Initiating Birthday

When I was in high school, birthdays were an excellent chance to display ones social status. I lived in Orlando, Florida, and our high school had two campuses, a huge courtyard, and spacious, outdoor hallways. If it was your birthday, your friends would often give you those silvery balloons featuring cartoon characters and short greeting like, "Your Rock!", available at your local grocery store or 7-11. Almost everyone received a balloon or two, but the popular usually received enough balloons to float a new-born calf. You could see them walking across the courtyard, their glistening prizes bobbing over and behind and beside their heads. An open peacock's tail.

American birthday tradition means that you are the king and your friends and relatives are your servants. This, of course, makes it an awkward letdown to move to a new town where nobody really knows your birthday. This is awkward, because birthdays are more special when your friends don't need to be reminded to be thoughtful. So, actually telling people your birthday's coming up, let alone throwing your own party where you pay for the cake, the drinks and the pointy hats somehow falls in the loss column, soothed a little by the surprise birthday package sent by your mom.

Here in Germany, the whole family went to a birthday party in honor of my wife's Grandmother. It was just today, and it was held in our little towns' nicest biergarten (I ate some delicious maultaschen - yum yum). The difference was, she paid for the whole thing. In Germany, the birthday kid is the servant. As soon as they are old enough, they plan the party. They buy the drinks, food and favors, though I haven't seen very many pointed hats. They send the invitations. They host the party in their flat and clean up afterward. It's a lot of extra work to be the birthday kid, to say the least. So much so, that my father-in-law often plans his vacation around his own birthday.

My sister teaches English in Spain, and she says the Spanish are the same way. She pointed out to me that this relieves the social pressure of wondering whether or not friends would remember your birthday. On her birthday, she brought in her own plate of American brownies to share with her class and bought the coffee for her teacher friends at the cafe where they take their (considerably long) breaks. Everyone was delighted. Even though she initiated, she bathed smiling in all the birthday love.

We'll see how it goes on my birthday (located on the other side of the year). I'm not fan of social tension, much less the feeling you get if the big day passes unnoticed, but hey, I like being treated as a king, and I don't want to spend my birthday preparing like Martha Stewart. One thing I can count on, of course: The birthday package from mom.

Would You Believe Him If He Told You?

I once met a man who saw Jesus in a vision. Let me explain.

Some years ago, I took a weeks vacation to Istanbul with a group of friends. The Turks are always hospitable, but the tourism industry was especially happy to see us. First, the weather was cold and snowy, which is not something we associate with onion-domed mosques and Ottoman palaces. Second, most tourists were doubly scared because of a terrorist attack on Istanbul just two weeks earlier. Needless to say, my group of friends plus one lusty Australian backpacker were the only lodgers at our youth hostel.

The youth hostel itself had seen better days, not just from the weather or the bombing, but 9/11 had hurt the tourist industry worldwide. They had failed to pay their taxes, so the government had sealed their front door shut. However, the hostel owners were chummy with the man who ran a dry-cleaners downstairs in the basement of the same building. To get into the Youth Hostel, we had to walk, almost crawl, through the dry cleaners between rows of hanging coats and white walls and climb a stair case into the comfortable lodging, presumably helping our new, grateful friends to stick it to the man.

The youth hostel owners were a group of five or six men. Actually, I don't know how many of them worked with the youth hostel and how many of them were just friends there to hang out. I did know that they sat in the lobby, ate delicious Turkish food and drank Vodka and water and gave us Turkish beer to drink. Istanbul was a great city, but hanging out with these guys each evening was a highlight of the trip.

I know that the youngest of the group did help manage the hostel. He was particularly suave and handsome, and charming as he was, he was the first to offer me a beer and a bowl of the most delicious lentil soup. When he found out that we were Christians, and that we were working in Christian ministry, he began to talk with me about Jesus. He told me how Jesus appeared to him in a dream.

You see, during his stint in the army, he fought Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey. He had seen death and explosions, and he feared for his own life. Every night, before we went to sleep, he pleaded with Allah and Mohammad to let him live, but he found no comfort. Finally, in a dream, he saw a man he had not seen before, beckoning him to follow. He knew exactly who it was. It was Jesus, and from then on, he prayed for Jesus to save his life. He finished his military mission unharmed. Since then, he always talked to travelers about Jesus, and my friends and I were not the first Christians who had passed through. Smiling, he showed me his plastic bag full of Gideon Bibles and evangelistic tracts.

I'm told it is not an unusual experience for people in the Muslim world to have visions of Jesus. Personally, I know one other Turk who repented and believed after seeing Jesus in a dream. The difference between him and the handsome youth hostel manager is that the manager did not repent.

