List Nauseum

The following is my end of the year list. Now, before you navigate back to your Facebook page, let me at least say that this list is different then all the other lists you've read. For starters, Kanye West's new album is nowhere on it.

First an introduction (no seriously, don't go to your Facebook page just yet). My favorite end of the year list is David Brooks' annual "Sidney Awards," where Brooks' mines the best magazine essays (this was a particular gem) of the past twelve months. I would like to do something similar, but with my own twists and biases. I would like to introduce you to my friends. At least some of those who have an online presence. I want to highlight their best 2010 writing to bow out the year. I found their words edifying, and I suspect you will as well. Trust me, it'll be worth the time, as you recover from your New Years party, college football in the background.

Following Christ is a growing-up process that involves and a lot of falling and a lot of grace. It often feels clumsy, Spiritual Klutz is a weekly reminder, via personal stories, of grace and redemption - big, small and always relatable. If you are new to Spiritual Klutz, I highly recommend his series about forgiving his father. However, if his own statistics are any indication, I suspect what you're really interested in is the series on singleness.

Hyde Park Heroes follow E. (or is it L.?) and her husband M. as they take on the Second City (that's Chicago, if you're still wondering). Working in an urban non-profit, E. (or is it L.?) has a good word, with links to resources, on poverty and Christianity. Or, for something more light hearted, you can read about their trip to Chinatown, where the fish are, somehow, worse than the Washington Monument.

With Clearspring taking off (become a customer by clicking the orange button with a plus sign to the left of this page), Justin has not put a lot of updates on the Oatmeal Stout blog (c'mon buddy, pick up the slack!), and the last update to his food blog was written by a rather untrustworthy guest. I can, however, recommend his relatives. In fact, Via his dad's blog, you can read about a family who embraces the online life. Plus, his future wife has a great blog on art, craft and small business.

If there were any good spiritual ideas on Un Till, I probably got it elsewhere. Take a moment to check out my pastors' new blog, or learn all about my father's church in O-town.

Finally, no Kanye, but I do have some musical recommendations for you. Ben is back in Washington and writing some great indy rock. (You should also check out his wife's, Lauren's, paintings) Crowds and critics eagerly anticipate Wendell's new album in 2011, but you can preview his new stuff via YouTube (for example). Tortoise and Hair made in on the radio with a great series of interviews and songs. These videos brought back plenty of fond college memories (I lived with the Tortoise during my junior year).

If I left you out, it's because I forgot, so forgive me for goofing. Go ahead and link to your blog in the comment section. Plus, I'd love to meet the online versions (and maybe even the real versions) of your friends. It is, of course, different than meeting them in person. But if read an essay or listen to a song written for art, processing or fun, you will know a part of an author you may have otherwise not discovered. Send me your recommendations. I hope you had a great 2010, and I wish you blessings, peace and God's love in 2011.

A Place for Everyone

I resonate with Makoto Fujimura.

When I meet someone on a plane and I tell them I am an artist, I almost always have to go into “explaining mode” to answer the same common questions: “What kind of art do you make?” “Why do you do it?” “Can you make a living?”

If I said I was an electrical engineer, explaining would not be necessary. But tell people, particularly Christians, that I am an artist and I am immediately regarded with suspicion and thoughtless dismissal: “You don’t paint nudes, do you?” “I don’t understand modern art.” “You make that weird stuff that my kids could paint and then call it ‘art,’ don’t you?”

No wonder artist types sit in the back of the church and leave as soon as the music ends, if they come to church at all. Church is for successful people, for respectable folks with real jobs.

Now, I am not an artist, I have a "real job" and sometimes I am good at playing the respectable insider at church. But I have an artist's leaning and an artist's sympathies, and among my regrets is the wish I had patiently nurtured these inclinations, particularly in high school and college. I attempt to do this now. This blog is an outlet for my creative and thoughtful side, and I take particular joy in leading worship at my church, because I get to be play a creative role in genuine Kingdom work. Thus, I am encouraged when Fujimura goes on to describe how blissfully artistic God and many of his chosen people are. Like the typical artist in the back of the church he describes, I have often felt left out in church settings where the artist's gifts and sensibilities are unappreciated.

This train of thought reminded me, however, of a post by John Mark Reynolds in First Things' Evangel blog. Reynolds reminds us that, whatever her flaws as an artist or a philosopher, Ayn Rand sticks up for the businessman. I would argue with anyone who treats productivity as the highest virtue, but it is a virtue, and so much of what's good about our country was built on the back the business folk who produced things, with efficiency, in an effort to maximize potential. Rand stands out, Reynolds notes, because so much art and entertainment treats business types with contempt. But it is these types who create wealth, jobs and prosperity, and make a real contribution to art and flourishing.

So, both the artist and the businessman feel under attack. Anyone else? Perhaps the traveler, or the domestic? The lawyer? The politician? The athlete? The un-athletic? The academic? The less educated? A particular class? Gender? Race? Background? Interest? Political persuasion? Personality type?

The good news is, the church has a place for you. John writes in Revelations that every tongue, tribe and nation will be represented. He might have added that every occupation and Myers-Briggs letter combination will be there as well. Strange, isn't it, in light of our continued sad divisions? Strange as well, even in churches where the people seem relatively uniform, we can feel isolated in our interests and inclinations. Perhaps an artist can sit next to a businessperson in the pew, both wondering if they are judged, if they are among the left out?

I don't think the answer is more niche-market churches - we will spend an eternity together (which will indeed be heaven and not hell), so we should learn to make everyone feel welcome. We certainly need the likes of Fujimura and Reynolds to remind us how our types, strengths and indeed our very diversity reflect our Creator. When we go to church, we need to find those who are like us, who understand us and who we understand. They will be water for our souls. We also need to find those who are different, and learn from them. If done well, with genuine love, honesty and openness, they will strengthen us. They will point us in the right direction to make the church as it should be. As it will be.

Pastures and Valleys

During a sermon, our English pastor said that of all the books on prayer he has read, A Praying Life by Paul Miller is the only one that actually helped him pray. Plenty were great books which helped him better understand prayer, but this relatively short text brought him to his knees.

I started Paul Miller's prayer journey while on vacation in Germany and just finished it next to our house's new and still-naked Christmas tree this afternoon, and so far I agree. I pray more. By God's grace, I am confident that I will continue to do so (I know, I know - ask me in a few weeks).

The last book on prayer I started was Richard Foster's beautifully-written Prayer, which moves from elementary to graduate school level praying. I quit half way through. I write this blushing; I'm not proud. I learned good things about prayer, and I gained wisdom from the saints, and Foster's one of the few living Christian writers whose prose is worth the price of admission. But with each chapter came a new level of method and petition that was not going to happen in my life, between early rises and baby cries, Metro rides and computer screens, work, church, marriage, rest, reading, writing.

I read With Christ in the School of Prayer when I lived in Germany several years ago. How I remember it, it was almost the opposite of Foster's book - plenty of passion with less method. My own passion was inadequate to the challenge, and I put the book down feeling tired and thirsty. A good posture for prayer given my need, except I didn't pray any more than I did when I started.

Given my history, I was reluctant to start another one, even after my mom, my pastor and my wife all said I should read A Praying Life. My mom even bought us a copy. The tag line on the back cover, "Let's Face It, Prayer Is Hard!" did nothing to encourage me. It sounds like the squeaky slogan of some Christian salesman who is about to insist that it really isn't hard. "Shields up!" I thought.

If what I just wrote resonates with you, ignore the cynical instincts that protect the old wounds of misplaced hope. Read a book by someone whose experience, suffering and growing care for others has taught him to pray. Paul Miller, without pretense or arrogance, presents himself as someone we can learn from, not because he is an ueber-saint but because he is human. And yes, he honestly and graciously addresses cynicism, wounds and hope deferred.

Here are a few reasons I could stick with A Praying Life. First, he acknowledges reality and reminds us of God's grace. He gently reminds us that in our imperfections, our distracted minds (mine seems particularly prone to distraction), God loves and will meet us in our imperfect offerings. In one chapter, he describes his morning prayer routine. It requires coffee and is interrupted by his autistic daughter and conversations with his wife. No matter. God meets him there, anyway.

Second, Miller keeps us from chasing the rainbow's end called "experience God," and instead reminds us that prayer is to build a relationship. God is there, whether or not we are "feelin' it," and prayer is our way to build nearness and intimacy to One whose love beyond all our asking and imagining.

