, or egalitarian ideas?]

Although you have suggested in your picture that you are someonethat prefers a stable affectionate relationship rather than a mad sensational fling, it may not be entirely true. Your libido appears to be repressed - this may be due to immaturity: are you fairly young? If not then what your picture depicts is true and you will always need understanding, closeness, and warmth in your shared experiences with a partner. [I think this is true, although there have been occasional "mad sensational flings" here and there.]

You do not appear to be ambitious but you're able to work hard to maintain a balanced life-style. However, you have a tendency to avoid confrontation too quickly when faced with obstacles in your way. [I kind of disagree here. I am definitely ambitious, but I don't desire acheivement for acheivement's sake. I would like to maintain a balanced lifestyle, but I'm also willing to sacrifice an awful lot in pursuit of my goals. I avoid confrontation more frequently than some of my readers will realize, but I'm absolutely willing to stand my ground when I feel like it's useful or necessary.]

Summary of other traits and personal tastes:
-----------------------------------------------
Decision making: Plays safe - avoids taking chances. [In some senses, maybe. But I also roll the dice a good bit.]
Day-dreams most of : Travel or escapism. [Yeah.]
Worst Nightmares of: Guilt, being hunted/chased, being watched. [I don't know. I don't remember many nightmares.]
General Outlook: Balanced - between pessimism & optimism. [My closest friends frequently refer to me as "the eternal optimist," although I also have a strong practical side as well.]

Why My Job Is Important

2005-12-07T15:25:00.000-05:00

Stories like these make me ache. And they're all-too-common. Cities decide that they'd like a better (wealthier) class of people than the older, poorer, or darker-skinned folks that currently occupy some of their neighborhoods, so the cities take by force homes that weren't for sale, caring not at all what happens to the displaced residents as long as they're not delaying construction on the new development. We've failed as a country if we can allow situations like the one described below.

War hero who battled Nazis fights for his home
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
By JEFFREY PAGE BERGEN RECORD

You have to admire people like Johnnie Stevens, a man who decided he would not back down when the government came calling to say it wanted - coveted is more like it - his house in Carteret.

Why should he give the old place up? He has lived in Carteret for the last 50 years, has been in his home for the last 12. This guy is no Johnnie-come-lately to Carteret. Nor is he a grumpy old misanthrope telling Carteret to go to hell. In fact, in a way he is Carteret. He's well-liked around town. He has been a football coach, and the borough even named a day care center in his honor.

So why should this old sick war hero be forced out of his home in order to allow the borough to take possession and then deed the property to a developer who will turn around and build luxury condos and shops? They call it redevelopment. You would not be over-dramatizing it if you just cut to the chase and called it a travesty.

Stevens is 85. During World War II, he won three Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars for his exploits as a member of the 761st Tank Battalion, the renowned all-black unit that stormed across Europe after D-Day under George Patton. He was there when the 761st liberated some of the death camps. After the war Stevens made a life for himself in Carteret. He drove buses.
Now he is sick, diagnosed with lung cancer and living with an oxygen tank. His doctors give him two more years, tops. His wife is 80. She has cancer, too.

The Stevenses are some of the people being hassled by local governments everywhere that want to seize their homes and turn them over to builders who will jazz up the neighborhood with some apartments there, some fancy shops here, and high sale prices all over. This is the kind of seizure no one thought possible. Sure, the government always had the right of eminent domain. It could take a property for use by the public. For example, your home could be taken, leveled, and the property used to build, say, a new library or a new ambulance building. But lose your place so some rich people with no place to go can have a place to live in your town? Who thought that could happen?

Brass Tacks

2005-11-26T11:11:00.000-05:00

In the earliest days of this blog, I explained how hesitant I am to enter into these debates, (see http://tyrannysucks.blogspot.com/2005/07/ive-made-decision.html) because I know that my theological ideas - and particularly the reasons for them - are extremely challenging for a lot of people. I am very, very concerned with the possibility that I might become a stumbling block for someone else's faith, and that's the absolute last thing that I want to happen. In spite of this concern, however, I am not ashamed of my understanding of God even though (as has been demonstrated over the past couple of days) some will be extremely uncomfortable with that understanding.

In light of my comments on this blog, one of y'all has asked me to explain why I am a Christian. There seems to be an assumption implicit in her question: it makes sense (to her) for someone to be a Christian as long as they subscribe to the traditional set of beliefs and ideas about how the Bible should be read and understood, but it doesn't make sense (to her) for someone to consider themselves a Christian if they don't necessarily share those traditional beliefs and ideas. I'll try to address her question in as thorough a manner as possible. While I would normally skirt around some of the issues and ideas that are thus raised, I think this requires me to meet them head-on in order to explain why I am not the same flavor of Christian that many of you are familiar with.

I was given a traditional Church of Christ upbringing, raised to believe that the Bible had been handed down to us with every word just as if God had spoken it himself. It was supposed to be a coherent whole, factually and theologically consistent, complete and unimprovable in any way. It was unacceptable to think of the Bible as having any inconsistency, and any perceived internal conflicts were the result of our limited understanding, rather than differences of opinion among the Bible's authors. Additionally, I was taught that what you believed was a matter of eternal consequence. You could live a near-faultless life, sincerely dedicated to the pursuit and worship of God, but if you had an incorrect understanding of certain points of theology you were in serious danger of going to Hell. For example, if you held all the correct beliefs about the reasons for being baptized, but were sprinkled instead of immersed, the baptism might well not have been effective and you would be condemned. On the other hand, if you were fully immersed with the intention of dedicating the rest of your life to Christ, but didn't have the proper beliefs about God or the correct understandings about the reasons for baptism, you might well be condemned. There was right and there was wrong, and even while God was proclaimed to be good, gracious, loving, and merciful, there were no real in-betweens. When I was young, I never thought to challenge these ideas - they were just the Truth.

My transformation started in middle school. By sixth grade, I believed everything I was supposed to believe, and I wanted to be a Christian and avoid going to Hell, so I was baptized. I thought that even though nothing of my thoughts or opinions had changed between the moment before I went under the water and the moment afterwards, I had been doomed to Hell before and was unquestionably saved afterwards. As Peter said in I Peter 3, it is the water of baptism, made effective though the resurrection of Jesus, that saves us, right? Over the next couple of years, I continued to hold all the right beliefs - and to proclaim them pretty loudly, in certain contexts - while being a hateful little cretin to everyone around me.

For various reasons, in about eighth grade (mostly because I was a teenager - y'all know how it is) I started questioning the point of being a Christian. It just seemed so arbitrary that our purpose in life was to develop a certain set of beliefs and to try to get other people to share those beliefs. My thinking on this idea led me to re-read much of the Bible, critically, and with as fresh a set of eyes as I could muster. As I was studying through my high school years, I found myself struck in a completely unexpected way. I had been raised in church learning lists and hearing stories about events in the lives of Biblical characters, such as the miracle stories and parables. But as I read through the Gospels and the Prophets, I was profoundly impacted by the ethical messages about how God's people were supposed to relate to each other with respect and selflessness. I was also amazed at how Jesus was so willing to disregard "the rules" in favor of a new paradigm whose ultimate concern was how to treat others lovingly - and in adherence to that paradigm he broke the Sabbath, ignored purity rituals, defied social conventions, and openly challenged those who tried to moderate his behavior. I was inspired by his description of the Kingdom of God, in which no one would be looked down upon for being poor, where all - and especially the outcasts - were made worthy of joining in the King's celebration, and where God's radical, all-consuming love offered everyone hope for salvation. And above all, I was moved by Jesus's demonstrated compassion for people. His tenderness with the woman caught in adultery, his tears over the death of Lazarus, his willingness to touch lepers, make time for children, and dine with whores and tax collectors. In seeing Jesus afresh, I grew to love him in a way that wasn't ever possible before.

With that love and appreciation as the new foundation for my Christianity, I went off to Abilene Christian University, where I majored in Bible and Political Science. While studying in the Bible department, I was first confronted with the idea of scholarly Biblical criticism. I learned that biblical books were not always written by those to whom they are attributed. I began to understand how a biblical author's particular and peculiar worldview significantly impacts the way he understands and explains God through his writing. I realized that you can see within the biblical texts the evolution of almost every theological idea - that even within the Judeo-Christian tradition we have been in a constant process of adapting our ideas about God to mesh with our knowledge of the world and our philosophical understandings. I recognized the presence of apparent differences of opinion among a number of early Christian authors and thinkers. (Check out The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament, by Bart Ehrman) I learned how some of those disagreements shaped the canonization of both the Old and New Testaments (read The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance, by Bruce Metzger), read some of the books that were not included in the canon (read Lost Scriptures: Books That did not Make it into the New Testament, by Bart Ehrman), and began to ponder the possibility that the men responsible for writing, assembling, translating, and interpreting the Bible were not so very different from myself and my classmates. And as I thought about that, I came to the opinion that we are far more than just recipients of a static theological knowledge; we are active participants in the continuing revelation of God to humanity.

Now, naturally, a lot of these ideas were challenging. After all, if most (or all) of the Bible's authors sometimes lacked a firm grasp on how God should be understood, how would we ever know when they were right and when they were wrong? How can you be expected to live a life pleasing to God if you can't even be certain what God asks of us? This thought was accompanied by one much more daunting - if we can't be certain that the Bible's authors always had a complete knowledge of God, how can we claim that our religion is any more correct or authoritative than any other religion? Without question, other religions make truth claims for their beliefs and they argue for the authority of their own scriptures. How can we accept the truth claims of Christianity, yet reject those of other religions?

At this time, I was deeply engaged in the study of other world religions and I found myself amazed to see in them (behind the metaphysical differences) an elemental similarity: an ideal of selflessness. You see it to varying extents and phrased in different language within the texts of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many pagan faiths. So, about the middle of my collegiate career, I began to seriously consider that God has actually been communicating the same central message to all peoples, all over the world, and that the differences that we see among religions is not the result of different sources of inspiration, but rather the telling indication of humanity's limited ability to fully comprehend and communicate God's message. Human error has resulted in a vast departure from the single divine ideal that is summed up best in Jesus's own formulation of the Greatest Commands: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength... Love your neighbor as yourself." In all of this, I was continually impressed that no other religious thinker - including Paul - seemed to grasp this all-important simplicity as thoroughly as did Jesus himself. Because I continued to believe that Jesus was obviously God's perfect messenger to humanity, and because I was certain that his sacrificial death was an absolute requirement for any of us to be made pure in the sight of God, I had no problem whatsoever considering myself a Christian even while acknowledging a certian basic level of Truth could be found in other religious traditions.

