Hovater's Old Blog

Moving

2009-05-18T15:16:00.005-05:00

It's been awhile since I've posted here for a lot of reasons, but I'm needing to move the blog over to a new site for a while, perhaps permanently.

I've been working with creating a whole new personal site through apple's iweb and mobileme, and it just makes sense to use that as my blogging space as well. It also makes it easier to post some sermons and that sort of thing. It's a little vain, but that's because the site needs to function as an online resume as well.

enjoy.

www.stevenhovater.com

Lana

2008-12-25T13:09:00.001-06:00

Lainey

2008-12-25T13:02:00.001-06:00

Testing Picasa

2008-12-24T22:26:00.001-06:00

Uploaded from iPhone.

Testing the Picasa connection

2008-12-24T22:25:00.001-06:00

Testing blogwriter iPhone app

2008-12-24T14:59:00.001-06:00

I'm thinking about shifting the old blog around, and am testing new inputs.

App Store Suspicions

2008-07-14T02:00:00.004-05:00

Is it just me, or does every application in the apple app store for iphones seem to be reviewed by a lot of people shamelessly promoting the app? So many of the reviews seem suspiciously like cheeky advertisements. They don't seem very trustworthy at all.

Assessment

2008-05-06T22:34:00.001-05:00

Okay, so now that grad school's over, I'm kind of in the process of really assessing where I'm at vocationally, and trying to get a bigger picture of what's going on in our church. It looks like there are some areas that have been outside of my youth ministry domain that I'm going to be more involved with in a leadership sense. One of those areas is the big tent we call "Adult Education".

Adult Ed really includes all the stuff we do to help people grow and mature. Sometimes it's a gloss for the official, set times of bible study that we've committed to as a community, and you can see how "education" is our choice term as opposed to "discipleship". That language actually says something about our approach, and that drives me a little nuts, but for now it's the terminology we've got. I'll have to save my beef with the terminology, and the priorities it betrays, for another day.

Tonight what I want to write about is our need to develop clear, attainable, measurable goals for our discipleship process, even if we leave it in educational terms for the moment. Right now what we have by design is a perpetual curriculum, one that rotates through the canon on a set time frame (six years), and then begins the rotation again. Other items are thrown in as needed in between the canonical series, and there are occasional elective classes as well, but the rotating curriculum is the heart of the program.

It seems that there are some assumptions that go along with this. First of all, it seems to assume that you never really master the subject. Now I think there may be a place for balance here, because I know that there is some truth to the thought that there's always something else to lear, other levels of meaning to grasp. However, I think that as it stands, part of what we communicate realistically is that we don't really expect learners to, well, learn. We rather expect that six years from now they will likely need just what they are studying now, and again six years after that. Now that's not completely true...in reality each section of the canon isn't necessarily touched, so there would be some variety next time around.

However, I still think there is an important issue with the church where we become so fixated on our imperfections that we forget to make room for the possibility that God can actually do something with us, so that over time we do actually become different. So we do become more virtuous, we do become more wise and understanding, our knowledge of the scriptures does grow. When we insist on remaining self-effacing and allow our pessimistic anthropology dominate our theology of sanctification, then we become content with the status quo. "We're not perfect" becomes an acceptance of the status quo rather than a statement of intent.

Our failure to assess movement and growth is somewhat rooted in this issue. We don't really expect there to be much growth. We almost assume growth to be impossible.

More later.

Brian King, and the Price of Friendship

2008-05-04T20:47:00.006-05:00

My brother called told me that an old friend, Brian King had died yesterday (Saturday). He was an amateur pilot and had crashed, I think while traveling from Georgia back to his home in Birmingham. Besides all the others who will mourn him, his wife is left with the care of their kids...I think they had four, but I'm not sure.

Brian lived in birmingham and went to Church with Hovie. He's worked with teenagers for as long as I've known him, at first professionally and then as a long term volunteer, and he was a pretty hilarious person for the role. He would say and do some of the craziest stuff. Not much of a filter, and he had no problem putting something awkwardly bluntly. I think maybe a fifth of the time I was ever around him I was embarrassed, but somehow it was okay, because he really made me laugh.

When I was ( I think) a freshman in high school, some of my friends in florence went to church where Brian was the youth minister, and so I got to hang out with him from time to time. Once we went on this ski trip to North Carolina, probably one of my first really long church youth group trips. I think if I looked back on it now, from my professional lenses, the trip might have driven me a little crazy, but at the time it was just one of those things I kind of needed. He really did a pretty awesome job of making me feel really welcome, like I belonged, and for an awkward fourteen year old kid, that was a pretty significant thing. Even this past year when I saw him we still laughed about some of the things on that trip, including...

On the way back, we stopped at a McDonalds outside Chattanooga. I don't know why I was held up...maybe just last in line or something. Anyways, the bus left and I got left behind. Keep in mind this was 1992 or so. Which means that even though (amazingly) I think he had a cell phone, none of us kids had them, and I definitely didn't have his number. Which meant that I was kind of screwed, but no sweat, I was a pretty composed kid. I got some change and called home, and my folks stated digging up his cell number, and I gave them time to find it, and called them back from the payphone to get it. It was a pretty shady area, and I remember this guy came up to me at the payphone and asked me if I was wearing any gold. that was weird, particularly if you knew me as a high school freshman. Gold? Really?

Anyways, by the time I got the number and called Brian, they were just a minute or so from being back to the McDonalds...maybe even pulling up. I guess I was there 25-30 minutes.

We laughed about that for a long time then, and the memory of it for an even longer time. It makes me sad that I won't be able to laugh with him about it again for a while. But I'm glad that I experienced Brian.

That's the real kicker of life: we are allowed to love, to share friendship, to laugh, but always it is only for a little while. Brian's "little while" was shorter than it should have been, but even if he had lived a nice long life, it would only have been a little while, "a breath" as scripture says it. So we live and love always knowing that the price for friendship, the price of love, will always be the same. We cannot help but pay it: we will part company and bid each other farewell. even those of us who believe that the parting is for a different sort of "little while" must acknowledge the grief that comes with the parting.

I think it requires some faith to believe in the promise of reunion. But that measure of faith is a subject for a different day what I'm thinking about tonight is the faith that says that even though we must part company, even though we pay the price of farewells, love and friendship are worth the price.

I believe that they are worth the price.

The world will miss you, Brian King.

Movies my Wife Will Not See This Summer

2008-05-02T08:30:00.004-05:00

Okay, so this weekend marks not only graduation weekend for myself and my fellow HUGSR students, but it also is the opening weekend for Iron Man, which in my view marks the beginning of this year's summer movies. Now, as a fan of both comic books and their typically cheesy movie adaptations, I'm pretty psyched about going to see this. Who knows if it'll be great or not. I think the most likely bet is that I'll feel similarly, though perhaps on a more muted level, as I did with Transformers. Beyond that though, it just kind of makes me excited for all of the fun movies coming out this summer.

The catch is that my beautiful wife has made a vow to herself that she isn't going to watch movies in the theater anymore. This isn't for ethical reasons, just her own viewing displeasure. So, since I have not made any such rash vow, it seems as though there are a limited number of options:

1. I will go to the movies this summer primarily with other people.

2. She will break her promise to herself.

3. She will try to coerce me to not watch movies. (and fail at this attempt.)

I'm not sure which pony I'm betting on here, but the summer is a long enough stretch to test her endurance on the matter.

Here are some things I'm looking forward to watching, in no particular order. Perhaps I should make a priority list. I know others will pop up.

I'd also like to see Red Belt, but I don't think I'd call it a summer movie. It's on the edge. Looks good though.

*Update*

Add to the List:

The Dark Knight (an obvious omission.)

Redeeming Ecclesiastes

2008-05-01T11:50:00.003-05:00

While I was grousing about the chains grad school put on my reading life in the last post, I should have mentioned that every once in a while, a book would come along in my required reading that would truly influence my thinking. This actually happened fairly often, and I have to admit that while there was probably some chaff, the crew at HUGSR really exposed me to some pretty provoking material.