Many of Miller's prayers are people focused, which helps me. Rather than formula's or recipes, he shows how he prays for his family, his friends, the lost He shows how that in praying for others, he can trust God with them. In doing so, his trust in God grows, as does his love for others. None of the prayer books I've read took me in such specific and intimate prayer journeys.

I could go on, but read the book instead. If it does not help you pray, put it back on the shelf or give it to someone else this Christmas. But I suspect it will. I am thankful for A Praying Life. In it, Miller not only tells but shows how the Lord is our shepherd, how he is there in green pastures and dark valleys.

Royalty

I watch my daughter, nearly eleven months old, struggle to crawl. She is on the floor between wonderful old German toys, the kind of toys that make adults weep for an idyllic past but, if memory serves me, puzzle children. Why these antiquities when there are wonderful, colorful things advertised on television?

In any case, my daughter is too young to be seduced by the boob tube. For her, nothing is antiquated. Everything is something new, to be held, examined, touched, tasted. In particular, any mirror is absolutely enthralling. Magically smooth and cold, sometimes containing images of a smiling waiving Papa, Mama, Oma or Opa, always containing that beautiful, baby girl with deep brown eyes who smiles back and imitates her every movement. Such wonder is just worth a rigorous crawl across the rug in the living room. It's not easy, almost unnatural, requiring plenty of grunts and coos along the way, but she makes progress, just learning to crawl on those soft little arms.

Sometimes she stops. She sits up, which always brings her a foot or two back, and sucks her thumb with a frowned expression. Sometimes the expression is, "Keep going, you can do it." Sometimes it is, "well, good try, ol' sport, but enough of that." I can never tell until she either continues her quest, or, thumb still in her mouth, she fixes her attention on an object within her grasping range. Or, she looks at me, waives her arms and with a part-cry, part-squeal, demands to be picked up. There are, after all, quicker ways from point A to point B.

In all this, I reflect that I am royalty. With all my problems, with the weight of life, responsibility, future, money, relationship and other uncertain necessities, I ask myself, what a kingly privilege to be the father of a near-eleven month old girl, who crawls, babbles and explores between wonderful old German toys. What have I conquered, in what great city have I celebrated my triumph, with parades of chariots and golden scepters, to have deserved such a prize?

Fraport

Earlier this week, my wife, daughter and I landed in Frankfurt Airport, owned and operated by Fraport, which is fun to say and looks good on the local soccer team's jersey. If you are a world traveler, chances are, you've been there too. Fraport is sort of an industrial Wonderland maze of stainless steel and colored lights. It somehow feels both unmanageably huge and cramped at the same time, like hidden passages in the Death Star or the layer of a 60's James Bond villain. Can't you picture Bond, pistol in hand, bikinied foreigner by his side, racing through the passages to dismantle some sort of exotic weapon of mass destruction before it's too late?

And yet, in spite of these discomforts, I love it there. There's no other building that awakens my Reiselust in the same way. Fraport is a journeyman engine moving travelers of all kinds, uniting us briefly along the way to Munich, Chicago or Johannesburg. The silver labyrinth somehow produces people of every size, shape and color, every tongue, tribe and nation. Stressed but determined, tired but adventurous, business suits, sweat pants, hijabs, high heels, jeans, cowboy boots, turbans, baseball caps. All of us, regardless of where we come from, united in that we are going somewhere, pulling, pushing and bearing our belongings with expectation.

My Father's Robe

It's been edifying to read Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers compiled by Arthur Bennett. Puritan prayers are great because the puritans are of the "Big God party," and each word is carefully and generously bathed in His wonder and majesty. They really believed that God is eternal, present and very involved, and reading them helps me to do the same. I commend it to you - try a few prayers on for yourself see if love and holiness, grace and truth are, to your senses, larger and nearer.

The book is divided into sections under different themes (Trinity, Redemption and Reconciliation, etc...), and I have assigned a different theme to each day of the week. The reason I do it this way, rather than just read the prayers straight through, is I do not believe I could survive reading the "Penitence and Deprecation" section all at once. As it is P&D are confined to Tuesdays. A fair criticism of Puritans and personal difficulty (among several) I have with them is that in their emphasis on Total Depravity, there can be so much self-flagellation that the reader forgets that by another's stripes we have been healed. It is worth and necessary to weep and morn in our repentance, we cannot taste Grace and remain somber.

But on this particular Tuesday I prayed a beautiful prayer that I wanted to share, mostly for the imagery. Feel, for a moment, your sin as garments caked with filth indescribable (at least in a family-friendly blog), and feel yourself washed clean, and clothed in the Father's robe (if you own Valley of Vision, it's on page 76):

"I am always standing clothed in filthy garments, and by grace I am always receive change of raiment, for thou dost always justify the ungodly

I am always going into the far country, and always returning home as a prodigal, always saying, Father, forgive me, and thou art always bringing forth the best robe.

Every morning, let me wear it, every evening return in it, go out to the day's work in it, be married in it, be wound in death in it, stand before the great white throne in it, enter heaven in it shining as the sun.

Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the exceeding righteousness of salvation, the exceeding glory of Christ, the exceeding beauty of holiness, the exceeding wonder of grace."

A Request

Can we please hold off on public displays of Christmas until the Advent season actually begins? Or at least until the day after Thanksgiving?

Not to be a Scrooge, but as the Fed tries to prevent economic deflation, our own country has begun to suffer from Christmas cheer inflation. Holiday colors have been out at retailers since mid-October, and they turned on the carols as soon as the spider webs and jack-o-lanterns were taken down. I can't go shopping without seeing unwanted visions of sugar plumbs and prematurely decked halls. Call me weak, but I'm not sure of my poor lungs can handle a three month sprint of holiday hustle and bustle.

Yes, I realize that finishing Christmas shopping and decorating before Veterans Day allows the American woman to achieve Martha Stewart Nirvana, where household, hosting and holiday turn blissfully in a gingerbread-smelling ethereal plane.

Yes, I realize that troubled retailers are desperately competing to get you in the holiday shopping spirit as soon as possible.

Yes, I realize that in troubled economic times like these, the best response is to buy early and often to get our nation back in the black.

But one of the things that makes a holiday special is the simple fact that it doesn't happen all year long. The more something happens, the less special it is. And considering the weight of what this holiday actually symbolizes, i.E. God Himself, entering the world for redemption and rescue, wouldn't it be worth it to keep the wonder, a bit more confined, and therefore more potent?

Questions for "The Social Network", or Billionaires Are People Too

As a film, few have anything bad to say about "The Social Network." Critics and audiences love it (HT Ross Douthat for the link). The actors, writers and director are excellent, I read. I haven't seen the film yet, and I would honestly like to, more to be a part of the conversation than to think that I would enjoy it. (I've seen much less films in the theaters since my daughter was born, so I may have to wait until it hits my local library)

The haunting previews made me wonder if the film's marketers thought I would be attracted to a take-down of Facebook's wildly successful founder, Mark Zuckerberg (though I love the boy's choir version of "Creep" by Radiohead). He comes across as part Shakespearian tyrant and part insolent teenager with enough computer geek thrown in to remind you of what he does. This probably does not paint the whole picture, of course. News services are doing their due diligence about "The Social Network's" accuracy. I've read mixed reports as to whether or not Zuckerberg himself will see (or has seen) the film, but I'd understand it if he didn't. Imagine if those who disliked or did not understand you made a film inflating the worst parts of your character? Would it help that the critics were salivating?

Given the city I live in, perhaps this bothers me too much. Politics and everything public are a dirty sport, and those involve can expect to "make a few enemies" as the film, smirking, points out. But I can't help but wonder if, what if I were the subject slanderous books describing my childhood, or with protesters carrying my portrait with superimposed Hitler mustache. Yes, the film probably won't ultimately hurt Zuckerberg. He has enough money to stuff his mattress with thousand dollar bills and completely retire from public life. And yes, I'm sure his rise to the top isn't without story and controversy. But I hope the biopic is fairer than the previews and critiques indicate. Whatever the sins and temptations that come from wealth, success and influence, they do not shield us from humanity. Those who make films, write columns or scrawl unaccountable words in cyberspace should keep that in mind.