You see, beside his Gideon Bibles, he had another collection: girlfriends. His suave good looks and his position managing a youth hostel allowed him to collect girls from all over Europe. He showed me his photo album. A girl from Finland, one from France, one from Germany - they all could have been Bond girls. He knew this was sin. The reason he approached me about Jesus was, like a lawyer reading a contract, he wanted to find a way to be a Christian and continue his conquests. "Can I still be a Christian and have the sex?" was how he put it. I told him God's grace was free, that this sin would not prevent God's love. I told him to commit himself to Christ, and to trust him with the rest. I told him that to repent from his sin, he would need to be willing give up that part of his lifestyle. I told him it would be impossible on his own, but with God, with the support of other Christians, he could. I told him if he would contact me, I would do some research and find a good church for him. I wanted to tell him about God's design for sex. I never heard from him.

Last Sunday, my pastor highlighted Jesus' response to the question from the religious authorities, "are you the Messiah?" in Luke's Passion. Jesus replied, "If I tell you, you will not believe me." In other parts of the Gospels, different people ask Jesus for signs, and he rarely concedes. Why? There's a skeptic in me that wonders why Jesus doesn't simply do something wonderful and magical to silence his critics once and for all, as if the Resurrection was not enough. The Turkish hostel manager is a good example for me as to how signs and wonders are insufficient for true faith.

Think about it. He was utterly convinced that he saw Jesus in a dream, beckoning him. He knew for certain that it was Jesus, not skill, luck or circumstance, that preserved his life in combat. Yet, he refused to follow. He did not trust God for the intimacy and satisfaction that he found having sex with pretty backpackers.

Would you believe Jesus if he told you who he was? Messiah. Savior. Son of God. God's Word made flesh. All in all. All that you need, all that you want, beyond anything we ask or imagine. Would you believe him if you saw him resurrected? Would you believe him if you witnessed miracles?

I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure that would have done it for me either. What did it for me was love. What did it for me was that, whenever I saw myself, I saw something unlovely. But I learned that, as Zephaniah prophesied, God is with us. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in us. He will quiet us with his love. He rejoices over us with singing. In our unbelief, when we refused to acknowledge God, whether we experience him through word, creation or miracle, he died for us. He rose again, all that he could be with us. He calls us, and whether we see him in a dream or not, he beckons us to follow him.

I hope something finally clicked for the Turkish hostel manager. I don't know if it would have been the message of love - I heard somewhere that "God loves you" isn't the best place to begin with someone from a Muslim background. Clearly, miracles were not enough for him. I hope he repents, and I hope he believes, that he may follow Jesus in life, in death, and, as we celebrate every Easter, in Resurrection.

Beer, Downstairs

Beer is best consumed in two places: outside, under the sun, at a picnic table with friends or downstairs, in a basement bar, at a small table with friends.

While I look forward to this summer's biergartens here in Germany, my final round in Washington was in the perfect downstairs environment. Two days before our departure, a few friends huddled with me around a table at the Beer Baron, what Brickskeller near DuPont Circle used to be. It's essentially the same thousand-beer bar with some minor improvements in the important areas, such as service, cleanliness and having beers on tap available downstairs.

Downstairs bars should be dark, but not in a lost or oppressive sense, but in a way that is warm, welcoming and comfortable. In such an environment, we check our worries around the same time that the girl at the front checks our IDs, leaving them to choke on city streets filled with cars, haste and the need to be going somewhere. Beer Baron fits the bill. Golden light trickles from each lamp like a back yard stream. The walls are brick. Downstairs bars should have brick walls, or stone, or something that, in the old days, would have looked presentable caked in cigarette smoke.

An important point: where we sat, we could not see a television. So many bars these days have TVs in every direction. Given the American attention span and our appetite for sports and news, I suspect that any bar not bricked with glowing screens puts its bottom line in serious danger. Don't get me wrong; I do enjoy watching sports at bars, with friends, where we can hear each other shout at the players and refs, but bless the bars without televisions. Televisions perniciously distract from what the best bars can do. They allow men to talk, to bond, those two mysterious things we observe women doing pretty much everywhere else. So we sit at our table with delicious, carefully-brewed beer, warm light and bricks shortening the path between our hearts and our mouths.

DC is a city of monuments and museums, green space and French architecture. I love walking around it, breathing in accomplishment wherever I go, being carried by the idealism, the expertise and the ambition. Two days before my departure, however, I left all of these things on the surface. Instead, I descended into a basement to drink beer with friends.