Grad school presented an entirely new set of ideas to grapple with, because at Vanderbilt we were forced to re-think all of our assumptions about the truth claims traditionally made in the Bible, particularly those about who Jesus was as a historical figure. (If you have time, read all three volumes of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, by John Meier, as well as N.T. Wright's fantastic series on Christian Origins and the Question of God - if you don't have much time, I recommend Wright's The Original Jesus) We studied the way in which the early church developed its ideas about Jesus and looked carefully at the influences that helped to shape those ideas. We learned that many of the ideas we had assumed were exclusive to the Christian tradition - virgin birth, claimed messiahship, claimed divinity, resurrection - all had parallels in other, earlier settings (for a very challenging look at this, read Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, by John Dominic Crossan), and might well have been attributed to Jesus after his life, more as a symbolic way to recognize the unprecedented role he played in the world than as a literal historical account of events surrounding his life. There continues to be constant debate about who Jesus really was (for a good snapshot of this debate, I recommend The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, co-authored by Wright and Marcus Borg) upshot of it all is that most (though far from all) contemporary Jesus scholars discount some of the more fantastic claims that the gospels make about Jesus's life, focusing instead on the radical teachings that he brought about the Kingdom of God and how each of us could play a role in it.

Having at that point spent years contemplating the idea that Jesus's primary importance was as God's ultimate - but not exclusive - revelation to humanity, and that what Jesus taught us about how to understand God was far more important than questions about whether he was virgin-born or bodily resurrected (read Marcus Borg's Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith), my conviction about the importance of living as a Christian was not shaken in the slightest by these studies. But I watched, heartbroken, as several of my classmates - including a previously-unwavering Church of Christ graduate of David Lipscomb University - abandoned their faith entirely. I was very, very disappointed to find out that this is not at all uncommon among seminary students (whom you would assume to be among the strongest of the faithful) when they are confronted with some of these challenging ideas, and it reinforced my commitment to avoid being the cause of someone else's stumbling. I do not - and cannot - demand that other people share my faith to the detriment of their own. But at the same time, I wish they could understand the blessing of my own faith, and I will steadfastly make the effort to open their minds to my way of thinking. Because I have tremendous comfort in accepting that God doesn't require an infallible scripture to remain Lord of all, that Jesus didn't have to work miracles to be God's chosen Son who reveals God's unlimited love for humanity, and that we are called to live in love for God and for our fellow humans, thereby to be adopted as God's children and participants in the Kingdom that Jesus announced. [Note: I want to be absolutely clear, as I have been in earlier posts, that I am not denying anything about Christianity's traditional claims about Jesus's life. I do accept that the traditional truth claims could be historically accurate. My fundamental point is that I cannot believe that our salvation hinges on our understanding of history. In other words, I cannot believe that a God of love and justice will consign people to eternal damnation simply because they hold the wrong opinion about events that happened two millenia ago. There will, without question, be those who will disagree with me on that point. I respect your disagreement and I am open to hearing what you have to say on the matter, but I can think of nothing that will persuade me otherwise.]

So as for the reader's primary question about why I am a Christian, I respond by saying "How could I not be?" As I stated in one of the recent entries, I believe that Jesus brought the Kingdom of God into the world through his presence, words, and actions. Jesus was unique in his teachings and in his status as the chosen Son of God. When I read Jesus's teachings, I hear God speaking, and when I read stories about how he interacted with others, I see God in action within our world. I don't have to think of Jesus as having done better miracles than other religious figures or making extraordinary claims about who he was in order to affirm that his message was God's message. The path to which he called us is God's will for how we should pursue our lives. Because I recognize these things, I have no choice but to be a Christian.

Inspiration and Scripture, or, "This Calls For An Entirely New Post"

2005-11-19T09:39:00.000-05:00

The book of First Kings (19:11-15) records an extraordinary scene in which God reveals himself to a despairing Elijah. The prophet is sent to stand on the mountain so that God may come near. When God arrives a violent wind rips at the mountain, followed by an earthquake and a raging fire; but the writer tells us that God was not in the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire. After these phenomena had passed, there came to Elijah what the text ironically describes as the sound of an absolute silence, through which the prophet encountered God. In the absence of any audible sound, Elijah clearly heard the voice of God.

In addressing the question of what revelation means, I think it necessary to ask in what way Elijah “heard” God speak on the mountain. As it is recorded in the biblical text, Elijah’s experience did not come from reading a scroll, nor did it result from a physical sound such as a human voice coming into Elijah’s ears. Indeed, it seems that God did not use any physical or quantifiable means to impart his message to the prophet. Instead, Elijah experienced God’s presence internally, as if God communicated directly to the prophet’s soul.
I contend that this sort of peculiar and immeasurable experience is the way that God communicates to each and every one of us. Rather than using actual words, God reveals Godself to humanity by acting within us through our emotions, in visions, and by way of intellectual inspiration. In turn, as we have experienced God’s presence it becomes the task of the individual to understand and communicate the meaning of their unique divine experience. Because each of us are human and fallible, however, individuals confronted with such an experience (or the description and interpretation of another’s experience) cannot simply assume that any human interpretation can fully and/or accurately reflect the essence of God’s communication.

Because the divine message cannot help but to have a human filter if it is to be communicated to the rest of the community, theologians must carefully scrutinize any verbal or written account that purports to carry such a message for the tell-tale failings of that filter. This means that even the texts that have come to be accepted as being the authoritative “Word of God” must be subject to reevaluation in the light of our developing knowledge about the Universe and God’s continuing interaction with humanity. The only way to resolve the resulting uncertainties as to what should be considered authoritative is to compare our own experiences with the experiences that others have shared, and to look for commonalities that will trace our understandings and experiences to the same divine source. The similarities that we find in the religious experiences of other individuals and faith traditions can only strengthen our assurance of God’s message along those lines, and even the differences that we find among our various experiences and traditions may help to broaden our conception of God’s nature and will.

So to put all that more concisely, the Bible was not dictated by angels sitting on the shoulders of its authors. The collected writings that eventually came to be accepted as the Hebrew and Christian scriptures were the work of many people from different eras and locations, each of whom shared the same limitations of perspective and understanding that any of us experience. Many of the authors do demonstrate exceptional insight into God’s nature and will, and some (like the prophets) were likely able to receive messages directly from God. But despite their unusual spiritual awareness, these authors’ understandings of the world – and, I believe, of God – were frequently defined and limited by their historical setting, and therefore were not always complete. I have previously described the difficulties of this situation as follows:

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As children, many of us played the “Telephone Game”, in which one person starts a message through a chain of communicants and the last person in the chain attempts to recreate the original message for all to hear. But, of course, the words employed by the last person in the chain never precisely duplicate the first speaker’s words, and frequently the content of the message is lost or twisted as it gets passed from one person to the next. When the last player gives their version of the message that was passed on to them the results are frequently amusing, because the message may be radically different at the end of the line than it was at the beginning.

The reason that the game works is that whenever any human experiences communication from an external source, they interpret those sensations in accordance with a unique perspective that is defined by the listener’s particular circumstances or their life experience. Many factors could contribute to the garbling of the message. The listener could be distracted by something else going on, so that they just aren’t paying attention. The room could be too loud for the listener to hear clearly, or they could have internal hearing problems that prevent them from accurately receiving the communication. Or the listener could have certain pre-established sensitivities that inspire them to remember or perceive a slightly different message than the one they originally received. Regardless of the particular reason, the result is the same. The message changes in a very real way from the way it was communicated to the original listener to the way that it will later be communicated to others.

Religion, understood as the various systems of belief and morality that have been discerned from humanity’s experience with God, is the history of a message that has been passed from person to person and generation to generation. Every time the ideas, beliefs, and doctrines of a particular faith are passed on to a new listener, the message encounters a unique human filter. That filter may entail certain philosophical notions, social norms, personal predispositions, or any other of a variety of potential influences on how the message will be understood by the hearers. Even where the individual who has had a religious experience has been able to make a written record of their interpretation of that experience, there is no certainty that they will have recorded it in such a way that others who encounter it later will come away with the message that the writer intended, much less a full rendering of the writer’s experience with God. This is evident in the way that religious groups have splintered time and time again over differing interpretations of scripture.

My goal, at present, is not to trace the historical path of Christian doctrines and beliefs. But I believe it is of paramount importance to acknowledge that those doctrines and beliefs, as we have come to know them, have not (and do not) pass unmediated from God’s mouth to our ears. They have been altered somewhat in the transmission. And if we, as Christians, are to take seriously the task of discerning God’s will for our lives, we must necessarily determine why these changes have taken place and what we are to do with them.

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So that leads to the differences of opinion that many have about the historical precision of the Gospel accounts, the importance of sacrifice under the Mosaic law as opposed to Jesus's own sacrifice, and about Paul's authority to say that the Christian faith is worthless (i.e., Jesus's sacrifice was ineffectual) if Jesus's physical body was not revived after the crucifixion. I'll try to take these one at a time.

As for the Gospels, it is highly unlikely that any of them were authored by people closely associated with Jesus during his ministry. Mark is almost universally regarded as being the earliest of the Gospels that were included in the New Testament, probably written by a member of Peter's community twenty to thirty years after Jesus's death. Luke is likely the second-oldest of the New Testament Gospels, written sometime before A.D. 60 by someone who had spoken extensively with Jesus's disciples, but who had not known Jesus personally. Matthew was probably written at about the same time as Luke by a member of the same community - which is evidenced by the fact that they each draw heavily from the same source materials. Many (though far from all) contemporary Historical Jesus scholars believe that there was another written document (called the Q document) that Matthew and Luke relied on because the two gospels share significant similarities, not only in the stories related about Jesus, but in the structure and phrasing of those stories. It is highly unlikely that the author of Matthew is actually Matthew the disciple, for two primary reasons: 1) a man who had actually been one of Jesus's companions would have had no need to look to the Gospel of Mark (or whatever source the author shared with Luke) for stories about Jesus; and 2) the average lifespan for people in that day and age was very short, and if we assume that Matthew was about Jesus's age during his ministry that would put him at 55-65 years old when the book was written. Of course, these facts don't preclude the possibility that Matthew the disciple authored the book that bears his name, but it does call it into serious question.

The uncertainty about the authorship of Biblical writings, combined with the regular concerns that I have about the historical limitations of the authors' understandings and the way that humans filter their experiences, profoundly affects the way that I read the Bible. In my mind, these considerations do absolutely nothing to detract from the central importance of Jesus's unique relationship with God, his revelation of the Kingdom of God, or his eventual sacrificial death - but they do require me to think carefully about the way that various authors have interpreted Jesus's presence, teaching, and death. The difficulty that I find (and I hear it in questions raised by several of you in responding to the previous post) is that some will demand that only their understanding of Jesus can be correct or acceptable. While I appreciate the reasons that some of you may feel that way, I cannot share those feelings and I think that they warrant reconsideration. So I hope that answers that question.