Love College

The New York Times has some great advice from graduate assistants on how undergraduates can make the most of their college experience. As someone who continues to interact with students, I'd like to share a few of my own thoughts. Much of what's written below could be filed under "woulda shoulda coulda" for this B.A. holder:

1. Just say no to Starbucks, Chili's, Johnny Rocket's or any other restaurant, coffee shop, or bar you could find anywhere else in America. If you want to watch the creative energy of competitive small business, look at all the dining places that spring up and die around college campuses. Coffee shops, cup cake trends, creative pubs, sushi - the resources for a culinary adventure are within walking distance from your dorm. College is a chance to develop expand your taste for strange food, foreign beer and locally grown veggies. Taco Bell is for high school students. It's time to grow into something more interesting.
2. Travel. Of course, you're reading words from a man who fell in love with a foreigner and the foreign country she came from. But even before that (and, for me, before college) travel broadened my mind and added to my education in a way a classroom never could. Study abroad. Go on a mission trip or a service project. Believe me, you won't have your kind of energy five years from now. Don't sit around campus; see the world.
3. Hang out with international students. I loved getting to know people from Japan, India, Germany, France and Palestine at my university's international coffee hour. I volunteered as an English language partner for the university's intensive English study center. International students not only bring you new perspectives, but it is fascinating to meet those who are willing to get their education under completely new contexts. While your at it, take your international friend home to meet your parents. Only 10% of international students see the inside of an American home (college apartments don't count), and those that do count it as one of the experiences that had the most impact on their time in the States.
4. Protest. Chances are that during your four years the government will do something that goes against your deepest values. Join the throngs, make a sign, paint your face and practice democracy.
5. While your at it, vote. The voter turn out for young people is embarrassing. Don't forget to register, and don't forget to mail your ballot in. Even if you don't like the candidates, write something in or choose the lesser of two evils. Politicians pay attention to who votes, and if your particular demographic is underrepresented, they will not cater to you.
6. Get to know your professors. I could perhaps say "network" with your professors, but that sound so impersonal and utilitarian. Now, that being said, one of the reasons I wished I had done more of this was to get those recommendations for jobs or grad school. But don't have the posture of someone who is merely looking for career stepping stones. Your professors have worked hard to know and understand interesting things to share with you, and they will be all to happy to pass along what they know beyond their planned lectures. Visit them in their office hours to talk not just about your grades but about their expertise. Ask questions during class, and engage them after class. You won't regret it.
7. Know thyself. Had I better known myself, there's a lot I would have done differently. Plenty of folks my age say the same. Find out how you are wired - personality tests at your college career center will help with this, as will a part time job in the professional world. Find where your gifts lie through trial and error, but once you have them, aggressively pursue majors and careers that will best use them.
8. Don't skimp the economics classes, especially if you are in the social sciences. As an idealistic international relations major, I took the bare minimum requirement of economics (as an aside, an international relations degree should have required more econ than what ours did). I was turned off by the math, the charts, the terms (note to all economics teachers - you'll help your students if you explain the concepts before getting them to memorize the terms) and the fact that macroeconomics seemed like selfishness 101. Alas, economics are the vegetables of international affairs, political science, history, journalism and so many other interesting fields. Any graduate program worth its salt requires at least 12 hours of it. The policy world runs on it. You will be much more useful to the developing world if you understand it. So, hold your breath and learn it well. Get a college subscription to the Economist and read how interesting international economics can be. The dismal science is a science worth knowing, for all of us.
9. If you go to church, go to a church with families. You'll get more out of it if you gain mentors with gray hair and get to interact with their kids. If you never went to church, why not give it a shot? Ask a student in your local campus ministry to take you.
10. Take as many classes as you can, especially if you are on scholarship. Believe me, now that I am in the working world, I wish I could take more classes.
11. Turn four into more. So many students I meet literally consider themselves too cool for school. They lean back and with a resigned, impatient expression talk about how they can't wait to get out in the real world and make some money. Don't worry. The real world will still be there after another year, and you'll be with it until retirement. If you have the resources, take an extra major, pursue a graduate degree, work-study, stay for that extra football season. Unless you are deep in debt (something you should try to avoid), you won't regret getting too much education. Only too little. I personally would have added a communications degree to round out my international affairs qualifications. 20/20 hindsight.

What are your tips?

Prayer

Whenever I lead worship, it helps me forget myself and my performance and truly sing in praise (which is the first job of a worship leader) when I see someone close their eyes, lift up their hands and remember they are in the presence of a powerful God, a loving Father. There's a little girl in our church, not yet three years old, who dances with delight to the music. She reminds me why I'm up there. Now, she is gravely ill and immobilized.

If you are the praying type, please pray for Aubrey and her family. And if you're not the praying type, now's a good time to become just that. You're welcome to join us.

My Oktoberfest Memory

200 hundred years ago, Crown Prince Ludwig I and Therese of Sax-Hildburghausen organized a horse race in Munich, Germany to publicly celebrate their marriage. Somehow, this translated into filling liter-sized mugs with lager, and squeezing enough bodies and picnic tables into circus tents to give any fire marshall a heart attack. Combine with oompa music, stinky un-washable lederhosen and a carnival to make any mid-western mayor envious, and you've got Oktoberfest.

Yes, it usually starts in September (though the original did indeed start in October). And yes, thousands of sweat bodies in a near-suffocating tent dancing on picnic tables with bier-steins in each may not be your idea of a good time, but there's something about it that draws you in, splashes your teeth with beer and makes you dance with total strangers.

Actually, the one time I was in Oktoberfest, I wasn't even able to get into the tents. The lines were too long for the evening. I wasn't even planning to go. I ended up at the Oktoberfest celebration only after a botched attempted to take the LSAT. (don't laugh)

Let me explain. It was the fall of 2004, and I wasn't sure what I would do with myself after my second year in Germany. (Anyone out there sure of what to do with yourself? Please explain to me what that is like. Feel free to use the comment section.) Law school seemed as good an option of any. I crashed near Munich's university with a contact given to me through my organization the night before, ate the cheesy noodles he gave me, and got up early to clear my head. When I arrived to the test location, I found about thirty livid American 20-somethings standing before a door alternating between the two most celebrated curse words. With no prior announcement, the test had been postponed two days. I didn't have the cash to change my train ticket, so I viewed that as God telling me law school wasn't my best option. What to do with a free evening in Munich in late September?

I arrived at Oktoberfest intending to drink an enormous consolation beer. As I implied above, it is not just one tent or beer hall, but rather an enormous carnival with several beer tents sponsored by Munich's beloved beer establishments. And all of them were full, and the countless people in line looked like they had been waiting there since Ludwig's horse race.

But the Bavarians would not allow that to prevent a beer-sale to a tourist. There were plenty of outsider benches, the NIT of picnic tables, the merry planks for those of us who have not been consuming beer and weisswurst since breakfast. That's when I discovered how few Germans are actually at Oktoberfest (or at least they knew to show up early and get their lederhosen-covered bottoms in the circus tents). I set at a table with some very friendly Italian men, where we shared jokes and travel stories while clinking the enormous beer steins.

Sudden, from our left came an angry shout. A short, red-faced Australian man wanted to fight my new Italian friends. He accused them of stealing his hat. The Italians threw their hands up (just like their soccer players) and pleaded their innocence (just like their soccer players). I decided not to take sides (and made sure my wallet was safely in my front pocket). The Australian's voice grew louder, even as his voice grew hoarser. I noted that one of those liter-sized steins would make an effective weapon (or shield, for my purposes). The alpha-Italian, his beautiful brown eyes flashing at the Australian's purple face, insisted we were all friends here and we should enjoy our drinks.

Thankfully, and anticlimactically, the Australian staggered away, his grumbling unprintable (mainly because I couldn't actually hear what he said), and I wondered how many empty beer steins he had left behind him. He did look at me and said not to trust "these guys" (the Italians), because they were "thieves."

From inside the nearest tent, pop music, rock standards and traditional German folks songs played intermittently. I walked away, ignoring the smell of puke by focusing on the pleasant aftertaste that only a Bavarian lager could bring, happy to cross another cultural experience off of my list. Somewhere, Ludwig must have been smiling, however ironically.

The Big Three Ohhhhhh

My birthday is easy to remember. Before 2001, it was the same number used in America to dial for an emergency. It still is, but the significance drastically shifted. On my 21st birthday, around the same time my mother was calling to tell me how happy she is that I am around, terrorists snuffed out thousands of lives, changing the world and canceling my jazz club cocktail plans. I watched CNN and prayed instead. I still get funny looks when they check my ID.

Tomorrow I reach the three decade milestone. The big 3-0. A nice round number that should probably be irrelevant but it really means a lot. We divide each other by decades, because it's a convenient category. I'll start thinking about how all those folks in their twenties look and act so young, kind of like how I see college students now. So, on one day, not only does a new page turn, but a new chapter begins. And frankly, I'm looking forward to it.