A Poem Worth Reading, Especially This Week

I randomly bought a book of Gerard Manley Hopkins poems at a used bookstore (a dangerous place for me to carry cash). Many of his poems are a chore to read and don't conform a lifestyle of glowing screens and busyness, but every time I practice concentration to read one, I find it well worth the effort. They were full of complexity - complex verse, complex thoughts, complex Christianity. I wish I could say I read him more often, and I won't see my book again for at least six weeks.

Fortunately, one of my pastors posted a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, both a chore and a joy to read, that is better than anything I read in my book. It's especially worth reading this week (which is why he posted it), as we remember death darkest, resurrection and new life. Read it.

The Joy of a Job Well Done

I'm sure you've had this experience before. You're doing a task you don't particularly care for, perhaps even at a job you don't like, but in all of the repetition, you start to feel joy. You grow in excellence and work quickly, and the satisfaction of a job well done sneaks in like an unwelcome guest at your negativity party.

I don't know whether or not the man who packed our belongings into a 200 cubic foot pod liked is job or not, though I suspect he does. He has been at it for fifteen years, ever since he moved to the States from Guatemala. He packed, taped and carried boxes of books, clothes, wedding presents and baby toys with a sort of gusto that comes from professionalism and know how. He was only about 5'6", maybe even less, but I think he could bench press my entire extended family if they all sat evenly on a metal pole. He was cut. In fact, with his shaved head, tanned skin and action movie physique, he looked just like Vin Diesel.

The best part was when taped up a box. Here his motions were more Bruce Lee than Vin Diesel (though no high-pitched Kung Fu screams). Within the span of a single second, he would rip off a piece of tape, close the box lid, tape it firmly and without creases or bubbles and without danger to any of the box's contents and, with that same gusto, tear off the end of the tape from the roll. He did this with machine-like precision. Whenever I tape up a box, the same process takes me five minutes and usually involves wasting too much tape as the pieces fold in two or get stuck on the floor. I look like a chimpanzee trying to open a jar of pickles.

I stood in the corner, nibbling my lip as I fretted about our worldly goods, wondering if they would all fit in the pod, while Vin Diesel/Bruce Lee merrily boxed and carried. I bet he could have fought 20 ninjas at once. It was a beautiful morning, and later, my wife and I stood outside to see him and his two partners pack everything in. It was incredible. My wife got annoyed when I hummed the Tetris theme song. Everything fit and then some. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding, that all of our belongings make it in tact to Germany. In the meantime, like a sunny spring morning, it does the soul good to watch someone take joy taping, boxing and carrying.

My Contribution, Part 2

Here is my second posting to the Lenten devotional.

In the 10th Commandment, God prohibits “inordinate” desires. Why? Because, as we saw yesterday, God loves us so much that he wants for us to be at peace, not only with one another, but also in our hearts. Consequently, God’s prohibition against covetousness is simultaneously a commandment to contentment. We are to be so satisfied in the Lord that, instead of resenting God or neighbor for what we do not have, we remember what we do have and give thanks. A covetous heart makes it impossible for us to experience God’s peace. That’s why this commandment comes at the end of God’s list of ten. Covetousness makes us much more likely to break the other nine commandments, as theft, adultery, idolatry and the rest are often rooted in it. A content heart, however...

Read the rest.

My Contribution

I am privileged to be a contributor for my church's online Lenten devotional. The devotional goes through the Ten Commandments, and I wrote two articles on the 10th Commandment, the first of which was posted this morning. The entire series has been excellent, so if you have not read them yet, by all means start from the beginning. My post is below. My pastor made some good edits to what I originally wrote, including smoothing out the syntax and adding the sign post analogy to emphasize the 10th Commandment's connection to the previous nine.

I once read an article in which an atheist ridiculed the 10th Commandment, because, unlike the other nine, it commanded inner thoughts and desires rather than actions. What he didn’t understand was that the first nine commandments share the same problem. As we have already seen in previous posts, outward sins like murder and adultery begin in the heart too. There’s nothing new about the starting point of the 10th Commandment. Rather, it’s like a sign warning that the bridge is out. The sin that pours forth from within our hearts has washed out any way ahead paved by our own external moral righteousness. The 10th Commandment is one last barrier erected across the road, warning that peril awaits all those who continue on ahead unimpeded. But what does it mean to blow through the barrier of the 10th Commandment? It can’t mean the prohibition of all desires. There are, of course, healthy desires... Read the rest.

Humanity Does Its Worst

Roger Cohen's anger is righteous. Any reasonable person should be angry. A buffoon of a cleric apparently burns a Koran in Gainesville, enraged Islamists react with murders, which their leaders fail to condemn. Jones' demonstration of what the Apostle Paul calls zeal without knowledge would have been more compelling if he himself were walking the streets Mazar-i-Sharif. As it is, his violation of another Pauline admonition ("to make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be Holy," as Adam points out) made unwitting martyrs out of UN staff in the same city. Of course, no act of buffoonery or provocation can justify cold-blooded murder, and if Cohen is right that Islamic leaders have failed to make unqualified condemnations, it is all the more despicable.

