Telling Secrets

Writing Over at Tumblr These Days

2010-07-05T22:48:00.000-06:00

Still keeping this Blogger blog alive because it has mucho history and stories in it, but I prefer Tumblr and am active over there. Come check it out and follow me--http://calebjseeling.tumblr.com.

Yes, Oh Histrionic One

2010-07-03T16:43:00.001-06:00

"Those f***ing people don't know what the f*** they're doing!" says my boss, her stress and vexation preceding her physical presence like a cold front as she rounds the corner into the office. "We're sending a crew to cover this event in Detroit in a week, and the f***ing organizers haven't even written a f***ing press release yet! What the f***?!"

I suppose she is my boss. I was never properly informed. The man in whose office I am sitting is the one who hired me, along with the organization's executive director. But, I've discovered that here only partial information is shared, positions flex and bend with need, and egos bear the weight of the organization, if not the actual building in which they reside. I'm not thrilled that she's probably my new boss. She is a strong, Puerto Rican personality powerhouse. I am the mild-mannered alter-ego who's superpowers have become flabby and forgotten--not Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne...more like Dan Dreiberg, the "Nite Owl" in Watchmen.

"If I was in charge," she continues, "I would have done it completely different." My "real" boss and I nod in understanding and agreement--things would indeed have been different. "Well, our ED is putting all his eggs in this f***ing basket, so we need to do their work for them. So, Caleb, what I want you to do is buzz about this event all over the internet. Everyone has to know about it. It's got to be the year's biggest f***ing event. Everyone needs to buzz about it. THEN we can boast about being the only media network there to cover it--so you can buzz about that next week. Okay?"

The facts are these: I work for a small, ten person progressive media organization. I interviewed for a part-time position and ended up signing a contract for four hours a day ("Don't go over four hours!" my "real" boss told me). Clearly what she wants requires a lot more than what she actually has me for. But I can tell by that hard glint in her eye that she expects more of my pie than what I signed up to share, and that's a confrontation I do not anticipate with relish.

After a few more self-satisfying ego props and many more "colorful metaphors," she departs from the room. The air hesitates for an instant before filling the vacuum she leaves. My "real" boss and I look at each other.

"Wow," I say.

"Yeah," he says. "Histrionics all day every day. Just stay out of the way, don't bring your ego with you, and do good work."

Sage advice.

I have the hardest time working with personalities like hers--that kind of egostokes my id, the part of me that immediately wants to destroy things, only all that comes out is rebellious thoughts, throwing a fit at my wife, and acting out in passive-aggressive ways. My "real" boss, a 40-year veteran of the media biz with a persona that reminds me of a wizened and gray Jimmy Olsen, discovered this secret of dealing with histrionic higher-ups without losing his dignity or his job.

In fact, he has befriended our whirlwind colleague--he likes and respects her, and she him. Neither requires the other to change.

Sounds like loving your neighbor, doesn't it?

So that's what I tried to do. I gave her a break in my mind, did my best to help, gave as much time as I could, and quietly refused to do more than what was okay for my family. Of course, this consistent refusal to give her more sparked the confrontation I feared. But the confrontation did not proceed as I feared it would.

During the week of the event, my boss gave speeches in our staff meetings about all of us being responsible, doing our part to put in obscene amounts of hours, blah blah. Then, after each lecture, she looked at me and asked if I could work that night. I said no each time. "Oh," she said, annoyed. I began to wonder if I would remain employed by the end of the week.

Half way through the week, my boss pokes her head into my office to check on my progress. I lean back in my chair and say things are going great. She's in the mood to talk and somehow we get on the topic of parenting.

"Have you heard of Love and Logic?" she asks.

"Definitely," I say. "That's what we try to use, but with mixed results because we don't really stick to it. My wife and I were just thinking about diving back in now that our kids are getting older."

"Oh yeah? I've used it with my kid since he was a baby. He's ten now and it really works with him. Especially when it comes to getting his homework done. It's all about choices, you know, and I really have to reign myself in so that I don't react so emotionally to his attitude. My flying off the handle is rarely constructive, as I'm sure you've seen around here."

I blinked in surprise. "My kids don't respond well either when I act like an ogre. It just makes them crazier. We had some knock-down drag-out fights with my boy about getting his school work done last year and I don't think those times made him feel so thrilled about homeschooling."

"Oh, you homeschool? That is so cool! I'd do it if I could, but I can't."

"Well, we'll see how it goes this year. My twins are starting Kindergarten, so we'll be homeschooling three at the same time."

"You have twins? Oh my God! How many kids do you have?"

"Four, all told."

"Well, no wonder you kept saying you couldn't work late. S***! All you had to say was you were homeschooling four kids and I would have said, 'F***, man, stay at home! Let me bring you some cake!'"

And so, it turns out she not only values family, she is also as generous of spirit as she is histrionic. She knows her flaws and refers to them self-deprecatingly while using them to her advantage when she needs to. And with this conversation we have come that much closer to the kind of relationship and understanding that she and Jimmy Olsen have.

I also discovered that my self-defensiveness and assumptions about hard-ass, take-no-prisoners female bosses were sabotaging what promises to be a great working relationship, and there is a lot I can to learn from her.

That day, I felt a little like Dan Dreiberg when he finally gets over himself, puts hisNite Owl suit back on, hops into Archie, and breaks Rorschach out of prison.

A little.

But without the histrionics.

The Seeling family's new adventure and an invitation

2009-12-18T23:56:00.005-07:00

Soul-care is central to everything we do: when we host people in our home, organize events for the International Arts Movement, partner with authors to publish their books, and support couples during their labor and birth. The foundation of our calling is to follow Jesus’ example—to care for people and to nurture goodness, beauty, and truth in the world.

We are excited!
We have been invited to focus on this work full time now, essentially writing our own job description!

Our high-level goals for the next three years are to:

Develop a flourishing Denver branch of International Arts Movement, including establishing a Creative Hub, hosting events and exhibits, and nurturing the creative spirit in children and youth.
Partner with Missio to develop leaders and missional communities nationwide.
Join the roving care team at our church and foster soul care within our community.
Continue to collaborate with Colorado midwives to provide community education and excellent midwifery care to all who want it.

We believe in the importance of bi-vocational ministry, so Caleb will continue to grow his business Samizdat Creative Services and Angela will expand Womb to Grow to include midwifery care.

We are excited to see who God may call alongside us in this new season of focused ministry. We wanted to include you as we plan for the future because you have been an important part of our lives or you share our passion for revealing the beauty in all of us. We know that many of you have already been praying for us, now we ask you to consider joining us to help many others.

Please join us
We’d like to connect with you over the next few weeks to see how God may be leading you regarding our calling. It would help greatly if you would email one of us a time to chat with you. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll contact you in the next four weeks. In the meantime, would you consider us in your end-of-year giving?

We will run all our support through the Adullam Sending Network. ASN is a non-profit organization directly accountable to Adullam Church as well as the Missio national network. All donations are tax deductible and can be mailed to:

Adullam Sending Network
PO Box 2111
Littleton, CO 80161

Checks need to be made out to Adullam Sending Network or ASN. Use our account number 13453 on the memo line. You can also choose to have your support directly drawn from your account, just let us know.

We are thankful for you……and for your presence in our lives. We look forward to partnering with you to bring our city closer to God’s image for His glory.

Our best to you,
Caleb and Angela
_______________________________________________________________
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

5441 South Knox Court
Littleton, Colorado 80123

Angela’s info:
cell: 303.241.5170
email: angela.seeling@gmail.com
twitter: mywombtogrow

Caleb’s info:
cell: 303.358.3789
email: caleb.seeling@gmail.com
twitter: calebjseeling

Club Chaos: How to score multiple date nights with your spouse

2009-06-09T12:54:00.001-06:00

Club Chaos: How to score multiple date nights with your spouse

Posted using ShareThis

Kill the Christians!

2008-02-13T13:45:00.020-07:00

My wife and I have been fairly strict about Malachi's exposure to weaponry and the concept of death. The latter is of course more difficult to hide. Death introduced itself to Malachi through the quick and untimely demise of Sammy the Fish, a goldfish of course, which had a half-life of 30 seconds. We buried it under a tree and for a couple of weeks Malachi asked repeatedly to go see it. Finally I told him that Sammy the Fish was dead and that his body became dirt, but that since we buried him under a tree, Sammy the Fish's dirt became part of the tree. Now we will always know where Sammy the Fish is. Beautiful, right? When I related this story to Angela, she balked. I think her exact words were "Holy crap!" My mom bought Malachi a new fish, a hearty fish, a fish you hardly have to clean or feed, a Betta. Malachi named him Sammy the Fish.

About this time, Malachi started preschool. It wasn't long before he picked up a stick, pointed it at me, and said, "Pew pew!"
"What is that, Mo'?"
"It's my Pewing Thing," he said proudly. "Pew pew!"
"Oh, those are dangerous. They kill things. That means their dead."
"Dead?"
"Yeah. Like the first Sammy the Fish."
"Sammy the Fish is in the tree, Daddy."
"Yeah, well, he's also dead. He's not alive anymore."
"I can go see him whenever I want."
"Hmmm. Well just don't point that thing at people, ok?"
"Ok, daddy. Pew pew!"

I finally had mercy on the poor kid and gave him the language he needed to talk about these things--guns, bullets, destruction, Armageddon, the wrath of God. At the family ranch, I found a BB gun and gave him a little lesson in gun safety and then proceeded to shoot the crap out of a Coke can. Turns out I'm a crack sharpshooter. Then I had him practice my safety lessons with the Buck Roger's ray gun he found buried in the toy closet.

Months pass and Malachi still has yet to see The Incredibles, Spider-Man, Batman, Transformers and other adult shit marketed to our kiddies. We capitulated in our weaponry rule a little though by buying him a knight costume complete with sword. He and Micah (the boy of the family we live with) run around slaying dragons and monsters, the roles of whom their sisters often play. Another game they enjoy involves Micah, dressed in one of his papa's oversized T-shirts, playing Jesus and Malachi invariably is God. Most of the time, the sword and battle axe are missing from this game.

One set of movies that we have let him watch is an animated series produced by Focus on the Family called the Story Keepers. It's about the early Christians who met secretly under Nero's rule and told each other stories about Jesus and his teachings. Nero is portrayed as this evil, spoiled brat--a thin, temper-tantrum throwing wimp with hordes of burly Roman soldiers at his command who chase the Christians around, burn down the Christian ghetto, throw them to the lions and gladiators, etc. Nothing shouts Kids Show! more than flaming human torches at parties and walls made of twisted naked people. Malachi sies enraptured by these videos, though his sisters now refer to them as "Maochi's Scary Show." We don't let them watch anymore.

One night, Malachi was in his armor chasing the other kids around yelling, "Kill the Christians! Kill the Christians!" I didn't know whether to cheer him on or take the opportunity to give another object lesson. So I tried to ignore it. Then things got quiet. A few minutes later I heard him tell Angela, "I killed Jesus."
"OH?"
"Yeah, he's died. But don't worry, mommy, he will be alive again in 3 days."

I'm not sure whether he was God or a Roman soldier at the time, but apparently Malachi knows the Gospel story quite well--the facts of it anyway. Even though he doesn't quite understand love as the back story, he has the Gospel message down about as well as many people I know. But a half-story is really a whole...whatever, and as far as I can tell, from what I hear, you either have sin and judgment and salvation from those or Jesus and love and roses. But, put them together and you have...um...

Pruder Than God

2007-11-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

When I first began to attend my church, one of the pastors was ultra-reformed of MacArthurian proportions. Let's say that he and I didn't quite agree on a number of theological, and consequently behavioral, ideas. But one of the great questions he did ask to kick off his sermon was this: "What do menstrual rags, dog s**t, gratuitous descriptions of desire, and graphic violence all have in common? Right. With all of these things and more contained within God's inerrant and inspired Word, why do His people continue to maintain higher expectations of taboo language, imagery, and content than He does Himself? Why do we try so hard to be more prude than God?"

There is of course the Pauline injunction to not cause your weaker brother or sister to stumble--to abstain from things that you feel free to do when someone else feels it is a sin. I grew up being strictly taught to avoid the APPEARANCE of evil; whether or not I was actually doing evil was moot. Same goes for saying only what is edifying, in everything giving thanks, etc. There is so much wisdom and grace in these teachings and it provides a good heart check to agitators like me.

But, on the other hand, we focus so much on the Gospel of Paul that we forget that Jesus himself did not follow these behavioral rules to the letter. Sure you can argue that Jesus really did only say edifying things and that he did only things that weren't evil, but tell that to the religious leaders of the day who considered much of what he did sin. Or to the poor Canaanite woman who he called a dog and refused at first to help.

Paul too used common and crass language--even the "s-bomb" of the day--to convey his more intense thoughts. I love to envision Paul getting all riled up as he addressed each congregation. Some say that the thorn in his side wasn't anything physical at all--it was probably his obnoxious personality. You can hear it spewing forth in his letters.

And yet the vulgarity, the commonness, the gratuitousness--all of it is still Pneuma-tic.

This is a tired issue but it remains a hot one for those choosing to follow Christ, especially from the more conservative part of the subculture, because at its core is the question of grace and love--to each other and to a hurting world.

Live(d) from Soularize--Stripping Down with N.T. Wright

2007-10-25T18:02:00.000-06:00

There are a few things in life that level the playing field among human beings. One of them is peeing together at urinals. This is so true that some executives have their own pissoirs so that they don't have to be brought down to the common animal level. Another is also animal in nature, or spiritual, and that is nakedness. I rode a boat, sitting with a portly British guy in shorts and red pinstripes, his delightful wife Maggie (Mags) skillfully, humourously, bolstering and pruning her husband's fame and pride. I recounted my now favorite public health sign that we pass everyday in downtown Nassau: "Protect ya Tings. Use a RUBBER everytime" and we all laughed, able to identify with something as animal as sex and the diseases that can plague it. At our island destination, we all ran down the beach, childlike, stripping, and grabbing snorkel gear. Tom and Mags. Caleb and Angela. Spencer. Frank and Theresa. Ian and Ann. Taking pleasure in small colorful fish and bright blue fronds. Laughing, splashing, rain soaking the parts of us not already submurged.

Bishop Tom whipped through the book of Acts in just under an hour. Here it is in parts:

"The whole book is really another day, another riot on the surface. People don't tune in to what the Kingdom meant in the 1st century, but that is the main theme throughout Acts--this is the story of how the Kingdom gets out in the world--the reign of Jesus on earth as in heaven."

"The method has to embody the message-so the gospel wasn't spread with swords."

"Jesus body was thoroughly renewed and at home in both heaven and on earth—they were made for each other and Jesus brought them finally back together and this is the basis for everything that follows. To the Jews, this intersection occurred only in the temple. The entire Christian claim says that this truly and everlastingly happens in Jesus—and he is now in the place where is true for the whole world. The whole world is now God’s holy land. The place of Israel was the signpost for this—don’t mistake the signpost for the reality to which it points."

"Resurrection is life after life after death."

And one of my favorite quotes of Bishop Tom's from this evening in response someone's challenge that Luke purposefully rearranged facts to fit the story of Acts within his predetermined framework (i.e. to directly parallel the structure for the Gospel of Luke:

"You can't tell a story fact by fact without first deciding what it is you want to say. If you’re listening to a narrative without massive selection or arrangement, then you are listening to either a small child or someone who is very drunk."

Evangelicalism in Sheep's Clothing?

2007-10-11T07:53:00.000-06:00

The term "Missional" has become the new buzz word in churchdom. Everyone wants to be missional even more than everyone wanted to be "emergent"--many eschewed the emergent movement, but only a rare few cast asparagus upon the missional movement. But I fear much of the language used to describe what it means to be "missional" sounds awfully famliar.

Wendell Berry writes: "I have had with my friend Wes Jackson a number of useful conversations about the necessity of getting out of movements — even movements that have seemed necessary and dear to us — when they have lapsed into self-righteousness and self-betrayal, as movements seem almost invariably to do. People in movements too readily learn to deny to others the rights and privileges they demand for themselves...The worst danger may be that a movement will lose its language either to its own confusion about meaning and practice, or to pre-emption by its enemies."

Has "being missional" already been coopted? Is it evangelicalism's last ditch effort at survival? Or is it a true and good pattern of spiritual thought and behavior?

Bad Poetry and Short Short Story Contest--For My Birthday!

2007-08-02T10:39:00.001-06:00

I really can't take credit for this idea--a talented agent I work with, Chip McGregor, has the twisted mind that came up with a Bad Poetry contest to celebrate his birthday. What a fabulous idea, but since I write more short stories than poetry, I thought I'd expand the concept a little.

So, to enter the contest, leave your short short story or bad poem as a comment to this blog post. Everyone who comes to my birthday party on August 26 will have a chance to judge the entries. I will be the final judge since I'm the birthday boy.

The Grand Prize is a rare and most valuable copy of The Message called "Jesus Loves Porn Stars." All entries must be in by August 26 at 1:37 p.m.

Good luck!

Cars In Our Hearts

2007-06-02T23:47:00.001-06:00

If you want to sound like an idiot, try explaining what a spirit is to a 4-year old. If you want to really plumb your own moronic depths, throw some basic Christian theology on top of that. Talking theology makes my cranial cavity feel stuffed with chloroform-soaked cotton balls as it is.

It has been about a month since Malachi and I have had a late-night bedtime chat and I've missed them. Finally, tonight, we stumbled on an old connection and picked it up again.

He has never, ever, liked being alone. Especially while going to sleep. I have taken the opportunity to instill in him the reality of God's presence and that this keeps Malachi from being ever truly alone. A tough trick to pull off, but I guess a 4-year old probably could believe it more sincerely than someone my age, or, plainly, than me. A few weeks ago, I drew our townhouse on his chalkboard and then drew a stick figure Jesus bestraddling our rounded gable. He thought this was perverse then and I discovered tonight that his opinion had not changed.

"Daddy, I don't want God on the roof of our house."