The 20s are tough. Not as tough as seventh grade, but close. During the 20s, we stop being full-time students and take responsibility for our lives, and it's a crash course of hard knocks. I learned how I was really wired, how I should have spent my schooling. Don't get me wrong, great things happened, and great friends, not to mention a great God, carried me through. I experienced culture, life, love, brokenness, healing and redemption, and every one at a cost, leaving part of the old man behind. But here's hoping the next decade will be less bruising.

Friends and colleagues have raved how great the 30s are. These are the times when we finally get to apply those hard-knock lessons, where we stop self-obsessing and live life with work, family and a clear sense of what's important.

So bring it, fourth decade. I've got some pretty daggum high expectations.

Garden State Re-Viewed

Yesterday, my wife borrowed Garden State from the library. I had seen Zach Braff's 2004 movie a few years ago, but she had not seen it yet. Aside from being a film we'll one day show our kids when they ask us about hip, turn-of-the-century music, there was a point in the story that struck me as worth keeping. (mind the spoiler) At the end, the main character, Largeman (played by Braff) after kicking the emotion-numbing medication that he used for a decade and a half, realizes that he needs to figure himself out now that he can feel. He had returned home to New Jersey from LA for his mother's funeral. Now, armed with this new self-realization he acquired over his four day return, he boards the plane back to California. His new, life-to-the-fullest girlfriend (my favorite Natalie Portman role) begs him to stay, so that they can make the journey together. Before takeoff, he leaves the airplane and returns to her so they can do just that.

It's a good reminder that most of us need help in our journeys of redemption, and unadulterated individualism rarely works for this sort of thing. As I continue to point out, I've needed help in my journey, and really, that's ok. The better films of this decade have made the same point, of course.

A suggestion beyond Garden State would be to invite God into your journey as well. Whether intended or not, God's absence is deeply and sadly felt in the film, as the characters use legal and illegal drugs, sex, relationships, money, experience - each numbing themselves in their own way. Natalie Portman's character mentions nonchalantly that she doesn't really believe in God. Largeman himself insists that he's not really (as in religiously) Jewish and only goes to Temple on Yom Kippur.

If you find yourself with a sort of familiar ache for a home that no longer exists, which is something the characters talk about in one of the more reflective moments, then consider getting to know Jesus. When I know him, my life is as beautiful or tragic or mundane as anyone else's, but it's filled with something more than can't be replicated. He offers life, and everything that comes with it, only more so.

Meanwhile, if you have not seen Garden State, or have not seen it in awhile, go to your local library and borrow it for the evening. Well worth it.

Best/Worst Case -- Florida State

The nation rejoices - college football is on the television, on the radio, and on the hats, polos and jerseys everywhere the eye can see! And, of course, it's all over this here Internet thing I get to write on.

So, in the spirit of ESPN and 24-hour sports coverage (and with apologies to my favorite sports blogger), I present to you the best case and worse case scenario for my alma mater's 2010 college football season.

BEST CASE

Florida State University roars out of the gates with an amazing upset of Oklahoma, and right on your humble blogger's birthday to boot! From there, the Noles demolish the ACC competition, humiliate the out of conferences foes and the in-state rivals (including a last second, upright-splitting field goal to send Miami packing) and whup up on my father's alma mater in the ACC championship. Christian Ponder, after claiming the Heisman Trophy, delivers a tearful acceptance speech so good that it resolves the Israel/Palestine conflict, and all nations, from rogue states to democracies, beat their nuclear weapons into plough shares (no accidents take place). After crushing a resurgent Notre Dame in the BCS championship, all of the nation's top recruits reject their previous commitments and clamor for Tallahassee, while the rest of the nation's elite programs can only watch, pray and fight over the remaining spoils.

The great FSU dynasty ensues, taking home championship after championship. Their success makes them so beloved, that they leave the Atlantic Coast Conference and sign an exclusive television contract with NBC (which decides not to renew its contract with the ailing Fighting Irish). Not to be outdone, ESPN pays Florida State University hundreds of millions of dollars for "College Game Day" to be broadcast live from Doak Campbell Stadium every week (they change their theme song to "We're Coming To Your City - if you live in Tallahassee").

Meanwhile, all the extra sports revenue swells the endowment, attracting the best faculty and students for every conceivable field. Academic excellence increases exponentially and within five years (and five BCS championships), Florida State is considered the Harvard of the south. After five more years of success (and five more championships), Harvard is the consensus Florida State of the north. Academic flourishing trickles into every aspect of life, and along with sport and learning, art, business and authentic Christian spirituality thrive, from Tallahassee, to Florida, to the United States and to the world.

WORST CASE

Florida State is humiliated on opening day (tomorrow) with a last-second, loss to Samford, thanks to a missed field goal in the closing seconds that sails wide right. From there, the rest of the season goes down the toilet, with each loss more humiliating. All of FSU's top recruits end up in the hospital or in jail, and the remaining players desperately try to transfer to Florida International University. Coach Jimbo Fisher is fired in shame and takes a job cleaning Renegade's stables.

Bowl-less, winless and shamed, Florida State is kicked out of the Atlantic Coast Conference and demoted through the ranks of college football, where, after five years and five goose-egg season, the Noles find passing success at club flag football level. Desperate Florida State athletic officials waste all sorts of money trying to secure coaches and television contracts, but to no avail, and other university sports suffer. The athletic demise starts a rot which infects the school academically, as department after department lose faculty and quality students. This phenomenon prompts U.S. News and World Report to create a "Just Say No" list of national universities, with FSU ranked at the top every year.

Meanwhile, the combined forces of industry, government and Mordor turn a now impoversihed Tallahassee into a dark, post-apocalyptic city, which pollutes the Gulf of Mexico more than any BP oil spill ever could. The resulting filth hastens the effects of Global Warming. The Polar Ice Caps melt, and the state of Florida sinks into the sea, prompting residents to flee to Kentucky. The environmental and humanitarian calamity causes all countries to go to war with one another over scarce resources, starting when Finland invades Sweden. In the process, all forms of art, culture and beauty vanish and are forgotten, and once again, every human being has only one goal: survival.

PREDICTION:

Somewhere in between. Happy football watching, everybody!

Anniversary

But of a somewhat different kind.

Three years ago today, clueless, plan-less, ring-less and scared... well you know, I brought the woman who would become my wife to the National Arboretum and asked her to be my bride. It was not one of those well-planned superhero engagement stories involving trips to the Statue of Liberty or rooms filled with flower pedals and candles. It was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, and the excursion was spontaneous and made us late for church. We did bring fizzy water, cheese and crackers.

In many ways, this was more significant than our wedding almost seven months later. This is not to downplay our wedding of course. At our wedding, we publicly promised God that we would love, honor and cherish one another, until death do we part. Then God bound us together, and we became one; let no man tear us asunder. But our engagement represented a step out of myself, and into a life giving love that I had no evidence I was capable of giving our receiving. I would have to trust God. Let me testify: in three years, he has come through.

God did not leave me to make this step alone. There were many who loved me, prayed for me and helped me in word and deed. My parents, of course. My team in Freiburg that second year: Sarah, Joshua, Andrea, Tristan, Emoe, Teeniebopper and Matt. In Orlando, there was a church, and co-workers, especially my boss Rick. Moving to DC, God led me to an oasis of friends and cojourners. Ben, Justin, Paul, Miriam, Jeff, Carolyn, Betsy, Marcus & Fiona, Livingston, George & Jeanette, Becca, Laura and too many more to name. Forgive me if I forgot you. Especially, of course, my pastor Dan and his wife Elise. Dan has put many stray men back on the right path at these critical times, and I am no exception.

Today I looked at my absolutely enthralling daughter and realized, without this moment, this God intervention, this inciting incident, this redemptive plan, she would not even exist. Above and beyond that, I am married to a wonderful woman who sees past the flaws, the sin, the insecurities and the unfinished personality, and she truly loves me. And, indeed, she is lovely.

Ich liebe Dich, Schaetzle...

Searching for David

Last weekend's "Restoring Honor to America" rally, sponsored by Glenn Beck to promote his brand of faith, hope and charity continued a train of thought I've had for awhile now. What first made me want to blog about it (by which I mean the train of thought, not the rally) was Mel Gibson's bile-filled and inducing tirade, which we all learned about earlier in July.

You see, a few years ago, as he promoted The Passion of the Christ, he became the latest David for much of the Christian world. Like Israel's anointed king of old, he was our champion, casting rocks of truth at the cultural giants who have dominated for too long. I admit, with so many movies and plays about Jesus ranging in quality from poor to cheese, it was gratifying see a Jesus film of Hollywood quality craft - from acting to cinematography (the Aramaic/Latin was a nice touch too).