Now, I briefly and specifically want to address Margie's concern about differentiating Christianity from any other religious tradition. Yes, it is entirely possible that God brought Jesus back from the grave as a concrete demonstration that Jesus was superior to all others who have claimed to be God's messenger/Messiah. But are you really suggesting that Jesus needs this sort of one-upmanship to justify our devotion? Jesus was unique in his teachings and in his status as the chosen Son of God. A physical resurrection would not change that, even if it would be a convincing demonstration. If someone dedicates their life to Christ simply because he was raised from the dead, I think that they've missed the point entirely. Again, in no way am I saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying that it's kind of beside the point. I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus brought the Kingdom of God into the world through his presence, words, and actions. I don't need any further proof, and I would hope that no one else would, either.

JR, to the extent that you question why Jesus would have even come to us if not for sacrifice, I would say something very similar. It is very possible that God does, in fact require blood in order to forgive sin. It may well be that Jesus had to die for our redemption. But even if God didn't require his death, Jesus came to perfect God's message to humanity, to correct the errors that had built up under the Mosaic law, to demonstrate with his life God's love for humanity and God's calling for each of us. That is, I believe, a perfectly valid alternative understanding of Jesus's mission, even if some will find it unsatisfactory.

Sacrifice and Resurrection

I'll start here with resurrection. Hannah raised the question about whether Christ needed to be resurrected to "defeat death." No, I don't think so at all. I think that we very frequently get distressingly and unnecessarily distracted about what God needs in order to be able to forgive. Let's not forget that God is God. God granted salvation (eternal spiritual life) and raised people from the dead (extended physical life) long, long before Jesus was with us. Death was already absolutely subject to God's desires. If God wanted to "defeat" death, it certainly wouldn't require God to come to earth in person, die, and come back to life. Christian theologians (perhaps even Peter - although I think it's not at all clear that this was what he was getting at in the passage you cited) seized upon the idea of Jesus's resurrection and attributed to it this additional layer of meaning - not only was this a concrete sign of Jesus's unique relationship with God, not only was his revival important to reassure the disciples that he really was the Messiah and that the Kingdom of God would continue beyond his death, but Jesus actually broke down the gates of Hell so that death no longer had any power! Well... no. Death has continued to function, in the wake of the resurrection, precisely as it has always functioned. Likewise, and to the best of my understanding, our redemption post-crucifixion is not at all qualitatively different from what God has always offered to those who chose to serve him.

This leads us to JR's quotations from the book of Hebrews, which (in turn) was quoting from the book of Jeremiah. JR, you seem to have quoted these passages to support the idea that Jesus's sacrificial death was different in effect from the ritual sacrifices offered throughout Jewish history. It's clear that the author of Hebrews, whoever he was, thought so. He purports to be quoting Jesus, though I don't know where (if anywhere) in the Gospels the quotes can be found, to the effect that Jesus recognized that the traditional sacrifices just weren't cutting it (the author of Hebrews says that they could "never take away sins") and needed to be replaced with one perfect, once-and-for-all sacrifice. But the author shows flawed logic. In Hebrews 7, he infers that the sacrifices of old were ineffectual because Jesus became a new and perfect sacrifice. ("If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the people), why was there still need for another priest to come—one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law." - Hebrews 7:11-12)

[This is all I could write while I'm in Philadelphia today. I'll finish up my thoughts in the next day or so.]

The Resurrection and Salvation

2005-11-17T15:23:00.000-05:00

In my Constructive Theology class in Divinity School, we were challenged to think and write about a number of controversial ideas. One of those assignments required us to write about how we think Jesus's death and resurrection define the question of salvation and the Kingdom of God. We were also expected to discuss a couple of theologians' competing ideas about whether Jesus's resurrection was a physical event or whether it was merely spiritual. Most of what follows was written in response to that assignment.

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Jesus was a human and lived a human life. During that life, he articulated the magnificent dream that he called the Kingdom of God. It described a divine reign that had long been anticipated in the Jewish community, though the Kingdom that Jesus described ended up bearing little similarity to the messianic dominion that had been widely envisioned. Jesus envisioned a spiritual Kingdom that would be visible in the lives of God’s followers as they devoted to God their hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and as they loved their neighbors as themselves. Those who were a part of the Kingdom would never have to worry because God would provide them everything they needed, and they would learn to be content with their earthly status because God had assured them of an eventual reward that would far surpass anything possible in this life.

But even as Jesus was preaching this vision of the Kingdom something happened that his disciples never anticipated, though they would later claim that Jesus himself saw it coming. Jesus died. He was killed by Judea’s Roman procurator, just before the Jewish holiday of Passover, crucified in the outskirts of Jerusalem. As the man they called the messiah hung on the cross, his disciples either stood silently among the mob that attended his execution, fled for safety, or actively denied knowing him. In the end, Jesus’ last breath escaped in the form of a heartbroken cry to the God that he felt had abandoned him. Most people would assume that the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached had died along with him.

Jurgen Moltmann is only one of the more recent in a two-thousand year history of Christian theologians who will argue that Jesus’ death was not, in fact, the end of anything at all. Instead, it represented a new beginning. Shortly after the crucifixion, Jesus’ disciples began to claim that their messiah was once again alive, and in the assurance of his continuing life the world could still take part in the enduring Kingdom of God.

One of the important tasks (Moltmann calls it the “central problem”) set for Christian theologians is to explain this apparent resurrection in terms of how it will be understood to have happened. Moltmann and many others have argued that the resurrection, laden as it is with metaphysical and soteriological significance, must have been a resuscitation of both body and spirit. He notes Ernst Troeltsch’s argument that it is futile to think of the resurrection in historical terms because the event transcends any historical analogy that would allow those bound to such understandings to participate in the belief that Jesus did come back from the dead. As an alternative to historical knowledge, Moltmann suggests that the importance of believing in the fact of the resurrection lies in the hope that it engenders that God is in the process of resurrecting the entire world, and us within it. In this sense, the resurrected Jesus whose life continues even now can be envisioned as the “Cosmic Christ” that exists and moves within the natural world.

I agree with Moltmann's assertion that the crucifixion cannot be seen in any way as an ending of the world's encounter with Jesus. My question, however, is whether discussions about the historicity of a physical resurrection are at all necessary or useful. Paul asserted in I Corinthians that Christianity was futile if Jesus was not, in fact, raised from the dead. But why should this be the case? Is Paul correct in suggesting that Jesus's life and sacrificial death would lose importance without a physical resurrection?

On a purely philosophical level, the content of Jesus’ teachings (including his description of the Kingdom of God) does not depend on his bodily resurrection, and there is no reason why they would carry any less importance if his crucified body never regained life. As far as the way that the crucifixion and resurrection tie into the idea of salvation, I'm not at all certain that theologians (including Paul) fully grasp or account for the breadth of God's grace when they insist that all would be lost in the absence of a physical revival of Jesus's body. God has always been able to dispense forgiveness to God’s people, and I think that sacrifice was more peripheral an element in that forgiveness than most people believe. While one must acknowledge that animal and grain sacrifices were a fundamental element of the Jewish faith for a long, long time, even at that time the psalmists and prophets long understood and announced that God truly desired a “broken and contrite heart.” Repentance appears to have been much more important for forgiveness than ritual, vicarious death. Even if we are to assume that God will not/cannot grant forgiveness of sins in the absence of physical sacrifice, why would Jesus's sacrificial death be any less significant if he was not physically raised from the dead? As I read the Bible, I can’t locate one other instance in which the efficacy of a sacrifice depended on the sacrificial object’s return to vitality. In light of this, I can't really agree with Paul that Christianity is deprived of all value if there was no physical resurrection. [To be absolutely clear: I'm not denying the historicity of the resurrection, I'm simply arguing that the effectiveness of Jesus's sacrificial death does not depend on it.]

What is truly theologically important, so far as I'm concerned, is that in the days, years, and centuries following Jesus’ death on the cross, people of faith had assurance that his death did not signal an end. They were comforted because they experienced a continuing divine presence, which they understood to be a physical return of their messiah. Whether or not, historically, the body that hung on the cross was reanimated and walked again among the disciples is almost beside the point. God’s spirit gave them hope that the Kingdom Jesus preached was still alive, and that they could continue to play a role in its flourishing. For as long as the message endures that Jesus passed along to the world, and for as long as we, his followers, experience his presence in our lives, Jesus can be said to live on in the world and the Kingdom of God can be said to be at hand.

Contented Sigh

2005-11-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

Today was an amazing day, and it tops off an incredible week.

First off, allow me to welcome the newest addition to the Roland family - Isaac Levi Parlier, an 8 lb., 7 oz. little boy born to my sister, Bethany, on Monday evening. We're very excited to have him safely with us! We're also eagerly awaiting the arrival of yet another addition, a daughter that we expect to be born tomorrow to my little sister, Anna Caroline. So far we're just referring to her as "Squirt," though I imagine AC and Len have a more distinguished name that they're waiting to reveal. [UPDATE: Abigail Marie Causey was born at about 9:30 EST on Sunday night. She weighed 8 lbs., 8 oz., was 20 1/2 inches long, and already has more hair on her head than I do.]

Secondly, I'm very glad to announce that I have some room to breathe again at work. For the last six weeks or so, I've been pretty well dominated by my efforts to shepherd ten amicus ("friend of the court") briefs to completion in support of a set of our clients. On Wednesday we got all ten filed on time with the Ohio Supreme Court, and I am very, very pleased with the quality of the submissions. As a fun by-product of my efforts in this regard, I now have on the calendar my first official speaking engagement for IJ! On December 13th I'll be the featured speaker for a meeting the National Federation of Independent Businesses' Legal Strategy group, discussing "Successful Amicus Strategies: What Works and What Doesn't".

Today, however, was amazing for an entirely different reason. Let's call her... Tiger. [For reasons that I'll explain on an individual basis if you'd like to know, I've decided not to use her name in my blog.] If you've spoken to me in the past four weeks the odds are good that you've already heard a little something about her. If not - we really need to catch up!

I woke up this morning, just genuinely excited that I'd get to spend time with her today. For our original plan, I had convinced her (not that she needed much convincing) to take me shopping for some new clothes. Instead, we ended up spending much of the morning just hanging out at her apartment, enjoying each others' company and talking. As the temperatures climbed into the low-70s and the day was proving too unbelievably spectacular to be avoided, we went and had a fantastic, leisurely lunch out in the sun at Lauriol Plaza, a restaurant near Dupont Circle. We finally did get around to doing a little shopping, but we only ended up buying one shirt. Still, she's committed (perhaps from no small degree of self-interest...) to helping me reform my wardrobe, so if I'm wearing something that you don't like next time you see me, you'll have to direct your gripes to her. Hopefully, she'll be right there by my side so that she can offer a ready response.

So, to summarize this post... new babies in the family, new opportunities at the office, new lady in the life. I'm a blessed man.

Rumors Of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated...