"Ok, buddy, I'll take him off. But you know I drew him there because he's always around. So you're never alone, ok? He's always with you and you can talk to him whenever you want."

"Oh. That's Jesus on the roof, remember?"

"You're right, that was Jesus I drew."

"He's in our hearts too?"

"Well, yeah, if we want him to, he comes in our hearts. Then he helps us live the way he wants us to."

"When will he get out?"

"Well, I guess he doesn't. He's always there because he loves us."

"How does he get in there?"

"It's his spirit that goes in. You know what a spirit is? You know when you think things but you don't say them?"

Mo' shakes his head and frowns.

"You think things...in your head...and...you don't say them..."

He shakes his head again.

"Well, when you do, that's your spirit--that's really you in your body. And that's what Jesus puts in your heart too--his spirit."

"But, when does he come out?"

"He doesn't, buddy, when you ask him to be there. And you can talk to him anytime so you're never alone."

"Jesus is with God, though."

"Yeah, but his spirit's in our hearts."

"Is Mary in our heart too? Can we talk to her?"

"I don't really know."

"There were two Marys. One was by herself and one was with Jesus."

"You're right! How did you know?"

"I saw a video. One was crying. But the other one looked for him after he was gone and then she found him."

"You're right again."

"When was Jesus in Mary's belly?"

"Oh, a long long long time ago. Before there were cars or airplanes. They didn't even know how to make cars way back then."

"Really?"

"Really."

"But God knew how to make cars."

"That's true, I suppose he did. Hey, should we talk to him?"

"You do it, daddy. You talk to him."

"Alright, um...Dear Lord. Thank you for Malachi and for how wonderful he is..."

In a loud whisper--"No, daddy. Don't say that. Ask him to put cars in our heart."

"Um, ok...uh, Lord, thank you for Malachi's great imagination..."

"No no, daddy, ask him for cars in our hearts!"

"Uuhhh, Lord? Thank you for cars and, if you can, would you put cars in our hearts? Thank you for our cars and our house and please take care of people who don't have cars or houses. Use us to help the people you want us to..."

Loud whisper still--"Tell God that everybody needs a house."

"Yeah, you're right. Lord, Malachi is right, everyone needs a house. Would you please give everyone a house to live in? Amen."

I kissed him goodnight, descended the bunkbed ladder, went to the chalkboard and rubbed Jesus out.

I AM A WEED

2007-05-22T22:18:00.000-06:00

I was digging through my old writings and found this one that I wrote for a church newsletter back in 2001 -- it made me laugh and remember my old more activist days. Thought I'd post it - the message is still good even if it is a little preachy and strident!

Let me tell you a story of when I failed. I finished my 3 hour long class about how to “do therapy” with someone suffering from an “Axis 2 diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder,” and I walked out of the School of Social Work building, blinking against the sun. I was bored and a little lonely, so I decided to engage in a little economic therapy. This is a coping mechanism that is easily rationalized: “I'm feeling lonely and sad,” I say to myself. “I think I'll wander into a book store and look at all the books I'd like to read someday.” “But you always buy something—lots of things—whenever you do that, and you don’t have much money,” I sternly remind myself. “True, but that’s why I’m going to go to a used bookstore this time. Besides, I'll be smarter after I've read them and that’s a good thing.” So, I headed across campus toward the Dawn Treader Used Book Store. The stately red-brick library and science buildings I passed were bedecked with ivy that waved cheerfully, the American flag fluttered and snapped coolly, the fluffy white clouds lazily dissipated into the empty blue. The four coffee shops competing on the same block were delightfully empty of the undergrad riff-raff that crowded noisily into them during the school year. I smiled smugly to myself, already smelling the hot cup of Caribou coffee that I would sip as I perused my soon-to-be new purchases.

I turned a corner and triumphantly walked past Ann Arbor’s two-story flagship Borders bookstore and crossed the street. On the corner was a man with a dirt smudged face and rough hands dressed in obviously second hand clothes. His shoelaces were untied. “Hey, man, you got any change?”

Let me interrupt the story for a second because you have to understand something about me. First, not only was I training to become a social worker (do-er of good deeds, caretaker and friend of all), but I was also doing an internship in Detroit’s inner city where I was organizing churches to battle the social and economic inequities that Detroit is most known for. Second, I was a Bible study leader for Intervarsity’s graduate chapter in Ann Arbor. I had on the previous evening taken my group through 30 Bible passages that talked about the special place in God’s heart for the oppressed and the poor and I told my group that if we Christians were at all interested in God’s kingdom, then we had better get with it and make these people a top priority on our agenda as well.

And then I met this man. He looked at me and he said six words. I walked past and mumbled something like “I can’t” or “Sorry.” Are you kidding me? I had visions of John Updike, C.S. Lewis and Frederick Buechner dancing in my head. My nostrils were flaring in anticipation of that first waft of coffee beans ground especially for me. I swung open the door to the Dawn Treader and the first thing my eyes beheld was a rare, U.K. printed 1967 hardback edition of the Fellowship of the Rings trilogy—all three for a mere $150. I knew I was in the right place.

Forty-five minutes later, I was 10 dollars poorer and 5 books richer. I took the bulky Dawn Treader plastic bag from the cashier and turned toward the door. That’s when I realized that in order to get to my Caribou coffee I would have to go back with my now full hands past that man who had asked me for money. I peeked through the window to make sure he was turned away and then slipped out of the store and down the street away from him. I went all the way around 2 blocks to get back to the coffee house without passing him.

“But what else could I have done?” I asked myself. “I'm a student with limited income. Ann Arbor has tons of homeless people--they all flock here because it is 100 times better to be homeless here than in Detroit, and there's no way I can help them all.” I was not enjoying my coffee. “Am I supposed to feel guilty about buying books and drinking coffee whenever I want? Am I supposed to live in poverty too?”

These are tough questions with no clear answer. We have the blessings of resources, freedom, education, and an environment conducive to our health and progress. We know that God has given all these things to us and that they are good. We also know that as Christians we are supposed to serve and to “do good” in the world with what we are given, to be “light and salt.” But when we look at the disparities that surround us, we often feel guilty. We sit in the turn lane on the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Colfax where that poor obese man with severe congestive heart failure sits in a wheelchair with a sign that asks for mercy and money. The pulmonary edema from his condition makes his feet so swollen that they look more like hoofs than anything else, and four thoughts speed through our minds—1)“Holy Mackerel! Look at him!” 2)“That poor guy is probably not going to live much longer.” 3)“Ok, so what should I do about it?” 4)“When is that stupid arrow going to turn green?”

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the immense needs that poke at us through the dense atmosphere surrounding our little worlds. We haven’t the first clue about where to begin to help, but we feel like we ought to do something, if at the very least to make the poking stop. And then we sit staring at the traffic light, waiting for the green arrow. It's easy to sit and wait, because urges often die down after a while. It's also easy to go oversees, dig a ditch for Jesus, and pat the grateful little native on the head because his gratefulness makes us feel like we did a job well done. We have served, we have been a light in a dark land, and now we can go home happy, drive our SUVs, and blissfully complain about how busy we are.

Can you see a pattern yet? The language of the self: all-pervasive, all-consuming. It is unsatisfying, the nagging and poking always return, frustration sets in and we become graceless in our self-defense (“Don’t bother me—there’s nothing I can do”).

The 16th century priest and poet George Herbert wrote a marvelous psalm called Employment:

If as a flower doth spread and die,
Thou wouldst extend me to some good,
Before I were by frost’s extremity
Nipped in the bud;

The sweetness and the praise were thine;
But the extension and the room,
Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine
At thy great doom.

For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glory be.
The measure of our joys is in this place,
The stuff with thee.

Let me not languish then, and spend
A life as barren to thy praise,
As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delays.

All things are busy; only I
Neither bring honey with the bees,
Nor flow’rs to make that, nor the husbandry
To water these.

I am no link of thy great chain,
But all my company is a weed.
Lord place me in thy consort; give one strain
To my poor reed.

Herbert recognizes his use of self-language. He begins by thinking of himself as a flower in God’s great garland. He has much to offer and he wants God to use it quickly before he dies. He is anxious to experience the glory that will accompany his work. It is the shortness of life that is the turning point for him—life is meaningless if he uses his blessings and gifts to make himself feel good. Herbert then wonders what in the world is he good for anyway. Humbled, he finally admits that he is not a flower in God’s great garland after all, but a weed, and his only use is the weak and broken monotone of a hollow reed if only God would blow on him.

We are hollow reeds that make horrible music, and we can’t even do that on our own. We can’t toot our own reeds. If any good comes out of us, it is because someone else is doing the work. John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress and contemporary to George Herbert, writes “Christ can use gifted people to affect the souls of the people in his Church, yet when he has finished using them, he can hang them up without life…I perceived that although gifts are good to accomplish the task they are designed for—the edification of others—yet they are empty and without power to save the soul unless God is using them. And having gifts is no sign of a person’s relationship to God. This also made me see that gifts are dangerous things, not in themselves, but because of those evils of pride and vainglory that attend them.”

I am a weed, and the good news is that so are you and so is that man on Colorado and Colfax. We are not that different from each other. This is the foundation upon which we can silence our small, demanding selves and be honest about who is really at work.

Now when I walk past someone homeless who asks me for money, at the very least I look him in the eye and acknowledge his presence. We are both humans after all. If I have some money, I give some of it to him. If I am carrying food, I offer that. None of these acts of giving will help him longer than a couple of hours. But I have learned that it is the connection you make, the gift of yourself, to the person you are helping that makes the difference. Imagine yourself homeless—you are there because of a terrible tragedy or a serious mental illness. You are ignored, sneered at, and patronized by “well-meaning” helpers who are really out to make themselves feel better. Imagine the effect this has on you. If you are treated like you are worthless for long enough, you begin to believe that you are in fact worthless. Then someone comes along and acknowledges your presence, they are not afraid to look or smile at you, and if they don’t have anything to give, they say so honestly and directly. They have shown that you are worth talking to and being honest with—they have expressed their human commonality with you. What is more, they are active icons, or images, of Immanuel—God with Us who did the same thing a long time ago.

I believe that it is not wrong to be able to afford an SUV, or to enjoy a cup of coffee. It is not wrong to feel good when you give someone money or build a village outhouse in Nepal—God knows we need a lot of positive reinforcement when we do something right. But remember that the line of circumstance dividing you from the one you are helping is only certain from moment to moment, because you are in the hands of an unpredictable, unsafe Diety who thankfully has extended his mercy to you.

So, let us praise God for his blessings. Let us praise him for the summer times in life. Let us praise him when those we serve express their gratitude, because it means they have heard the weak, monotone music being blown out of us. And let us fervently pray that God will take another life-breath to blow another strain.

DECONSTRUCTION AND CONSTRUCTION

2007-05-15T22:53:00.000-06:00

First off, thanks to all who expressed concern for our water problem. Our friend who finished our basement is going to help us figure out what to do next, my sister Brigitte came over to help Angela, and my mom also showed up for dinner.

I had burned myself out that day of flooding and conference. The next day I felt drained and didn't have the energy for hardcore networking or listening to speakers that I needed. I drifted in and out of the talks but found myself hanging around the "Green Room" just being. I decided to flow with whatever/whoever God brought to me - I didn't have the energy to make things happen myself.

The first person I talked with the vice-president of the National Evangelical Association, Richard Cizik, and we agreed to stay in touch. Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired, abandoned me for lunch so I turned to the guy standing next to me and invited him out. Turns out he organizes a huge event that attracts between 2500 to 3000 college students every year. I wasn't the best lunch buddy though, and wasn't all that excited about meeting him and his loud friends--i was feeling too tired and didn't want to eat the fast food they dragged me to. So we parted quickly.
I returned to the "Green Room" and sat with a group of guys who were laughing and telling some great stories. I was drawn into the conversation and began talking with the pastor of New Providence church in the Bahamas, the church that is hosting this year's Soularize which Angela and I are planning to attend. This guy's name is Clint and turns out he was also a speaker at the conference I was currently at. He told me the story of his doing the exact same thing as I was today and God was making him the motivational force behind a growing revitalizing effort in the Bahamas involving the Prime Minister and the CEO of the multi-billion dollar Atlantis resort. Then a friend of his, Chris, joined us and he and I also talked and found we had similar visions and interests. We parted with the agreement to keep talking and see what happens in the near future.

Long story short, I found myself with a new friend who introduced himself to me and who works with Makoto Fujimura in New York. He invited me to have dinner with him and a guy who had a Ph.D. in Physics, was an expert on the Shroud of Turin, and was bringing innovation to businesses, churches, and social support systems. Brilliant man.

Then I met the designer of Paste magazine who invited me to a whiskey tasting party at the Paste offices. When we got there, almost everyone I met that day was there - and only they were there. The guys I had lunch with, Chris, Rusty, and another guy who also works with Makoto, along with all the Paste staff I had also met.

Amazing day. The lesson is one that Clint told me he was also learning - that walking with God involves one foot taking a step that deconstructs something in your life and then the next step is one that builds something new, and then the next step deconstructs something else, and the next step builds something new. But you only take one step at a time and you have to be willing to stand there as everything crumbles around you, not knowing what will happen next, but trusting that God is about to build something else. "The only thing I know at any moment," he said, "is that I love Jesus and that he loves me. And that has to be enough, even if your life is crumbling around you."

A BRIEF REVIEW OF "CHILDREN OF MEN"

2007-05-01T12:57:00.000-06:00

This is one of my favorite films of last year and has quickly moved into one of my all time favorites. The cinematography was incredible and many of the action sequences are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Politically, it doesn’t condone a particular party or philosophy - indeed, any party structure is absent, replaced instead by “the government” and an activist group “the fishes.” Both of these parties are seriously indicted, though the fishes are treated fairly as trying to do the right thing exactly the wrong way (which of course inevitably turns them into the main antagonists of the film). What we are faced with then, is an examination of individual and group responsibility. Our choices as individuals, and the values underlying these choices, make as much difference in the world as do the choices of groups (governmental or otherwise). This is a serious message that Christians need to think seriously about and we must move away from self-interested religious propoganda and sacrifice everything, including our lives as Clive Owen’s protagonist did, to protect and spread beauty, wonder, and life in a world torn by war, hate, paranoia, misplaced patriotism, and self-interested religious propoganda.

THE SPIDER AND THE FLY

2007-04-25T22:10:00.000-06:00

Fifteen minutes before I left for the Q conference in Georgia, I discovered that our newly finished basement was flooding. The rain should have been Denver's April blizzard, except that it was about 15 days too late and winter had already turned to spring. The grass was green, the trees were blooming and budding, it had been warm. I was enjoying the rain for the first time in almost 2 years--it had been that long since our last flooding. I thought I had fixed the problem and so we finished the basement. God provided us exactly the right amount of money to pay for it and a friend to do it quickly and in time for a good potential renter to look at our townhouse. It all seemed in the bag and we would move in to a communal house with another family. We want to be good stewards of our resources, spend only what we have to take care of our house, share resources with another family, keep downsizing and living as un-consumer lives as we possible.

Two days after the basement was done and 2 days before the potential renters would look at our house, the rains came down and the floods came up; the rains came down and the floods came up; the rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the sand went SPLAT!

So 15 minutes after I discovered the water and the wet spot on the carpet, I kissed my wife and kids good-bye, drove to the airport, and flew to sunny Atlanta for an exciting and potentially edifying (not to mention profitable time of networking) conference.

On the plane, I was trying my hardest not to be bitter about the flooding that had started at home. I read about the Jesus Prayer in the Eastern Orthodox tradition--you pray it over and over to train yourself to "pray without ceasing." The prayer goes - "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." I also read a couple of Fred Buechner's old sermons about watching for the wonder and work of God to show up in your life, in the humdrum, amazing, ridiculousness of it. So I tried it. I prayed the Jesus prayer. I told God that I was sorry about being bitter about the water and that I knew that if it was his will that he could move a few grains of dirt to block the water from coming in the basement and that I would really appreciate it if he would do that. I imagined seeing a thumbprint squashing dirt next to our foundation and was sure he would if he wanted to. Maybe.

I went to dinner with a potential author and had some of the best tapas I've had in ages...actually since I last had tapas, which was about 7 years ago. I also had a pretty decent mojito and half a carafe of sangria.

When I got back to my hotel, I talked with Angela again. Her anxiety was rising in direct proportion to the amount of water that was doing the same - that is to say, by the gallons. She was also trying to get the kids to bed. We talked about every 30 minutes trying to figure out where the water was coming from and what to do about it. The answer was "who knows?" on both counts, except for Angela to shopvac up the water every half hour through the night while trying to keep the kids nursed and asleep.

The next day, I sat through about 8 presentations and shook hands with Andy Crouch and Rick Warren. Then I talked with my tearful and exhausted wife about how the rain stopped but the flooding hadn't. Then I sat through 5 more presentations, joked around with Chris Seay, made lunch plans for the following day with the founder of Wired magazine, and had lunch with the business consultant for Sam's Club, Meijer, and other megastores. Then I talked with Angela some more about who to call to swing by and figure out what to do with an increasingly soaked basement. I made a few phone calls to our construction expert friends, but had to leave frantic messages with them. I was feeling completely helpless about the flooding, angry at God and the previous owners, and more than a little guilty about leaving my wife to clean the house, show it to the possible renters, manage the flood, take care of the kids, and plan a birthday bash for the weekend--all by herself.

Then, I sat through 5 more sessions, learned about how slavery is alive and well in the world (including in the United States, even in some churches), how sex trafficking works, and about people doing something about it. I talked with an executive producer from Lionsgate Films (Saw 1-3, Hostel, Pride, The U.S. vs. John Lennon) and we agreed to keep in touch in order to trade book/movie ideas and leads. I heard from Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOM's Shoes, and his passion to put shoes on the feet of at least a million kids in third world countries by this time next year (and it looks like he just might pull it off). Then Jeff Johnson, a producer at BET, raked the good-intentioned but still racist-minded white and multi-ethnic churches over the coals.