There was criticism, as you'll remember. The violence of torture and crucifixion was excruciating - an acquaintance called it "violence pornography." This didn't bother many of us - I've heard Good Friday lectures in which medical experts described, in graphic detail, the effects the process had on Jesus' body - every whip, nail and thorn. More to the point, each Sunday, I eat His flesh and drink His blood. Whenever the Lord's supper seems mundane in its familiar bread and wine, I remember the the expression a Chinese woman once made when I explained it to her. We both were in Germany at the time, and she knew nothing of Christianity, and her face contorted in surprise and disgust at such barbarism. Remembering the crucifixion, in all its barbarism, and the dark reality that it was in my place, remains a serious act of worship. Gibson may have taken it further than history or taste would have allowed (I do agree, he showed more than he needed to), but I wonder how many of these critics were so bothered by, say, Quentin Tarantino's flicks.

The more serious criticism was that of anti-semitism. I've never personally known a Christian who has promoted anti-semitism, and I was raised, along with many Christians, with a deep respect for Jewish people, not to mention a real awareness that all of our Biblical heroes were Abraham's descendants. However, many of us, myself included, were ignorant to the extent of which European passion-plays promoted anti-semitism, often to violent ends. Many Jews, of course, were not ignorant of this, and the Passion brought much darker collective memories.

Gibson, to defend his film, played the David, rallying conservatives and Christians alike to his cause. Friends of mine attended an event in his honor in Orlando, where local church leadership asked if they could pray and fast for him. Gibson, with a twinkle in his eye, jumped from his seat and said, "ok, nobody eat until the film comes out!" Whatever his original intentions, the Passion broke out into another culture-war battle, which only advantaged the film. Gibson was on the front line, a David on our behalf, throwing what we saw as stones, taking what we saw as slander.

Davids disappoint. Mel Gibson's marriage unraveled a couple years later, and gossip photos showed him drunk at parties with models in each arm. His inebriated, anti-semitic rant to police, seemed only to confirm the critics' view of his film. Then, to their delight, came the rant his second ex recorded this summer. Whether the tapes were fabricated, or whether he was just crazy, it put the nail in the coffin of his Hollywood career (so it seems), not to mention his role as anointed culture warrior.

Sounds familiar doesn't it? Actors, rock stars, presidents, prominent pastors - so many have been given the David mantle by excited evangelicals praying for the tide to turn. I've been caught up in it before, and I am not completely over the temptation not to get caught up again. I know I would hate to have that role myself - to have the hopes of Christians everywhere depend on my personality, decisions and ability not to sin. Of course, we know that the original David screwed up royally. (In fact, since he was king at the time, I wonder if that's where the phrase screwed up royally came from? Maybe the prophet Nathan coined it) This man after God's own heart committed adultery, covered it with murder, and set up a chain of events that led to bloody rebellion and civil war. He came through in the end, but what a cost.

David repented, privately and publicly. I hope that Mel Gibson will too, without the meddling of a PR team.

In the meantime, thousands of Americans marched on Washington this past weekend for an ecumenical church service of vague patriotic spirituality. Fortunately, this has caused some soul searching among Christians these days as many point out that whatever Glenn Beck is selling, it's not Christianity. But for others, he's wearing a heroes mantle, throwing rhetorical stones at perceived enemies, even as they throw back.

We look for heroes, but there is only one Anointed One who can bear that cross. We Christians, whether or not we stand in the light of cultural attention or political leadership, should honestly seek to emulate Him. Jesus is the hero of our story. Let's seek him first and stop searching for David.

Inciting Incidents

I'm currently reading Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and something he wrote made me think a little more about this "emerging adulthood" phenomenon, which I wrote about in a previous post.

The book covers what Miller learned while writing a screenplay for his memoir, Blue Like Jazz. Along with valuable spiritual and developmental lessons, Miller learns, along with us the reader, some useful story devices. One device he describes is called the "inciting incident." An inciting incident is that moment in a story where a character is forced into action, forced to confront his fears, take a stand or simply get off his butt. In Spider-man 2, Peter Parker would not admit his love for Mary Jane, and his powers were getting weaker. That is until, during a heart-to-heart with his red-headed true love, the evil villain Dr. Octopus throws a sedan through the coffee-shop window and kidnaps her. That event causes him to leave behind his old self and confront both the villain he fears he cannot conquer and the girl he fears he cannot win. Cheesy example, but it's the first that came to mind.

The point is, story characters, like real people, rarely change until they are forced to. Miller writes:

"A general rule in creating stories is that characters don't want to change. They must be forced to change.... The rule exists in story because it's a true thing about people. Humans are designed to seek comfort and order, and so if they have comfort and order, they tend to plant themselves, even if their comfort isn't all that comfortable. And even if they secretly want something better."

He goes on to describe, darkly, a report he heard that women who suffer from domestic violence often remain in abuse relationships, even after seeking help, because they are so afraid of change.

It makes me wonder if one of the reasons my generation is so reluctant to grow up is a lack of inciting incidents. Our grandparents and parents lived through depression, world war, social revolution and an economy that was not yet so service based. I suspect that so many of our forefathers, as with so many in the developing world, found spouses, work, children and community without so much naval gazing, because their very lives and subsistence depended on it. They had no chance to find themselves in travel or graduate school.

Several years ago, at what was in hind-site exactly the right moment, God dropped the woman who became my wife back smack dab into the middle of my life. In doing so, He ignored the ocean between us, our different cultural backgrounds, and the fact that neither of us could find our way out of the brokenness, pain, sin and captivity we had found ourselves in. We did not expect it or ask for it, but suddenly she was in my neighborhood, within walking distance, asking me to see her. Reconciliation showed up, unannounced. That was an inciting incident. I would need a few more before, a few years later in the National Arboretum, I asked her to marry me.

I am not proud that I needed inciting incidents to grow, and that I would not have escaped without divine intervention. I may still need a few. That is why, however misguided and lost my generation of "boys who can shave" (as Mark Driscoll calls them) may be, I cannot look down my nose at them. I am one of them, desperate for grace and in need of truth. Like every generation we need the wisdom, peace and hope that comes with the Gospel of Christ. Within the church community, we may need to be "inciters" to one another as well. Let's face it, we all need more help than we let on, even the real adults. Wherever we stand, this is my prayer and, thankfully, has been my experience: God will be as merciful and severe as he needs to be to open our ears, our minds and our hearts, so that we may grow and mature in Him.

Emerging Adulthood, Culture and a Suggestion

There's a lot I could say about the New York Times' most-sent story this weekend, perhaps most-sent because 20-somethings themselves read "What Is It About 20-Somethings?" by Robin Marantz Henig - on their laptops at their parents' house or on their smart phones at a career counselors' office. I read it because I am at the end of that decade, and I work with people who are at the beginning of it. I observe and have been this culture pulverized by choice. I don't know if "Emerging Adults" qualify as a new life stage, but I see it and have been there. In my mid-twenties my life needed a re-boot and I moved back home. Since then, I've moved out, moved cities, found work, married and had a child. At crucial moments, I've been shepherded by men who have helped me take final steps into adulthood, and I acknowledge that I need it still. Or is the growth I still need the normal stuff that's part of the human condition? I don't know.

The article covers valid and interesting economic, social and neurological factors as to why so many of today's young people put off major adult decisions. But Henig barely touches on culture, and I think that is a shame. I mean, we have spent the last five decades glorifying youth - in our art, in our entertainment and in our advertising. Could that at all have any effect on my generation's collective effort to stay young longer? Ever since "Rebel Without a Cause," this youthful rebelliousness, going my way and taking time to figure it out has become an icon. Yes, youth has been a prized character trait in literature - as in so many of Shakespeare's plays, young characters who haven't figured things out are more interesting than old ones who do. But I can't help but think our interest in youth has turned to worship. Watch television for one hour and see which products promise to make you free, which means youth, healthy teeth and endless possibilities. Consider even the twelve pictures that accompany the article. They're lovely. Wherever those young people are, I want to join them, and I want to buy the clothes they're selling. They are icons - thin, good looking, full of possibility. Those photos make my well-trained brain wonder if any of those young people started careers, found spouses and had children, they'd be spoiled. That's not true, and I know it from experience. But the fact that I feel that way confirms that I am, in part, a product of this world around us. Whatever causes this limbo of emerging adulthood, our cultural worship of youth and the accompanying possibility must play a part.

If you are in your twenties and feel like you are caught in possibility limbo, here is advice from someone who knows emerging adulthood very well. Find a church. Find a church that preaches love and grace. Find a church with other emerging adults in the same boat. Find a church with older, loving people who can help you find the courage to commit. It sure helps me.