2005-11-03T12:18:00.000-05:00

My apologies to anyone who might have been concerned about my well-being due to my lack of blogitude. I'm skipping lunch so that I can remedy the situation. Hope you're happy. ;-)

Weblog of Love goes to... Jacque Holton! Jacque was a beloved fixture at Fairfax before she answered the calling to go teach in Abilene Christian University's study abroad program at Oxford. I first met Jacque when I was working as a youth ministry intern at Fairfax while she was still in high school. Luckily, she chose to come out to Abilene Christian University and i was able to keep up with her on-and-off over the years until she moved back up to the DC area after finishing her Masters program. She's a truly amazing person. Smart, pretty, and an engaging conversationalist, Jacque is also a wonderful example of how God can use Christians to bless and encourage others. She has a wonderful heart for other people, but also has a secret mischevious aspect to her personality that I never would have expected! Jacque, we miss you much and we hope that you won't stay in England forever - even though we greatly enjoy reading the accounts of your adventures that you post on englishhistory.blogspot.com!

I also have to follow up the kind words that Shayna (Carl also gets vicarious credit) and Odgie have offered. You guys are such incredible friends! You can't know how blessed I feel that God has brought you into my life. Every week I get excited to spend time with you at small group. Each of you have made such a tremendous impact on my life and on the lives of all of us privileged to count you as friends. I can't say enough how much I appreciate you and what your friendship and encouragement means to me. I love you guys!

Two more things to note briefly. I will be posting my thoughts on the previous blog sometime soon. You guys had some great things to say and I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation. Second, I'd like to point folks to my friend Sweetbaby James's blog, ilovesickpeople.blogspot.com, where he's opening a conversation about the Trinity. Dive in!

What It Means To Be Alive

2005-10-26T21:31:00.000-04:00

I had an interesting conversation with a few of my coworkers the other day. We were talking about the prospect that, given the right advances in technology, we might be able to sustain human life indefinitely. A couple of interesting ideas came up in the course of this conversation, which I'll toss out for y'all to consider.

First, one of the guys suggested that people can only find meaning in our lives if we understand that life is finite. Meaning comes from reaching certain benchmarks or accomplishments, which makes sense if we only have a certain amount of time in which to acheive those goals. But if we are no longer bounded by time - that is, if we can live perpetually - those acheivements are infinitely diminished in importance because there is no urgency associated with reaching them. For example: He suggested that home run records in baseball would quickly lose all meaning if there was never an end to the season. What do y'all think of that idea?

Second, the same guy argued that people were basically little more than supremely sophisticated machines and that if we could devise machines of similar sophistication and figure out a way to transfer the contents of our minds from our organic machines to machines of our own creation, this would be essentially the same thing as creating eternal life. From there we got into a discussion about whether we, as individuals, are more than simply the aggregation of our thoughts and memories. Beyond that, we discussed whether a machine could be said to have a soul if it had, for all intents and purposes, become us through the perfect replication of every thought, memory, emotion, and personality quirk that makes us who we are.

I assume that most of you reading this will say that there's no way such a machine could be said to have a soul. My challenge to you is to explain why not. And I'll start you off with a question: Do you really believe that when Genesis said that humans were made "in the image of God," it was talking about our physical bodies?

I can't wait to see responses on these questions. As always, I'll share my thoughts after a few people have weighted in.

Closure

2005-10-20T22:00:00.000-04:00

I was standing on Campus Court, a street at the southeastern edge of Abilene Christian University's campus, watching the Centennial Homecoming parade, when suddenly my heart froze. Standing on the other side of the street, beyond the ridiculous Gamma Sigma Phi float, was a woman that I once thought I was going to marry.

Wendy had been my best friend during my sophomore year of college. I adored her, even as I was dating other people. Then, the summer that I was up here in DC interning at the Fairfax Church of Christ, I realized that I was completely in love. The realization came as I was gushing about her one day and (knowing that I'd been dating someone for about three months) one of the ministers said, "Is Wendy your girlfriend?" "Nahhh..." I replied, "Wendy's the girl I'm gonna marry."

Well that kind of said it all. I had never before said that I was going to marry someone while really meaning it. Still, life is a funny thing. I never did tell her how I felt, and she soon started dating someone else - someone who decided that she shouldn't hang out with me anymore. They got married some time later, and I hadn't seen or spoken to Wendy since I graduated from college. To be honest, I was bitter about how that all played out. I was angry that Wendy could set aside our friendship as easily as it seemed that she had. I felt betrayed and abandoned.

I held on to all those feelings for the last five years. They were there, lingering in the back of my mind whenever I'd think of her - which was frequently, for a long time, although those memories were less and less prevalent as time passed. And then, last Saturday, they were all dredged up again in dramatic fashion.

At first I didn't know what I was going to do. I could ignore her, of course - just pretend that I hadn't seen her and move on. But something inside wouldn't let me do that. I knew that I needed to face down my feelings and talk to her. I can't tell you how nervous I was as I walked toward her, because I had no idea if she would recognize me or if she'd have any desire to talk to me at all.

I shouldn't have worried. When she saw me approaching, her eyes came to life and she ran over to give me a hug. Then she introduced me to her two kids.

It was unbelievable. She caught me up on how her life has been over the past five years while I tossed a balloon with her two-year-old son. I got to hold her three-month-old daughter as we chatted about how our lives were both similar and dramatically different from what we had imagined when we were back in school. And as we spoke, as I soaked in the personality that had won me over so long ago, I realized that I couldn't hold on to the hard feelings I had been harboring. Wendy was living the life that she was supposed to live, loving Chris and mothering two spectacularly beautiful children. I'm living the life to which I'm called, working up here. For the first time, I really, concretely accepted that however much I'd loved her, we were never meant to be together. And that was ok. So I guess that's what psychologists call "closure."

Just Because I Need To Pour Out Thoughts

2005-10-08T23:38:00.000-04:00

As expected, today was tough. McTaggart's memorial service was at 10:00 am in State College, Pennsylvania - which also just happened to be the focus of the college football world this weekend because of the Penn State-Ohio State game. I got up at 2:30 am, shaved, dressed, and loaded my black suit into the truck. I've always loved misty autumn nights and driving, and I got five hours' worth of both on the way up. All the time I needed for quiet reflection, which was a plus.

One of my friends, Ben, was the only one awake to greet me when I arrived at the house. We hadn't seen each other for about a month, so we chatted a bit about what each of us has been up to. And naturally we talked about Andrew and Jessie, the signs that perhaps we should've seen, and what we can do to help Jessie deal with her feelings of guilt. Then I excused myself to grab a short nap.

The service was poorly organized, yet poignant. About thirty people showed for the memorial service, only six of us from DC. Without any true family members present, Jessie was the only natural person to distract the rest of us from our own grief. There was an open casket. However unproductive it would've been, I wanted to chew out the people at the funeral home for the shoddy job they'd done preparing Andrew for viewing - the makeup they used made his skin look the color of over-roasted, unsalted peanuts and he had as much of a five o' clock shadow as his babyface could muster. In a nice touch, the Australian embassy had donated a ceremonial flag in honor of his military service. Some guy with a German accent - I still have no idea who he was - seemed to be in charge of the proceedings, but he himself apparently had no clear idea of what he was doing. I did sing "Just As I Am". I think it was the right choice. After the service, we milled about, wrote messages for Andrew's family, and finally filtered out for the trip home.

When I got back to the house, I didn't feel like talking to anyone or going anywhere. I didn't even really feel like watching football. Instead, I ended up binging on iTunes. Spent much more money than I should've, but I'm happy with my selections and I'm feeling rebellious enough at present that I don't care if I'm busting my entertainment budget. For the record, if you have any appreciation for bluegrass I demand that you immediately purchase This Side, Nickel Creek's album from 2002. It's music that really sounds like home to me.

This upcoming weekend, I'll be flying out to Texas for my five-year college reunion. I'm really looking forward to the trip, and I'm hopeful that it will provide a counter-balance to the frustration of recent weeks.

Andrew McTaggart, 1982-2005

2005-10-06T21:27:00.000-04:00

What crimes have you committed, demanding such a penance?

That couldn't wait for five more minutes and a cry for help?

'Cause this room is so peaceful and this room is so quiet.

And I hate the silence...

And I can't walk the center aisle.

-- "Center Aisle," by Caedmon's Call

I met Andrew McTaggart last winter, when I began playing in a weekly poker game out in Falls Church. He quickly became on of my favorites among the regular crew. The 23-year-old kid was enthusiastic and funny, perpetually in a good mood. He told wonderful stories about growing up in Australia, and he'd brag about how the U.S. Navy Seals had nothing on he and his friends in the Aussie Special Forces. McTaggart taught me a lot about poker and he constantly encouraged me as I was preparing for last June's 10K run and my abortive summer backpacking trip. Around early August, Andrew quit coming to our poker games. He'd been dating a pretty co-ed from Penn State and decided to leave his job with the Australian embassy so that he could live close to her in State College, Pennsylvania.

That was the last I'd heard from McTaggart until today, when one of the guys emailed the news of his death. Apparently, he and Jessie had recently fallen on difficult times. Their relationship had pushed to the breaking point, and she was ready to end it. A few evenings ago, they were having an impassioned exchange via text messages, when Andrew suddenly stopped all communication. Jessie called his phone, but he didn't pick up. Concerned, she drove to his house, where she found that he had taken his own life. She tried to revive him, but it was no use. He was gone.

I've been asked to sing at the memorial service on Saturday. I've sung at many a funeral before. I even sang at a suicide funeral once - I didn't even know the teen, and it was still one of the most difficult events of my entire life. But nothing... nothing... compares to the challenge of singing for a friend who has killed himself. How do I choose a song? How can I try to minister to these people, all of whom feel the same failure that I feel because Andrew didn't know to call us for help? What comfort can I provide that God's grace might be sufficient to cover the sin of willful self-destruction? I don't know. I just don't know.

If you have any useful thoughts, whether they deal with song ideas (I'm tossing around "Just As I Am"), or words that I'll be able to share with his other friends, I'd really appreciate your input.

[UPDATE 10/18/2005: It has been brought to my attention that McTaggart's family has not been discussing the circumstances around Andrew's death. Had I known about their sensitivity and the likelihood that Andrew's Australian friends and family might stumble upon my blog, I would have been more circumspect in telling this story. I want to respect their feelings in this difficult time. I have made the decision not to elaborate on or withdraw anything that I have already written in these two posts. If you are one of Andrew's friends from Australia, please accept my sympathies in your grief, but please direct any questions about his death to his family. Thanks.]

The Get Lucky Hat

2005-10-05T00:23:00.000-04:00

Some of the Unusual Suspects have already heard this story, but since Sweetbaby James mentioned the Get Lucky Hat in a comment on the previous post, I thought that it might be a good opportunity to show a picture.