One of these books was a neat little tome on the book of Ecclesiastes that I was assigned this last semester. For a long time I think all I'd ever gotten out of Ecclesiastes was a pretty pessimistic take on life, something like "Life is short, and while I tried to make it worthwhile, it's all meaningless anyways, so obey God."

Now there may be some truth to that, but this sweet little book by James Limburg really provoked me to a different understanding of the book.

Basically, my new lens for Ecclesiastes is: "Life is short, and sometimes doesn't make sense. But, it's all a gift from God, and God expects you to receive the joy within it and live it as well as you can. So understand your own mortality, and make the most of your life while you can."

Now that may have some elements in common with the other lens, but its enough of a different spin to really make for a different experience with the book altogether. It's really interesting how the book has been left to die by the modern church. I think that may be because it , in this reading reuses to give up on the present for a pie in the sky view of the future. I think this book challenges us not to just become more "spiritual", but to truly embrace physical, bodily life.

So, I feel like Ecclesiastes used to be a dead book to me, but now it's one of my favorites. The book's been redeemed for me, brought back into the canon. It's amazing the difference a new interpretive lens can make for a book. I wonder what else in the canon I need to start looking at with a set of interpretive lenses. What am I missing...what other lost books need to be redeemed?

A Reader's Freedom

2008-05-01T11:37:00.003-05:00

After a long seven years, I'm graduating this weekend with my MDiv. It's been a good process for me. the formal academic discipline imposed a clear set of expectations for learning, and that's good when I tend to be on the undisciplined side of the ball generally.

however:

Grad school has a major paradox in the fact that it forbids success to anyone who does not genuinely love to read. If you don't like to read, a Masters is simply not for you, my friend. but the paradox comes in the fact that the demands of school impose very tight boundaries on your reading choices, so that pure pleasure reading can become a practical impossibility.

So, over the past seven years, I've been able to sneak a book here and there, over christmas break or occasionally in the summertime (my hardest time to read vocationally). But I've generally felt like any time I was reading something that wasn't listed on a syllabus, I was committing literary adultery. A furtive moment with a book before bed or while pooping simply was all I have really allowed myself.

And thus my gratitude for my freedom renewed.

Now I feel like I can regain the part of myself that absolutely loves to read. I used to read voraciously: at lunch, before bed, in the morning, in my office, pretty much anywhere and everywhere. I have sincerely missed that part of myself. But no longer! I have jumped into Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, and anticipate some morning time with Herodotus in the coming days.

Coming days? Nah. Right now. Enough blogging for this morning...I've got a book to read.

I do solicit recommendations.

A readers profile.

2008-02-26T15:08:00.003-06:00

George, my brother in law, wanted me to come up with a list of my ten favorite books ever. The hard part of that it's a narrow slice of a broad category...if he wanted my ten favorite thrillers or books that made me laugh, it might be easier, but as it is I'm left comparing stephen King with Henri Nouwen, and my list is full of books that are all over the map. Here's what I'm looking at giving him so far. I want to annotate it, but I need to just look at the list first.

1. Till we have faces by C.S. Lewis

2. The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

3. Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen

4. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

5. The Lord of the Rings, By JRR Tolkein

6. The Dark Tower by Stephen King (I know this is cheating to put 7 books in one slot, but I don't care.)

7. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

8. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

9. ? I'm tempted to put something by Chuck Palahniuk here, but don't know what to pick.

10. The Peaceable Kingdom by Stanley Hauerwas

Transformers

2007-07-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

Right about now I'm feeling pretty vindicated in my anticipation of the Transformers movie. I've pretty much been waiting on this since childhood, and for a summer action movie involving giant fighting robots, I think it's pretty dang good. It's probably not going to change your life, but it entertains with some pretty sweet eye candy.

not so critical!

2007-07-02T22:05:00.000-05:00

I think it's hard for lot's of people, maybe particularly for folks in ministry, but it is so easy for me to slip into a mode of being over critical.

I mean that for self-criticalness as well. Like yesterday. After preaching, I felt two competing needs. The first was the desire to value what had happened, the good that was done, the presence of the word of God in the church through the sermon and the act of preaching. I really want to recognize and value that. Competing with that, though, is the need to develop and become a better preacher, which I think involves a level of self-critique. I know there are odds and ends of my technique, things that I could do to improve my level of skill in delivering the word.

So these two things compete, and I really try to balance them. It's really difficult, though.

Home?

2007-06-28T22:41:00.000-05:00

Has anybody noticed the shift in the way people talk about the places where they abide, their homes? I've always referred to it as the place where I live but now, it's also common for people to talk about where they Stay. Here's an example at urban dictionary. I think this concept makes me kind of sad.

Intern Team

2007-06-27T12:14:00.001-05:00

I was just thinking this morning about how the trio of interns working with us this summer is really gelling into a wonderful team. We've had so many great interns over the past few years, people willing to dedicate some serious time to loving on the kids in our youth ministry at PV.

with three, they are beginning to outnumber the staff, and the energy these kids are bringing to the table really is pretty awesome.

Good work, guys!

Pollicious

2007-06-26T09:55:00.000-05:00

Today they're using one of my polls at Pollicious. Check it out!

1408

2007-06-25T22:02:00.000-05:00

Holy Crap.

For whatever reason, Rampton and I decided to blow the free night tonight by letting Stephen King scare the crap out of us. We went to see 1408, which is from a King short story. I love King's work, and really went on a tear trying to read a bunch of it over the last couple of years. I've never read this bit of terror, though.

It builds like crazy, and disarms you, then throttles you. It's cruel, subtle, strong, and uses all kinds of trickery to bait you into its traps. Even when it telegraphs them, you can't help but be pulled in.

I hate movies like that.

But, for those of you that like them, this is worth a try. I think it's pretty well done, and John Cusack makes it happen. He carries the whole thing on his back, since most of time it's just him freaking himself out in this room.

Gave me the willies.

Powerpoint Church

2007-06-25T19:23:00.000-05:00

Garr Reynolds wrote this blog entry about this article in the washington post this last week.

I think there are some very similar questions to be raised about how Powerpoint is used in the church. Generally speaking, we use it poorly, in my opinion. I think much of what is said in the above could be used for us, if we substitute "sermon" or "lesson" for "presentation".

I still am guilty of much of this, but I've really tried to move towards a different style of using powerpoint, one that lets it support the content I'm working with, instead of duplicating it, replacing it, or dominating it in the development stage. Powerpoint does those things when we forget that the slides don't do the teaching, they're meant to reinforce or provide emphasis to the content that is coming directly from the person. One good rule of thumb to make sure that we're on the right track might be counterintuitive, but if our PPTs can be read through and our message comprehended without the oral communication that should come with it, then that probably means that we're letting it do to much of the talking. If that's true, then we should expect that people will just read the slides, instead of listening. On the other hand, if our slides are designed to enhance what we're saying orally, then they are really going to be minimal and poignant.

Less is definitely more!

Sickly

2007-06-25T19:12:00.000-05:00

Today I spent most of the day on my couch, nursing a cold. I was pushed to avoid folks by the news this morning from the other side of the bed that my wife had caught whatever bug I've been hosting. So, we had a date to the Doc together. It was really sweet.

My throat still feels really scratchy, but besides that it's kind of a wimpy cold. I wasn't even really tired, so we just watched movies most of the day, and practiced not giving our illnesses to others.

anybody out there with a sore throat that wants to blame it on the Hovaters? I wouldn't be too surprised. We've been around a lot of folks the last couple of days!

The Bookstore Story

2007-06-24T23:41:00.000-05:00

So this past weekend Kelly and I took our friend Jordan, who's visiting with us from Fresno, to Memphis for a day of (yawn) shopping. while at the the mall, I had already had my fill of looking at T-shirts and shorts and such, so I took off for the bookstore in the mall, and began reading a book about drawing (thanks Dan Pink), even though I have almost no ability to draw as it is now. The only place to sit I could find was a stool in the children's section, so I went over there and sat down. At some point, Kelly and Jordan came in, and we chatted (she said she had tried to call, but I didn't hear it) and they decided they still had another store they wanted to check out. I opted on hanging out in the bookstore some more, so we arranged to meet up later, and they left.