Our House, for One Night

Tonight, for one night, my wife and I had a house. We were homeowners and American dreamers.

Our daughter had her own room, and she sleeps there peacefully and undisturbed. We ate leftovers, and finished off the wine from a few nights ago - the two bottles re-corked and waiting like gypsy orphans on the china cabinet in our dining room. We watched a movie on our big-screen TV, one of those that hang on the wall, framed like a mural. Those used to be luxury items, the kind we'd see only at our rich friends' home. But it seems like everyone has one these days. Even us, tonight.

My wife baked bread. She could see the big TV from the kitchen so she wouldn't need to miss anything. I sat on the huge rwap around couch with cushy pillows. There was even a dog, who wasn't allowed on the nice red carpet. We stretched out and looked across at all the space, furniture and blessings.

In a few days we'll be back in our little DC apartment, watching movies on our laptop - enjoying the fruits of technology most of the world cannot even touch and about which our ancestors could not even dream. We'll eat like a king and queen of our little space and remember tonight, when we stretched out and played house.

Happiness Producers

Some happiness producers:

1. A delicious pot-roast in a red wine sauce, served with mashed potatoes, squash, carrots and salad. Thank you, mom.
2. A homemade chocolate pound cake that defies all pound cake stereotypes. Thank you, sister.
3. An office, a house, a place to focus (if I can). Thank you, dad.
4. Youtube videos of historic moments and sports glory. Thank you, dad again.
5. A bought and paid-for date with my wife, combined with free babysitting. Thank you, dad and mom.
6. Help being more German in the written word. Thank you, Schaetzle.
7. Happy, funny little sounds well past her bedtime. Thank you, daughter.
8. Depth and beauty. Thank you, Schaetzle again.
9. A birthday vacation, one month early. Thank you everyone.

I'm not thirty yet...

Read My Facebook Profile

I was browsing Justin's Facebook profile the other day when I happened upon a link to Richard MacManus' discovery that Facebook profile pages are becoming irrelevant, at least for his readers. The whole article is an interesting read, but I particularly want to endorse MacManus' lament for the Facebook profile at the end.

Now, I appreciate that Facebook has acted intelligently enough to keep its product from being reduced to the technicolor mess MySpace became. But the hyper-focus on the newsfeed turns Facebook into nothing but a Twitter with more attractive link posts. There's use to that, sure, and perhaps that's the only way to travel with a smart phone, but that's only part of what Facebook does.

I like Facebook, because it gives me a chance to show people things about me they may not learn through regular interaction. This is not just the clever articles I like to post, but my profile, what others say to me, beliefs, background, education, etc. Like any other human being, I want to be known, and Facebook helps with this.

Likewise, I get to know you, too. At least the parts you carefully (or not so) choose to share. I learn things about you, interesting things you wish everyone knew, organized neatly with a pleasant blue background.

So read my Facebook profile. I'll read yours too. It will be a serene break from the world of constant status updates, links and advertisement.

Baby Song

Allow me to brag a little bit.

My daughter sings. She sang to me this afternoon before her nap.

She sang to me while I was watching her, like a hawk. You she, she has a scrape on her face that my wife rubs ointment on and covers with a band-aid - doctor's instructions to pulverize the bacteria and ward off a potential infection. I had to watch my daughter while she was in her swing to make sure she didn't rip the band-aid off her face and devour it, the ointment and the bacteria. Not an easy task, believe me.

She lifted her heavenly-brown eyes to her captor/protector and sang. No words of course, she's just learning her consonants. But her little voice rose and fell, freely skipping along notes she herself picked out for a song that she wrote. The tune fell lightly, like a Rocky Mountain brook, flowing with freedom and logic between rock and stone. It was unmistakably a song.

My mother-in-law observed she loves music, however she perceives it in her little developing mind. I have sang to her since we were first aware of her existence, gently singing hymns through my wife's belly and then, how happy, directly to her face. In the first couple of months, the best way to get her to calm down was to hold her and sing, "Come Thou Found of Every Blessings," tapping her back in rhythm as I walked through our little apartment.

Now, she returns the favor. She looked right at me and sang her song. Unmistakably a song, but unmistakably praise as well. Whether she was aware of it or not, she praised God, joining the trees visible out the window right behind her, and the thunder I hear as I write this. The heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and in her own, little baby way, on this Sunday, she joined in.

I could not help but sing back. I sang a lullaby called "Oh How He Loves You and Me." It goes like this:

Oh how he loves you and me

Oh how he loves you and me

He gave his life, what more could he give?

Oh how he loves you

Oh how he loves me

Oh how he loves you and me

My mother would rock me in a big, leather office chair and sing that song to me. It's among my earliest memories. My mother once told me that my most-requested song during those times was "Away in a Manger." But "Oh How He Loves You and Me" is the one that stuck with me. It took root in the fertile soil of a child's heart and remained. I suspect it was the song God wanted me to remember. I pray that my daughter remembers it too.

Technology and Humanity

I'm a huge technology fan (duh - the blog), and I count myself happy to live in the age of the internet. It's wonderful, and the opportunities of daily exploration are nothing short of miraculous. So I wonder if it's ironic that I resinate so much with Bob Herbert's beautiful column in today's New York Times.

"Tweet Less, Kiss More" caught my attention the day after I opened my first Twitter account, mostly to actually experience how it works. Mr. Herbert reminds us that:

We need to reduce the speed limits of our lives. We need to savor the trip. Leave the cellphone at home every once in awhile. Try kissing more and tweeting less. And stop talking so much.

Listen.

Other people have something to say, too. And when they don’t, that glorious silence that you hear will have more to say to you than you ever imagined. That is when you will begin to hear your song. That’s when your best thoughts take hold, and you become really you.

Of course, Mr. Herbert is not the first to to point out the dehumanizing effects of technology. Wendell Berry is my favorite critic of blind technological advancement (famous for his essay, "Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer," yes, more irony, read it on your computer. This link includes the letters to Harpers, I believe, where it was first published, and Mr. Berry's witty response). Bob Herbert's column calls to mind a passage from Jayber Crow, which I read last fall, in which Jayber buys a an automobile (I wanted to quote directly, but I forgot that I had lent my book to a friend). Mr. Berry describes Jayber's growing impatience with anything moving slower than he was, particularly on the road, as he drives the car in post-war rural Kentucky, and this attitude eats away at his moral character. Knowing he does not truly need the car, he eventually gets rid of it. I believe somewhere in Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis is less moralistic, but nonetheless on the same train of thought, where he notes that, being born before the invention of the automobile he could better appreciate the nature in his own limited space.

Of course, this question of technological advancement and morals was around well-before the modern era. The Economist describes this story:

IN 1492, the same year that Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic, a Benedictine abbot named Trithemius, living in western Germany, wrote a spirited defence of scribes who tried to impress God’s word most firmly on their minds by copying out texts by hand. To disseminate his own books, though, Trithemius used the revolutionary technology of the day, the printing press.

I can imagine that the scribes of old had a sort of patient, devotional and spiritual experience lost on many of us today by daily copying scripture. But, as we all know, the printing press put eventually put them out of business and brought God's word to everyone else.

The Economist article I linked to reviews a book about troubles with modern technology (social media), and suggests that the answer to troubles with technology is moderation, or "old-fashioned self-restraint." Bob Herbert suggests the same.

One of the essential problems of our society is that we have a tendency, amid all the craziness that surrounds us, to lose sight of what is truly human in ourselves, and that includes our own individual needs — those very special, mostly nonmaterial things that would fulfill us, give meaning to our lives, enlarge us, and enable us to more easily embrace those around us.

One caveat with this sentence. Whenever we talk about "what is truly human in ourselves," we can forget that the opposite of whatever we're talking about may be just as human. Technology enables and is enabled by our drive to achieve, our joy in production, our escapism, our fear that we are missing something, our anxiety that we are not keeping up, our need for connection, our appetite for information. Whatever is positive or negative about these traits, they are fully human, keeping phones and computers within arms reach, wherever we go.

Old-fashioned self-restraint means restraining a very human part of us. If it means closing the laptop to pay attention to my wife or my daughter (more irony: as I write this, they are sitting behind me), it means suffocating a very human part me to allow them (or my friends, or my job, or my church, or a piece of art, or ultimately God Himself) to shape me, and make me a better human.