I spent the evening of St. Patrick's Day 1998 at a bar in Austin, Texas. While there I came the closest to correctly guessing what the bartender had for breakfast, which entitled me to claim as my own a large green foam Killian's top hat. The words "Get Lucky" were written in green letters a big yellow shamrock on the side of the hat. It immediately became one of my prize possessions. At Apartment TenTwentyFive, you'd get to wear the Get Lucky Hat if you got lip after a date. Now that I am the sole remaining bachelor among the Quad, I am the final steward of the Get Lucky Hat. If and when I ever get hitched, the roommates and I plan to retire the hat with the highest honors, burning it and then burying its ashes.

As If I Didn't Already Have Enough Problems With "W"...

2005-10-03T16:17:00.000-04:00

Harriet Miers?

You can't be serious. Please. Tell me you're not serious.

The United States Supreme Court is the most prestigious institution in the country, and arguably the most influential one at that. The people who sit on that Court should be the best minds that our nation has to offer. Usually, Supreme Court justices demonstrate their acuity by attending and excelling at that most prestigious law schools in the country, then by clerking either at the Supreme Court itself or under a judge at one of the federal Circuit courts. Usually, Supreme Court Justices spend several years as judges, either somewhere within the federal court system or on their state's Supreme Court. Even if a Supreme Court Justice never served as a judge - and there are a number who were appointed without ever having been a judge - they were extremely distinguished attorneys who had argued multiple cases before the United States Supreme Court.

Harriet Miers, to the best of my knowledge, has done none of the above. She attended Southern Methodist University's law school, which isn't even the close to being the most prestigious school in Texas, much less in the nation. I have no idea how she did there, but if she finished at the top of her class it seems to have escaped mention. She clerked for a federal district judge, which is not shabby, per se, but it is a far, far cry from clerking for one of the higher courts. She apparently had a fine career working for a law firm in Dallas, but that experience isn't even remotely comparable to working for one of the larger firms in New York, Washington, or even Houston, for that matter. Although it's possible that something has escaped my notice, I don't think she's argued even one case before the Supreme Court.

So what the heck makes this person qualified for a lifetime appointment to one of the most important positions in the country? Well, she has been mightly loyal to the President. She's held all sorts of nice-sounding (though not terribly important) positions in Texas, and she's been W's personal attorney for quite some time. And she's a woman, which Bush thought was important this time around. But that's it.

If that passes for qualification these days, this country is in a heap of trouble. While I reserve the right to admit a too-hasty judgment at some point in the future, from where I sit right now this pick looks like an absolute debacle.

What I'm Reading Online

2005-09-30T14:34:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd let y'all in on a couple of things that I've come across lately that have really made me think.

First off, let me plug Slate.com. If you've never heard of it, it's a web magazine run by the Washington Post Company. It has a definite leftward tilt, but I really enjoy a lot of the commentary that gets posted.

One of my favorite features is when they invite semi-prominent people to do a week's worth of online journals, giving you a glimpse into who they really are as a person and how they think. This week Slate has had Judd Apatow, a comedy writer/director who has enjoyed recent success with Anchorman (one of my personal favorites) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. I've found his posts to be enjoyable all week, but really liked today's musings on the state of the nation and how it relates to our fascination with celebrities. Check it out at http://www.slate.com/id/2126915/entry/0/.

Another thing that I really like is when Slate invites several prominent critics/thinkers to exchange open letters discussing their thoughts about issues in popular culture. Last week they had three women trading their ideas about how two recent books - Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families, by Pamela Paul, and Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, by Ariel Levy - reflect the state of America's sexual culture, particularly as it pertains to contemporary feminism. Now, I know that many of you wouldn't think that you'd find that discussion to be interesting, but I loved how reading their comments pushed me to think about issues that I would normally ignore and to engage those issues from perspectives that I wouldn't naturally assume. The dialogue can be found at http://www.slate.com/id/2126570/entry/2126575/.

If you choose to look at either of these, I'd love to see you post comments about your thoughts.

The Long Haul

2005-09-29T12:08:00.000-04:00

So I'm sitting here in my office, reading about the Senate's confirmation of John Roberts as the new Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, when it hits me - this man will be in charge of the Court for the vast majority (if not the entirety) of my legal career. At 50 years old, he is the youngest Chief Justice in 200 years. Life expectancies being what they are these days, we can reasonably expect that (barring some unfortunate turn of events) he'll continue to serve for at least thirty years, and even a forty-year term would not be unthinkable. That's absolutely stunning, when you really ponder it.

So what kind of issues do you think Chief Justice Roberts will have to deal with in those years? I'll award a barbeque sandwich at Shayna's birthday party to the person who comes up with the most outlandish, ridiculous legal matter that Roberts will be called on to judge.

Appreciation

2005-09-24T21:43:00.000-04:00

Special thanks to all of you who were praying for me last week. Your prayers were effective, and I had a much better outlook through the second part of the week. God is good.

Last night I had the blessing of getting to see Caedmon's Call in concert. While I am generally highly critical of contemporary Christian artists, I love this band. They present a combination of innovative, rich music and wonderfully contemplative and poetic lyrics. And they put on a fantastic show!

I'll also tell y'all to keep your eyes open for a future edition of Washingtonian magazine, in which they list the 50 Best Places to Work in DC. We were notified at work this week that the Institute for Justice has been selected not only as one of the 50, but as one of only eight or nine of the places for whom photographs will be included. Now, I could've told you that IJ was a fantastic place to work (matter of fact, I probably have told you at some point), but it's really cool to see my own opinion validated in this way.

What is the best concert you've ever attended? What made it special?

In Need of Prayer

2005-09-19T22:38:00.000-04:00

I don't often ask other people to pray for me. I like to think it's because I'm generally very good at keeping my life in perspective - I can recognize how phenomenally blessed I am and that keeps me from obsessing over the things in my life that I wish were different. For the past couple of weeks, however, my world has been thrown off kilter and I am at something of a loss to know how to come to grips with it all. As a result, I am finding myself jealous, angry, and resentful over a particular situation. I was briefly given the hope that one of my oldest and most sincere prayers might be brought to fruition, only to see the opportunity ripped away quite suddenly so that now it seems very unlikely that my desired outcome will come about. To be sure, I do believe that there is a valid basis for much of what I am feeling, but at the same time I recognize that these emotions are not at all characteristic of me and they are far from being appropriate for one who intends to follow Jesus. As I am proving virtually powerless to control my feelings, and as my own prayers are not currently helping this situation, I ask each of you to pray on my behalf that God will help a sense of balance, perspective, and contentment return to me.

Thanks in advance. I am not allowing comments on this post.

Turning a Good Idea Into Action

2005-09-16T16:24:00.000-04:00

For the past several years, I've discovered that I've been losing the thrill that I once got from anticipating and receiving gifts for my birthday and Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I have been absolutely floored with the several of the presents I've gotten in the past, but more and more I realize that it really is the thought that matters to me - I so much more appreciate a really creative gift than I do an expensive one. As I've been in the process of this realization, I've also noticed that I frequently feel bad when my family goes out of their way to get me things. While we're not as financially strapped as we were when I was growing up, none of my family members are particularly wealthy in relation to the rest of our society. If you ignore the monstrous loans that I piled up in college and grad school (which are going away, little by little...), I'm in much better shape financially than my parents and most of my siblings. And so, while I appreciate their willingness to buy me stuff, I find that I'd rather they didn't because I know that that money could be going to better, more important things.

I really hadn't done anything with these thoughts until recently, when I saw Shayna's request that people donate what they would have spent on gifts for her birthday to a charity instead. The more I thought about it, the more it made perfect sense. So today I decided to put that great idea into action in my own life by telling my family (and any of you who would otherwise have planned to buy me gifts) that instead of spending that money on me, I'd like them to use it in one of two ways: 1) Donate it to Opportunity International, a Christian charity with whose work I am highly impressed ( www.opportunity.org); or, 2) save the money toward a trip to come see me here in Washington (which I think is a worthy cause of its own).

Shanksville

2005-09-12T23:06:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I looked across an open Pennsylvania field lit by a setting September sun, with a backdrop of trees in the earliest phase of their seasonal color-shift. Just in front of the treeline was a slight depression marked by a solitary American flag.

I tried to ignore my surroundings - the casually chatty tourists, the infuriatingly cheerful government employee, and the haphazard personal memorials whose tackiness is exceeded only by the sincerity of the people who left them. Standing there silently in my suit and sunglasses, I sobbed more violently than I have in nearly four years.

Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The ending point of perhaps the single most heroic act in American history. The impact site of United Flight 93, which crashed as its passengers struggled to regain control of the plane from four terrorists who intended to destroy a target here in Washington.

I get pissed off at how blithely, arbitrarily many people (especially politicians and members of the media) offered a "Hero" label to anyone who died on September 11th. However heartwarming it might be to attribute heroism to the victims, true heroism requires more than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Heroism exists where people choose to put themselves in harm's way for a greater good. It exists in its higest form when those who are least prepared for dangerous circumstances demonstrate valor in the face of their own certain death.

It is under that definition that the passengers and crew of Flight 93 stand alone. They didn't sign up for their fight. They had no training or combat experience. They didn't have any weapons. And yet they resolved that they would not sit idly by as the hijackers flew them into their intended target. Knowing that they had no real hope of saving themselves, the passengers gave up precious last minute phone calls to loved ones they would never see again, stormed the flight deck and forced the terrorists to down the plane, ending all of their lives in that lonely Pennsylvania field.

I wanted the field all to myself. I wanted to lay myself on the ground where the plane hit, to speak my gratitude and sorrow to the souls of those that died. I wanted to shout aloud to God, expressing passionately and violently all the feelings that were beating back and forth within me. I wanted to wail openly instead of just letting the tears roll from behind my convenience-store shades. But in the end I held the ache in my throat as I maneuvered among those pointing at this and that t-shirt left on the chain-link fence or chatting cheerfully about the lunch they'd had at the tour bus's last stop. With frustration and resent for all who seemed to regard the scene as more a novelty than a graveyard, I spun my tires and left the field behind me.

Junebug

2005-09-07T19:06:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I had the pleasure of watching Junebug, a movie about a refined, cosmopolitan art dealer from Chicago who marries (one week after meeting him) a handsome, enigmatic Southerner. She catches wind of a talented "outsider" artist (let's just say he's obsessed with the Civil War and male genetalia) who lives nearby her husband's family in North Carolina. They decide that they will travel down together so that, in addition to trying to sign the artist, she will finally get to meet his family. The movie is about what happens when this sophisticated woman is introduced to the small-town, conservative world in which her husband grew up.

I liked the movie for several reasons. First off, its one of the few films I've seen that captures the atmosphere of small-town Southern families without being too stereotypical or condescending. I thought that every one of the characters felt... authentic. As the movie played out, I could totally see folks from back home (and sometimes even myself) fitting neatly into the behaviors and emotions that were playing out on the screen. The result was that I could really feel for these characters - each one of them in their own way. It was sometimes funny, sometimes wrenching, sometimes frustrating, but always peculiarly beautiful.

And now is the time in this post for me to be vulnerable and revealing...