After a few minutes, I got up to look for a different book, and while up I realized I didn't have my phone in my pocket, so I began to walk back over to the kids section, assuming I left it near the stool. While on the way back there, I passed a young girl (about age 13) and her little brother, and as I passed, her backpack began emitting the sound of the Alabama fight song. we turned to look at each other, and my first thought was something like "Hey, she has something in her backpack that plays the fight song". that was substituted for "she has my cell phone in her backpack" as I realized that the coincidence was a little much that she had something that happened to sound just like my ring tone. (we weren't in Tuscaloosa, after all!) I at first asked her if she had seen my cell phone, then changed that to "did you pick up my cell phone?" She asked if it was silver, and I was like, "yes, and it's ringing". she had the most busted look on her face ever, and reached into her backpack and pulled out my phone. Pretty fortunate that Shannon had chosen that random time to try to call!

ug.

2007-06-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

Uggggggg. Here are two things. first of all, my throat hurts really bad. At first, I thought my voice was just shot from crowd control at the Uplift buttfights, but now I think I really have some sort of cold. (the additional symptom of my loss of taste leads me to believe this is valid, and sucks.)

Second, I spent all day today in girl land, as Kelly and I took Jordan shopping in Memphis. Yeah, that's right, the all day shopping trip. good grief!

We actually did have a lot of fun, even though we were pretty dead tired when we got back to the Rock tonight.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to blog a funny story of something that happened to me in the mall. (ha, I laugh just thinking about it!)

Pollicious

2007-06-23T00:20:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine designed this site, Pollicious. Check it our, it's a fun idea to bookmark and check in on. They just take random polls.

Uplift 2007

2007-06-22T23:22:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a great week with our kids at harding's summer camp, "Uplift". we had more kids than ever go with us, and I think it might have been one of the best years ever for our group dynamic. Our kids really did do a great job of being inclusive, of spanning barriers between cliques and age groups, and had a blast together. They also went out of their way to take care of each other, and I love getting to watch that.

I finished reading Dan Pink's book A Whole New Mind this past week as well. I think I'll have some more thoughts about that in a little while.

new shot

2006-12-21T01:35:00.000-06:00

here's a second try

new posting method

2006-12-21T01:34:00.000-06:00

it's called actually doing it.

Back in Business

2006-07-20T14:14:00.000-05:00

So, I was at Uplift (basically a huge church camp in a university setting) just over a month ago, and on the day before we left, my nice laptop got stolen out of my room. Obviously, this sucked. As of yesterday I am back up and running on a 13 inch Macbook, which so far I am loving, though of course I am still shaking my fist at all the things that I lost and hadn't backed up. (in a word, everything.) GRRRRRR.

The other good news is that now my most recent excuse for not posting has been eliminated.

We're rolling towards the end of our summer programming, which wraps up with mission trips. I'm headed to Birmingham this coming Sunday with some junior high kids to work with Habitat, and after that down to Juarez, Mexico with some high schoolers. So that pretty much dominates the radar for the next couple of weeks.

Two other things.
1. I've been running my face off. (Really, that should probably read, "I've been running my belly off.") I'm working on reclaiming my athletic self. I really want to be able to compete at a higher level when my adult soccer league cranks back up in the fall. We'll see.

2. Renewed interest in comic books, particularly of the X-Men variety. Last christmas my brother gave me a subscription to Uncanny Xmen, a brilliant gift. (He's easily the best gift-giver in our family.) I really look forward each month to the day I find one in my mailbox, and I've dropped by the local comics store to pick up some of the previous issues, too. I've set a goal to try and collect all the Issues between 400-475 (which is current), but we'll see. It is fun to go into the store witha list and try to find out if they have the ones I'm looking for. More on this later.

Okay, that's my posting fix for today.
Ciao!

By the way

2006-05-08T17:59:00.000-05:00

I have the best wife ever!!!!

bad TV

2006-04-18T21:48:00.000-05:00

Tonight I am plagued by bad TV.

mastering the skills of proper anticipation

2005-12-21T10:32:00.000-06:00

The christmas (or more technically, advent) season can teach a whole lot of things to a whole lot of people. For instance, that guy I saw at target last week who was freaking out because he thought the stcking hanger was twenty cents cheaper than it rang up at the register could learn a little patience and civility. But for those of you who haven't yet found a way to benefit in your character development from the holiday season, let me offer a possibility, one that's certainly been teaching me.

One valuable life skills you can master in this season is the skill of properly anticipating. The holiday's offer opportunities aplenty for developing this attribute...I'm currently anticipating a trip to california, time with family, a package from my brother, a paycheck, a particular dinner that my wife's family enjoys, and of course the xbox 360 that I wrote about earlier, and am still waiting for. I'll admit this last one is proving very difficult.

Anyways, the point is that this season provides lots of opportuinites to wait, both for events and in places like the line at Target. And in such a wait-fest, much of which is beyond our control, iwe have the chance to shape the right kinds of attitude towards all kinds of things we have to wait on n the rest of our lives. It also makes it quite obvious to all the people around us, if not ourselves, how well or poorly developed our skills are at this point in our lives.

So, check yourself, and have a merry, character forming christmas...in a few days, that is.

Christmas Play

2005-12-09T12:55:00.000-06:00

My wife's extended family in Fresno has a tradition where the kids put on a christmas play for the grandparents. Now, I know you all are envying me right now, but I am looking forwad to throwing myself into the mix for this year's production. I checked with a couple of cousins today, and it doesn't seem like there is any script yet, so the possibilities are wide open. Any ideas?

The best I've got so far is a story wherein the heroine goes on a rdiculous journey to purchase her grandmother's christmas present. This would allow for lots of comic interaction between different kinds of characters.

Either that or baby Jesus.

Ideas?

contexts

2005-12-08T18:49:00.000-06:00

I'm working (loose use of that word) on a paper on the medieval rise of the university and the shift towards the university as the dominant context for theology. For starters, the stories behind the roots of the university system was fascinating. Basically you have the formation of guilds-student unions in the literal sense. the guilds of students, and soon after the teachers guilds, rose to fill some of the same functions as what we would be familiar with in the labr union movements...protection and bargaining power, keeping the groups from getting ripped off. That developed a safer context for educational disciplines, and before long the establishment of universities takes on some of the forms that we're familiar with: set curriculae, decree bestowal and requirements, and even some of the structural side of Universities.

What’s interesting for my purposes is how the development of such institutions affected each of the disciplines studied there, and particularly the discipline of theology. It seems theologians in the modern university have to be attentive to both ecclesiological and academic demands and criteria, and the competing voices somehow have to sing together to be helpful to anybody. I’m betting that’ll be enough bait for a little conversation, but if need be I’ll suggest that Theology separated from the church sucks. So, there.

XBox disappointments

2005-11-23T11:45:00.000-06:00

Grrrrrr. there are a few things I like to do to unwind, and though I don't really feel entitled or like I've been denied some right of mind, it still disappoints me when they don't pan out. Call me a selfish sellout if you want, but I really was looking forward to picking up a nice bright, shiny XBox 360, the new game console that supposedly was launched by Microsoft earlier this week. I even preordered one about a month before the launch date, which probably classifies me as a little obsessive at the least. here's the kicker, though: About 70 more obsessive people than me paid deposits ealier than I did, and about fifty of those were too late to get machines...only about 20 available. There is a huge shortage of the machines, and if you haven't already ordered one by now, the earliest you can get one is probably February. At least that's what EBGames online reports, and most places like amazon, and BestBuy.com aren't taking orders anymore. Some freaks are already selling the machines they bought yesterday to people with even more discretionary money and less patience and self control than I have (and le me be clear that these are not my strong suits) via ebay. Current selling average for the $400 seems to be close to double the retail price. Double! I mean, granted, february is a long time away, but buying one for double the price is about the same as renting one for a couple hundred bucks a month. that's crazy.

I dpn't know how many were available here in Little Rock, but it seems like maybe a couple of hundred. If there had been enough, they'd have sold several thousand. Eventually they probably will anyways, but It'll taste more bitter.