I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed and torn. Angela called and said that the office was now wet too and that the water was coming in faster, even though it was a nice sunny day. She also said that she just got an email from the potential renters saying that they found some other place, thanks anyway. We now had no leads for renters, our newly finished basement was being destroyed by flooding we thought we had prevented by an unseasonal, highly unusual, and long rain storm. The kids were cranky, my wife was going crazy, no one who could help was calling back. Meanwhile, I was having tremendous success at networking, I was learning a lot about this new movement of culture and social justice creators in the Church, and eating well. I was also bitter about the flooding and despairing about being able to afford the repairs.

I went to the conference's "Quiet Space" to take a time out. Gazing at the Atlanta skyline, I tried the Jesus Prayer again, but it quickly turned into a plea and a diatribe. God gave us exactly the right amount we needed to finish the basement--he needed to give us what we needed to fix it up again. Then I sat on a hard bench and tried to ignore this yahoo yelling into his cell phone.

A fly buzzed loudly in the window behind me and I turned around to see that it was trying to escape from a spider's web. I have never seen a frantic, panicked fly before. It's hindquarters were already cocooned and its legs seemed paralyzed. It did have full use of its wings, though, and they were beating the air with all the desparation a doomed being could have. The spider had a firm grip on the fly and was pulling it back into the crack of the window and out of sight. The fly gave a good struggle, but the force of its wings could not prevail over the spider's eight powerful legs. The fly was yanked back into the crack where I could still hear its wings beating against the wood of the pane until they stopped and I swore I could hear a munching noise. Sickened, I left the room.

DELIBERATE: BECOME WHAT YOU BELIEVE

2007-04-04T07:54:00.000-06:00

Beginning this September, a new line of books from NavPress--Deliberate: Become What You Believe--will hit the streets. Deliberate books explore the mystery of faith and how to actively live it out. As we plumb the mystery, we use Jesus as our guide—a man who, after spending 40 days of solitary contemplation in the desert, announced:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and the regaining of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
— Luke 4:18-19

So began a career that is a study of profound faith in action, a perfect blend of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. He broke firm Jewish mores when he talked to the Samaritan woman alone at the well. He upset the unholy money making in the temple. He left everyone speechless when he defended the woman who slept around. He helped everyone he came across on his way to visit a dying friend. He taught through stories and riddles. He told his followers to love their enemies. He treated party-goers at a wedding reception to the best wine late in the evening.

Jesus told us to live like he did and to do even greater things. He told us to live deliberately, combining faith and action.

Deliberate about global Christianity
Deliberate embraces the “whole world” aspect of God’s love. The world’s cultures and economics are globalizing—distances between people are shrinking. We must listen to the experiences of other cultures and learn about God’s work in them. We must embrace a global Christianity without losing the specificity of God’s work within our own context. Deliberate explores voices from around the world, and from other worlds within America, as they tell their tales of God’s grace in the harsh light of real life. We need to hear from African-Americans struggling in “post-movement” urban America, indigenous pastors living in Muslim Asia, European female artists, and Sudanese countrymen struggling with “post-colonialism” and the continued effects of civil war and genocide.

Deliberate about art and culture
Deliberate explores the confluence of art and faith. Art has held a key place in the expression of faith through the centuries and its role in this new century, in all its forms, is more crucial than ever. It has the ability to communicate the truth about this world in profound ways that printed or spoken words cannot match—truth about injustice, beauty, hate, love, and the human condition. Art can also communicate God’s grace and love for the world in equally profound ways and often can bridge cultures and people better than any other form of communication. It can even bypass the unconscious autopilot many of us live by and promote conscious living and deliberate action. So it is important to acknowledge the expression of faith through art and to develop its role in God’s work in the world.

Deliberate about theology
Deliberate is theologically grounded. While exploring the mystery, it is important to be mindful of the signposts God already has placed for us through Biblical doctrine and Church tradition. This grounding is not wholly limiting, however—it pulls from many traditions, readings, and expressions of Scripture, but it will also “test the spirits” to remain as faithful to God’s Word (both written and incarnated) as possible (1 John 4:1). Deliberate follows Saint Augustine’s guiding principle:
“In essentials, unity;
in non-essentials, liberty;
in all things, charity.”

Deliberate about God’s Kingdom work
Deliberate follows Jesus’ example and explores the timeless nature of God’s work, such as loving the whole world (John 3:16); caring for the poor, orphan, widow, prisoner and foreigner (Micah 6:8, Matthew 25:31-46, Isaiah 58); and redeeming the world—everyone and everything in it—through reconciliation of people and a renewal of nature (Colossians 1:19-20 and Romans 8:19-23).

Deliberate about holistic, active faith
Deliberate encourages readers to embrace a holistic and vibrant Christian faith that is both contemplative and active. It bridges the mystery-embracing, active faith of emerging churches with theological rootedness. It breaks down the sacred/secular divide and explores all aspects of creation and culture and our role in doing God’s work through them. It dialogues with other faiths and worldviews and embraces God’s truth found there. It explores art and culture and uses them to unflinchingly tell the truth about this life and God’s redemption of it. It fosters a faith bold enough to incarnate the gospel in a shrinking and diverse world. There is something here for everyone on a spiritual pilgrimage to know God and live like Christ—Christian and non-Christian alike.

NOT REALLY UPSIDE DOWN

2007-03-19T07:37:00.000-06:00

Seven-thirty marks the beginning of bedtime in the Seeling home - all three kids protest the announcement that the time has come to get ready for bed. The girls are easily talked into it with the promise of nursing and their tearful whining is replaced by big smiles, waves, and "Nah nah! Nah nah!" Sometimes I get hugs - Ameena always more willing to dispense these than Acacia who usually runs away until she sees Ameena giving hugs. Malachi however always gets his hugs and he happily gives them back in good brotherly form.

After the girls disappear with Angela upstairs, Malachi usually plays another quarter hour before I insist that he brushes his teeth. He has a motorized toothbrush in the shape of a car that he likes to use these days (he has three others to choose from). When Angela first gave it to him as a present, he was excited until we turned it on and stuck it in his mouth. Malachi hates loud noises and has always been a little skittish when it comes to new, strange things. He pulled back immediately and refused to use the new toothbrush, prefering his old, reliable, manual green Oral brush. He finally realized how cool his car toothbrush was when Isabella came over to spend the night. She had a motorized pink Disney Princesses toothbrush over which she globbed toothpaste, turned the noisy motor on, and nonchalantly stuck it in her mouth - a stubbornly confident Princess of Cool. Malachi wanted to show her how cool he was with his own motorized car toothbrush and followed her lead. The deal was clinched when she spit into the sink, a line of goopy white dripping from her lips, down her chin, barely making it into the sink before creeping down the white bowl. If there is anything more built into the Y chromosome it is the need to spit, and here Malachi saw an opportunity to spit in the house in an approved way. Toothbrushing before bed has never been an issue since.

Once in bed, if it's not too late, Malachi and I read The Next Chapter in whatever "Chapter book" we're reading at the time. Our first book was one of my favorites The House at Pooh Corner. Our second was The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Malachi loved both, so then followed the adventures of Ralph the mouse in the sequel Runaway Ralph, a theme I thought twice about introducing to my three year old. It is decidedly slower than the first book and deals with older themes, but Malachi still seems interested in listening to it. When we're done reading, I turn off the lights and lay next to him to chat and doze until he finally drops off to sleep.

I usually take this time of chatting and dozing to reaffirm my love to Malachi, to apologize for anything mean I did or for the time we didn't get to play that day, and to tell him what I am proud of him for. He sometimes responds with a simple "thanks, daddy" and sometimes he engages and provides thoughts of his own. The last few nights have been full of the latter.

A couple nights ago, Malachi was singing softly to himself a song about a volcano under the ocean that "blows and blows and blows." I had never heard that song before and I had no idea Malachi knew anything about volcanos, much less submarine ones that blow and blow and blow. After a few rounds of this chorus, Mo' turned to me and said, "Daddy, there are volcanos under the ocean."

"You're right, buddy."

"And sleeping volcanos are called 'dormance.'"

I propped my head up on my hand and looked at him through the red glow of the string of chili pepper lights we use for a nightlight. I still have no idea where he learned about this - maybe from school, or maybe from a show he watched on NickJr.com - the volcano song he has associated with Diego, but I've never heard a preschool show talk about dormant volcanos. The next day during dinner, we munched on sandwiches and watched "blowing" volcanos on Google video and saw what sleeping, dormant volcanos looked like (he was a little disappointed in the dormant ones: "But those have snow on them").

The next night I told Malachi how proud I was of him and how big he was getting. "Yeah, I can ride my bike now," he said.

"Yup, and you're a good bike rider too."

"Yeah. And I can climb good...because I'm not little anymore," he said thoughtfully.

"Yup."

"And...I can run...and I can ride my scooter..." He paused and thought a little longer. "And I am almost good at driving."

Last night, in his final quarter hour of playing before bed, I was checking email and listening to him play and sing to himself. He was playing with one of those bead rollercoasters - he had it on its side and was making up a story full of danger and adventure for the beads. At the same time he sang:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are great
You'll never know dear (giggle) how much I love you
... when skies are great
You'll never know dear...never know I love you
When skies are great...
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
When skies are great...

He was silent for a moment and then he said, "Daddy, sometimes people kill."

I swiveled around in my office chair to face him. "Yes they do, buddy. Sometimes people do kill."

"And sometimes animals die."

"Yes, sometimes they do. "

He turned back to his toy and ran the beads around their metal tracks. "What do you think about that?" I asked him.

He waved at his toy, still on its side and said, "The world is upside down. But not really upside down, just a little."

ORPHAN OF GOD

2007-02-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

I will rise from my bed with a question again

As I work to inherit the restless wind

The view from my window is cold and obscene

I want to touch what my eyes haven't seen

But they have packaged our virtue in cellulose dreams
And sold us the remnants 'til our pockets are clean
Til our hopes fall 'round our feet
Like the dust and dead leaves
And we end up looking like what we believe

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins and make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

Like bees in a bottle we are flying at fate
Beating our wings against the walls of this place
Unaware that the struggle is the blood of the proof
In choosing to believe the unbelievable truth

But they have captured our siblings and rendered them mute
They've disputed our lineage and poisoned our roots
We have bought from the brokers who have broken their oaths
And we're out on the streets with a lump in our throats

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins
And make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

-Mark Heard

PAYING DEBTS OF GRATITUDE

2006-12-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

As I continue to reflect on the events of my life that have led to last week's nexus, I realize that I have some debts of gratitude that are overdue. So, let the acceptance speech begin:

Angela - my wonderful wife who has believed in my writing and creativity from the start. She has always believed in my taking jobs for which I am passionate about - and she has been willing to pay the price the search for such jobs cost us. Her support and willingness to head in the new direction NavPress will take our family makes it all possible. To her I owe everything.

Keven Winder - one of my closest friends and greatest confidante. He has been pushing me and pushing me in this direction for almost as long as Angela has. We were going to write a book together, which I got lost in the idea of, but he went on to write one of his own just to needle me (well, ok, he also had a book concept that he thought needed to be written).

Bill O'Brien and the M.O.S.E.S. Project in Detroit - Bill taught me everything I know about networking, professional relationship building, and organizing. He and the churches of the M.O.S.E.S. Project instilled in me a passion for social justice and for the Biblical mandate to care for the poor and oppressed.

Getabecha Mekonnen and Tracy Smith at Northeast Denver Housing Center - I was given complete freedom to practice everything I learned in Detroit and in graduate school at NDHC. Gete and Tracy supported every hair-brained idea I had and many of those ideas are still being used with the homeless and impoverished people I worked with. I also began my graphic design training here.

Connie Ferguson at Kaiser Permanente - Connie believed in me from the first day we met while I was at the American Heart Association. She also gave me complete freedom to develop my creativity and graphic design skills. She also provided the flexibility I needed to have our twins "at home" in Utah by letting me work long-distance for a month and to develop my personal network of artists and writers in Denver. If it wasn't for her and for the other leaders in the Kaiser Prevention Department, I am certain that I would not have been prepared for this vocational shift - without my current position at Kaiser, I would not have gotten this job at NavPress.

All 20 medical schools I applied to in college - If it hadn't been for their rigorous and well-conceived application and interviewing process, I would have made the biggest mistake of my career at it's very beginning - I would have gone through medical school to become a doctor. Without their foresight, I would not have met my wife, had my wonderful kids, developed my writing and creativity, and I would have withered on the vine in a job I would have hated.

University of Michigan School of Social Work - They accepted my application when I had no prior social work experience or course work, a fact that caused the other 2 schools of social work to which I applied to deny my application. The Michigan school accepted talent and life experience over previous skill, a worthy approach infrequently followed.

D.J. Turner and Jared Mackey - These two have been my biggest fans and supporters, second only to my wife, and have provided never-ending encouragement. My personal and creative development would have been greatly stunted if it weren't for these two. My time at TNL was highly formative and the artisan's gathering Entersection engineered by D.J. and John Miller gave me a shove in the right direction.

Russ McKendry and Mike McGirk at L2 Church - These two have also been highly influential in my recent development, encouraging my spiritual and doctrinal growth and giving me the opportunity to marry both with my creativity. The freedom and latitude they have provided over the last year has been incredible, from allowing me to help reformulate and repackage their church to taking big political risks by letting me hold the State of Our Values party and the Dekalog discussion at the church, and largely funding both! Without these experiences and their solid teaching, I would not have been in a position to even apply for the position at NavPress.

The rest of my family and friends - there are of course more people I haven't mentioned who have made me who I am and to them I also owe a great deal.

I am very excited to see where my family and I are taken next and we covet your prayers and continued support and encouragement.

THE NEXUS

2006-12-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Three months. Three life-course directing decisions. And no clear direction until it all came down last week. Even then we had to proceed by faith.

Several weeks ago, I called my mentor and Big Brother Jim Kimbriel in anguish. Almost everyone was telling me that we needed to forgo the Philippines because of the ministry work that Angela and I were doing here - that we were needed here more than anywhere else. I had a very difficult time buying that when I knew that people in the Philippines were living in squalor and dying - that the skills that Angela and I both have were greatly needed. Sure, people here live in poverty too, but the difference in my mind was the great gulf between relative poverty and absolute poverty. Jim has known me since my college days and he has known us as a couple from its inception. He instilled in us back then the passion to use our complementary skills where they were needed most - namely in developing countries.

But the choice to go or to stay seemed to be the choice between MY "ministry" in Denver (bridging the sacred/secular chasm) and ANGELA's dream of training to become a midwife, especially a missionary midwife. I so believed that Angela's path was to become a midwife, and in response to my long held belief that I was cut out to do international work, I was willing to do whatever it took to get us there. But Jim was one of the only people in our lives who supported this decision. Our other wise friends said we needed to stay because my influence was just beginning to bud and leaving now would be a drastic mistake; likewise, Xylem was poised to take off as an organization and Angela leaving it now might kill it.

To stay for me would have meant staying at Kaiser Permanente, either in my current job (which was far from stimulating, but provides all the flexibility and buying power I needed) or in a new job for which I had been waiting over a year and was about 95% sure I would get. There was also the outside chance that I would work for NavPress as Developmental Editor of a new line of books they were publishing. This job sounded fantastic, but my performance during the interview was mixed at best and I was far from certain that I was a real contender.

To stay for Angela meant continuing with Xylem, raising the kids, and most likely putting midwifery training off indefinitely. The possibility of her training in Denver was real, but actually pulling it off with Xylem and family responsibilities seemed unreal. And if I was to get the NavPress job, my absence from the family another 2 hours a day made midwifery training seem completely unrealistic.

Given my belief that God wanted Angela to become a midwife, I placed realizing her dream and training as my top priority - even if it meant placing everything else on hold for the next two-and-a-half years. And yet, we both still felt greatly conflicted about leaving and the director of the missionary midwifery school/clinic was being strangely incommunicado.

So, I called Jim and asked him if my priorities were in the right place. I believed my wife comes before everything else, including whatever I thought my "ministry" should be, but I was beginning to doubt. Jim said that I would never regret choosing Angela above everything else and he challenged anyone who loved his wife to say otherwise. After all, our marriage vows specifically state that we would forgo all others for each other. But, the dilemma was clear and he also pointed out that God wants us to walk by faith and not by sight. Right now, he said, you can't see anything. But the great thing is that there is not a bad choice among them - any of the three options would be good. But to choose which was the best path to take requires faith. He encouraged us to make a list of all the blessings God has given us and the good work he's done in and through us and then sit down together for an hour and thank him for it. He also told me to pray for courage.

I looked up the "walk by faith" scripture in 2 Corinthians 5 and here's the passage en toto:

5:1 For we know that if our earthly house, the tent we live in, 1 is dismantled, 2 we have a building from God, a house not built by human hands, that is eternal in the heavens. 5:2 For in this earthly house 3 we groan, because we desire to put on 4 our heavenly dwelling, 5:3 if indeed, after we have put on 5 our heavenly house, 6 we will not be found naked. 5:4 For we groan while we are in this tent, 7 since we are weighed down, 8 because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5:5 Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose 9 is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment. 10 5:6 Therefore we are always full of courage, and we know that as long as we are alive here on earth 11 we are absent from the Lord – 5:7 for we live 12 by faith, not by sight. 5:8 Thus we are full of courage and would prefer to be away 13 from the body and at home with the Lord. 5:9 So then whether we are alive 14 or away, we make it our ambition to please him. 15 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, 16 so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil. 17

Truly, a wonderful passage. And after fasting and praying for a day, I felt more at ease.