Junebug illustrated one of my own personal fears. Like the art dealer's husband, I'm a local-boy-made-good that moved off to the big city. Like the art dealer's husband, I'm sometimes terrified of what the implications would be if I were to meet an accomplished, refined woman and were faced with taking her home for the first time. Don't get me wrong, my immediate family is much more cultured than many middle-class Southern folks - but we aren't world-travellers and we don't tend to rub elbows with people at the top levels of society. I know that (despite years of working up to my current position) I still frequently feel awkward speaking to politicos, diplomats, and other movers-and-shakers - so that's likely to be amplified several times over for my parents and siblings who have all stayed close to home. I imagine it would be very difficult for them (as it sometimes is for me) to know precisely how to relate to someone whose parents were enormously successful and who grew up in high society.

But - more selfishly - I live in mortal terror of meeting a woman that I think is wonderful, only to have her meet my family and decide that we're all a bunch of yokels, however sweet and well-intentioned we might be. I suppose that's my bigger concern. Not that I or my family might have a tough time relating to her, but rather that she would make a decision that it wasn't worth her while to even try to relate to us. I'm sure that this somehow provides fodder for psychoanalysis, so I'll leave it at that.

Homestar Runner RULES!

2005-09-02T14:56:00.000-04:00

To all y'all who don't know, www.homestarrunner.com is one of the funniest websites out there. Strongbad's emails - especially the earlier ones - are absolutely hysterical.

Today I discovered that my generous appreciation for all things Homestar is nothing compared to some other folks'. Check out http://www.hrwiki.org/ for an amazing online Homestar encyclopedia.

(Strongbad is pictured at left, in all his glory.)

Ministry in the Face of Natural Disaster

2005-08-31T20:06:00.000-04:00

As a counterpoint to the more secular concerns of my first post, I wanted to address the spiritual element as well.

Months ago, following the tsunami in Southeast Asia, I asked a class that I was teaching at Fairfax Church of Christ how we should try to minister in the wake of a natural tragedy. It's different for situations like terrorist attacks or wars, because then it's easy to fall back on the idea that people - not God - created the situation. But it's much more difficult when a catastrophe happens in the course of nature, because so many people see God as playing a very direct role in the way that events play out here on earth. When a natural disaster occurs, it becomes almost impossible for them to think of God as being separate from the event.

Some prominent Christian preachers suggested that the tsunami was a product of God's wrath, just as I'm sure that those same preachers will say the same thing in pointing to the fact that New Orleans was a city of notorious licentiousness and that the hurricane also destroyed all of the casinos on Mississippi's coast. The question that I want to toss out there for discussion is whether there is any merit to their claims. Should natural disasters be seen as true "acts of God"? If so, why? If not, why not? More importantly, whatever your answer is, how do you use your understanding to minister to those affected by tragedy?

The Death of an American City (?)

2005-08-31T18:49:00.000-04:00

Perhaps I'm being somewhat melodramatic, but I wonder if we are watching the demise of one of my favorite cities.

New Orleans has always faced the risk of catastrophic flooding. The city rose up in the depression between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, an average of six feet below sea-level. From its earliest days in the eighteenth century, the surrounding waters would occasionally inundate parts of the city. In an effort to hold back the natural shifting of the Mississippi, artificial levees were eventually built to compliment the natural ones that had formed along the river. The city also adopted a system of powerful water pumps to keep the area drained and dry, but these had the unintended effect of allowing the city to gradually sink even further below the surrounding water levels. Any breach of one of the protective walls would permit all but the highest parts of New Orleans to fill up like a soup bowl. It was a disaster that everyone knew was possible - and perhaps even inevitable.

Now that breach has taken place. Once the authorities can stop the water from rushing into the city, their attention will have to turn to getting all of it back out. It will take weeks, and even when that task is completed, the city will continue to be largely uninhabitable due to health risks posed by disease, animals, and weakened structures. The vast majority of homes in the city will have become structurally unsound and have to be demolished, and given the pervasive poverty of New Orleans' population (one-third of its 500,000 citizens live below the poverty line) the former owners likely will not have the means to rebuild. Just about anyone who had a job in New Orleans will be unemployed for at least three months, and they may come home to find that their employer can no longer stay in business. In the meantime, the tourist and petroleum industries that account for a huge portion of the local economy will be at a complete standstill, meaning that the city and state will face gigantic budget shortfalls.

All of these facts beg a larger question: Should we bother to rebuild the Crescent City? Just as the city's geography made this disaster inevitable, rebuilding on the same site seems likely to invite the exact same disaster at some point in the future. It would be like choosing to rebuild Pompeii on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius with the full knowledge that the thing would probably blow again. Sure, some areas - such as the well-placed French Quarter - could be preserved, but building at any of the lower elevations would just be asking for trouble.

To an extent, New Orleans must exist in some way, shape, or form. The oil and shipping industries need a major port city at the mouth of the Mississippi. My question is whether it might be wiser to abandon most of the city's current location and to rebuild in the surrounding area at higher elevations. Given the fact that I-10 - the only major road to run through the southernmost areas of the United States - is now shattered, we could reshape its course to suit the contours of the city's new location. Essentially, my point boils down to the fact that if you're going to have to rebuild most everything about New Orleans, doesn't it make the most sense to rebuild in the best available place, rather than the most sentimental one?

One more thing has gotten me thinking about this whole situation. New Orleans presents, on a smaller scale, almost the same situation that we would face in the event that a major U.S. city were to be hit with a nuclear weapon. We have hundreds of thousands displaced, an entire city's infrastructure obliterated, power and communications wiped out, transportation systems disrupted, and an area that is practically uninhabitable. Could we eventually use lessons that we will learn from trying to recover from this catastrophe as a template for dealing with future events?

As always, I'm interested to hear peoples' thoughts on all of these ideas.

[ADDITION: 9/2/2005]

Today's Washington Post ran a piece by Rick Bragg, an Alabama native and superlative writer, on the city of New Orleans. You can read it at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090101813.html. And for anyone who would like to read an amazing Southern autobiography, I recommend Bragg's All Over But the Shoutin'.

Just Say No To Censorship

2005-08-24T22:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday night I rediscovered something: Movies edited for TV just aren't generally worth watching. Billy Madison is one of my favorite movies of all time. Adam Sandler at his ludicrous best. The USA Network bought the rights to the film, then promptly neutered it of any real humor. Very disappointing. Witnessing the devastation of a truly great piece of comedy just confirms my respect for Comedy Central's willingness to show hillarious films, completely uncensored. I just wish that the FCC would let them show them some time other than 1:00 am on Sunday mornings.

On to weightier concerns...

Saturday was a great day. My fantasy football league drafted teams, and even though I think that there is one clear favorite (dude has Peyton Manning, Priest Holmes, Nate Burleson, Jeremy Shockey, and Hines Ward), I'm very pleased that I ended up with Michael Vick, LaDanian Tomlinson, Andre Johnson, Eddie Kennison, Jason Witten, and Jason Elam. I was so filled with football fervor that I purchased a new - personalized! - Tennessee Titans jersey.

I played football in high school - first as a middle linebacker and later as an offensive and defensive tackle. I proudly wore number 65, a lineman's number that well-suited my 280-pound frame. In the years since, I have always chosen number 65 for shirts, jerseys, etc., when I had the option. But now the situation is a little different. Twenty months ago, I weighed 305 pounds. Today I weigh 223. I haven't been this "small" since my freshman year of high school. And with that change in size, I think I need to change my number - now I need a smaller player's digits.

Which brings me to true focus of this post - choosing a number for my new Titans jersey. I was having trouble deciding on a number that would suit me, when one of my friend recommended that I choose based on numerology. Essentially, numerology says that everyone has a personal number based on their date of birth. She said that we should look up my personal number and that I should use it as my jersey number. She had thought that all of these numbers were single-digit, but when we looked up my number, it came up "22" - called a "master number". Further, the description of a 22's personality traits were uncannily similar to, well, me. I won't go into details about what it said - if you really care to know, go to www.123numerology.com and plug in November 5, 1977 - but (as one who is extremely skeptical about stuff like this) it was pretty bizarre to see an "accurate" description of my personality based on nothing more than my birthdate.

This is really confounding to me because it ties into the whole question of Destiny. Now, I don't for an instant give credence to numerology. Neither do I believe in the traditional idea of predestination, as in "God has a single perfect plan and we're all just playing out our predetermined roles in the great cosmic drama." But on the other hand, I have always had a sense (call it either a delusion of grandeur or the product of an overly adoring family) that I am called to do important things in my life. When I was eight my life was saved because a voice inside my head told me to hit my bike's brakes just before a truck I had neither seen nor heard plowed through an alley that I would have been crossing. At a number of significant points in my life, I've distinctly feld God calling me to pursue certain paths - paths that didn't make much sense by any conventional wisdom - and I've felt an inward assurance that there is a purpose that I'm intended to serve, though I don't know precisely what that purpose is.

I can't pretend to reconcile my ideas in this regard, and that frustrates me greatly. What are your thoughts on Destiny? Do you feel a calling for your own life? How did you discover it? Did you ever think you were destined for something only to find out later that you weren't?

Lyrics That Rip My Heart Out

2005-08-17T23:54:00.000-04:00

Most anyone who knows me understands that music affects me profoundly. Nothing else cuts so thoroughly through anything else going on in my heart or mind. And, of course, some songs hit me much harder than others. "Kill" by Jimmy Eat World is one of those. In the lyrics the singer is trying to express to his girlfriend the feelings he's having about the impending end of their relationship. He struggles with the question of whether they are meant to be together, or whether their love was just a product of chance. He agonizes over whether the time they spent together will amount to nothing. He knows that he has to end it, but he doesn't know how. Then comes the bridge and final chorus:

So go on, love.
Leave while there's still hope for escape.
You gotta take what you can these days,
There's so much ahead...
So much regret.

I know what you want to say.
I know it, but can't help feeling differently.
I loved you... and I should've said it.
But, tell me, just what has it ever meant?

I can't help it, baby - this is who I am.
Sorry, but I can't just go turn off how I feel.
You kill me, you build me up - but just to watch me break.
I know what I should do, but I just can't walk away.

I remember being there. Knowing that I was part of the problem, but feeling utterly incapable of either changing how I was handling the situation or walking away from it all. This song totally captures that feeling.

First Kiss

2005-08-16T22:33:00.000-04:00

For some reason - I have no idea why - I found myself remembering my first kiss the other day.

I was in eighth grade and had been cast in a community production of Carousel. I was incredibly proud to be in the show because I hadn't even auditioned. I had worked with the director a couple of years earlier, but didn't think there was really a place for me in that particular production. About six weeks before the show was scheduled to open, the performer who was playing Enoch Snow, Jr. (an 18-year-old character with a significant speaking part) dropped out. Even though I was only 14 and had never carried a part this large, Sherry called me up and asked me to take over the role. I was thrilled.