Understand

Yesterday, I noticed two things about my daughter. First, she was in a fowl mood, which was understandable - our friendly neighborhood doctor had just given her three shots, which means sore legs and antibiotics storming through her young digestive system. Second, she just learned that she can use her lips as annunciation tools, and she's practicing. (As I write this, she's sitting her her swing, chanting, "ma-ma-ma-ba-ba-a-da-ba)"

As I placed her on her changing table to do what was necessary before bedtime, instead of her normal smiles, giggles and goos (which makes changing her diaper one of the surprising pleasures of new fatherhood), her eyes filled with adorably tragic tears, her expressive eyebrows wrinkled up into that same expression utter sadness she inherited from her mother, and she began to cry. She did not want to be put down. She cried while practicing her consonants.

I wanted her to stop. I wanted her to stop so she does not get riled up before bedtime, but I knew she was in a tired, painful, fresh-from-the-doctor-and-I-don't-want-to-talk-so-hold-me place. Tickling and singing, normally two tickets to a sure smile, did not work. So, I began imitating her "ba-ba-ma-ba-ma" crying. She laughed. She calmed down. She was ready for bed.

I am no expert on child psychology, so I cannot be sure what she was thinking. Maybe she simply thought I looked funny. But maybe, just maybe, in her own little baby way, she felt understood.

Terry Gross, the host of NPR's Fresh Air has a great quote on her Website. When talking about giving interviews, she says, "what puts people on guard isn't necessarily the fear of being 'found out.' It sometimes is just the fear of being misunderstood." It's true. Understand me, and there's very little I won't tell you.

When I know I am understood, I can better accept encouragement, criticism and honesty of all types. For better or worse, I can be found out, because my viewer knows how and why I got there.

Of course, in this "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" environment that our Lord asks us to spread, the onus is on me to understand - my friends, my colleagues, my family, even my enemies. Understanding paves the way for love, even when understanding, in this city of spin and goals, takes up valuable time to achieve. But, if I take the time to understand, I can do my part to see friction between myself and others polished and smoothed to the point of real relationship. I can even, at times, stem the flow of tears. And consonants.

Actually, the Ties Don't Bother Me

When many Europeans watch American football, they see a bunch of crass, overdressed Americans run into each other; someone carries or throws an oddly-shaped ball somewhere; and then for some reason, play stops, and minutes could go by without any real action. Wash, rinse, repeat. For them, it's the very definition of a boring sport.

I try to explain that for many Americans, myself included, the padded men look like modern knights. The hitting is part of the fun, and all the stopping is really just re-loading for a multitude of possibilities and plays. One of the best parts of football is that more things can actually happen than any other sport - more ways of progress, regress, offense, defense and scoring. Football is cerebral as chess and as physical as rugby, and the moves made by some of those specialist ball carriers rival Messi at his most beautiful. But, for anyone choosing to remain rationally ignorant about another country's sport, rational explanation is rarely welcome.

The same, of course, goes for Americans watching soccer. As more of us travel, as more of us grew up playing, more of us are buying into it. But the prickly reaction so many of my fellow yanks have to the sport every four years is curious (and sometimes extreme). I get not liking it. I'm not a figure skating fan myself. But I don't feel the need to go to the barricade and defend myself against those who do.

One of the thing that really twists the collective undies of Americans everywhere are ties. Ties happen in soccer, and quite often, especially compared to American sports. The marketers of U.S. sports have tried to destroy the tie everywhere it goes. Even in the NHL, where there used to be ties during normal league play, the powers that be switched hockey league play to golden-goal overtime followed by penalty shots, even though no team would be knocked out of a tournament. Don't get me wrong, I love the drama of these moments, but I wonder if this manufactures a sort of "drama-inflation" - couldn't we save it all for the playoffs?

Ties are part of soccer group stages and soccer league-play. It allows one more possibility for an outcome (I'm a strong P on the MBTI and lover of possibilities). It allows teams to stay alive and be more competitive, and this is a good thing in a long tournament where everyone plays everyone in their group.

No one is satisfied after a tie, of course. But, the tournament, the league, the competition is not over yet, and for those of us who can take a long view, it is simply part of the race. There will be a winner, eventually, and ties aren't forever. As we Americans are now painfully aware, the World Cup has entered in the knock-out stages, complete with overtimes and penalty kicks to decide who goes on. Don't worry friends, there will be one winner in the end.

There are things I would change about the World Cup. I wish there were a more scientific (dare I say, computerized) way of determining stoppage time, and that everyone would know exactly how many seconds there are left in a game. Soccer would benefit from an equivalent of basketball's buzzer-beater. And they should allow for more than three substitutes (I would double it to six). When I made this suggestion to my wife, she retorted, as perhaps many purists would retort, that soccer is a sport of endurance and more substitutes would undermine this. True, but one of the reasons play quality can be bad at the World Cup is the professionals are simply tired after long seasons (particularly the English premier league), and fresh legs would move things along. Besides, it would have the added benefit of giving more young men chance to represent their country on the world's greatest stage. One more suggestion - perhaps there would be less dives and better calls if they simply added more refs.

But I wouldn't change the ties. They're just one of the many possibilities that keep us watching.

Watch the World Cup

Paris, France: 1998. Two weeks in the City of Light, assisting a group of college students telling other students about Jesus. I attempted to play soccer once. The French guys must have kicked soccer balls in their cribs. It was embarrassing, and I will never do it again (at least in France). But that summer, I learned to watch soccer.

12 years ago, France hosted the World Cup. When they won, outclassing an exceptional Brazilian side in the final, the city erupted into the biggest street party since the Allies liberated Paris. I had a foretaste in Italy, where every Italian soccer victory turned the streets of Bologna into a scooter derby covered with red, white and green flags. I was in Germany in 2002, where both the Germans and their sizable Turkish minority had near daily reasons to celebrate - they finished second and third, respectively. But that '98 victory, in Paris, for France - nothing short of heaven will beat that spontaneous burst of joy, smiles, screams and fire-crackers.

At the time, I did not know that France featured the great Zidane, France's Michael Jordan, up there with Pele and Maradonna as one of soccer's all time greats. I had a vague association with Brazil and the great striker Ronaldo, who currently owns the record for most World Cup goals. But sitting between sweaty, intense continentals, staring at large screens, I saw why soccer is the beautiful game.

Yes, to American eyes, the field can seem needlessly big, with too much time in the middle, not enough time attacking the goal. Yes, the goals are infrequent. But watch those Zindane videos again. Good passing, good soccer play is skillful, beautiful, and, once you know what to look for, enchanting. As to the infrequent goals, I've never watched a sport where a single score is so special. It takes work, and when it finally happens, the celebration is infectious, and looks something like this.

Don't get me wrong - I'm thankful for American sports. I remain a huge college football fan, and I love me some baseball and basketball too. (Side joke - I had a baseball coach that once referred to soccer as "Communist Kickball," and whenever we made a mistake would say, "why don't you go kick black and white ball around!") I watch them enough that whatever soccer's flaws - the potential for a boring game, athletes behaving poorly - they certainly exist in other sports.

So, in ten days (or less!) find your European or South American or African friends. Go to an international sports bar open in the Middle of the day. Order a beer from the one of the countries on the flat-screen. Put away your biases, open your mind, put on your red white and blue (yes, America, our boys are in the tournament and favored to go to the second round. We play England a week from Saturday), and let yourself be mesmerized.

Water to Face

A particularly good sermon at Rez yesterday evening, and definitely worth your time if you give it a listen at the website. It's not up yet, but likely will be later this week.

A highlight: Our English pastor reminded us of Martin Luther's admonition to remember our baptism whenever we wash our faces. Jesus Christ identified with us in His baptism, and we, members of His church and body, identify with Him in ours. Whatever failure, whatever lost cause, whatever hurt, whatever success - we are identified with the one person who truly succeeded. We remember, every morning, when the water touches our face, Who we belong to, even as the day's events approach swiftly, like a distant wave in the ocean.

This is even better than Jessica's now famous "daily affirmation."

Caught on Camera

Off early for Memorial Day Weekend, I took advantage of a little downtime to enjoy a full episode of This American Life. I commend most episodes, but I was particularly compelled by "Home Movies," because, newly married, newly fathered, I am at a point in my life where the camera starts rolling (in most cases, Justin's flip cam). "Home Movies" features five acts about, well, home movies, in which the This American Life correspondents, years after the fact, give characteristically insightful reflections on their own videos (David Sedaris' reflections on his mother and home movies is especially touching - I'd describe it more, but you'd be better off just listening to it).

The prologue is an interview with Alan Berliner, who made a film from six years of collecting home videos called Family Album. Berliner reminds us (to use the words from the website) that home movies almost always "document rites of passage, like birthdays or weddings, or moments of leisure - the beach is especially big. They show our lives as we want them to look, but maybe not as they actually do."