Here is Cohen's conclusion:

"This column is full of anger, I know. It has no heroes. I’m full of disgust, writing after a weekend when religious violence returned to Northern Ireland with the murder of a 25-year-old Catholic policeman, Ronan Kerr, by dissident republican terrorists. Religion has much to answer for, in Gainesville and Mazar and Omagh.

I see why lots of people turn to religion — fear of death, ordering principle in a mysterious universe, refuge from pain, even revelation. But surely it’s meaningless without mercy and forgiveness, and surely its very antithesis must be hatred and murder. At least that’s how it appears to a nonbeliever."

Indeed. But I think Cohen has the wrong culprit. Much violence has been committed in the name of religion. But much has also been committed in the name of politics, and people like Cohen certainly don't avoid that. Much has been committed in the name of tribalism. And much has been committed for reasons purely personal. Self-serving buffoonery and bloody revenge, as inhumane is they are, are human characteristics. Religion is at its worst when it channels and institutionalizes these characteristics. The same can be said for political or tribal activity.

Now, I can't speak for another religion, but Christianity agrees that religion is meaningless without mercy and forgiveness, the antithesis of hatred and murder. That's why Paul preaches against zeal without knowledge. That's why Jesus commands us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us.

"Religion" has as much to answer for as politics, tribalism, passion and so many other isms. The answers Cohen seeks actually belong to the perpetrators themselves. In fact, Cohen's longing for an answer, for justice, is a better reason than any on his list why "lots of people" (historically, the overwhelming majority of the human race) turn to religion. Jones, along with every terrorist and inquisitor, will one day give an account to God himself, who is far more offended, hurt and angry at murder than we are.

Unfortunately, the desire for justice, right at it is, will lead to a mirror. In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes that the essential question of hell is not about Hitler, Nero or Judas Iscariot (here he could add today's religious terrorists), but about you and me. On that same note, Paul reminds us (I say remind, because if we're honest, we know) that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We all will have to give account to God some day. Thankfully, Paul's sentence does not end there. He continues "...and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

That's the best reason for turning. Not turning to religion, which anyone can use or manipulate. It's turning to Jesus Himself. God's own Word, made flesh, took on God's wrath, offering us mercy and forgiveness. We humans have a lot to answer for, and in Jesus, we find the answer we need.

You've Got Tweets

At least one other blogger beat me to it (I did a "just in case" Google search on the topic), but at least it was an original idea among my friends, and besides, we have a different angle.

With Borders bookstores closing all over America, and various social media replacing that quaint, old-fashioned practice known as electronic mail, it's time for a sequel to that quintessential 90s movie, You've Got Mail. Yes, it's a generic love story - "oh, no, I hope they end up with each other and not with the uncomfortable, incompatible person they're currently dating!" plot regurgitation, but the backdrop of the rise of internet, email, online relationships and mega-bookstores makes this the kind of movie future historians will watch as they consider the 90s.

The plot of the sequal could be something like this: Played by Tom Hanks, widower Joe Fox (Meg Ryan's cold at the end of the movie was actually a warning sign) is also grieving the loss of 60% of his mega-bookstores, forced to close in the wake of fierce competition from a popular web-based discount store called "Nile." From his iPhone, Joe vents his sorrows through his anonymous Twitter account, @NY154. He begins to be followed by another anonymous person known as @Netgirl. The two begin playful but earnest banter and begin to fall through instantaneous messages of 140 characters or less.

Of course, @Netgirl is really the owner of the Nile website, who mostly tweets inside her expensive but lonely office, located in Nile's 150-acre Silicone Valley complex. She could be played by... oh, I don't know, Reese Witherspoon, or how about Gwyneth Paltrow? Of course, the love regurgitation story is beside the point (I'm sure they'll both be dating undesirable comic-relief characters who you pray they don't end up with). The real point will be to show future generations the rise of smart phones and social media, along with the demise of outlet chains. One of the classic movie moments will be where Joe Fox waxes on about the good old days, when people sat around in bookstore coffee areas reading magazines instead being glued to a screen all the time. At another point, @Netgirl would tweet from Fox Books: " Only 40% off for a best seller? Who pays that much!?" She will also make fun of Fox Books' awkward attempts to come up with a rival to her successful electronic reader, "The Blaze." At the end, of course, we'll learn that love conquers all, even sentimental attachment to your doomed business.

Yes, I think this is the movie you've been looking for - the one you'll use when telling the grandkids about early 21st century life.