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?