The weeks leading up to the performances were fantastic. Two or three nights a week I got to go down to the performing arts center for rehearsals. The show involved a number of kids about my age (including, if memory serves, my future brother-in-law!), a couple of whom I had performed with before in other productions. This time, however, we were old enough that our parents weren't sticking around to keep an eye on us. That meant that when I didn't have to be on stage, I got to hang out, unsupervised, with the others in the wings.

Among those other kids was Bronwyn. She was a year younger than me, tall, lithe, and (to my 14-year-old eyes) breathtakingly beautiful. In addition, she was widely recognized as a rising dramatic talent, which made her that much more intriguing and alluring. She was auditioning for roles in movies! She was going to be famous! I was smitten. (Yes, the picture is actually her! )

The week before the curtain went up on the production, we moved rehearsals over to the Civic Center performance hall and they became a nightly affair. We would be stuck down there almost to midnight each evening, and those of us with relatively minor parts had a whole lot of free time on our hands. As you might expect, I spent a lot of that time off in the wings talking with Bronwen.

Imagine, if you will, the scene: Late at night, we're off in the dimly-lit area to the left of the stage, sitting together in a swing that was part of one of the sets. We're looking into each other's eyes, and in the background the orchestra can be heard working through If I Loved You, one of the timeless classics from the show...

"If I loved you,
Time and again I would try to say...
All I'd want you to know.

If I loved you,
Words wouldn't come in an easy way...
Round in circles I'd go.

Longing to tell you, but afraid and shy,
I'd let my golden chances pass me by.

Soon you'd leave me,
Off you would go in the mist of day,
Never, never to know...

How I'd loved you...
If I loved you."

Everything within me was telling me to kiss her. I'll admit to the fact that I was apprehensive, because I'd never kissed anyone before. What if she slapped me? What if I was a bad kisser and she spread the rumor around to everyone?? What if she never talks to me again??? You know the thoughts that run through your head in such a situation.

But suddenly, as I looked at this lovely girl, I thought to myself - this is it, David Roland. If there ever was a time to make your move, this is the time. So slowly, hesitantly, I leaned in until her lips met mine somewhere in the middle. We held the contact briefly, then pulled back and smiled at each other. Before either of us could say anything, the director was calling for the next scene and I had to get on stage.

And that was it. The show closed the next Sunday evening and I never kissed Bronwen again, though we remained friends through high school. She did eventually get cast in a movie - in Disney's Tom and Huck, which was filmed not far from where we lived in North Alabama, she played Tom's older sister, Mary. All of her lines got cut from the final version of the film, but she does appear on screen several times with Jonathan Taylor Thomas (who played Tom) and she did briefly date Brad Renfro (who played Huck). I suppose that at the time I just wasn't much of a match for the likes of those guys. ;-) But even if nothing ever came of it, I'll always remember that night very fondly, and I'll always smile when I hear If I Loved You.

Who was your first kiss and how did it happen?

Tough Questions

2005-08-11T11:11:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine recently told me that he was having some difficulty answering a set of questions posed by a non-Christian associate of his: 1) Which is more important for Christians - what you believe or how you live?; 2) If the point of Christianity is for us to live in accordance with certain virtues, why should someone who already strives for those virtues become a Christian?; and 3) Why would anyone aspire to Christianity when, if taken seriously, Jesus' teachings are so extreme that they would require more sacrifice than anyone in their right mind would be willing to offer?

I think each of these questions flow naturally from agnosticism because that they don't presume an actual calling from God to fulfill the mandates of Christianity (whatever those mandates are eventually determined to be). In response to the first question, I point to the example that Jesus gave us. While he naturally expected faith on the part of his listeners, and while his miracles were intended to produce a belief that he was specially chosen of God, Jesus' teachings were almost entirely about how God has called us to live. Jesus laid out the essence of Christianity when he pronounced the greatest commands: "Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; love your neighbor as yourself." So in answer to the first line of inquiry, I'd affirm that no understanding of Christianity can be complete if it doesn't emphasize a distinctive approach to living life in love for others. In my mind, distinct metaphysical understandings are of significantly less importance than a commitment to live in the way that God calls us to live.

Tying these thoughts into the second question, I'd proceed to say that just as "faith without works* is dead", living a virtuous life in the absence of any faith (while admirable) fails to address the spiritual aspect of our lives. Humans are almost universally aware of Something greater than ourselves, though we have different ways of understanding and explaining what the Something is. It's what C.S. Lewis referred to as the "God-shaped hole", or the search for ultimate meaning. One can clearly choose to live virtuously without feeling impelled by your understanding of the greater Something (and I'm willing to say that people who do so are not necessarily in danger of Hell, based on Romans 2), but I believe if you carefully consider why you want to be a virtuous person it will eventually come back to the greater Something. The Judeo-Christian heritage understands that God is the greater Something, and correctly links our innate desire for meaning and direction to our souls - the spiritual part of each of us that makes us in the very image of God. Furthermore, Jewish and Christian thought comprehends that God has communicated to us through the ages, telling us that it is his will for us to live selflessly (which I think is equivalent to the idea of "virtue"). Anyone who chooses a virtuous life should be applauded, because they are abandoning (at least to an extent) their own good for the good of others - and that is admirable. But I firmly believe that their decision to live virtuously would be much more greatly appreciated and dearly held if they had an understanding of how the greater Something (God) is intimately related to the very idea of virtue itself. It is that broader spiritual understanding that (I believe) enables Christians to have a richer appreciation for friendship, family, and the pursuit of their own lives and goals.

This brings me to the final question - Why would anyone be willing to sacrifice as much as Jesus' teachings seem to ask of us? Well, honestly, very few people - even Christians - are so willing. While people all have a spiritual side, we are undeniably animal as well. Our primal, animalistic instincts are essentially selfish. They tell us to cling to what is ours, climb the social ladder, pursue comfort, and do what you must to protect your family and friends. These instincts are hard-wired into the human psychology, which is why what Jesus taught is so radical and so difficult to actually live. Not only did Jesus tell people to give up their possessions, he asked them to abandon their families if that was what it would take to live the life to which we are called. If one takes to heart Jesus' admonitions to turn the other cheek and to refrain from resisting evildoers, it might well mean giving up our own lives. These teachings are so difficult as to border on insanity! But they are the logical extension of a principle that always places the good of others before your own personal desires.

The important thing to keep in mind is that we don't have to incorporate this radical selflessness perfectly into our lives before we can acknowledge that it is what God desires of us. Christianity, in my mind, is about that acknowledgment and the continual, lived effort to bring myself closer every day to the ideals that Jesus taught. Individual Christians may have absolutely no hope of ever achieving those ideals, but by relying on strength that God can provide we can move in the right direction. Where we are weak and where we fail, we can trust that God is gracious and will continue to be with us. An explanation of how grace comes about and why it is needed is probably best reserved for another conversation, so I'll end my thoughts on that point. Let me know if y'all have anything to add or if you disagree with a point that I've made.

The Quad - Dave and His College Roomies

2005-08-03T21:49:00.000-04:00

My friends will frequently hear me talking about my college roommates. I had some of the greatest roommates ever, and I make a point of keeping in pretty close touch with them. Allow me to introduce you...

James "Sweetbaby" Taylor - This guy and I met at my church in eighth grade and have been virtually inseparable ever since. We both decided that Abilene Christian University was the place we wanted to go to college, so it was only natural that we'd room together for our freshman year. We each had different roommates during our sophomore year, but missed each other so much we got an apartment together (our beloved University Park #1025 or TenTwentyFive, for short) for the last two years of college. Even when I went off to grad school at Vanderbilt, Sweetbaby made a point of coming up to visit about once a week for the first year or so. He's now putting the finishing touches on a Master's degree in Counseling from Alabama A&M University. A little more than a year ago, James got hitched to a Canadian gal named Heather. A few weeks ago, they found out that H has a bun in the oven! The little one - whom I have dubbed "Sweetpea" - is due to arrive in February.

Christopher Sean Beswick - As if you couldn't tell from the picture, Beswick is without exception the most entertainingly ridiculous person I know. He lived two doors down from Sweetbaby and me in our freshman dorm at ACU, and my first impression of him was drawn from his unique style of decor. He had "Gringo Gumby," a six-foot-tall cardboard cut-out of the claymation character, to which he'd added a giant sombrero, a Mexican blanket, criss-crossed bullet belts, and an empty bottle of Johnny Walker taped to Gumby's waving right hand. He'd also drawn on a Pancho Villa mustache and a smoldering cigarette. Beswick also had an unusual way of coping with trash - by duct-taping it to the ceiling instead of tossing it in the trashcan. Chris and I ended up pledging the same social club (Frater Sodalis - BT!!) during our sophomore year, and that's when our friendship really blossomed. He lived with another of our club brothers right next door to me and Mike, who you'll hear about below. We had so much fun getting in trouble together that Chris joined James and I in TenTwentyFive for the last two years of school. After graduation, Chris moved back to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, to teach high school English and coach soccer. Chris recently coached the Colleyville-Heritage Panthers to their first ever soccer division title, then promptly got married to celebrate. See my previous post, "Adventures Out West", for more about this guy.

Michael Patrick Vein - Mike pledged Frats with Chris and I, which led to his becoming my roommate during our sophomore year. He's a quieter type than the rest of us, but under that exterior is a riotous - if off-beat - sense of humor. Mike couldn't join us in TenTwentyFive during our junior year, but he became part of The Quad for our senior year. Mike was the first of the three of us to get hitched, tying the knot the day after graduation. He and his wife, Kate, now live in Chicago where he works as a human resources manager.

So those are the boys. We still try to get all four of us together at least once a year. For the past couple of years it's been pretty easy, thanks to Sweetbaby and Beswick getting married. We pulled together weekend-long batchelor parties for each of the guys - Memphis for James, New Orleans for Chris - and we all managed to get together for James's wedding as well. Hang around either me or my blog for long enough and you'll be sure to hear tales about our misadventures. But tonight I'm sleepy, so the pictures will just have to talk for themselves.

Losing Eden

2005-07-27T16:56:00.000-04:00

I'm currently revisiting an absolutely fantastic book - Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond. It won a Pulitzer Prize back in 1998.

Essentially, Diamond presents a sort of "grand unified theory" to explain why human societies developed in such a way that European and Asian civilizations came to dominate the planet's resources. In the process, he debunks the notion that Europeans or Asians had any inherent biological or intellectual advantage, arguing instead that their societies hit the geographical jackpot in regard to the availability of domesticable plant and animal species. Domestication led to efficient food production, which led in turn to the establishment of villages, population growth and centralization, labor specialization, and (most importantly) to the availability of time for the development of knowledge. Population centers thus permitted both the development of technology and hereditary resistance to diseases. As a result, when European and Asian societies came into contact with populations that lacked either the resources or the time to develop equivalent technologies or immunities of their own, the invaders swiftly dominated the natives. The resulting world is one in which the European and Asian civilizations have largely controlled the course of history.