The end of the story is this: I received a call from Kent at NavPress less than a week after my interview and a full week before when he had told me he'd let me know. I thought he was going to put me out of my misery. What he did instead has me reeling still - he not only offered me a job at NavPress, but he wanted me to oversee BOTH new lines of books and so he wanted me to be a Senior Editor. He said that he wanted me to stay in Denver and NOT move to Colorado Springs because of the network I've already built, and so to help out with the commute I could work from home once a week in addition to holding flexible hours. When I told him that I was concerned about losing my "edge" if I came to work for a Christian institution, he agreed that was a concern of his too - and so to make sure I stay sharp, he expects me to not only continue to stay connected with the front lines in the inner city, but also to travel around to other communities to see what they are doing - all on The Navigator's nickel. I would have the title power, budget, and flexilibity to take what I've been doing on the side in Denver and raise it to an entirely new level.

I was astonished. "Are you kidding me?" I asked. "Did any of you actually read my blogs? Do you realize who you're offering this too?" Kent laughed and said that they did and yes they do - in fact, my blogs were a selling point. "Well then," I said, "I guess I'll have to clean up my language a little bit, or at least keep it from getting any worse."

Two days later, I interviewed for the new job at Kaiser and was reminded why I was willing to wait for so long for it. It was a sweet job - unique, complicated, and influential. But, in the end, I'd be in a tougher part of the corporate culture and it would STILL be a stepping stone job. Senior Editor, on the other hand, fits me very very well.

That night, I called Kent back and accepted the job. An hour later, Angela received an email from the director of the Philippine school requesting a second phone interview with us. Two days later, I was informed that I was one of the top two finalists for the Kaiser position and that they wanted a second interview with me that afternoon.

It wasn't difficult to turn down the Kaiser job, but crafting a letter to the Philippines was very difficult indeed. We both still very much wanted to go, especially Angela. She was very excited for me and agreed that she didn't see how I could turn down the NavPress job, but she was also grieving the loss of an amazing opportunity and the potential loss of training at all - something she had been planning to do for around 8 years. I too felt the loss because I had been planning to do a trip like the one to the Philippines for around 7 years.

But wonderful things are beginning to take shape. We have always wanted to share resources with other Christian families, realizing Andy Crouch's wonderful question, "How many T.V's does a church need to have? How many lawn mowers, kitchens, and cars?" In February, we are seriously considering moving with another family, good friends of ours Jeff and Brenda, into a house on West Colfax and Sheridan. Ideally, we will rent our townhouse to another family we are friends with who need a bigger, but affordable place on our side of town. Not only will we be sharing resources all around, but Angela will be strategically located between the birth center and her midwife friend and mentor - both of which are crucial to her training here. She will be able to share babysitting with Brenda who is also in school - combined with my being home an extra day per week, she will have the flexibility and support she needs to do her training. We will pay half what we do in our current mortgage, and the savings will pay for Angela's equipment and tuition. Xylem's continuation will be assured as Angela moves into a more directorial role, which will also free up her time and energy.

Finally, we have kept the doors open for the Philippines and are planning to make a trip over there the summer of 2008. I asked Kent what he thought of this and he said that he already has short term missions built into the NavPress culture and that he encourages his staff to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the international branch of The Navigators. How much time I can take will depend on what is going on then, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

Walk by faith indeed. The past three months have been an incredible ride and it is clear that God is orchestrating events in the Seeling family. Last week was a nexus, one of those rare points in life where events that were set in motion at least 12 years ago, if not from birth, came together. For me, if I had not been rejected by 20 medical schools 12 years ago in order to go to, almost on a whim, attend one school of social work, I would not now be here. We'll see what happens from here...God willing, we'll keep walking by faith.

HOW TO STOP A GANGRENE INFECTION

2006-11-22T14:44:00.000-07:00

One of the pastors in my church, Mike McGirk, left a comment on my most recent post. In it he refers to 2 Timothy 2:24 and 25. It turns out that Paul gave Timothy an answer to the problem I have been railing against lately. In fact, this passage is so apropos to my current thinking that I wanted to post these verses and a few around it. (This comes from my favorite translation, the NetBible found at www.bible.org.)

2:14 Remind people of these things and solemnly charge them before the Lord not to wrangle over words. This is of no benefit; it just brings ruin on those who listen. 2:15 Make every effort to present yourself before God as a proven worker who does not need to be ashamed, teaching the message of truth accurately. 2:16 But avoid profane chatter, because those occupied with it will stray further and further into ungodliness, 2:17 and their message will spread its infection like gangrene.

2:22 But keep away from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faithfulness, love, and peace, in company with others who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 2:23 But reject foolish and ignorant controversies, because you know they breed infighting. 2:24 And the Lord’s slave must not engage in heated disputes but be kind toward all, an apt teacher, patient, 2:25 correcting opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance and then knowledge of the truth 2:26 and they will come to their senses and escape the devil’s trap where they are held captive to do his will.

SO YOU WANT A SCRAPPY NON-REVOLUTION?

2006-11-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

I was asked to respond recently to the "lowlights" of the "You Say You Want A Revolution" conference as summarized by Gary Shavey, a pastor in Mark Driscoll's Acts 29 leadership network. The conference was put on by the good folks at "Off The Map" (part of the Emergent Village network - to which you might call Acts 29 the antithesis) and headlined by Brian McLaren, George Barna, and Spencer Burke (from TheOoze.com and author of The Heretics Guide to the Bible).

You can read Gary Shavey's article at Driscoll's The Resurgence site. Here is my response:

I think that Gary Shavey went to the You Say You Want A Revolution conference skeptical and looking to pick a fight - so right off the bat his "summary" is suspect. However, most of his comments were fairly measured, and as he says, "all over the map." I do heartly agree with his "What the...?" about the $2.50 drip coffee - what the crap is that?! What a rip!

Honestly, these days what I am most interested in is helpful contributions to the overall conversation about the church and living in a way that pleases and serves God. I saw the ads for this conference and what the topics were and frankly I immediately pushed the delete button.
It's the same conversation I've heard over and over and over, not really contributing anything. If Shavey's experience is to be trusted, then my sense of the conference was right on. Shavey's summary doesn't really contribute anything either. It went from a "based on what I was looking for, here's what I agree with" to a "I knew it, these heretics are a bunch of freaks who are revolutionizing the "conversation" into a money-making Christianese venture." Not a particularly helpful position.

To be honest, I've grown tired of Jim Wallis and the "Sojourners" line too. I can't remember who it was that said this (it might be my current writer hero David James Duncan), but whoever it was said that anyone who claims to speak for God is missing it and basically more interested in propaganda than the whole truth, that Wallis is making the same mistake that "Evangelicalism" and the "Religious Right" has made, namely speaking for God (e.g. the title of his book God's Politics - or, on the other end of the spectrum, the ever popular "Growing Kids God's Way" by Gary Ezzo). Only Wallis comes at it from the "Religious Left" while trying to position himself as a centrist, something he is only partially successful at doing. Both he and McLaren have a tendency to let the more questionable aspects of liberation theology to serve as the backbone of their 3-second sound byte message (or the "Robin Hood" message as Shavey puts it). If I can wax prophetic, I think that Wallis' position will cause the decline of "Sojourners" influence to next to nothing over the next 5 to 7 years as their base of support grows older.

I have the same problem with the secularists who also criticize the Church and Christianity, like in that book Kingdom Coming. It tries to raise the alarm and serve as an expose of Christianity in exactly the same way that Dobson (and Driscoll and his crew) raises the alarm and exposes the evil secular/pseudo-religious feminist left. But, rather than a helpful contribution toward something better, we get instead the message that women need to support their husband's "ministry" by staying home and that the men had better start acting like men, gird up their loins, enter the fray, and come home to pork their wives whenever they want. These perspectives help to get us nowhere and they do exactly the same thing that the most recent round of political advertisements did - fling shit and piss people off. The language of war and battle can only get us so far. What we need now is to find more helpful language before Christianity gets to the same place that that language and perspective got the world in 1945 (and, for that matter, in 2006).

So, as I survey the land, I once again see that everyone is fighting and clawing away at each other as American Chrisitianity goes to Hell in a Starbucks holiday giftpack. I continue to see the "twilight of the saints" (as I wrote about earlier) and I'm not seeing anyone filling the vacuum that is forming.

THE COUNTRY, THE CHURCH, HER PREACHER, AND HIS LOVER

2006-11-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

"All I'm hearing is, 'blah blah gay sex blah blah congress.'" - Granddad Freeman in The Boondocks, after half-hearing his grandson's explanation of the true roots of the Christmas holiday.

Once again America's obsession with sex strikes again. Nothing gets the nation's ire (and privates) up more than headlines splashed with the latest sex scandal. We are quick to hang up the stained undies for all to see and then raise our fists in consternation at the betrayal of our public trust. We can hardly speak without breathing heavily about gay sex (made appropriate for polite conversation by the gay marriage issue and priestly robes), pornography, white house interns and pubic hair on Coke cans. We are titillated beyond measure and we are addicted to being turned on by the news, music, movies, TV, and every day conversation.

Not long ago, folks on the political and religious right shouted with righteous indignation at Bill Clinton's indiscretion with an intern. Clinton unwisely tried to cover it up, which only led to the unveiling of more unsavory secrets ("Sure I smoked a dube, but I never inhaled."). Those on the left kept asking, "What's the big deal? Who cares what he does in private?" The mantra I heard repeatedly was, "Private life has nothing to do with public life." Clinton ended up impeached but not kicked out of office, an official handslap.

Now the tables have been overturned. Mel Gibson kicked off the whole recent shebang with his drunken anti-Semitic rant for which he apologized profusely and admitted to a lifelong struggle with alcoholism, which should have surprised exactly no one after watching the first couple "Lethal Weapon" movies. His apology, it turns out, is a model of public humility and honesty that most of us should aspire to even privately. Nothing to yank your panties off with this one, but it certainly shot the first arrow into the bruised heart of Christian morality. Even after the Anti-Defamation League accepted Gibson's apology, leftists kept twisting the knife.

Then Republican Congressman Mark Foley, a.k.a. Maf54, got busted for instant messaging sexual flirtations to underaged congressional pages. Disgusting stuff to read. You can see the wild desperation in his eyes as his wild bouffant flops around. Nothing like handing Bush-haters a canister of napalm and asking if they would kindly drop it on you. And yet, our collective voyeurism is delighted and we want to know every detail. Exactly what did those IM's say? Well, fellow quidnunc, you can satisfy your curiosity at as benign a place as Wikipedia. Don't worry, it is just objective information so no one will blame you for looking it up.

Meanwhile the gay sex debate rages on. One state approves it, then retracts. Then another state approves it and another, like Colorado, my home, tries to solidify its disapproval in its constitution, even though the constitution already defines marriage as the union of "one man and one woman" (not to mention the double standard of allowing heterosexual couples to live and copulate together with benefits while homosexual couples don't get the same benefits, even though no one on either side is married - maybe it's just me that sees the problem?). My leftist hetero friends are as adamant about supporting gay marriage as my right-wing hetero friends are about abolishing it forever. They go back and forth, thrusting and parrying each other, and then make the trip from their cubes down the hall to the bathroom to clean up.

Then, rising to a dramatic climax, Ted Haggard, devoted husband and father of five beautiful children, pastor of 14,000 and co-leader (with James Dobson) of the so-called "Evangelical," right-wing world is caught with his pants down in front of a young man named Mike, all this a week before the November elections in which the official state of gay sex would be decided. Ted, an adamant opponent to gay marriage, admitted this past Lord's Day that he was "a deceiver and a liar," and stepped down from his formidable pedestal before he was shoved off.

I can hear the righteous indignation spewing forth from my brethren and sistern now, from the left this time: "Hypocrite!" "That's why I don't go to church! Hateful hypocrites, every one!"

Too bad private life has nothing to do with public life. (Besides, Haggard only possessed the meth, he didn't INGEST it. And what's wrong with gay sex again?)
Too bad cheap political ploys like this work so well, on both sides of the aisle.
As Jesus said, "If you've never done anything wrong in your life, then have at him!"

What breaks my heart is the impact this will have on the rest of the Haggard family. Can you imagine growing up in that family from this point on? The thousands of people under his pastoral leadership will also suffer. For all of my distaste of mainstream evangelicalism, I know most of them are good people and well-intentioned, now thrown into great confusion.

What also bothers me a great deal about this affair is the same thing that has bothered me about the Church as a whole - and that is the bruises and flesh wounds Jesus continues to suffer at the hand of his "followers." As Roger the Shrubber so aptly put it in Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail, "There is a pestilence upon this land...nothing is sacred." I would add, "Neither within the Kingdom nor without it."

The thing that religio-political leaders like Ted Haggard and Jim Dobson, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton seem to forget is that they are all of them in fact still human and not merely an establishment trapped in a man's body. They are all of them sinners like the rest of us, and like the rest of us do things for which they must repent. The double-whammy for them is that they are also held to a higher standard, as Jesus' brother James says in his book. Haggard and Clinton became less than human by becoming an embodiment, and in so doing, bought into the legend of themselves written by and for them.

But everyone loves a good story about the downfall of a legend and multitudes clamor to play a part. Evangelicalism is wavering on the brink of the same abyss that swallowed the Catholic Church and secularists are shoving as hard as they can with books like Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg (who, for example, shows that the language of the Religious Right is frighteningly similar to the language of the Third Reich). Stories are cropping up in papers all over the country about inappropriate sexual encounters and child molestations by unknown pastors of small churches. And now, little unknown Mike comes out of the closet with the aplomb of a smart bomb and with the spontaneity of Rosa Park's refusal to move to the back of the bus. The Evangelical power structure is consumed by all the drama and violence of a meth lab explosion. Just in time for the November elections.

Jonathan Edwards would be proud. I can see him waving his prodigious finger in the air and yelling to a sweaty crowd, "See? See? I TOLD you, didn't I?"

And that really is the hope in this situation, isn't it? That there is a God out there who does indeed keep score. A God who requires repentance more than he does a happy face. His Church is full of unrepentant believers and make-believers who cripple His efforts to make the world what he intended it to be. I don't pretend to pass judgment on the state of Haggard's soul, but I suspect that these late events might be the best thing to ever happen to the man - God's merciful unveiling of the truth. It might have been less painful had he talked to his wife about it 3 years ago and, if he had continued to struggle, to talk to his Board of Elders. But, it seems God has finally yanked the demon institution out of his body and left him sitting naked on a bed of ashes, requiring a savior again. God, I believe, is remaking Haggard.

In exactly the same way, I pray that God is remaking the Evangelical church - crushing the plastic Coke bottles and cardboard pizza boxes, mixing in all the used Starbucks coffee grounds, and recycling the whole mess into something green and sustainable. Because Jesus is not a brand name, he is not an institution, he is not a political party, and apparently he will have words with anyone who says otherwise. Thankfully.

MAGNATUDE 6.7

2006-09-17T23:24:00.000-06:00

The epicenter is Davao City on Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines. It is the place where our lives will be shaken beyond current recognition. In fact, re-cognition is exactly what will happen if we move there - indeed, it has already begun. My wife's blog tells the story best and I invite you to read it here.

THE TWILIGHT OF THE SAINTS

2006-08-17T12:50:00.000-06:00

Last week, Newsweek did a cover story on Billy Graham. I thought it was an excellent treatment of one of the most influential men in the last 2000 years. You can read the full article here.

I came away from the story with two thoughts. The first thing that struck me was the arc of Billy's story. The picture above shows his youthful fire. He was friend and confidante to presidents and world business leaders. He was on a nickname basis with Martin Luther King, Jr., "Mike" to Billy. He got involved in the political scene and became a type of spokesman for political figureheads - a career move that got him written off by most of the press and social critics, something that he eventually was able to reverse. He preached the gospel to more people in the world than anyone else in the history of Christianity.

Now, he is consistently lionized by the press. Time did a story about him 13 years ago:

Then he made the top 100 most influential people of the 20th Century list. Now it's Newsweek's turn. "When's he going to die?" seems to be the underlying question. And the one that is even deeper is, "Is there anyone in the current generations who can fill the void he will leave?" That is the second thought I had and the one that leaves me troubled.

Compare the two pictures. Look at the eyes. He's been tempered over the years. That gives me some hope for our present. There are lots of firey young folk (by young I mean 50 years and younger) around who are in the process of being tempered. But I'm not sure I see any really cut from the same stock as Billy or Mother Theresa. Most likely there are a lot of saints like them - perhaps they're just diluted in the over publicized era we live in. Perhaps they aren't recognized as such because of our post-Christian society.

But the case doesn't seem much different in other religions. We are witnessing the twilight of other "saints" - His Holiness The Dalai Lama is no young buck, Thich Nhat Hanh is also in his latter years. Have there been any recent Buddhas? Not to my knowledge. Certainly Imams and Clerics all have black marks by their names, whether they deserve it or not. Maybe what we're really living in is not just a post-Christian society, but a post-religious world - a world of "spirituality" and secularism. A world where atheism is passe, if not anachronistic.

And yet, it is a world that still loves a good redemption story. The romance of healing, peace, and love still grips the hearts of most everyone. Humans still long to "be complete," to be at peace with ourselves, each other, and the material world. Now that "Man is dead," as Foucault declared, now that the idol of human potential and accomplishment has been consumed in a mushroom cloud, maybe now we see that there is still hope in something more. We can almost glimpse the "white shores" and the "far green land" that Tolkein talks about. Will there be anyone in the present and near-future generations who can serve as beacons for the rest of us? Will all God's children please stand up?

THE "DEKALOG" IN THE AGE OF TERROR -- SAVE THE DATE

2006-08-16T15:25:00.000-06:00

I have always wanted to host a discussion on the Dekalog and now my chance has come! We're going to start, rather aptly, on September 11 and show a film each Monday night through November 20. I can't think of a better series to go through as we as a country heal enough to re-examine the tragedy that happened five years ago. On the societal and world stage, we are faced with moral situations that require a depth we haven't fostered. The Dekalog examines dilemmas that are at once particular and universal and asks how an ancient moral code, the Ten Commandments, informs the choices that must be made.

Here's the spiel I wrote for YourHub.com:

The Dekalog has been often hailed as Krzysztof Kieslowski's (director of Blue, White, Red and The Double Life of Veronique) masterpiece. Dekalog is a series of 10 one-hour films based loosely on the Ten Commandments. It was made for Polish television in 1988, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union.