C'mon Microsoft. Most folks already hate you, but we buy your crap anyways. Or at least we would if you would let us.

Why can't apple make a game console? Something like an ibox or something.

Living in a HUT

2005-10-24T14:29:00.000-05:00

This past weekend we took some of our 8th and 9th grade kids (and lots of parents!) to HUT, on a retreat oriented around being conscious of poverty issues around the world. HUT is a mock global village, with living environments from southeast Asia, Latin America, Haiti, Appalacian America, and East Africa. The retreat basically involves a lot of situational role play, and experience in different kinds of work projects.

For the most part, it is amazing how unaware of both our wwealth and of global poverty. It's impossible to get into our American heads how extremely different our situation is from the rest of the world around us. The way we define things like "adequate" and "comfortable" is somewhat ridiculous. I can't even put this thought in concrete examples, becaues it sounds silly to say things like "I think that soft couches are important for me, but really it is nice to have a house.

HUT is kind of a silly thing because it tries to simulate things that are so out of our minds that we can't really even process them. It's not even really just a matter of selfishness (though it's pretty close) but just a matter of understanding reality. I really am blind to world poverty. I can't see it, can't process it as reality.

Okay, I've got to go, but There's more about this to come.

reboot

2005-10-18T14:28:00.000-05:00

Sometimes things just get crammed, and instead of piking up the old thread, it's just better to start another.

Okay T-Rev, this is for you.

I've been on the go like crazy over the past month, buying a house in the process and getting moved in. A remarkable amount of work went into pulling down the freaking wallpaper, but now it's all painted up and ready to go.

I've also been working my tail off trying to keep up with grad school homwework and general work, but it's all been really fun. I've enjoyed the greek, learned a whole lot about the medieval church, and after tomorrow will have a functioning hot tub at my cozy home. So life is good.

And I'm thinking a lot about the incarnation and the trinity.

ouch

2005-08-15T11:06:00.000-05:00

Last night I scrimaged with my new soccer team for the first time, and I woke up this mornign with the stiffest neck ever. I've applied ice-hot, swalled some Ibuprofin, and rubbed it down as well as I can, but still the stiffness remains. But oh, was it worth it!

Despite being out of breath about two minutes into the scrimage, and sucking some serious wind for the remainder, I had a blast. It was just excitiing to be in that kind of a competitive forum again, to be able to run and play and strive. It was serious good times, and I squeezed in a goal to end the game, and that sealed the fun up nicely for me. You would have been proud Hobbes, even thought you'd probably make me run ten miles today so that I wouldn't be such a slacker next time around. Of course, I also botched a couple of chances, but felt like on the whole I got some good work in, and really just enjoyed geting to meet some new teammates. I'm sure the adventures will steadily increase for some time. Let's just hope the pain in my neck takes a different path.

Vonnegut and Bama

2005-08-11T14:36:00.000-05:00

Last night I finished Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse 5, a really funny anti-war polemic about the Dresden bombing in WWII. It's a really witty book with some pretty stout power behind it. Vonnegut uses the same kind of repeition that I like in Chuck Palahniuk's novels.

In other news, I keep being drawn to various news sources (www.al.com) for whatever scrap news I read on the upcoming college football season. It makes me nervous to read some of this stuff, just because I can feel the emotional pull of it. I think Bama will be fine, but you just never know until the ball gets kicked over the field that first time. I think that Croyle staying healthy could give us a great chance at the west title, but that less is pinned on him than it was last year, regardless. the new O-line makes me a bit nervous...so much of what they do changes the game, and I think I'd almost rather have a rock solid O-line than just about anything else. All in all, though, I think they'll be fine, if they can use those early games and get some quick experience. South Carolina will open conference play for us, and that's usch a wild card with spurrior out there. Still, I can't imagine that they'll be ready yet, with all the off the field problems.

Of course, I'm reasonably confident that Arkansas is going to suck, and that makes me feel better. At least in sports the tendency to define ourselves against others can probably go unchecked.

laundry

2005-08-10T11:32:00.000-05:00

this morning I woke up, and before sauntering in to the office, continued the work on the laundry which my wife very graciously began yesterday. (the laundry is normally my job). This brings up a couple of thoughts.

first of all, it is amazing how much laundry the two of us go through in a week. I mean, incredible. It really does ofer support to the future picture of humanity found in shows like star trek, where everybody basically wears a uniform all day. I could really go for a common human uniform, provided it allows for freedom of movement and comfort in both warm in cool temperatures. I think if one type of clothing were appropriate for work, play, hanging around the house, and school, It would cut down on the laundry task for my household considerably.

I remember in jr high we had these pe uniforms, and nobody would wash them (at least the guys) for like several months at a time. Most of the time when I think of this, I think about how gross this is. but now, I'm inclined to think about how many loads of laundry that eventually saved. I'm glad I did it.

back in the saddle again

2005-08-09T13:48:00.000-05:00

Okay, that's it folks, the wild ride we call summer is drawing to a close, and that means my life becomes somewhat normal again. Bring on the routines! all the normal backdrops that put my life in context have been sorely missed, and I'm ready for their return.

One of those routines is blogging, so here I will continue to raise my ebenezer, and delightfully think with my fingers.

A couple of days ago I listened to the Nirvana Nevermind album in its entirity, with a great deal of inentionality...not doing anything else but listening. I think I want to do it again, but with a pecil in myhand or keyboard under my fingers, just to think through the music. so much anger, confusion in that music. and it's a part of me? What an ineresting person I am. I fascinate myself.

I think I'm regaining curiosity about a lof of differnt things, these days. I find myself glued to my fishtank, or to a chair where I can watch a line of ants for a while, just filled with fascination. and I hope it won't offend any of my dear students ho read this, but Ihave to say that one reason I love my job is because I get to "watch" adolescents grow, change, talk with their friends, eat, play, and just live. I really think that teenagers are fascinating beings, just so darn interesting. the way they think intrigues me, and just the way that they behave...how terrific!

Sweet Home Indeed

2005-07-07T11:13:00.000-05:00

I hope you've all had a terrific holiday, mine was wonderfully exhausting, leaving me with the type of tiredness that signals fulfilling experience. It feels good to have given of yourself and feel like your heart and sweat have been invested in something worthwhile.

We took about twenty-five kids, most of them 14-15 years old with a few younger and older students along as well, down to Birmingham Alabama to work with Habitat for Humanity. The experience left us all worn out, but with a powerful memory. Habitat is an organization that works with folks who need affordable housing but don't have a lot to work with. It helps arrange for no-interest mortgages on houses built by volunteers to be sold for no profit. I only knew the organization by reputation before hand, but working with them was such a powerful experience that I would heartily contribute to the rumor that has built that rep. Habitat is an impressive program...if you get a chance, get involved!

I was extremely proud of our kids who went along...they worked very hard and were just a blast to hang out with. If any of you guys that went want to recount some of your thoughts or stories here, feel free.

Cracking into Kierkegaard these days.(I kept being pointed in that direction by Bonhoeffer) His personality comes out so much clearer than other philosophers/writers of his day, at least in my limited experience. I think we would have been buddies. He really does crack me up, too. More on that later, but some thoughts from the more academically minded that wander this way would be appreciated. Dante, I'm particularly curious about your thoughts on the Dane.

welcome back (humming along to mase)

2005-06-23T11:12:00.000-05:00

Okay friends, I've been more active on your blogs than on my own lately, but the time has come for a little electronic ink to spill on this page.

A flurry of activity these days...the summer speeds up for this professsion of mine, as the school cages have opened and I get to spend a bit more time with our students. Some of you guys have already commented on the fun had at Uplift this year, and I have to say it really was one of my favortie years, probably since 2000, and even edged that year out, I think. What was particularly significant was the way our kids took care of each other, and really encouraged each other this time. That made such a difference, and I really see turns taking place in people's lives, little and big changes. I see disciples treating people better, being more grateful for little things, celebrating joy with each other, and making space for others in their lives. Less selfishness, muy bueno. hearing from other YM's, counselors, and kids that oru kids were really leading and participating in the groups, classes, etc, made me feel proud of you guys, so props to you guys who stumble through this site from time to time, and to those who don't.