As Diamond demonstrates in his book, the archaological and genetic record of humanity's development suggests very strongly that humanity originated somewhere in Africa roughly seven million years ago and started to explore the rest of the world about one million years ago. The record further suggests that about fifty thousand years ago humans that were nearly genetically and intellectually identical to modern-day humans - the ancestors of every person alive today - made their first foray out of Africa. Agriculture, or the systematic development and growth of plants for the purpose of a later harvest, originated about eleven thousand years ago in the Middle East's "Fertile Crescent" and arose independently in several locations all over the globe over the next five or six thousand years. Animal domestication (not counting dogs) followed fairly close on the heels of plant domestication.

Three years ago, when I was first reading this book, I had an epiphany. If the knowledge we have gained from archaeological and genetic records is accurate, the Garden of Eden as described in the book of Genesis never existed. Intellectually, I had accepted this possibility long before - my faith in God does not hinge on the factual inerrancy of the Bible, and particularly not the stories of the Old Testament. But what really rocked me - as I was listening to a sermon - was the realization that so much of the traditional understanding of Christian theology hinges on the Garden of Eden. We think of God's relationship with humanity as following a certain story arch - humanity was created in a state of perfection and harmony with both God and Nature; Satanic temptation and human disobedience destroyed Eden, introducing sin, toil, and suffering and requring sacrifice to restore the relationship between God and humanity; God provided the bridge for reconciliation via Jesus' death on the cross; the rest of human history will be the story of how that reconciliation is finally realized in Christ's return, in effect restoring everything to the state of perfection that existed in Eden.

So what happens to the traditional Christian story if Eden never existed? Does our understanding of God's relationship to us change if humanity had always been forced to struggle for survival in the wilderness? What might it mean for the idea of sin and redemption if there never was a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Should our understanding of a heavenly paradise change if we acknowledge that earth has never known such a paradise? Over the past several years I've come to my own answers on these questions. I'll share them on this blog, but for now I'm more interested to hear what y'all think.
-----------------------------------------------
[ADDITIONAL MATERIAL, ADDED 7/30/2005]

I posed the above questions with the promise that I'd share my own answers, so here you go...

Shayna hit at one of the first issues raised: What might it mean to be "made in God's image" if we [as humans] were not introduced to Creation in our modern-day form the way that Genesis describes it? I agree wholeheartedly that humanity's relationship to God's image is bound up entirely with our existence as spiritual beings. I believe that humanity, despite the fact that we are animals in almost every way similar to those that surround us, has been specially called by God, given souls and consciences so that we can transcend the mere primal instinct that dictates the lives of all other animals. That is what sets us apart as existing specially in God's image and in a special, unique relationship with our Creator.

But what if there was no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? How did our relationship with God get off track in the first place? Sin was introduced into the world not when Adam and Eve bit into a piece of fruit, but the first time that a human understood how God expected them to live and made a conscious decision to act contrary to God's expectation. Whether or not Eden was a literal place, sin - our state of disobedience - is still what separates us from God. And, as Carl pointed out, Jesus is absolutely fundamental in human history because his life provides a model of blameless, sanctified living to which we all should aspire, and his death represents an atoning sacrifice that enables reconciliation between God and humanity. [As an aside, I'll add that I absolutely reject the notion of "Original Sin", which states that all humans enter the world with the taint of Adam and Eve's transgression, so that no one has any hope of salvation apart from Jesus. To the contrary (and true to my "Pelagius" moniker), I believe that people are solely responsible for our own sins and that we become accountable to God by choosing to depart from the loving, compassionate, selfless life to which we are all called. I'll probably post more on this line of thought some time down the road.]

As for the final question I posed above, my answer relates to the observation that our spiritual self is what is made in God's image. Many of the Bible's images of heaven are described in ways that suggest they are physical and tangible. I can't think this is really accurate. Just as God transcends physicality, I think that once we have died, our own spirits will not be bound or related to the physical world that we now live in. Granted, I have absolutely nothing with which to back up this perspective - it's just my opinion based on a lot of thought about the matter. I'd definitely be interested to hear from y'all, whether you agree or disagree.

Family Fun

2005-07-20T21:07:00.000-04:00

I apparently have done a poor job of telling people about my family. Last week I realized that I had somehow neglected to tell a good friend some of the most basic things about my sisters. I was kind of ashamed of myself for that and since I just came home from a family reunion, I think it would be appropriate for me to dedicate a post to explaining a bit about my folks.

My family has been in the American South since long before the American Revolution. We have been in the Tennessee for many generations, which is one of the reasons why I have a fierce allegiance to my home state. My great-great-grandfather, Isaac Newton Roland, and my great-grandfather, Clifford Paul Roland (pictured), helped to establish Freed-Hardeman University, a small Church of Christ school in Henderson, Tennessee. One of the amazing things about the small world that is the Church of Christ is that I sometimes run into people who studied under great-granddaddy. By all accounts he was a very pleasant and very Godly man, and it makes me happy to hear him remembered fondly. He died when I was seven years old, so I don't remember much about him from personal experience, but one of my dad's prized photos is one taken shortly before great-granddady's death, with the four generations of Roland men from great-granddaddy down to me. I am told that C.P. and I have many similarities (including Masters degrees from Vanderbilt's Divinity School!), and I can only hope to live up to his example.

My grandfather, Hall Roland, was C.P.'s second son. He married my grandmother, Juanita June Clifton, got a Masters in Bible at Abilene Christian University (then just a College), then went on and got a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering. He taught briefly at Vanderbilt University, then took a job at the University of Tennessee, where he served for more than thirty years as a professor of Nuclear Engineering.

I love the story of how Grandmom and Granddad got together. Granddaddy was home from the Navy, and he'd decided he wanted to double-date with his little brother, Ike. So, in a time-honored tradition, they pulled out the high school yearbook and started looking for the prettiest girls in the area. Sure enough, Granddaddy saw the picture of Grandmom. He recognized her a little bit because he had been a referee at one or two of her high school basketball games, and he decided that she was the one he wanted to call. Grandmom, who lived in a small city in West Tennessee not far from Henderson, had for some time been seeing a boy from Memphis. Well he had started to get serious about the direction of their relationship, but Grandmom was getting tired of him. She intended to go off to Ole Miss for college and didn't want to be tied down. So on that fateful day she had just called the Memphis boy and told him that she didn't think she'd be seeing him any more. When Granddad got her on the phone, she didn't feel like going out with him, but she didn't really have anything better to do either. She agreed to go. By the end of the night, she didn't know for certain that she wanted to marry him, but she sure knew that she'd like to marry someone like him. Her time at Ole Miss was short-lived - they got married not long afterward.

My dad, Edward Roland, was Grandmom and Granddad's first child. He grew up in the '50s and '60s, while Granddad was finishing school and getting started in academia. Once he got to college, he failed to take it seriously and he essentially flunked out. But not before he'd met my mom, Martha Faye Clifton (not a close relation to Grandmom) on a blind date! They got married in 1969 - my mom was 19, my dad was 18. Pretty quickly after they got married, Papa realized that Vietnam was in his future. Knowing that he'd have more control over his destiny if he signed up than if he was drafted, he enlisted as a medic. My second-oldest sister (more on this in a bit) was born shortly before he had to ship out for the war - he spent his first Christmas as a father in Bien Hoa. Once he got back from Vietnam, Papa spent a long time selling insurance - a job that he hated. Mama, meanwhile, stayed at home with all of us young'uns, occasionally accepting jobs making wedding dresses. But one fateful day in 1989 a tornado hit Huntsville, Alabama, the city where we lived, and my dad was called on to use his medical skills again. That experience, along with some prodding from my mom, led him to go back to school to become a nurse. For the last few years he's been working as a nurse practitioner, and he's been more happy with his career than he ever was when I was growing up.

Now, I have to explain the sister situation. I have four of them, but this sometimes gets confusing. Bethany, the one mentioned above, was my parents' firstborn child. I do have an older sister, however, because Lauri, who is a couple of years older than Bethany, was actually born to one of my uncles but came to live with us when she was a pre-teen. I may be a little bit of a slow learner because, despite the fact that Lauri's biological parentage was an open topic of conversation, I was about ten years old before it occurred to me that she was anything other than just a regular sister. After Bethany was born, the doctors told my mom that she couldn't have any more kids. In light of this turn of events, my parents adopted my third sister, Rebekah, from Korea. Shortly thereafter, they found out that I was on the way. So in a pretty short time, my family went from one kid to four. Two years after my own birth, another sister, Miriam Grace, was born. Sadly, she was born with massive health issues and she only survived about 24 hours. It was an extraordinary blessing, then, when a few years later my mom found out she was pregnant with my little sister, Anna Caroline.

Nowadays, Lauri is married and living in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband, Dwayne, and my two-year-old niece, Meredith. She also has a fifteen-year-old son, Joshua, who lives with his father (her first husband, Will) just outside of Huntsville. Bethany teaches middle school music and lives with her husband, Scott, and my five-year-old nephew, Elijah, in Winchester, Tennessee. Bethany is expecting a baby boy in November. Rebekah, a registered nurse, is currently a stay-at-home mom living in Troy, Illinois, with her husband, Jason, and taking care of my three-year-old niece, Ruth, and my brand new (as of March) niece, Lydia. Anna Caroline lives with her husband, Len, in Huntsville, and they are expecting their first child - a daughter! - also in November. Yes, you read correctly... there will be three babies celebrating their first Christmas in our family this year!

That's an awful lot of information, so I'll leave it at that. Sorry if this is kind of scattershot or ill-thought-through, but I mostly just wanted to get it all written down.

This picture is from my Memorial Day hike with my cousin...

2005-07-11T23:59:00.000-04:00

Dave and Nicholas

I've Made a Decision

2005-07-11T22:11:00.000-04:00

Most people who have had an in-depth conversation with me about religious matters will know that my theological understandings are... unorthodox. In the course of studying and thinking about God, I've come to conclusions that are pretty radically different from the great majority of people who raised in the Christian tradition. This presents a dilemma when it comes to conversations with most other Christians - fundamentalist Christians in particular - because however firmly I hold my own convictions, I do not believe it is my role to challenge the structure and foundations of their beliefs. My inclination, then, is to keep the more radical of my understandings close to my vest, but subtly to encourage the people with whom I'm speaking to think about their religious assumptions from unfamiliar perspectives. If as a result my conversation partners shift their perspective, I hope it will be the result of their own reflection rather than the adoption of my ideas. I'm pretty self-conscious on this point.

Which brings me to the aforementioned decision that I've made. In the context of this blog, I've decided that I want to openly express my thoughts on theological matters. I hope that in reading the ideas that I post, my readers will think carefully about what I say and then post their own responses to let me know if you agree or disagree with something that I've said. Perhaps we can open up a dialogue that will help us understand each other better.