This is true. But it is tempting to conclude from this sentence that there is something inauthentic about rites of passage or leisure. Yes, these events are the exception and not the norm of how we spend our time. They can even seem anti-climatic when compared to weeks or month of preparation and anticipation. Yet, when I turn inward (my favorite place to turn!), these moments, alongside my greatest failures, that reel round and round in my head. Perhaps a more authentic home video of my life would include failures, humiliations and mundane day-to-day living, but rites of passage and leisure are genuine representations as to where I want to be and what I want to achieve.

Yes, the happy vacationing family may fight and fall apart. More marriages fail than I care to think about. Children singing "Happy Birthday" may grow up to be miserable adults. But keeping the good memories alive reminds us that they are no less real. They don't all need to be plastic castles of matching shirts and overpriced parties. What's "really" going on includes good and bad, happy and sad, mundane day-to-day and beach vacations.

Last week, a rite of passage was caught on tape. My daughter was baptized. There was much that led up to it that was not caught on tape. We spent a lot of time worrying. Where would our relatives sleep? Would we have significant time for them? Who would bake cakes for the party? Do we have enough paper plates? Would my daughter choose the moment of her baptism to soil her white gown with one of her patented "mega-poopies"?

Yet, for all the pomp and circumstance, this was the moment she entered God's church - set apart to reflect Him in His community. The gown - my mother found a hand-stitched English gown, plus a white, drool-catching bib with a cross and two doves (the Holy bib of Pentecost) - she will really only wear once, like a wedding dress and a prom dress. My pastor baptized her, along with two boys, and paraded everyone around the church. We said the Apostles creed, and promised, with God's help, to raise her in the faith, fighting bravely against the world, the flesh and the devil.

This event not only reflects a deeper, authentic reality, but it is this reality that undergirds and shapes the rest of life - celebrations, mundane passages or failures - everything we won't catch on camera.

The Shoes that Say, "Mañana, Mañana"

What do shoes say about a culture? The ever-present polished leathers here in the nation's Capital, where seriousness and professionalism will promote yourself and your cause. The colorful pumas on college campuses that express individuality while buying into a particular style. The comfortable sketchers of suburban moms, perfect for pushing strollers and shopping carts.

My parents and sisters returned from their vacation in Spain (I'm not at all jealous. No.) with a brand, spanking new pairs of espadrilles for my wife and me (not to mention some first-rate olive oil bought from a slow food market). These delightful slippers made "where the sun always shines," to quote from the website, seem to me a fitting expression of Spanish culture.

Though originally unaware of their name or their origin, the shoes were not altogether unfamiliar to me. Espadrilles are trendy in Europe, and I am sure I saw plenty of them in Germany during the summer, and I'm intuitively attracted to their thinness and style. They are undoubtably cool, and the vague pleasure I have in them now perhaps resembles the strange excitement some women seem to have about shoe shopping (I'll never know for sure).

Yet, for my American feet, accustomed to restless wandering, these shoes feel a bit strange. Comfortable and strange, like a foreign massage technique. The soles, of weaved rope hugged in rubber, feel too small for my foot, while the rest of the fabric, comfortable and generous, feel too large. But they fit, because they were not meant to promote our hurrying to the next task, they were meant to promote warm-weather leisure (they are certainly too thin for winter).

As I discovered today when I took my daughter for a stroll, these shoes weren't made for walkin'. The soles are too skinny for a hike. When I pushed the stroller uphill, the fabric in the back of my right espadrille slipped down as if to say, "it's sandal weather. Show some heal!" Remarkably, it remained comfortable half off. The only walking these shoes were made for are strolls on a windy, Mediterranean beach. Your errands? Your hurry? That can wait.

If espadrilles could speak, they would say, "mañana, mañana." Tomorrow, tomorrow. This was the Spanish mantra my wife learned when she spent a semester in Malaga. It is usually spoken in response to a request. It could mean, "I won't do that," or "I'll get to that," or "yes, but right now there are more important, or at least more pleasurable things to do. So let's put that off until tomorrow." It is usually a mystery to foreigners exactly which one the speaker means (though it reminds me of when we Americans say, "let's get together sometime"). Espadrilles are meant for sunny Saturdays and beach vacations. They are relaxed and comfortable and can bring you as far as that one open table in your favorite outdoor cafe. Wear them when you crack open that book for pleasure reading. Order that drink you have been fantasizing about since you woke up this morning, along with, perhaps, a plate of churros.

As for work, bills, diet, exercise, progress and discipline? Mañana, mañana.

Provocative Language

One of the "Democracy in America" bloggers over at the Economist is taken aback by the some strong language about President Obamain a Spiegel article. The article is the German magazine's account of the climate change summit in Copenhagen, and it accuses Obama of "stabbing the Europeans in the back" by suggesting going forward without establishing concrete targets. The blogger writes that such "hope for the future, pragmatism for now" (my wording) action is "vintage Obama," and stabbing Europeans in the back was neither the goal nor the result.

I won't comment on the politics or policy, but the blogger should understand how livid many Germans were about Copenhagen (I just tried to find an English translation of a particularly nasty commentary wondering why on earth the President would use so much political capital on healthcare when action on climate change is so urgent). For many Germans, climate change is not one of many challenges, it is the challenge. Sure, they may not understand the realities of American politics, but as someone who lived in both places, our coverage of the Europeans is not always as nuanced as it should be.

Furthermore, Der Spiegel, for it's reputation for wordy, serious documents, is not one to let the facts stand in the way of provocative language (especially if it can be used in a headline). This actually makes their interviews with politicians very entertaining, because they use the same sort of language in their questions. German politicians know what to expect and often hit back just as hard. Having lived in Germany during the Iraq war, I've seen the worst of it. Heck, they even disgracefully gave a cover story to "9/11 was an inside job" conspiracy theorists. That being said, I enjoy reading Der Spiegel, and some of their journalism is excellent. Safe to say, I've learned to take their language with a grain of salt.

The End of the Season FSU-UF Game Should Remain There

According to one of my favorite sports bloggers, FSU's hot new coach, Jimbo Fisher, would like to play Florida for the first game of the season instead of the traditional final game. Why? As an FSU alum and an avid Seminole fan, I was relieved to read that UF officials nixed the idea.

Steve Spurrier used to say the same thing - he thought it would be better for all parties involved to switch the FSU-UF with the Tennessee-UF game, because there was too much pressure to go into the state-rivalry with everything a potential national title line. Never understood that logic. How would replacing it with another rivalry game that could decide the SEC East take pressure away?

In any case, no matter who it's coming from, it's a bad idea. College football, like all good entertainment, is about anticipation. It's that date circled on the Calendar, the end of November, when the weather in Florida is perfect for a football game. There is no reason good enough to get "the one we've been waiting for" out of the way. Heck, I think the FSU-Miami game should stay mid-October.

By all means, make the first weeks exciting. Travel to Oklahoma to take on a perennial power (as we do this year), take on another vaunted SEC team in the Georgia Dome. I am all for exciting early-season games. USC and Ohio State did us all a favor by playing each other early for two years straight, and more teams need the courage to do this. But the best part of college football is the deep traditional rivalries. Michigan-Ohio State. Army-Navy. FSU-UF, end of the season, best for last.

Time to Shine

My wife and daughter are in Orlando visiting my parents (I'll join them later this week), but that means I am on my own for tonight's church potluck. And, for the first time in my church's history, my name is in the "main dish" section. I decided that I will not be picking up a bucket of chicken on the 8th street Popeye's, I am making a dish. That's right. I am making it, and then I am going to bring it.

The dish? Cucumber sandwiches.

The ingredients?

1. A skinned, slice cucumber (the one my wife left instructions to eat by tonight or it will go bad)
2. Cream Cheese - the brand of a local grocery
3. Spongey sandwich bread - my wife got it for free at a grocery store for some promotion. It should be good for cucumber sandwiches - or so I thought.
4. Seasoning - generous portions of dill, salt and pepper.

Hey, these are pretty much all we have in the house that my wife did not lovingly plan for me. (As I write this, I am thawing an enchilada)

The results?

Well, spongey sandwich bread is terrible for spreading cream cheese. I put everything together, and it tastes ok, but each sandwich looks like it's been in a cat fight. I loving cut them up, but I did not remove the crust. My mother did not remove the crust for me, and I will not do it for you.

I admit, I am a bit embarrassed to take these wounded sandwiches to church. This is a city that expects excellence. But if we can't take our little offerings to church, where else?