Always on my mind these days: what does it mean to follow Jesus, to be a disciple? I need to spend more time at this simplest level, at this core. following, imitating, learning from Jesus. And should I understand the church as the filter through which this comes, or an agent of the teaching, leading, and demonstrative christ? What kind of ecclesiology can we have based on the simple practice of discipleship? could one with this type of focus do a better job of connecting the gospels with the epistles? What do the ethical, doctrinal admonitions of Paul have to do with the Teacher and his band of followers?

greed

2005-06-09T10:53:00.000-05:00

Alright, one of our students led our devo last night, and called my attention to the well known passage in I timothy 5 about greed and the love of money. Besides the well known part about the love of money being the root of all kinds of evil, there's a really powerful phrase about people eager for money piercing themselves with many griefs.

Piercing themselves with many griefs.

disc today

2005-06-02T11:44:00.000-05:00

For anybody interested, there will be some serious disc golf today (thursday) at burns park at 3:15. Give me a holler if you need a ride.

trust

2005-06-01T10:44:00.000-05:00

My dear friend cassandra got me thinking about trust last night, and any feedback you can provide is welcome...trying to get my brain around this again, because she was making me think of things I haven't mulled over in a while.

How do you think about trust? Is it something you do, like a skill? Like I'm either good at trusting or bad at it? Or is it more dependent on who I'm around...like if I always hang out with liars I will never trust, but in other situations I would find it easier? Or is it strictly a relational term, and dependent on both parties to some extent?

It always struck me as weird that I corinthians 13 says that love "always trusts"...and this is prescribed as appropriate human behavior!?! Don't we call that being naive? But on the other hand, I want to be the best at loving people, and I think part of that is learning to trust pretty relentlessly. Foolish?

a little help?

(cass: thanks for stirring my thoughts, but most of all, thanks for the...well, the trust.)

the Hovater fitness machine

2005-05-26T10:26:00.000-05:00

One thing I love to do that drives my wife crazy (there are many things that fit this category) is to assert that I am in good shape, even though I have had no disciplined exercise schedule. She then says something like, "Now way you're in good shape...how can you say that? you don't do anything!" To which I reply, (and this really drives her crazy), "I just lead a generally active lifestyle." Then she fumes and shakes her fist at me.

Now, I'm not backing off of the above position, and still hold it to be true, but I have, in addition to my active lifestyle, also begun the additional regiment of some running and bike riding. The second I do at the gym on the exercise bike, and that's pretty fun just because of the tremendous people watching opportunity. there are the guys with the thirty inch diameter necks, the guys who are obviously there for the first and last time, the obsessively thin girls who have already been jogging for ten hours just so they can wwork off their salad dressing from lunch, which will be their only meal for a month. Then there are some folks that look bored while they work out, and some people who look like they generally come to the gym to meet people. the exercise bikes are at the front of a fleet of treadmills, stairclimbers, and there is a big mirror, so you can see everybody. I just hope they see that I'm the guy who's there just for fun, not because I need to workout, because I lead a generally active lifestyle.

Dear John Olive

2005-05-25T09:29:00.000-05:00

Dear John Olive,

I am writing this letter on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of your departure to Florida, which essentially dissolved our friendship. Having not really spoken to you since we left the sixth grade, I thought I would post this open letter. Perhaps in common vanity you will google your own name, and then on the eight page you will find this letter, and thus receive my goodwill.

Up until that pre-pubescent point of departure we had an excellent time together, and this friendship is still one of the more specific things I remember from our youth. Being both shorter boys, you and I had a sort of alliance that helped us survive and thrive among our taller amigos. If I may be so bold, the dash of cleverness that the Lord allowed each of us also cemented this friendship, as we outwitted our adversaries. A couple of boys who understood each other, that's what we were, and played so many different games together, shared so much laughter.

I remember you beginning to play the trombone, and I the drum. Since you left I never hear whether you turned out to be good at the trombone, but I was never particularly a good percussionist. I remember going to your house, which was kind of funky and seems in my memory gigantic. It seems as though it was in the woods, and almost like a tree house...I remember running around it endlessly, and have one memory of looking up to see your grandma looking down on us from the balcony. I always thought your grandma was pretty cool. I know you hated not having your dad around, but I always thought it was cool that your grandma lived with you and your mom...she didn't even seem all that old, and really had a lot of style for a grandma. I think she was quite elegant.

I remember playing out on the old payground at school, before they put all the super safe playground equipment ou there. the old concrete tubes, wooden staircases, and metal monkey bars were quite fine for us, and we ruled it well. Why the heck did we obsessively think there was some sort of treasure under that one concrete pipe? I remember that when we were inside it, there was a crack in the joint, and we could did in the earth between the two sections...but why did we? Perhaps just that there was a place TO dig indicated that there would be treasure beneath it. Regardless, we neevr really found any sort of treasue there, nothing physically tangible, anyways. Imagination, what a resource for games! I remember that you and I played all sorts of character games, where we would role play endless characters. I remember some odd game with Mark Schmidt, the yankee kid from conneticut who was in our class for about a year. whatever happened to that kid, I wonder. I don't really remember enough to write a letter to him, I think. I do remember that we told him that the crumbs on those strawberry shortcake ice cream bars were some sort of jewels, and I rememer he kept a bunch of them. I always think about that when I see one of those bars, even now. I think later today I may buy one and raise it to the northest and toast Mark Schmidt with it. I don't think we were being mean, really, just playing an imaginative game.

I hope this finds you well, old friend. Because there have been so many friends that I've shared life with since the sixth grade, and I know that some of them a re well, but some are not, and that's sad. On occasion some of those friends reappear and the sharing picks up again, but sometimes not and I suppose that's okay. Some friendships are only ours for a time, though some go on as constants for longer. I wish ours could have been the latter, but I'm thankful for what it was. IT was a gift for a time, one that shaped my youth in a quircky sort of way, and I am the better for it. I hope you are too.

Peace,
Steven

Zanfel

2005-05-23T10:35:00.000-05:00

This is the post I should have made two weeks ago...if only i'd known

(Steven bows his head and clenches his fist, regretfully.)

For the particular form of contact dermititis (rash) that is caused by the tozin urishol, produced by poison ivy, there is one product. this one product should be purchased at the first sign of an outbreak by every individual, without exception.

I mean to tell you that I have tried a ridiculous amount of treatments and relief strategies for the poison ivy, but there is only one that I will try henceforth, and it is called Zanfel.

Okay, this stuff is a little pricey, especially since the other tubes of creme that it is shelved with all cost like $3.00. BUT IT WORKS. I really had poison ivy bad, then used Zanfel and in a half hour I didn't itch anymore. My skin is still getting back to normal, but the itch was gone and I could get back to living. I could play outside, get hot, and not coat myself with pink stuff. It's a wash, notnot something you have to put on and let dry, so it doesn't amtter what you do afterwords. Everything else is a treatment, but this stuffis closer to being a cure. You think I'm exaggerating here, but if you get the rash, please, please trust me, go buy Zanfel immediately, and don't itch for two straight weeks. this is good counsel.

Star Wars

2005-05-20T08:45:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I was among the thousands of nerds who went to thursday AM's midnight showings of Star Wars episode 3. I am now referring to myself as Darth (ho)Vater and am using various jedi mind tricks on my fellow staff members here at the office. I have kept my light saber concealed so as not to reveal my identity to my foes at too early a time.

I had agreat time at the show, just as much for the atmosphere as for the movie itself. I think that any time you get a group of people who are being so unabashedly ridiculous in the face of societal norms you're bound to have a good time. It was like all these nerds came out into the open, proudly reveling in their nerd-dom. there was definitely a light saber brawl in the front of the auditorium before the previews began. There was a good audience for this, partcularly since the auditorium was 95% full an hour and a half before the show time. Yeah, that's right, an hour and a half. I think one of the funnier things I saw was Darth Vader outside smoking a cigarette after the movie. Doesn't that helmet have a filter?