Stanley Kubrick wrote in his introduction to the published script that Kieslowski and [co-writer] Piesiewicz "have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talk about them. By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what's really going on rather than being told....You never see the ideas coming."

Andrew Sarris from the New Yorker said, "Ostensibly based on the Ten Commandments, the 10 only slightly interlocking stories are neither religious nor political parables, but rather, slow-starting but ultimately absorbing character studies, often climaxed by ironic twists of fate and choice, filmed in a style that emphasizes the randomness and complexity of existence."

Variety.com hails the Dekalog as "one of the most sublime mega-films of the late 20th century."

Kieslowski describes his own effort as "an attempt to return to elementary values destroyed by communism...The relationship between the films and the individual Commandments is a tentative one. The films should be influenced by the individual Commandments to the same degree that the Commandments influence our daily lives."

Join us in the historic building of the L2 Church (formerly known as The Master's Church) next door to the Tattered Cover on East Colfax. Each night will be hosted by Lighthouse Writer's Workshop faculty member Scotty Sawyer (local author, music critic, and film buff) who will introduce each film and facilitate the post-film conversations. Organic, fair-trade coffee will be served. For an outline of the plot and more information on Kieslowski, visit the Facets website.

Where:
L2 Church (formerly known as The Master's Church) located next to the Tattered Cover on East Colfax and Columbine

When:
7 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Event Dates:
This event takes place every Monday from 9/11/2006 through 11/20/2006.

PETRA'S WORDS - REQUIRED READING

2006-08-10T14:17:00.000-06:00

I have had some wonderful discussions recently that have been sparked by my recent blog on women in church leadership. The most insightful discussions, not surprisingly, have come from the women in my life -- my wife Angela, my good friend DJ (you can read the conversation I had with her at the end of my recent blog), and my wise sister Brigitte. You must read Brigitte's comment on her blog - it is so jam packed with insight that she had to turn it into an article, rather than a blog comment. It is far and away better than anything else I've read in the blogosphere so far, including Grace Driscoll's (important to know she's Mark's wife) article on the Acts 29 website (she does a pretty good job of going through the Book of Ruth, but her conclusions don't do it justice).

So, take a minute or two, grab an eye-opening shot of homemade Russian vodka, and dive into the solid words of Petra.

(In case you don't follow links, her address is iampetra.blogspot.com.)

THOUGHTS ON THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN CHURCH

2006-08-03T09:26:00.000-06:00

(NOTE: this was an open letter I wrote to my friend. I covet the thoughts of anyone reading this. Please leave me some comments on how brilliant I am, or how completely whacked I am.)

This has been a very touchy issue for us for the past month or so, so I've also been thinking a lot about it and have started to study through the scriptural arguments on the complimentarian and egalitarian side, even turning to the Greek. I'm by no means an authority on either one of those now, but I think I have a fairly decent understanding of them both.

So after multiple conversations with Mike and Russ, a bunch with other friends, and through my own study and experience, here's where I am:

First let's clear the playing field of debris. Let's assume that the feminist movement didn't happen. We've both had our run ins with various forms of feminism, some good some bad. This topic is easily loaded from the start based on our experiences, so let's put all that to the side and get back to it later.

I think an appeal to the 1st century church as an ideal to return to is also fairly weak because their model of church and what was happening with women in that age was completely different than ours. 1 Corinthians 14 tells the tale of a church much like the one I grew up in, the Plymouth Brethren church, with a self-governing popcorn worship service type model. During that service people could sing, prophesy, etc. and Paul in all his letters dealing with church structure (I'm thinking specifically of Galatians, Corinthians, and Timothy at the moment) had 2 things in mind concerning the gathering of believers -- order/peace and no false teaching. There was a lot of disruption and a lot of neo-platonist/gnostic teaching happening and Paul was writing to set the record straight regarding both, especially laying out the gospel again to get the teaching back in line.

Our current western church structure looks a lot different and leans heavily on the enlightenment assumption of expertise and reasoning. I suppose you could argue biblically for a head pastor by looking to the apostles, but they were church planters and feeders--they didn't have one church to focus on. A true 1st century church would be more flat in structure with no head pastor, only elders and deacons and deaconesses and the service would look much like a Plymouth Brethren service.

Next let's recognize our current culture -- it is quickly shedding the worst parts of the enlightenment in many ways and adapting the good parts of it to, hopefully, the good parts of postmodernism. So, i'd like to try to look at this acknowledging our current place in history and look at the Bible less as a manual or document to be analyzed and more like a living breathing thing that tells of God's orchestrating history to reveal Jesus, his plan of reconciliation, and his final sweeping up of sin and throwing it in the dustbin. Analysis is required to identify and trace themes, to be sure, so we'll use the best of the past and hopefully the best of the present.

So now let's get into it. It truly is difficult to paint a broad picture of God's work since creation and not see themes of structure in the relationship between men and women and their roles. I think you're right on to go back to the creation story, as Paul does, to point to the fact that it pleased God to make man and woman equal before him but man first with the woman as a helpmeet. Why did he do it that way? I think number one it pleased him to, and number two, because we are made in his image. So we get to the Trinity which we're taught also has structure and roles with God the Father being not top dog, but final decision maker/planner. But He doesn't operate solo...He works perfectly in conjunction with the Son and the Spirit. Different roles, all equal. And men and women are made from that mold. Point of agreement for us numero uno.

The fall screwed everything up and women are cursed to want to usurp the man's role. Sex between the sexes is corrupted. At the same time, she still holds a crucial part in the plan. It's not hard to see the effects of the curse today and much, not all, of the feminist movement and it's aftershocks are clear testimony to that. One of the mantras of the moderate feminists that i really like is this: "power with rather than power to or power over." I think that actually sums up what the partnership between men and women should look like. Ironic, no? Ok, point of agreement for us numero dos.

So let's continue tracing this theme through the old testament. Did god use women to lead and teach his people? Yup, but admittedly not often. There were no levite women listed taking care of the tabernacle and there certainly were no women high priests (another point of support for a head pastor, perhaps?). Women did play crucial roles in God's story though, so he's allowed to bend the structure he created. I'm thinking most specifically, of course, of Deborah the prophetess and judge. I've heard arguments saying that Deborah was just being used by God to shame the men who weren't stepping up to the plate. That may be, but it doesn't really matter, because there she is and I suspect that she would still have been a prophetess if God hadn't called her to judge Israel and put the hurt on its enemies. There are other examples too, none quite as stark, but we'll stop there for now. Point made.

While we're here, lets talk about the times when God's structure of male headship doesn't apply in the family -- a comatose husband, a widow, a single woman. How does God operate in these circumstances? Who is the head of the family now? The woman. So there are exceptions to god's rule of male headship. Point of agreement for us numero tres? I suspect so.

Ok, God orchestrates Israel's historical events to point to Jesus, to his church, and the establishment of his kingdom...blah blah blah, absolutely stunning in its implications. Next let's move on to Jesus and his liberation of women. Women in that culture were not allowed to learn anything and they certainly were oppressed in all our current senses of that word. Jesus treated them the way they were created. He taught them himself, they followed him around and took care of the behind the scenes stuff, they taught others what they learned in order to spread Jesus message (I'm thinking of the samaritan woman at the well here). Jesus established a new law of grace and elevated women above their culturally mandated place and they were eager to learn and participate in his work. The levitical structure was moot and the liberation of women was established. Jesus did not include a woman in his 12, though, and you could argue several views on that one -- first that he was training the heads of his churches, keeping in line with his created order. Second, that it simply would have been culturally inappropriate and downright scandalous for a single man to have females included in his inner circle. Indeed with what pagan worship was like at the time, it would have caused people to dismiss Jesus as different on the spot. Maybe the true answer is a little of both? The latter seems clear, the former seems possible. Point of agreement for us numero quatro.

Moving on to the 1st century church, it's clear that women were eager to claim their newfound cultural freedom and wanted to continue to learn. And they had a steep learning curve. This is a problem in a preach or sing as the spirit leads kind of church. Lots of opportunity for false teaching, on purpose or not, and for disorder. Paul came around to put the cabosh on both. However, it is clear in 1 Corinthians 11:5 that women did pray and prophesy, prophesy being things said for the edification and building up of the body, which requires both scriptural understanding and the ability to communicate. 1 Corinthians 14 shows Paul's solution for the disorder: he tells people basically to take turns and make sure everyone who has a revelation gets to share it. Now these things aren't just taken at face value either, because Paul requires that 2 or three leaders evaluate all that is taught to make sure it's right.

Paul also acknowledges many female co-laborers without whom his ministry wouldn't have gotten off the ground. Did they teach or lead any of the churches? I don't honestly know. Priscilla did with Aquila, a husband/wife team and in my opinion an ideal example for how churches should be led. I read a word study analyzing the greek word describing what exacly Priscilla and Aquila did to apollos...was it simply laying out the gospel to correct him, or was it also teaching him? Apparently there's no agreement on the matter in the scholarly world, so it is left up to interpretation through whatever lens you want to bring.

Paul talks about not letting a woman teach or exercise authority over a man. Taken literally, this doesn't make much sense in the practical world. Women teach men all the time and are often more gifted in leadership and interpretation than men. Our wives and mothers teach us all the time and we are right to listen to them -- Angela has brought perspectives to scripture that are more accurate and helpful than my own. So it seems that the "teaching" part needs to be lumped in with the "exercising authority" part. And so paul goes on to lay out the qualifications of people exercising authority -- eldership and deaconship. Women seem to be banned from eldership though they are welcomed in deaconship. I say seem because it is not exclusively stated and could be interpreted as fidelity in a marriage over simply being a husband (so women in, divorced people out). Jury's still out for me on that one. Either way, women are allowed to be deaconesses, they pray in public so they don't actually have to be silent as Paul says elsewhere, and they prophesy in public which means that for all intents and purposes they taught in the 1st century congregation as i've described it, the members of which included men.

Translating that principle to today, where the service looks completely different, women can still pray and prophesy in church. They can teach the congregation if the leadership approves of what they teach, the same qualifier that men have. The jury's out on the eldership thing, so I'll assume for now that women shouldn't be elders. What does that really mean? Elders, according to Paul's agenda in his churches, are charged to maintain order and to prevent false teaching. I also think they are charged with care of the congregation, to "pastor" it in the pastoral/shepherding sense (another point of support for head pastors?). I don't know where that is in the Bible other than Jesus saying to do it, but I can't think of Paul ever saying so. They are, as Russ said, where the buck stops. My friend Carol, my coworker who's been coming to the church, says she reconciled this by acknowledging the need for there to be one person ultimately responsible in any unit of people, be it a family, a workforce, or a church...otherwise, what you get is chaos. Wise words from Carol and it also helps me see more clearly Russ' point that he hammers over and over that headship is not privilege or power, it is duty and responsibility and there's a tremendous difference. Did Carol teach me today?

Given that current lead pastors are part of and subject to the elders, and with my assumption, then women are barred from being a lead pastor. Can there be exceptions? I think it is important to leave room for them because as we've seen, god makes exceptions to the rule himself and we must not act in a way that trumps that. Are women barred from teaching? Not in my mind from what I've laid out. There's nothing inherently special about the pulpit, no matter what reformed theologians say with their special/general everything. There was no pulpit in the 1st century church...it is a modern, western invention and it must be treated as such. It is awfully powerful, though, so I believe extra caution should be used when handing it over to anyone besides an elder, which could, by my reasoning, include people like Nancy Pearcey and exclude people like Marilynn Hickey.

If you are going to talk about leading a church in a missional direction, the women are going to play a key role in that just as they did in Jesus' and Paul's ministries, either as helpmeets to their pastor husbands (e.g. bedroom leadership), or as deaconnesses or as teachers of men, women, and children. I reject the notion that "like-minded men in this organization" need to "lead them and train them in the central issues of doctrine and missionality for this is a 1st century Biblical model." I simply don't believe that is the 1st century model and it seems silly to suppose that women need men in particular to teach them doctrine or missionality. I think pastors and their elders can decide to take the church in that direction, but they had better check with their better halves, the women in the church, to get their wisdom and input before they make any kind of major decision like that. Decision making without input from the workers is such a hierarchal, western corporate model and it's foolishness. I told Russ if I had my way, the church would be a flat organization, and to his credit, I said, it seems he already runs it that way. I'd just like to see the leadership involve its women leaders in decision making, granted that the final decision rests with the elders.

Do you see a trend here? I think that the model of church structure mirrors the model of family structure. If we're basing roles of men and women on the creation order and ultimately the trinity, then that foundation should apply to both the church and family. They are types of each other, if you will. Thus, a good husband would never lead the family without discussing any matter first with his helpmeet and making sure that they are both on the same page, acknowledging that ultimately the husband is responsible for what happens and should get the last word; and in a good marriage, that should rarely happen, if ever. Same goes with the church.

So, I suspect we agree on just about everything and I'm willing to watchfully submit to a male-only elder board with the strong belief that women need to be more publically valued and that we don't worry so much about their "place." They need to be more publically valued in the sense that we need to watch our language that smacks of a good-ole-boys club, which is mostly done jokingly in my experience but, like any joke, it belies an actual belief or attitude toward women. And their place is beside us, leading with us in harmony, each gender using whatever gift God gave them, including leadership and teaching. Let's not use silly justifications of teaching or leading in ministry by saying, oh she can lead that ministry because it's a parachurch ministry. All ministries, including the actual church service, are part of the Body of Christ. I think Mark Driscoll (in his book Radical Reformission) makes a somewhat false generalization when he separates out parachurch from the church, because it is often in parachurch ministries that the actual work of the church gets done (witness Xylem Family, Solid Rock, and Reformed Life), the difference being that parachurch ministries don't fall under the leadership of the elders. But let's just call it like it is, women serving and leading alongside the men, doing God's work. Regarding feminism, it is an over-generalized, tired horse that gets kicked and blamed for everything. It was responsible for a lot of good in our society and, under his sovereignty, God worked through it to further freedom for women and their societal equality with men in the Western world. As with all movements, much of it goes too far (e.g. trying to erase all gender distinctions), but I say, let's move past that corpse. People have been rebelling "against their place" long before the first bra was burned.

MO' ARTISTIQUE

2006-07-28T00:35:00.000-06:00

REFLECTIONS ON MY PREVIOUS POST: AN ADDENDUM AND MEA CULPA

2006-06-27T21:06:00.000-06:00

After reading "The Joy of Christian Hedonism," Angela suggested that perhaps I was a little harsh, particularly to the people of the church we currently attend, the Masters Church. Ok, maybe I was, I thought. I'll post an addendum before anyone else reads it. Not long after, Russ, the pastor of that church, called wondering how I was. So much for my plan. We had a great discussion during which I told him this was my first foray into public theological waters and that I needed him to be to me as John Armstrong is to Mark Driscoll, someone to reel me in if I get out of hand. He agreed and said that he needed me to make sure he too was on target.

So my first reflection 9 hours later is this: while my general critique of many of the people at Masters Church and other churches I've attended like it and unlike it still stands, I want to specifically point out that through Russ's leadership, the Masters congregation has made some tremendous strides to change. The church now is so different from what it was 6 months ago that it is essentially a new church, crawling from under the rock of strict fundamentalism into the missional light. I think that now perhaps they are like Plato's Philosopher immediately after he crawls out of the cave: so blinded by the light of Truth they can't see anything - all they can do is stand there and squint. The reason Angela and I continue to attend Masters Church is because of Russ's vision for the church and the city as well as for the fact that he is one of the finest pastors I've ever met. He is as nurturing as he is theologically bold. So, we are trying to serve with him as best we can, even though the people around us live completely different lives than we.

Which brings me to my second reflection: reading back through my posts from the past 6 months I see that my biggest critique has been how so many people are not living out a true Christian faith despite claims to solid doctrine. But just because few people are representin' doesn't make Jesus or Scripture any less relevent or true. Evaluating doctrine on the basis of the people who claim it is one good validation test, but it certainly isn't the only one, or necessarily the best. Russ said that he doesn't like George Grant's teaching at all, but that doesn't mean that Theonomy can be dismissed out of hand. I think one of my biggest problems is simply that I don't really like Christians that much. This means that I tend to have problems with church in general because churches are full of Christians. Consequently, I have never really been comfortable in any of them or stayed longer than a few years at most.

My third reflection is: what does this mean for me and my family? Are we going to church hop ad nauseum until Jesus comes? Does fitting in really matter that much? I think it does matter to have people in your church who you can connect with on a deeper level, who have similar values, otherwise there is no communion among the saints. But I don't think we are going to hop any more because I at least am tired of it and I haven't found a church yet with more of the important pieces in place to make sure everyone in my family can grow spiritually. So we will do our best to serve and wait for God to provide the people we need to make the long haul.

THE JOY OF CHRISTIAN HEDONISM

2006-06-27T12:00:00.000-06:00

I have been reflecting for some time now on Theonomy (God’s law remains in effect now as it was before, during, and immediately after Christ) and while I am beginning to give it more credence, at the same time there is something that rubs me wrong. What makes sense to me is that God’s law really is still valid, that it wasn’t done away with as an authority we must heed as Christ followers simply because Christ removed the need for symbolic sacrifices. Christ and other New Testament writers frequently refer back to the Old Testament as the Scripture that is “good for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16) and that “till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Mat. 5:18). I have always thought that when Christ “fulfilled the law,” that meant that the only authority left over us was his example. This doesn’t appear to be the case, though, as I look deeper. Sure he fulfilled it: he showed us what a full human really looked like who kept the entire scope of God’s law. But he didn’t abolish it and his and Paul’s quotes above demonstrate this.

So, okay, chalk one up for the Theonomists. There is still something that irks me as I read and listen to them. It still seems legalistic to me in some way. They are the first to actively decry legalism and they talk about the tremendous freedom that we have in Christ and that we truly do live under the law of grace. They do a fairly decent job of balancing the moral authority of God’s law and the new law of grace we have through Jesus. But I think the problem is that they are so focused on the law and obedience to it, that it feels like a different form of legalism. It is obedience without joy.

“Where’s the love?” I almost shouted at the TV last night while I listened to R.J. Rushdooney and George Grant in the video series “God’s Law and Society.” The foundation of all their thinking is what Richard Mouw calls “Divine Command Ethics,” that is “God is the basic criterion of all morality” for Christians and non-Christians alike. So, our call to make disciples and to be “God’s ambassadors” to establish the Kingdom on this earth, here and now, is predicated on this statement. Jesus is King over all the earth now and his law needs to be upheld over everything and everyone. Consequently, morality can indeed be legislated, it can govern our economics, our businesses, our art, etc. We are rulers with Jesus and we rule with God’s law, not man’s. Dominion, dominion, dominion. That is the message that is hammered over and over and over. I don’t mean to cast asparagus on them (as my theology professor Richard Plantinga used to say) because their arguments are largely compelling. But what seems to be missing is love and joy.

These missing ingredients also seem to be missing from the congregations I have attended, and the one I currently am a part of, who focus so much on obedience. They seem to react so strongly to emotional faith and “liberals” (narrowly defined as tree-hugging, let’s-all-be-friends, whatever-you-believe-is-okay people) that they swing entirely the other way. Their kids are raised by the rod, the church is ruled by a male elite, and they either wring their hands with chagrin at the state of Christianity or they come out from behind their thick walls wielding the biggest Bible they can find, striking out at “Make-Believers,” homosexuals, abortionists, feminists, and other vile secular humanists. They are driven by fear and obedience in the name of serving God. Freedom in Christ is a new concept and the struggle between fear and freedom is manifested in many high-schoolish discussions about whether or not it’s okay to drink and how much is too much.

Let me temper these comments by saying these are honest and good people who are trying their best to do the right thing, just like the rest of us. It just shows up in a different way. In fact, I could write (and probably will) an article as long if not longer about the other side of Christianity that I have also experienced, where no one stands for anything and the Bible is drudgery because they’ve heard it all before and there is nothing new that they can apply to their lives. So they warm a Samsonite folding chair and listen to some good jazz or rock music, nod in agreement to the Pace Picante Mild sermon for 20 minutes, checking their watches because if they hurry they can make it back home in time for the kick-off. What I appreciate most about the more fundamentalist group, over against Christianity Lite, is that the Bible still means everything to them and that is most refreshing. It is why I find myself returning to Bible churches over and over again.

But I have to return over and over again because I always end up fleeing from them too, and this brings me back to my main point: Where’s the love? Where’s the joy? This morning I finally got a deep breath of fresh air from John Piper who published a response on the Resurgence blog site to a critique of his book Desiring God. The critique came from a guy named Richard Mouw in his book The God Who Commands. I urge you to read this article by following this link. Piper points out that God does indeed command, and we must obey his commands, but what is important is that He commands us to be Christian Hedonists. His use of hedonism here is different than the philosophical idea of pursuing pleasure as a guide to or means of moral justification. What he means by Christian Hedonism is simply:

“that true love requires true happiness (emphasis mine)…To the extent that we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure, we fail to honor God and love people. Or, to put it positively: the pursuit of pleasure is a necessary part of all worship and virtue.”

He comes to this conclusion, he says, as a “Biblical theologian” who has honestly wrestled with

“divine commands to ‘love mercy’ (not just do it, Micah 6:8), and to ‘show mercy with cheerfulness’ (Rom. 12:8), and to suffer the loss of our possessions ‘with joy’ in the service of prisoners (Heb. 10:34), and to be a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7), and to make our joy the joy of others (2 Cor. 2:3), and to tend the flock of God willingly and eagerly (1 Peter 5:2), and to keep watch over souls ‘with joy’ (Heb. 13:17).”

Piper goes on to say that the “moral implications are stunning: If you aim to abandon the pursuit of full and lasting pleasure, you cannot love people or please God” (emphasis mine).

Thank you, John! That’s it. That, in a nutshell, is what I have been feeling lately. I am part of a group of people who are trying their hardest to obey, but are doing so without joy. Consequently, they are having a difficult time loving people outside of their own group. Fear kills love and a strict pursuit of law aborts a whole-hearted pursuit of “lasting pleasure.” The irony of course is that pursuing true Christian pleasure is one of God’s foundational commands that somehow gets lost among all the others.

So go ahead and say it. I’m a hedonist, and to tell you the truth, I’m quite happy about it.

Ameena's First Steps

2006-06-06T13:40:00.000-06:00

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Acacia and Ameena Toddlin

2006-06-06T11:42:00.000-06:00

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

THREE

2006-06-06T08:54:00.000-06:00

Here is my second film that premiered this past sunday:

JONAH DOES EAST COLFAX

2006-06-02T12:49:00.000-06:00

Are Christians really doing what they should? My first film is a documentary. These are honest answers from random people on America's longest street.

You can see this and other stuff on my MySpace page. Yup, for some reason I joined the throngs. Don't know why...it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

JESUS BARABBAS

2006-04-15T00:22:00.000-06:00

During the Good Friday service at City Presbyterian this evening, I discovered something in the Passion story I never caught before. The liturgy that Rev. Sam read referred to Barabbas as an "insurrectionist and a murderer." This is the person, of course, that the Jewish leaders chose over Jesus when Pilate tried to take advantage of a custom to clear his name from condemning an innocent man to death.

When we got home, I double checked in my Bible that this really was who Barabbas was and that it wasn't some whacked out Presbyterian thing. Turns out it's true -- Matthew has Pilate asking if the Jews wanted either "Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who calls himself Messiah." Mark, Luke, and John all refer to Barabbas as someone who took part in a recent insurrection and who in the process had committed murder. So he wasn't just some schmo murderer who Pilate happened to pull out of his hat. He was a major political prisoner.

If my thinking is right, then this actually gets better. The Jews had been waiting hundreds of years for the Messiah to come rescue them from Roman rule. They'd been waiting so long that the leaders, the Pharisees and Company, got in good with the governor and enjoyed some special treatment that no other religious or ethnic group got to experience, like a measure of self-rule. Sure, they still wanted to be free. Then, Jesus came along, claiming to be the One they had been waiting for, except that he didn't have an army and didn't kick any Roman ass. Instead he gave the JEWS hell, which of course, ticked them right off. Maybe, in the end, they actually believed he was who he said he was and didn't want to accept it. They knew their prophecy well enough, but they didn't want some peacenik messiah; they wanted a fire, brimstone, and magic warhawk messiah.

Whatever they actually thought, they wanted Jesus dead because at least he wasn't who he claimed to be, and at worst he was a trouble maker who posed a threat to their powerful status. Pilate most likely understood this political mess which is why he offered one of their activists back to them to calm them down and prevent another insurrection that was brewing on the spot. The crowd was getting awful rowdy again and he was sweating. Come to think of it, he knew very well the implications of his decision because his WIFE knew and was so worried she had a nightmare about it. So, his choice was kill an innocent man to save his hide or let Jesus go free and face another, probably worse, coup attempt. I think the stakes were even higher for Pilate because he seems to have believed that Jesus was who he said he was, which meant fearful trouble for him however he decided. So he copped out and in the process placated the Jews -- actually a very clever decision. And of course the Jews wanted Barabbas rather than Jesus because at least Barabbas would be back in action fighting for them again, which was a lot more than what Jesus would offer them.

Pretty fascinating stuff when you paint the whole picture.

THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN

2006-04-13T12:24:00.000-06:00

So, what am I supposed to do?

Russ challenged my complaint that my horizons often feel too big by saying that with Jesus' promise to always be with us "to the end of the age" and that "through him we can do all things", there should be no such thing as a horizon that is too big. In fact, he says, we all too often castrate ourselves by not dreaming the impossible and then proceeding through faith to accomplish it.

I realized that I never actually believed that I could do all things through Christ. So I put it to the test in January with the "State of the Union" address party, which was successful and served as a catalyst for some major changes God worked in our church.

Then I got involved in the restructuring/revisioning of our church and have worked hard on changing the feel of the church through images and a movie about what people on East Colfax think about Christians (you can download the movie from http://www.masterstoday.com/). After working ferociously, I got myself and my family sick for two weeks.

Now, the design and image stuff is cooling off as more dissatisfaction with my approach is surfacing by other members of the congregation and as they are becoming more involved in that work. Which is fine by me in some ways (I was spending way too much time on the projects and was starting to burn out) and not so fine by me in other ways (I'm concerned about losing momentum and returning to the way things used to be in the church).

Meanwhile, Angela and I continue to lead our community group and are shaping it to be a welcoming place for our neighbors to come hang out while also having a "service" orientation, probably in the form of adopting a refugee family from the Denver Rescue Mission.

But as things continue to cool down on the church front, I have this deep ache telling me that I'm not doing something that I need to. Should I let my leadership in the church cool or should I restoke the fire? Angela told me this past Sunday that she doesn't feel like we're in this church leadership thing together, that it's just me and the guys shaping the church. So if I fan the flame, how can I make sure Angela and I are equally invested?

Is the ache from the fact that I didn't take advantage of whatever momentum was there from the "State of the Union" thing? I was encouraged by so many leaders in the city to keep going with it, and to be completely honest the scenarios I dreamed up of what could happen were so big, I became paralyzed. My disbelief won out again.

Then I read emails from our friends Joel and Elise Vestal, who run Servlife Ministries, about how they are once again in the middle of a major world catastrophe. Last year it was the tsunami aftermath in their village in thailand. This year, this week, they and their two kids (3 and 1 years old) returned to Nepal where they do most of their work to find the country actively collapsing. Why did they return when they knew the danger? Because they have two orphanages, buy young girls out of the sex slave market, support indiginous pastors, and work for women's rights. If they left, there would be no one else to do this work, no one else to preach the peace of Christ in the midst of Maoist oppression and terror.

So...what am I doing? I'm caught in the "white man's burden," the middle-class American Christian angst of knowing how privilaged I am and how trapped by it I can feel. I do firmly believe that my family takes priority, and that is currently where my focus is. I want Angela to be a midwife before 5 years is up. I want Malachi and the girls to have a solid foundation of love and support on which to build their lives. I want them to be drawn to God and know about what Jesus did. I have no problem, really, staying in my current super-easy job 5 minutes from my house in order to provide the means for these things.

But the ache is still there. My friend Keven thinks I should exegete scripture so that I know it extremely well and then use that knowledge in conjunction with my heart for the poor and oppressed to mobilize the church to more fully establish God's Kingdom on earth. Maybe he's right. How can Angela and I do that together, like Joel and Elise in Nepal?

Questions, questions, questions.

THE DARK UNDERBELLY OF PARENTING

2006-02-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner” tells the story of an Albatross that his fellow sailors adopted as a pet and believed to be the source of their good luck. His inner two-year old told him that it would be a good idea to skewer the bird with his crossbow. As bad things began to happen, the sailors got their revenge by hanging the decaying Albatross from the Mariner’s neck.

I like this story because it’s about me – sometimes I kill what brings me the most joy. Just last week, I was in charge of our two-and-a-half-year-old boy, Malachi, and 6-month old twin girls, Acacia and Ameena. It was bedtime, Malachi and Ameena were already half asleep and I didn’t expect Acacia to be a problem. An evening to myself is a rare and blessed occasion – I was heartily looking forward to a time of cookies and The French Connection.

Acacia, however, was callous, not giving two hoots about me. She wanted to scream. It was the scream that clenches my throat and makes me want to pick up and move to Nebraska. I took some deep cleansing breaths, this is me breathing, but my center was way off and I couldn’t find it. What I found was my primitive id gathering strength.

This is the dark underbelly of parenting. You scare yourself with thoughts about what you would really like to do to your kids. Images come unbidden and leave you afraid to ever be alone with your kids again.

I tried to love Acacia to silence. I shushed and cooed and rocked her back and forth. It didn’t work. So I tried shame. “Listen,” I scolded, “you are going wake up your brother and sister if you keep screaming like this, so stop it!” But Acacia was too selfish to care. Then I heard Ameena whimpering and I practically tossed Acacia onto the couch in disgust so I could get Ameena back to sleep. Acacia of course grew more upset and wailed pitifully, but my heart was hard.

At this point, every parent self-flagellates. “What is my problem? She probably has a tummy ache and I’m being ass because I want to watch my movie. Who’s the child here?”

Returning to Acacia with a contrite spirit, I tried again to love her to sleep. It worked for five minutes. I sang a Sunday School song about how much we all need Jesus, because at this point, I figured we both did – especially her. I began, “As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after you…” Another scream, louder than the rest.

A voice I’d never heard before came from somewhere near my bowels, full of bile. It both growled and hissed from my mouth, “Acacia!” The girl I loved more than life was terrified.

I punished her for not letting me have the evening I wanted. I withheld my love and gave her fury. Jesus once equated this kind of anger with murder. In early A.D. Tarsus, if you murdered someone, you were punished by having your victim’s corpse bound to you, face-to-face and limb-to-limb. You carried around this decaying corpse, staring death in the face. The decomposing rot would slowly seep over you, into you, until, at last, your victim killed you. The Apostle Paul, who was from Tarsus, used this imagery when he wrote, “I don’t do the things I want to do, and I do the things I hate. Who will save me from this body of death?” That evening, I felt the decomposing rot of me seep into my skin.

I collapsed onto the couch, holding Acacia close, defeated and low. I kissed my daughter’s head and said with true repentance, “I am so sorry, Acacia. I am so sorry.” Nothing humbles you more than apologizing to your baby for being an ass. Her little fist clung to my shirt and I embraced her long after she stopped sobbing and had fallen peacefully asleep.

OF ROCKS AND HONEY

2006-02-07T11:49:00.000-07:00

After chewing on the Doctrine of Predestination and the Elect for a week, my mouth is tired and sore. Whoever said masticating rocks was a good source of nourishment? I keep returning to the simple question, “so what?” It’s clear that God acts first to save the Lost, that Jesus’ sacrifice is critical for salvation, and that the Holy Spirit does the work of regenerating a “dead” spirit. Does it really matter if there’s something called the Elect? I don’t believe Paul or Peter or the writer of Hebrews ever refer to themselves as “one of the Elect.” Paul begins all his letters by referring to himself and his audience as being “called” by God, but my understanding is that this calling is to the Lost, which is everyone. Jesus told stories about this: he leaves the 99 sheep to look for and call the 1 lost, he spends countless hours on his hands and knees on a hard packed-dirt floor looking for the 1 lost coin. Referring to ourselves as the Elect sets up an “us versus them” dichotomy that the Bible clearly warns against. We are all of us lost in the darkness, unable to make a fire to warm ourselves and find our way. Some of us have been found by a sweaty someone who has seen our tracks and doggedly pursued us, tapping our shoulder until we finally turn around to face the sunrise. Then we are invited to join the pursuit, changing as we run, fanning out across the land to bless the world as the Israelites were to do, bringing light into darkness. We are the Lost, known from the beginning, and somehow, by no merit of our own, found. This tastes sweet in my mouth and goes down smoothly, yet my stomach turns a little. There are so many like myself who are still stumbling around, trying to make sense of life, doing the best they can with what they have been given. Sometimes they don’t turn to face the light and that is bitter. But the sun still rises – may it shine on all of us.

2006-02-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

Malachi and "Mine Sisters"

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. DOCTRINE AND MR. WORKS

2006-02-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

I’m slowly coming down off of Tuesday night. The event was a success – 85 people came, the discussion was good with only a couple of minor flares. The Issachar group that Jeff Johnsen brought were the highlight, providing color and a perspective the rest of us whiteys in the room lacked.

Pastor Larry Brown was filled to the brim with the Spirit before the speech and delivered an impromptu speech to set the foundation for our conversation – what is our responsibility as Christians to love our neighbor and take care of the least of these my brethren. Several of the more staunch members of the Master’s Church held vehemently whispered conversations in the back of the church during the sermon, their disapproval crackling all around.

I was a little uncertain about his speech just because I’ve never heard him preach before and he is a little bit of a loose cannon. But that is also what I love about Pastor Brown, and honestly, I couldn’t disagree with anything that he said. He ended by saying we are all on the same boat, the carrier USS America, and there are gaping holes in this boat. Whether we agree with the politics of our leaders or not, if we don’t pitch in and get active, we will sink along with everyone else. (Kind of reminiscent of the verse in Jeremiah I used to promote this event: "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you… and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare" (Jeremiah 29:7). If there is injustice, we’ve got to patch it up. If there is hunger…patch it up. If there is poverty…patch it up. And on he went.

What’s been bugging me about Pastor Brown vs. Staunchists is the doctrinal issue. I believe Pastor Brown is speaking the Truth as it has been given to him, as he understands it. He is not one to do things half-assed. To that end, he is one of the only pastors I know who is doing God’s work in the community – taking care of the least of these my brethren. He didn’t bat an eye when I asked him out of the blue years ago to start a food bank in the permanent housing program for chronically homeless folk I was running. Because of that ministry, about 4 people in the building started going to his church Sundays.

So how important is it to have your doctrine exactly right? Who is to say who’s doctrine is right, especially when the doctrine in question results in works that most of us don’t dare to do. Who’s more faithful? The one who studies the Bible ad nauseum unto losing the capacity to love or the one who studies the Bible but focuses more on doing what it says, even though there may be some inconsistencies or incorrect doctrine that results. Did Jesus call us to good doctrine or good works?

I guess the “$64,000 question”, as Russ says, is this: are they mutually exclusive? It often seems like it, but why does it have to be? Why doesn’t sound doctrine motivate one to good, incredible works powered by the Spirit and a savior who promised never to leave us? I think that sound doctrine MUST move you out of the book and into the world to do God’s work. If it doesn’t, then your doctrine isn’t that sound after all. It’s mental masturbation of the most despicable kind. It’s religion that eventually turns to oppression and self-righteousness.