For the movie itself, I have to say that I really did like it. There are a couple of parts that are somewhat cheesy (like when Vader takes his first steps in the new armor...that had to be intentionally a Boris Karloff tribute, absolutely had to be.) I even thought one part already looked outdated in its effects, when Obi-Wan and VAder are cruising on the small platforms in the middle of the lava. It won't be long at all before that just looks straight up stupid. But in the main, I really did like the movie. I thought that part of what made the orignal three episodes great , besides the fantasy component, was that you actually cared about the characters. You were invested in what happened to Luke and Han, and rooted for them. But episodes one and two really didn't achieve that very well...the characters were secondary to the development of the plot and the fantasy element. In this last installment, I felt like I understood the characters better and sympathized with them. From Yoda to Obi-Wan and finally to Vader himself, we finally understand them a little better. the plot served the characters instead of it only being the other way around, and in the end this film turns out to be a pretty good story about sacrifice, integrity and even love. props to George on this one. I know some people will probably hate it, but I really did like it quite a bit.

Postscript:
The rash is susbsiding, though still lingering a little.

itchin

2005-05-17T10:24:00.000-05:00

Okay so last week I lost my favorite disc, a champion valkarie that was nicely tie-dyed and weighed 172 grams. I threw it into some deep woods at Bud Hill in Memphis, and do not expect to hear back from it any time soon (the search party carried on courageously, but to no eventual avail.) Wherever that disc lies, this is not where the story is found. This part is only to give you the vital background info, which is essentially that I lost a nice disc.

So I returned from my tour of the southeast last week and was ready to spend some time on the lovely disc golf course here in Little Rock, namely Burns Park. So last Sunday I bought a replacement disc that was pretty much the same as the old one, with brighter colors. On the blue course, the five hole is a little nasty. It goes sharply downhill immediately, and then about 340 feet to the hole which lies across a small creek. The trick is that theere is a fence running the length of the hole about 25 feet to the left. That proximity and the downhill element add up to a great chance that if you hand your disc at all, it WILL go out of bound acrss the fence, and come to rest somewhere on the hill between the fence and I-40. Therefore my amigos here refer to the hole as the stove, because as the old adage goes, "I can tell you that it's hot, but you won't believe me until you touch it for yourself."

So of course I throw the brand new disc and it goes over the fence and onto the hill, which I should probaably go ahead and reveal is both obscured from view from the launch pad and is covered with plant life such as honeysicle, thorns, and other plants which of course factor into the story more directly. But at this point, what I'm saying is that I lost track of the disck nearly as soon as it crossed the fence, and knew it was going to be hard to find.

I told my friends to leave me at the stove, and I spent the next half hour wandering throught he waist high plants, searching diligently for my plastic. Fortunately, in the course of my search, I found two other discs, and then my original one. Unfortunately, I also found enough poison ivy to light me up for the last week and a half.

And so I itch.

I itch crazily and mildly, and for a few short moments, not at all. I have applied two different cremes, ingested steroids and two different antihistamines orally, and accepted a needle full of the steroids in the posterior as well. I have bathed in oatmeal, taken cold showers for a week, and set the thermostat at 40 degrees. I have refrained from playing outside to keep from getting hot, and I have tried not to scratch. I have slept in the spare bedroom to keep from waking my wife by tossing, and still I itch.

I even shaved my freakin' legs.

And I still itch.

The rash has died down considerably, and hopefully will completely fade in the next two days. Hopefully.

I gotta go, it's time to scratch.

Sweet Home Indeed

2005-05-09T11:26:00.000-05:00

I'm back this week from a good round of travel to Alabama, the stompin' grounds of my youth.

It all began last Tuesday with the wonderful feeling of handing in my final exam. I love the freedom that comes with that...I can read and study anything I want now without feeling guilty that I'm neglecting the required academic work. Anytime during the semester that I steel away with a novel or some random book I feel like I'm cheating on my class. Now, though, the freedom of that bit of time is great. Any ideas what I should pick up?

After pausing to play Bud Hill in Memphis, I made the run on down to Flo-town, getting home in time to hang out with the family. These days the family also includes a faster brother who's been with my family for nearly a year, and who will most likely be adopted into our family this summer. He's a cool kid, and I really do love it any time I get to hang out with him (and I think he does too.) It's really a neat thing to watch my parents get involved again with the process of parenting. It's so different to watch from the outside, and to see that they really are pretty awesome parents. Yesterday I kept thinking about my Mom, and about how proud I am of her. Dad too, I really was blessed by their ministry of parenting. they are kind of crazy though, and anybody who knows them can attest to that zaniness.

Wednesday, the brothers Cooper and I spoke for the kids out at Mars Hill, where we all did our time in high school. Can I just say that I was extremely impressed with that group of kids? I mean, for real this is a stinkin' good group of students. they treat each other well, they play nice, and I was just really impressed. Props to the Hill, I think they're in a good place. I also got to play volleyball, too. I love to play volleyball. I love it, I love it, I love it!

Okay, so after we finished at the Hill, we went out to old Veterans park to check out the disc golf course there in Florence. It rocked, even though they have some wicked basket placements, some that are just downright mean. I think I was 200 over par. Next time I'm back home we're going to work on that.

After some hang out time with my grandparents, I headed on down to birmingham for the rest of the week. my little bro Hovie is in med school there, and he took me ona tour of some of the coolest places to eat in the old steel town. I think the best thing I ate may have been the ham, goat cheese, and fried green tomatoe sandwhich at franklin's. I know, ti doen't sound like much, but it was pretty much awesome. It made me want to start a restaurant just so I can serve that one food.

So, Alabama has a list of the top 100 foods you shuold eat when you're in the state. I think that's where I want to wrap up my blog today. Anybody have some must eats for the places you live? I'd like to put totgether a little checklist.

re-disc-overy

2005-04-08T10:01:00.000-05:00

Okay, I promise I'll have that last post on hope up pretty soon. But I'm a little too giddy to write anything to serious this morning, so instead I'm going to write about a rock band. (perhaps I would do well to go ahead and write the hope post while I'm in this heightened state, but we'll see.) So I found a Cd in my car that I haven't listened to in a while, so I threw that disc in and let it spin for a while. So for the past week I've been on something of a kick, and today I want to share with you my newfound love for:

Dinosaur Jr.

That's right, one of the best of the early alternative rock movement, a band most of you have never heard of becuase they refused to sell out. J. Mascis is the front man and stubborn fool who led this group of rockers straight into popular oblivion. He's got a new band now called the fog, and they preserve a lot of the same sound. Really they sound just like the older DJ stuff becuase by the time they cut the last couple of records he was all that was left of the original group.

Mascis is an interesting dude...he's the guy Kurt Cobain wanted to play drums for Nirvana, but he was too busy (and stubborn!) to join up, so Cobain got Dave Grohl instead, an Mascis remained somewhere between anomynity and integrity.

but the music is great. Sure, some of that for me is nostalgia, chilling out listening to the old grooves that drove me around high school. But for real, I think the music itself is pretty great. it's got some fine lead guitar and while Mascis isn't lined up to be on broadway, I like the guy's vocals a lot. The sound is orginial and just edgy enough to be great fun. Makes me want to go get in my car and drive with the windows down and the stereo cranking for a while.

Maybe I will.

DX, champion, pro plastic.

2005-03-28T10:22:00.000-06:00

Okay friends, sorry for the hiatus!

I have been having quite the blast since last time I've posted, due to the visit by little brother. Good times all around! Ma and Pa Hovater came up for the easter holiday, and the time spent with family was a much needed change in the cycle up here in L Rock.

I have also been throwing some serious plastic these days out at Burns Park here in town. This is the current manifestation of my obsessive personality, and a fine hobby. Befor I go further, I should make clear that I mean the pasttime of disc golf. this plays just like ball golf, except that you are throwing a disc instead of hitting a little ball, and you are trying to get the disc in a metal basket lined with chains instead of a little cup. It is also much, much cheaper to play.