ORGANIC = LIBERAL?

2006-01-27T09:50:00.000-07:00

I am on a number of simultaneous adventures: I am husband to my wife, father to my children, son to my parents, son-in-law to my parents-in-law, writer with writer's block and confidence issues, new goer and hellraiser at the Master's Church, sometime volunteer for Xylem, prevention specialist for Kaiser, Ronin organizer of the State of our Values event, president of my HOA, board member at-large for the Colorado Society for Public Health Educators, and ... I think that's basically it.

I discovered about a week and a half ago that I didn't really believe that I could "do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I said with knowing wink to Russ (pastor of the Master's Church) that my problem in life is that my horizons are too big. He didn't think it was very amusing and told me that was a ridiculous thing to believe. If we can do all things through Christ, and Christ promises to never leave us alone, then there should be no such thing as a vision that is too big, horizons that are too wide. He is fond of saying that we are the children of God, the ones who all of creation, groaning under the curse, has been waiting to be revealed. If that's true then we need to GET GOING! Like Neo in the Matrix, we are waiting for something when we already have what we need to work God's redemption of the people and Nature of this world. What are we waiting for?

Every time I watch the Matrix, I ask myself that question and I can't answer it. Now I know that, like Neo, I don't really believe it. When I said this outloud, Russ smiled and said that knowing your unbelief is the first and biggest step.

The next day, I got a call to action from Sojourners to organize a State of the Union watch. I felt so strongly that I should do this that I couldn't sleep that night. So I got up and did all the initial planning. I wanted to start acting from a position of belief and this was something that was highly dependent on God to pull off. I could get the ball rolling and do everything I could, but the actual success of the event, whether or not anyone comes, is entirely out of my control.

It's been a good experience so far. I still don't know who's coming to this thing. I've been interviewed by the L.A. Times, the News, and the Post who is coming to the event with a photographer. My connection at Fox News is working on getting someone to come too. They all want to know who's coming because I've billed it as a general, "bi-partisan" event and I can't tell them. The reporter at the News kept pushing me for names and churches and I finally had to say, "Look, I have between 20 and 30 people confirmed and I don't know any of them or what church they're from. I can only tell you who I've invited."

They are all really interested in whether or not I can actually get the conservative churches there. The reporter from the News said, "So you're trying to get conservatives and liberals, but is this really a liberal event? I mean, you're serving organic, fairly traded coffee, which pretty much gives you away." An interesting observation. I am in fact having a difficult time getting conservative churches to commit, but the liberal element is eating it up. The executive director of Denver Urban Ministries has heard about this event from 4 different people.

So what does that mean? Do conservatives drink slave-worked, chemical laden coffee? Maybe...it is cheaper, which often trumps social responsibility in consumers (e.g. the appeal of Walmart, Gap, Old Navy, etc.). Does that mean that conservatives are only interested in strictly conservative events, such as pro-life and anti-gay marriage rallies? Maybe. What I don't understand is why care for the poor, homeless, orphans, and environment is relegated to the realm of the Religious Left and looked upon with distrust and often disdain. These are the things the Bible tells us to care about. They should transcend our political views because they are what God cares about. God doesn't say that we need to prevent homosexual marriages or even drug abuse through legislation. You can't force non-Christians to have Christian morals.

I don't know. Can't we all just get along?

2005-12-28T18:06:00.000-07:00

Santa's Little Helpers

Mo' Babysitting

2005-12-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

The #1 comment we hear when we're out with the kids is, "Oh, you have your hands full!" They also ask, "How do you manage with all 3?!" We say, "What's the big deal? We just hire the half-naked 2 year old babysitter!"

2005-12-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

Mo' entertaining the girls

2005-12-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

Acacia Lynn - almost 4 months old

2005-12-14T19:27:00.000-07:00

Ameena Renee - almost 4 Months old

Rolling Over

2005-12-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ameena, left; Acacia, right
The girls rolled over for the 1st time at the Ranch the 1st weekend in December. Amazingly enough, they rolled over one right after the other. Must be one of those twin things. The only other twin phenomenon we've noticed is that they both sneezed at the exact same time 1 day.

2005-12-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, can we help you?

2005-11-24T20:05:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving (Acacia left; Ameena right)

2005-11-09T14:26:00.001-07:00

Hang On Acacia!

2005-11-09T14:26:00.000-07:00

Ameena - Ready for Snow!

2005-11-09T14:25:00.001-07:00

Acacia - Swingin'

2005-11-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

Really?

2005-11-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

Blue!

2005-11-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

The girls - 2 months

2005-11-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

Acacia - Halloween

2005-11-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

Ameena - Halloween

2005-09-26T17:33:00.000-06:00

A little nostalgic for his infant days. No, he's not sitting on Ameena.

MONTH: ONE

2005-09-23T13:56:00.000-06:00

You forget to do certain things when you have a 2.5 year old boy and 1 month old twin girls. Little things like using Dapper Dan in the morning so that you don’t go to work with “fluffy hair” or moving the laundry from the washing machine to the dryer before the onesies and burp cloths start to mold. You forget big things too, like adding the twins to your health plan within the 31 day period. Most things you remember to do, but then the neighbor kid tells your son, “I’m going to chop your head off” and you completely lose track of where you were before you had to parent the miscreant.

Other important things slip on by and before you know it a month has passed. Things like talking to your wife. Angela and I stayed up until 12:30 last night just talking. We realized it had been at least two weeks since we actually had an honest-to-God conversation. Mostly an evening’s conversation goes something like this:

“Hi honey! I’m home.”
“How was your day?”
“It was fine. SOS. You know.”
“DAD! You home?”
“Hi Mo’. Yes I’m home.”
“You play outside for me?”
“Sure, I’d love to play outside with you. Let me just get your sister because she’s crying.”

And then,
“Ok, Malachi it’s time for nigh-night. Say nigh-night to daddy. Come on, say, ‘Nigh-night daddy! I love you!’”
“No…”
“Come on, buddy. It’s time to go upstairs and read a story.”
“Nurse upstairs on bed?”
“No we did that at naptime. Do you want some rice milk instead in your special cup?”
“Nooooo…”
“Well, say nigh-night to daddy.”
“NOOOOO.”
“Ssshhhh, your sisters are trying to sleep.”
“Nooooo!”
“Waaaaahhhh waaaahhh waaahhhhh!”

An hour later,
“Hi honey, how did it go?”
“Ok. He was fussy but we talked about the day and sleeping all night like a big boy in his own bed and how if he needed to come sleep in our bed during the night he could do it without crying and screaming.”
“Oh dear. Well, Acacia wouldn’t stop crying until I let her suck on my thumb and Ameena is just starting to wake up. She’ll probably be hungry.”
“Yeah. What do you want to do tonight?”
“I don’t know. You?”
“I don’t know. I should probably go to bed soon.”
“Yeah, me too.”

On the other hand, life is pretty great. Despite not having a spare minute, the kids are wonderful. The girls smile a lot, especially Acacia. When I come back from work, or if she has been asleep for a while, I hold her and talk to her and she has those blank baby eyes that loll around until they lock onto my face. And then her mouth curves up slowly until it suddenly breaks into a big open mouth, toothless smile. Heart melting to say the least. One of my favorite things is to soothe them to sleep on my chest. There is something soporific about a baby sleeping on you. Everything goes kind of soft and there is nothing more important at that moment than the feel of her little chest heaving and the quick whispering sound of air through little nostrils. I love it!

Malachi has been a great big brother too. He often tries to soothe the girls when they cry:
“It’s ok. Sorry you’re upset. I hold her?”
“Sure. Sit here on the couch. Who do you have?”
“’Cacia.”
“Nope that’s Ameena.”
“’Meena.”
“That’s right.”
And when her free flying hand hits him in the face, he pulls an offended look and tells her sternly, “No hitting!” Which of course she does again anyway which makes him a little upset and we have to assure him that she can’t help it.

And Angela is doing so well, in my opinion. It’s tough for her to have been housebound for a month. But we were imagining last night what it would have been like if we had the girls while we were still living on Zuni. Yikes! Talk about a nightmare! Her back hurts constantly from always holding at least one baby, but she maintains a good attitude about it all and is enjoying watching the kids grow.

The biggest thing we are trying to do at this stage is to remember how short this time of life really is. Most of our relationship with our kids will be as adults. So we try to grab what time we have with our little ones and to hold onto it for as long as we can.

2005-09-22T15:49:00.000-06:00

Malachi Joseph (2 yrs 5 months) with his little sisters Acacia Lynn and Ameena Renee at 1 month old

2005-09-22T15:48:00.001-06:00

The Girls 1 Month Old

2005-09-22T15:48:00.000-06:00

Acacia Lynn 1 Month Old - 8 lb 2 oz

2005-09-22T15:47:00.000-06:00

Ameena Renee 1 Month Old - 8 lb 7 oz

2005-09-21T17:34:00.000-06:00

Sleepy daddy...sleepy girls

2005-09-12T22:25:00.000-06:00

"I hold her"

2005-09-10T22:22:00.000-06:00

Ahhhh, peace.

2005-09-07T22:34:00.000-06:00

The Big Bro

2005-08-30T20:19:00.000-06:00

CELEBRATE WITH US!

SEPTEMBER 10
4 – 8 P.M.

THE SEELING HOME
10694 EAST ASBURY AVENUE #108
AURORA, COLORADO 80014

303.752.3844 (REGRETS ONLY)

BRING SOMETHING TO GRILL AND A SIDE TO SHARE
DRINKS AND DESSERT WILL BE PROVIDED

2005-08-26T18:43:00.000-06:00

Home at last!

2005-08-26T18:42:00.000-06:00

Expressive

2005-08-26T18:41:00.002-06:00

Ameena's favorite spot

2005-08-26T18:41:00.001-06:00

Acacia Lynn cruising in style

2005-08-26T18:41:00.000-06:00

Ameena Renee enjoying the car ride

2005-08-26T18:40:00.000-06:00

Cuddling with the Bro

2005-08-26T18:37:00.000-06:00

Proud Big Brother

Angela's Birth Story

2005-08-26T15:15:00.000-06:00

Hi all!For those who haven't heard, our GIRLS are finally here!They were born on August 19th at 12:16a and 12:26a. Their names are Acacia Lynn (7lbs, 20 1/2" long) and Ameena Renee (7lbs 1oz, 20 1/2 " long). We're back in Colorado and sooooo glad to be home.We are so richly blessed by our birth experience and can hardly believe all that transpired to make it happen.Thanks to all who were part of our journey! After a month in Utah and 41 weeks of pregnancy, I had my midwife (Suzanne Smith) check me to find that I was walking around at 5cm. We had tried acupuncture, homeopathy, EPO with zinc, other fun techniques ;) and still no labor pattern. So, at 5:30p on 8/18 I had her strip my membranes to get things going.She went home and said, call me with the first contraction ;)So, we went for a walk and contractions started during the walk. They were familiar so I didn't get my hopes up right away. We came home and had dinner during which I started timing contractions that were 7 minutes apart.By 7p I was having contractions 5 min apart and was ready for the tub to be filled.Caleb suggested we call Suzanne if I was ready for the tub and I agreed since I was already so dilated, though I didn't think she needed to be there yet. It was hard to believe labor had started and I was afraid the team would come flying in and then end up staring at me for hours, which did kind of happen. Things did kick in though. I got out of the tub and hid out in my room for awhile until the contractions got intense enough to get back in. The team (3 midwives and a student) had retired to a back bedroom and Suzanne came out to check on me and listen to heart tones periodically. Baby B had turned so that both babies were head down (thanks to a great chiropractor Dr. Michelle Orchard in Aurora - we weren't trying to turn baby b, but Webster technique for intrauterine constraint proved to be helpful), confirmed by ultrasound at 37 weeks. But, we had been suspicious based on where we were hearing heart tones recently. However, in labor, it seemed they were both very low and Suzanne even suspected maybe A and B switched positions.Malachi was with us for most of the labor and was so very sweet. My mom helped him understand by telling him I was working very hard and having contractions. He would come over and comfort me with hugs and kisses and by telling me he was sorry I was upset, sorry it's ouchy and asking "having traction mommy?" We sent him and my mom out for a drive in the van when he started getting very tired just after 10p and labor was getting very intense for me. So, off they went and mom came back holding a sleeping Malachi about 30 minutes later. At 11:41p I started pushing on my knees leaning over the birth tub. At 12:16 a.m. Acacia was born in the water, in the caul. They broke her bag and passed her through to me. (Apgars 8/10) I checked to see if she was a boy or girl and announced to Caleb that we had a girl!I then held her while Suzanne held my belly so that Baby B wouldn't turn in any funky positions. She then checked and confirmed she was indeed head down and ready anytime I was ready to push. I said "are you serious? her head is down that far?" I held Acacia in my arms while I pushed in semi-sitting position and at 12:26 a.m. Ameena was born in the water, in the caul. It took 2 people to break her bag. (Apgars 6/7) We had to stimulate her some and cleared her mouth once with a bulb syringe and she began breathing and her heart rate began to climb from 100 up. (I am so thankful for my neonatal res. training as I was so much more calm and instinctually began rubbing her back. And, so glad that no one was taking her away from me to work on her in a french fry warmer across the room!)When she perked up, Caleb checked to see if we had a boy or a girl and announced that she too was a girl! What a surprise, as we had both determined in our minds that it was one of each (for no particular reason).So, there I sat, in my birth tub, in a double wide trailer in Provo, Utah, holding my 2 gorgeous girls, bawling my eyes out. So thankful to have had such a wonderful birth, that they were both healthy and safe and so thankful for my husband who never left my side through this journey. In the words of Grandpa Wilson “God is good and he does answer prayer”.Both girls began nursing as soon as I got in bed and haven't stopped since. I had no more bleeding with the twin birth than I did with Malachi (I was taking alfalfa, yellow dock and chlorophyll during pregnancy and as labor was starting because I was determined not to hemorrhage!) and am feeling great, especially with a couple nights of sleep with 4 hour stretches between feedings.Life is challenging with a 2 year old and twins, and will be more so in a week when Caleb is at work and Brigitte and Andrei move out. But, we are so thankful and ready for a life of joy with these wonderful kids.Thanks again for all your support and love! We couldn't have done this without it.

2005-08-24T22:29:00.000-06:00

We each get to hold one!

2005-08-21T11:34:00.000-06:00

Our new family - Provo, UT - getting ready to head home

WELCOME GIRLS!

2005-08-21T09:16:00.000-06:00

THEY'RE HERE!

2005-08-21T08:34:00.000-06:00

More details to come, but here are the essentials:

Our LMP due date was August 8. Our due date from conception was August 11. We tried many non-invasive attempts to kickstart the labor (including 2 acupuncture sessions, homeopathics, and other more fun techniques) to no avail. So on August 18, we asked our midwife Suzanne to check Angela. She said that Angela was 5 cm dilated.

5:30 p.m. – We had Suzanne “strip the membranes.”

5:45 – On a little walk, Angela’s contractions began in earnest.

6:10 – We were sure labor had started.

~7:00 – Angela gets into the birth tub.

11:41 – Angela begins to push.

12:16 a.m. – Acacia is born with sac intact in the water.

12:26 a.m. – Ameena is born with sac intact in the water.

We are planning to leave for Colorado tomorrow (Sunday) and will arrive sometime on Monday.

That’s it for now! Check back soon for the rest of the story.

2005-08-20T11:34:00.000-06:00

A watchful eye from the big bro

2005-08-20T11:33:00.001-06:00

Stretch!

2005-08-20T11:33:00.000-06:00

Too bright!

2005-08-20T11:32:00.000-06:00

Sweet sisters

2005-08-19T11:31:00.000-06:00

Daddy giving double love

2005-08-19T08:31:00.000-06:00

Soooo sleepy

2005-08-19T01:30:00.000-06:00

Malachi meeting his sisters for the 1st time.

2005-08-19T00:30:00.001-06:00

Ameena Renee is born - 12:26am

2005-08-19T00:30:00.000-06:00

Acacia Lynn is born - 12:16am

2005-08-18T22:50:00.000-06:00

Breathing through intense contractions

2005-08-18T20:30:00.000-06:00

Malachi filling the labor tub

WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?

2005-08-18T11:28:00.000-06:00

I have found that trying to explain why we made the choice to come to Utah to deliver these babies is up there in the "potential for misunderstanding" category along with explaining why I believe what Jesus said over, say, what Joseph Smith said. My claim that Jesus is The Savior is, in the ears of many listeners who don't share the same conviction, also a statement that what they believe is worth nada. Whether or not I actually think this about them doesn't matter. I've already been pegged as a Jerry Falwell clone. Saying that my first son's home birth was the most incredible experience and that I couldn't imagine having a hospital birth could peg me as a doctor hating, granola munching Boulderite who would rather live off the grid completely and overthrow the Medical Establishment without a moment's thought.

Well, I have said this and I have been pegged like that. It's as if the choices I have made define other people's lives, or at least threaten them. If I had that kind of power, believe me, I could use it now. At the same time, there's some truth to the accusation. Any claim of exclusivity by definition excludes other beliefs. I think that Christianity has it in spades over Mormonism, Buddhism, and the rest. There are lots of great things about the other religions that I learn from, but ultimately I think Christianity makes the most sense. I'm not judging other people who think old Joe is the best, I just don't agree for lots of good reasons. I think that home, when the baby and mom are healthy, is the best place to give birth. I'm not judging other people who choose hospital births, I just wouldn't do it for lots of good reasons.

It's not that I hate Medicine either. I don't think that doctors are evil for prescribing drugs or for taking prudent steps to cover their well-trained asses from a lawsuit happy, consequence-avoiding society. I think that doctors are extremely valuable and handy when you need them.

And that's the big question, isn't it? “When do you need them?”