Today Shannon and I got a handful of students from each of our churches and paired them up for a scramble. a fine time was had by all, with no serious injuries (even though that one kid took one in the back...ouch!). It is believed that the upcoming holiday (KOGS is saturday) will for the first time ever include a midafternoon scramble tourney. A pair of putters will be the prize. I expect that competition will be fierce, and that many a tree will be cursed during the days events. The tree giveth, and the tree taketh away...

KOGS is lined up for saturday at Burns Park, and we expect that the grilling season will be opened in style. I hope to have a report up on sunday for those who are not able to make the feast. for those of you who are in Little Rock this weekend, come up to Burns around 10:00, and look for us at the shelter closest to the spoftball fields. Or, just roll down your window and smell the air...that will probably be the fastest way to find us.

Okay, enough for now. hope this finds you well, friends.

Peace.

Bama Falls

2005-03-18T09:00:00.000-06:00

Milwaukee of freakin' Wisconsin 83
Alabama 73

Upset. that's a great, rich word.

It's all okay though, It seems like coach G has a good strategy for next year all lined up: "We've got to get better and we've got to get deeper," said Gottfried in the post game interviews. Whew. glad we're on top of it.

Seriously, I'm proud of the Tide and their improvement in the hoops since Gottfried came to the helm. We just seem like we've peaked a little too early the few years, last years tourney run notwithstanding.

Okay, heckle away, but if I'm bleeding, I'm still bleeding crimson.

Hope 3 - Utility

2005-03-15T10:37:00.000-06:00

Okay, there have been two reasons why I've delayed this post. One, sheer busy-ness. the offlien world and its silly demands. Tsk-tsk. Secondly, and perhaps more truly (I could have found the time were it not for this) the ongoing discussion with dante in hope 2 needed to be played out a little more, and still does. Nonetheless, here's the next installment.

The Utility of Hope

Okay, I believe this is a tricky element in speaking about hope (or her sisters faith and love) because of the capacity for self-manipulation. If we build a case for why hope is useful, we may be tempted to claim it even if we don't find it to be true. We may say that hope does good things for us (even if it's delusional) and be led to make ourselves hope as a trick of the mind, a way of sedating ourselves so that we may carry on with life. And isn't it just this sedating effect of religion that the world critiques and laughs at? It may indeed be stronger stuff than opium for the masses. This critique can not be answered, but only heard, and met by testimony, the witness of truthful hope.

All this notwithstanding, there is a place where hope does in fact have utility. It is useful in that it motivates action and sustains patience. Hope, (the reconition of wrong and the belief in possibility), gives action direction. It reacts against what it recognizes as wrong and and in the direction of what changes it believes to be possible. It perserves, knowing that while not all depends on my efforts, the tasks to which I set myself can matter, can hold significance. So hope provides a framework for praxis, for the practice of important things. It is a guiding and sustaining framework.

The total loss of hope (in either component, recognition or possibility) destroys this framework, breaks the posssibility for praxis. The structure for our action is leveled when we totally lose sight of either possibility or of the wrong. Is it possible that action at any level reveals the presence of some inherent hope in that direction? (If so then hope may be found in some surprising places!) Hope built awry or seen unclearly may provide faulty framworks that go off in unuseful directions or are unable to sustain weighty living, so there must be constant effort in pursuing clarity and truthfulness in hope. Faithfulness of praxis means allowing our structure of hope to be challenged and critiqued. It must be an open structure, with the possibility of being torn down and built anew.

So hope then has utility as a structure for action, guiding and sustaining it. But we lose one or both of the elements of hope, than our action may become distorted. can I propose the following scenaio of reality? Can it be that our churches have become separated from their true hope by allowing their recognition of wrong in the world to be distorted? In other words, our churches have lost touch with the things that are really wrong with the world, and this has led us to pursue the wrong courses of action. Meanwhile, some in the church who see correctly this wrong have lost touch with the possibility that it can be otherwise, and have thus been robbed of their own courses of action. and so we end up with a distorted church. this is my perception, my recognition. It may need to be clarified, torn down, rebuilt, or redecorated. but is coupled with the beilief that this status is not the final word! This may be what the church is, but it is not all she can be, not all she will be. This is my belief in possibility.

Next: Hope 4 - Identity.

Even if you wanted to...

2005-03-11T16:59:00.000-06:00

...you couldn't post helpful comments below. It's a blogger-wide issue that just happened to coincide with my shift to the mac. whoops. Thanks to those of you who tried and ended up sendind email. I got an email from the suport folks at blogger saying they were working on it.

Bama beats Ole Miss today...Roll Tide!

blogger issue

2005-03-11T11:12:00.000-06:00

Hey, this is a call for a little blogger help...I switched to a mac powerbook this week due to the previously mentioned demise of my PC latop. I'm up and running, now, but I have a problem that I've just noticed, and it is puzzling the heck out of me.

when I read some blogs, like Arbuckle's or the second chance, my browser lets me read the posts, and if I click on the date at the bottom of posts, then it lets me read what other people have posted. BUT, when I click "post a comment" it opens up another window, one that says, "blog not found". which results in the rather unfortunate and frustrating situation of being able to read comments but not reply to them. any ideas on why this is happening? Do I have a preference set wrong on my machine, or what do you think? Help!

sorry friends

2005-03-08T12:01:00.000-06:00

Friends, brothers, blog readers,

PLease excuse my tardiness...my hard drive decided to eat itself this past week, and that has had the unfortunate consequence of keeping me away. As such, this will be unfocused, covering several bases.

Good discussion still in the hope 2 thread, check it out.

What an eventful week I've had! I gained another year of age, and have played a substantial amount of disc golf. I'm beginning to have mediocre skills finally. Those trees at burns park are eating my lunch. If anybody want to go toss for a while, or are interested in learning the game, give me a holler, I'd enjoy spreading the love.

Random fun event of last week: Dr. Seuss day at Pine Forest elementary. I got to be a guest reader. The kids were dressed up and one girl had the most amazing hair going on I've ever seen. two feet straight up, I'm sure of it.

Similar Random fun event of last week: I had the pleasure of being a moderator for the regional quiz bowl tournament. Let me just say that these particular high school nerds (said affectionately, as one of their own kind) were amazing. I was stunned at the stuff they knew, and sometimes at the stuff they didn't. I really was getting my groove on reading those questions, too. Alex what's his name from jeopardy has nothing on me. Skills, serious skills.

My boys from bama got a couple of good wins, too, and that made for a good week. All in all, life is going well, if pretty busy, with the minor exception of the death of my notebook. (Viewing will be from 6:00-8:00 at roller, graveside on wednesday 10:00 AM).

Okay, that's all from general notes on life. Coming tomorrow: Hope 3.

Bama falls

2005-02-26T17:18:00.000-06:00

Kentucky 78 Alabama 71
Ouch! Maybe in the tourney...

Hope 2 -Possibility

2005-02-25T09:15:00.000-06:00

This post will make more sense if you have read the previous post, Hope 1, and the comments that followed it. That discussion is not finished yet, but I wanted to go ahead and make this post to lay the rest of my hand on the table.

The second aspect of hope as I see it now is the belief in the possibility of change. This means that I recognize not only present evil , but that evil can be overcome. This aspect of hope is possibly the more popularized notion, but it needs to be nuanced. First, I don't believe that this hope has to be totally oriented towards God's intervention in the end of time. That would only allow hope for my personal soul, and would only motivates me towards individual piety. It probably doesn't even motivate a healthy form of that. But what about hope for and in the world? Do we believe that the wrong we see around us (please don't misunderstand what I mean by that to be limited to oversimplified morality) can be made right? Can evil give way to goodness? Here hope is linked directly to faith, and brings us to a place of risk. Hope risks delusion. We don't wish to be pollyannas walking around telling everyone that everything's going to be okay (there's a reason for this, it's all part of the plan, etc.) and that God will fix things, particularly if he won't. So we take a much safer route, saying "God will take me to heaven when I die" which is a hope that has virtually no risk at all, and probably no use at all.