We were planning to have a homebirth again with our second pregnancy, right up to 32 weeks when we discovered we were having twins. This introduced a whole set of questions like, "What the fuh?!" and "Are you serious?" After the news settled in, other questions formed: "What do we do now? Any midwives in town willing to put their licenses on the line to deliver twins at home? Are midwives allowed to deliver anywhere else in the country? Is that really a good option? Aren't twins scary to deliver?"

The answer to the last question if you ask just about anyone is "yes." We talked with a truly wonderful OB who, after offering us an elective C-section, gave us statistics like "75% of twins born (in our hospital) are delivered by section" and "prolapsed cord and breech presentations are common and serious complications of delivering twin B." Experience-wise, she delivers one set of twins a year, about average for all the other OB's. She said that the doctors at our hospital like to think that they are prepared to do nothing and everything. But she gave every indication that they would most likely go ahead and do everything because "we don't sleep well when something goes wrong and we lose a baby or a mom. We really don't."

We also talked to a bunch of midwives about it and none of them were concerned. After hearing about our uncomplicated pregnancy and that the babies were both already over 4 pounds, the most common statement they made was, "No problem!" and "If mom is eating right and babies are healthy, you should go to term." All the midwives we talked to went through a fairly extensive screening process to make sure that any potential client expecting twins was healthy and eating the way she should. As a result, all of their twin births were successfully delivered vaginally at home or in the birth center with no emergency transports to the hospital. One midwife we considered seeing in Texas said that the key was diet. The clients (5 of them) who stuck with her throughout the pregnancy and ate the way she told them to all went to term (40 weeks) with their twins and delivered safely in the birth center. The clients (another 5) who didn't stick with her transferred their care to an OB, didn't stick with the diet she suggested, and all of them delivered pre-term and by Cesarean.

Different stories, different experiences. One perspective was fearful, the other confident. Knowing that Angela and the babies were as healthy as could be, we just couldn't swallow the enormous "high risk" pill, but we also couldn't accept the almost too easy "no problem" answer. How to choose? Our OB suggested I do the research on my own using the access I had through work to every medical journal and textbook available.

The conclusions I found were illuminating. Here are a few that were in the obstetrics textbook:

From Gabbe’s Obstetrics, 4th edition, 2002
"…In the series by Chervenak et al.,[261] 81.2 percent of the vertex-vertex twin gestations were delivered vaginally. These investigators, and several others cited in their article, believe that when both twins are in vertex presentation, a cesarean delivery should only be performed for the same indications applied to singletons...

…At birth weights above 1,500 g, there were no neonatal deaths or documented intraventricular hemorrhages and only three cases (5 percent) of 5-minute Apgar scores of less than 7 in the group of second twins delivered vaginally by breech extraction. Chervenak et al.[266] state that their data do not prove vaginal breech delivery of the low-birth-weight second twin to be more damaging than cesarean delivery…On the other hand, if a second twin weighs between 1,500 and 3,500 g and the criteria for vaginal delivery of a singleton breech are met, this series suggests that vaginal breech delivery is an acceptable option…

…The authors, therefore, suggest that primary breech extraction of the second nonvertex twin weighing more than 1,500 g is a reasonable alternative to either cesarean delivery or external version…

…Regardless of the estimated weight, they suggest that an attempt be made to convert the second twin to a vertex presentation by performing an external version after the first twin has been delivered. If this proves successful, a vaginal delivery can be anticipated. If the attempted version is unsuccessful and the EFW is between 2,000 and 3,500 g, a breech extraction can be performed unless the other criteria for a singleton vaginal breech delivery are not satisfied. Recent reports support these recommendations and have documented the efficacy and safety of either external cephalic version[272] or total breech extraction [273] , [274] for the delivery of second nonvertex twins weighing more than 1,500 g…"

At 32 weeks we knew that our babies were vertex/breech and weighed more than 1500 grams. These conclusions are also mostly the same as the ones I found in the other studies I read. There are problems with all the data presented in the textbook and in the studies, the most blatant being the age of the studies - many of them are 20 to 30 years old. Some of the data used was around 40 years old! They also don't extract healthy versus unhealthy pregnancies, IVF treatment (which carries increased risk of complications all around for twins), diet, etc. Also many of the studies draw from very small sample populations.

I found one very recent study that wasn't as encouraging as the conclusions presented in the textbook:

From “Yang Q - Am J Obstet Gynecol - 01-MAR-2005; 192(3): 840-7”
“The risk of asphyxia-related neonatal deaths and morbidity was increased in the group in which both twins were delivered vaginally and the group in which both twins were delivered by cesarean delivery. The increase in neonatal death in the group in which both twins were delivered vaginally was stronger in the birth weight of < 1500 g. In contrast, in the group in which both twins were delivered vaginally and the group in which the second twin was delivered by cesarean delivery after the first twin was delivered vaginally, the increase in neonatal morbidity was greater in the group in which the birth weight was 1500 to 4000 g. CONCLUSION: The risk of neonatal death and morbidity in second-born twins is higher in the group in which both twins were delivered vaginally and the group in which the second twin was delivered by cesarean delivery after the first twin was delivered vaginally compared with the group in which both twins were delivered by cesarean delivery.”

The problem with this conclusion (without actually seeing the data, so I could be wrong) is that it doesn’t concede the increased risk of c-section for both twins or how much greater the risk is for vaginal and c-section after vaginal birth of twin A. Many studies I read did this. They begin by stating the current standard of practice which is pretty much "get ready for the inevitable c-section" and then present data that doesn't necessarily paint as bleak a picture. And they still don't tease out the healthy versus unhealthy pregnancies.

A big problem with these studies is they are replete with bias. I of course introduce my own bias when I read these studies because I'm coming from a different perspective. Bias is unavoidable if you're really honest. But I found myself encouraged by what I read. What I got from it all was that with as healthy as Angela and the twins were, their risks were not higher than a normal healthy singleton birth. And that meant that homebirth of the twins was fine, that we weren't taking any higher risk with the twins than we had with Malachi. With the perspective that home is a safer place to have healthy babies than the hospital, we were actually chosing the safest place for the twins to be born. Talk about counter-everything expected about twins!

The bottom line is that we met all the criteria for a safe vaginal birth of the twins, something we were pretty much assured no one at the hospital would be willing to do aside from letting Angela labor on a table in the OR "just in case," a great recipe for c-section. The natural birth community was more confident and offered the birth we wanted. Either way, we would be displaced.

So the question changed from "Is home birth safe for twins?" to "Who is more confident in their ability to deliver breech babies?" Gabbe's Obstetrics and many of the studies supporting vaginal delivery of twins warned that the delivery should only be performed by someone who was well-versed and comfortable with external version and breech extraction, otherwise you could end up with a life-threatening problem. Angela expressed this as her greatest concern too. Our OB said that breech extractions were becoming more common with the increase in twin births these days, but we had our doubts considering we would be in the OR prepped for Cesarean. Midwives deal with breech presentations a lot and have to be comfortable with version and extraction simply because there aren't any other options available, aside from going to the hospital.

Angela's comfort with midwives and lack of it for the OR was the deciding factor. Besides, we wouldn't be able to choose which OB would come to our birth - it would be a luck of the draw. Her anxiety around the very idea of the hospital predicted the downward spiral of interventions if we went that direction, skilled physicians or not.

So how did we end up in Utah? Angela first alerted the entire natural birth community of our problem and asked for suggestions. Then we turned to the First Lady of Midwifery, Ina May Gaskin, who salon.com credits as reintroducing midwifery to the United States after the highly patriarchal medical practice in the 1950's. She practices at The Farm in Tennessee. We were trying to figure out how to make this work when our midwife Christie suggested going to Dallas where she was trained. This was much closer to home, cheaper, and I had some family friends from when I lived there. Then, the midwife we chose there had a bad horse accident that took her out of commission. Simultaneously, a doula in Austin wrote Angela and suggested a midwife in Utah, where the laws were being re-written to make it possible for midwives to deliver twins at home. This was a much more appealing place to wait it out, closer to home, and even cheaper. Then someone else in the network said they just moved from Provo (where we needed to be) to Ohio and that we could stay in the double wide they were still trying to sell. From there, a cascade of people knowing people pulled everything together. We have furniture and dishes, my boss outfitted me with a computer so I could work long distance, some good friends sold us a mini-van for cheap, and on and on it goes.

We are sure it is all a sign that we are where God wants us. It should have been a Herculean effort to pull together so many details in just a couple of weeks, but it all fell together so easily.

Now if he would just kick start the labor for us. This has become the true test of our faith in God's hand and in the natural birth process.

NOPE.

2005-08-09T15:53:00.000-06:00

"We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us." -- Romans 5:3-5

...not that we're suffering in the way that Paul is really talking about. Not me, anyway. My wife, on the other hand...well, let's just say that she's ready for labor to begin. But, it is interesting that the process of hope production is so similar in other trying circumstances, such as voluntarily displacing yourself and your family for an unknown period of time to await the birth of 2 people who will greatly change your already crazy life.

So, nope, they aren't here yet.

We are pretty much counting on God to pour his love into us so that we can keep loving each other and loving Malachi through his two-year-oldness and as he tries to cope with missing friends and home. He has been a real trooper, though we have seen some regression in certain behaviors. Nap and bed times have been real trials. Angela spends a good 2 hours most days in battle with either no nap at all or a nap in the car on the way to picking me up from work. Bedtime isn't much better, but he does at least eventually go to sleep. He's been having more "accidents" too. But, from what I understand, these regressions are also fairly normal two year old things too. He still grows sad now and then and has some mood swings, but these are beginning to even out and he is his normal cheerful self more times than not.

Andrei and Brigitte returned to Colorado last Saturday. It was a very sad day. They kept us company and were good playmates for Malachi. Malachi seemed a little lost that day and I felt like I was really beginning the work of actually moving to Utah. I became melancholy and felt like a last tie to home was severing.

Angela's mom arrived the day before to be here for the birth and help drive us home. Her presence has helped ease the loss of Brigitte and Andrei and actually hightens the anticipation we feel toward the imminent arrival of the twins.

Another blessing that came our way was the arrival last night of our Colorado midwife Christie. Her husband Bryce and daughter Olivia came with her. Now our birth team is complete and Malachi has a playmate his age.

Christie came to this morning's midwife appointment with us to meet Suzanne. The babys are still head down and looking good. And bigger. Hopefully this was our last prenatal visit, but we made one more for next week with the anticipation of the pleasure of canceling it.

Well, folks, that's the latest. Here are a few pictures of our double wide, Provo, and our beautiful trip to Strawberry Reservoir:

ADVENTURES IN MO-TOWN (AN UNEDITED PHOTOJOURNAL - PART III)

2005-08-05T15:34:00.000-06:00

andrei climbing the aptly named "rock canyon"

a future climber at play

one of the sweetest moves i've ever seen!

the once and future climber

ADVENTURES IN MO-TOWN (AN UNEDITED PHOTOJOURNAL - PART II)

2005-08-05T15:17:00.000-06:00

view of provo canyon and mt. timpanogos from the falls

brigitte and andrei (my sister and brother-in-law)

hiking the beautiful, fly-ridden side of mt. timpanogos

ADVENTURES IN MO-TOWN (AN UNEDITED PHOTOJOURNAL - PART I)

2005-08-05T15:03:00.000-06:00

a brave face in a new place

cool dude at "bridal veil falls"

flouting the lds patriarchy

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING YOU'LL REALLY LIKE...

2005-08-05T14:41:00.000-06:00

ADVENTURES IN MO-TOWN (PART III)

2005-08-05T11:43:00.000-06:00

Just a quick update.
Brigitte and Andrei are here now and Malachi is loving it. So nice to have others to help care for him. Now I know why it takes a village to raise kids ;) I don't think we're meant to do it alone.

Another great thing! - They were able to drive our new mini van out (well, it's not technically ours yet) that we're buying from Vaun and Barry Swanson. As you know, this was a big prayer request as we drove the Saturn out with 3 of us in it and somehow need to get 5 of us (plus my mom) home . The night of the Xylem party at their house, Vaun asked if there was anything they had that would make our trip easier. At the time, I couldn't think of anything....until I was pulling out of the driveway and noticed their Toyota Previa sitting there. I told Caleb about it and he called her the next day. Turns out, they have been planning to sell it. So, they got us a temporary tag, oil change, washed it, and sent it on it's way with Brigitte and Andrei. Thank you so much Vaun and Barry!

It has been so amazing to watch the Lord open so many doors through this process. I don't think I've ever experienced anything like it and sure does humble me in a lesson of faith.

So, I'm 38 weeks today, we had a midwife appointment yesterday - pretty uneventful but good. It's a good opportunity to get to know her. It's also neat for me to make this connection because she's the academic dean of the midwifery school that I've been looking into out here (not that I'll be doing that anytime soon with twins;).

So, now, Christie's other client just needs to have her baby ;) so she can come out and join us and I'll be ready for labor ;) I'm happy to wait until the babies are ready, just hoping I'm not one of those odd people (which we already know I am) that goes past her due date with twins.

Malachi is really struggling with naps and bedtime. Definitely pushing his boundaries in his new environment. But, we're just trying to love him through it and stay consistent as we sometimes spend 2 hours and a few timeouts to get him to lay down. We have lots of talks about why we're here and reassuring him that we are going back home, sometime soon. Please do keep him in your prayers.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I'm on short leave while Malachi stays with Brigitte and Andrei so I could go to the chiropractor - better get back!

Love, Angela (Caleb, Malachi, MaxA and MaxB)

ADVENTURES IN MO-TOWN (PART II)

2005-08-05T11:34:00.000-06:00

well, here i am in my new office at the holiday inn. hopefully i can stay here for a couple of days before they boot me out. why the trouble? let me tell you.

it all started back in the 1820 when god the father and jesus christ appeared to a guy named joe smith. they told him he was going to be the prophet to restore the REAL church after the Church was withdrawn from the world after the apostles died. three years later the angel moroni told him to look under some rocks where joe found an ancient record of the old peoples of america written in a strange language on gold plates. he translated these and they became the book of mormon: another testament of jesus christ. he started his church and trained another guy named brigham young who became an apostle to the prophet joe. after joe was killed in 1833, young decided to move his family and 1000 others to utah. soon he supervised the movement to utah of 70,000 more people from the east coast and europe.

his supervision continues to this day. apparently jesus told these people that they have to be nice to everyone and that they can't drink alcohol or caffeine. this was problematic with a lot of the youth as you can imagine. with the founding of his university in provo, he was able to socialize the youth to his standards with the following honor code:

"all students are required to abstain from possessing, serving, or consuming alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee, or harmful drugs." they also can't say bad words or have bad grooming.

so for a while there were cafe's in provo that served and did these things, including offering wireless access to the internet. but, young decided that he'd better regain control over these matters. so he offered wireless internet services to his students (with proper passwords and a hefty filtering system) and then somehow influenced all the cafes to shut down their internet access. which they did. they also must have closed up shop because there is only TWO coffee shops here, one of which is an einsteins. the other is NOT a starbucks. there is not a green insignia anywhere--probably not within 20 miles.

so that lead me to a long trek and many bootings off of servers--from the public library to the mall. now, here i am, in the empty continental breakfast room of a smallish holiday inn, hoping i can stay here for at least a couple of days before they figure out i'm not renting a room.

well, that's all for now. angela's tired, malachi is adjusting well but is a little hyper, the babies are fine and moving around, our double wide is comfortable and cool, and we see our new midwife tomorrow morning.

feel free to email or leave a message on my work phone because i'm checking them regularly.

until the second coming,
joe

ADVENTURES IN MO-TOWN (PART I)

2005-08-05T11:22:00.000-06:00

To catch everyone up on goings on here in Utah, I am reprinting Angela's two updates and my one. I will also include some pictures to illustrate. Fun reading!

our first meal in the double-wide

Hi there!
Just wanted to let you all know that we arrived safely in beautiful Utah. It is hot - well over 100 every day, but thankfully, we have a/c in our nice little double wide trailer. We're learning a little bit about the mormon community, but no one has tried to convert us yet.

The trip was good. We got in early afternoon on Monday and Caleb has spent the last couple of mornings trying to find a good wireless connection (see his entertaining email to his work team at the end of my note). He finally ended up today at Borders in the town over from us where our midwife is (about 10-15 minute drive) which is where he'll be daily until the twins are born.
Malachi and I are having fun exploring the little towns. We found a shaded park with a creek that runs through it to play in. We're getting settled but I think Malachi said it all when he told us last night and today "Sad, miss friends". We do miss you all, friends and family and we're sad to not be home for this big event. We do feel good about our decision though, and are pretty relaxed now that we're here.

God is good and we have been well cared for since the moment we arrived. We walked in to our temporary home that had been furnished with a card table, 4 folding chairs and 2 camping chairs.

Since then, someone has stopped by daily with dishes, an airbed, a couch, 2 twin beds to make into a king, lemon cake and lots of blessings and well-wishes.

We also found out that one of Karen's good friends is here while her dad recovers and has offered to help us in any way should we need it. So, should we go into labor before Brigitte and Andrei come next weekend (which I think is highly unlikely as I have no signs of labor) we'll have help. What a relief!

My mom is also planning to fly out as soon as I go into labor (or when Brigitte and Andrei leave) and help us with the drive home a few days later.

I'm 37 weeks today, regaining energy after our drive and after a visit to the chiropractor this morning (which I've been doing weekly for over a month now) I feel pretty good. Christie checked my hemoglobin levels before we left and found them to be a little low (but still great according to Utah standards ;), so I've been taking some additional supplements to help with possilble anemia, which I think is helping. We met our new midwife this morning and she's great. We now have our birth kit, labor tub and other supplies and we're ready to go anytime! We have a 2nd ultrasound scheduled for this Friday just to verify the position of the babies so I'll let you know how that goes.

We're going to look into a local play group to try and meet some new friends and do some fun things. The mountains are beautiful and we look forward to exploring the area a little more this weekend.

We'll keep you posted! I will probably only respond to email 1 time a day at the most when I pick Caleb up from Borders each afternoon.

Love,
Caleb, Angela, Malachi, MaxA and MaxB