There is danger in not believing as well. Only claiming the first aspect of hope, the recognition of wrong, leaves us in cynicism. From my own perspective, cynicism is an unbelievable threat to ministry. Without overgeneralizing, it seems that there are so many people in ministry vocations that fall helpless to cynicism, because while they can see clearly the things that are wrong in the world, they have lost touch with the belief that things can be otherwise, with possibility. So we are left with a corps of people who should be, in a positive sense, change agents, but are powerless because they do not believe in the possibility of change. This is hopelessness. This is despair. This, on it's own, is useless. If I am right and this description of the church's leadership is correct, then it explains much of the church's impotence around the world. It's not as much that the church is dead(although there may be use for that description, too)...It's that the church is just waiting to die. It has traded its powerful hope for a useless one.

So there must be a place for the "yes" of possibility. For the church, that yes comes from the power of God, which is able to defeat even our enemy death. It comes from the power of God to bring about change in our own hearts and souls and lives. The yes is spoken and lived as we become different, and thus see the possiblity that all around us could be made new, that the death around us can give way to life, darkness be overcome by light. This is true hope, not blind to the darkness, but not blind to the power of light, either.

Partly because of the discussion thread on the last post, there is a question in my mind about the utility of hope, and now one about the utility of despair. I'll post more about that next week. For now let me explain (there is no time: let me sum up) my basic understanding hope by this description: Hope is (1)the recognition of wrong combined with (2)the belief that such can become good.

Hope 1

2005-02-24T09:00:00.000-06:00

Alright, I'm beginning to dive into some material about hope (the Moltmann book, Theology of Hope, on the left), but before I get too far into it, I want to go ahead and offer how I think about hope currently. First of all, I believe that real hope, hope that has a bite to it, has two essential components. It is essentially a dialectical model, and ommission or neglect of either aspect leads to some substantial problems.

The first component is the perception that something is wrong. I believe that this perception has to go deep for our hope to possess power. This is the "No" aspect, that rejects the status quo as acceptable. This aspect of hope is the recognition of wrongness. It perceives the brokenness in the world, in my brothers and sisters, and in my own heart and soul.

Without this negative side hope falls to apathy. It has no content, save in concepts that are distant and abstract. It becomes disconnected with physical life, and motivates nothing. When we burn with the brokenness of the world in all its concrete reality, hope can take root and have teeth. It can become a formative hope. It can work transformation in how we live and what we live for, exerting its power in life. The recognition of darkness brings us to working with and becoming light. Provided the second aspect is present. more on that tomorrow. Any thought's about the kinds of wrong in the world that can become food for our hope?

Cleaning out my Inbox

2005-02-21T13:47:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this morning I thought I would clean out my inbox. I deleted 1238 emails, leaving me with just 216, 14 of which are unread. That was a long time coming.

Wow, busy times! this weekend we relaunched our sunday school system, now featuring elective classes for 7-12 grades. Reports so far have been positive, but we'll give it a few weeks to see how it turns out. Any ideas on electives we could offer? they last 8 weeks. this time we're offering:

Sr high:
world religions
getting God out of your box (paradox and apologetics)
Philippians
God's evangelism (the book of Mark)

Jr High:
Relationships
The servant's heart
Old Testament Heros
Disicpleship 101
Intro to the Bible

I also had a great time this weekend at a retreat with the Highland youth group from Memphis. I loved getting to spend time with those brothers and sisters, playing and praying with them. One of the best parts was getting to share in ministry with my friend Donnie. It was really awesome to get to come alongside for the day and work with him. I have several other friends there, and known so many people who have been influenced by that church. Most of the sesisons were about passion, but in the end it came down to trying to be like Jesus. doesn't it all?

A short short story

2005-02-18T14:22:00.000-06:00

Gregoreite
(Gray-gor-ay-tey!)

Mr. Johnson died from watching television.

Not to say that he died of watching TV, which would mean that somehow his nineteen inch set, made by Panasonic, had killed him. To say that he died of watching television would imply that television had been the killer, the mechanism by which Mr. Robert Douglas Johnson’s life had been parted from his body. That would be an understandable mistake, though, if it had been the conclusion drawn by the pair of policemen who showed up at his house on the second day of October, which happened to be a Tuesday.

They had gotten a call from Bob’s neighbors, the Hudsons, who said that the lights in Mr. Johnson’s house had been on all night for five nights straight. At first, they thought he might have just left for the weekend and accidentally left the living room light on. Then, on the third day, they peeped in the garage window while jogging, and saw his car. They thought that meant he was back, but for two more nights, the lights in the living room stayed on day and night. On the morning after the fifth night, they made up some excuse and went over to knock on the front door. They stepped on the porch, and saw a pile of newspapers, still rolled up in cheap rubber bands. They heard the TV on, but didn’t get any answer when they knocked. Something didn’t smell right. The Hudsons called the police.

That’s how it goes, when somebody who lives alone eventually dies that way. It might take a few days for anybody to notice, and then the police show up to find something like they found at 147 Sycamore lane. Eventually they break open a door, find a corpse, and put together a story of how it happened.

This is the story of how it happened.

Bob Johnson was sitting in his easy chair, watching wheel of fortune. He was eating a bowl of macaroni. He had a heart attack, became unconscious, and soon died. He dropped the bowl of macaroni. The lady from North Carolina won wheel of fortune, making $12, 340. She did not win the car. Five days later, the police broke in the back door, and found the body and the macaroni. A couple made out on TV, part of some ridiculous soap opera. The police took notes, called the coroner. He took the body, they cleaned up the macaroni, and turned off the television. That is the story of how his death happened.

But his life? How did the event known as Robert Douglas Johnson happen? What did it mean?

This is the story of how it happened.

Thirty-two years ago, Mr. Johnson had a night where the dread of dying filled him completely. A person living in his dorm at the University of Central Arkansas died. Although he didn’t know the student very well, it began him thinking, and a few nights later he lay in bed, wondering what it would be like to die. He was utterly terrified of what lay on the other side, of what his death would mean, or what it wouldn’t. Eventually, he sat back up in bed, and gave up on trying to sleep. He left the room, so as not to disturb his roommate. He walked down the hall, and downstairs to the lobby, where one of the dormitory supervisors sat watching some late night movie. Robert took a seat, and finished the movie. The supervisor went to bed, but Robert stayed to see what was on next, and was soon entranced by the next movie, which was so bad it had been banished forever to cable at 3:00 AM. Robert watched it all, and fell asleep watching the one that followed. At some point he got up, when other students were leaving the dorm, and went back to his bed.

The next afternoon, he walked downstairs, having missed classes, and turned on the lobby television. He fell asleep ten hours later on the lobby couch, without the thought of going to class or dying. He soon flunked out of school, and moved out. In order to have money to buy food and cable, he worked jobs with odd hours for thirty years, and on the even hours he went home and watched TV. He didn’t think about death again for thirty years. Then he died.

That is how he happened.

Mr. Johnson died from watching television. Not of television, meaning the TV killed him. He died from it, meaning that for him, the moment of death separated him from all that was his life. Television was all that was his life, and when he dropped the macaroni, he departed from his dearly beloved programming. He left TV behind.

Of course, an argument could be made that he died of television. That for thirty years, TV sucked the very life out of him, whittled his life away until October second, when his body finally conceded that there was nothing left. Maybe it is killing us all.

A Little Help

2005-02-17T17:44:00.000-06:00

Okay, hypothetical situation.

I used to have a friend who had this conversation with a girl on a date,
"Can I ask you a hypothetical question?"
She said, "Yes."
He went on, "Can I kiss you?"

Okay, hypothetical situation:
You have seven guys, fifteen years old. You have eight ssessions to spend with them in a class setting about scripture. What do you do? What would you want to make sure and say, what would you want to NOT say? What would you ask, what would you share, what would you tell?

Hypothetically, of course.

g'night now

2005-02-16T21:22:00.000-06:00

Man, am I whupped. It's been a long day, and I'm read for a little pleasure reading, maybe even a soak in the tub.

There's always the outside chance you'll want to watch this. Or, you might find it infuriating. One of my most delightful students shared it with me at church tonight. I let it run for awhile, but I can't tell you if there's really an ending or not. If anybody finds out, let me know.

Bama beats Hogs

2005-02-16T21:20:00.000-06:00

Alabama 72 Arkansas 63
Roll tide!

VH-Day

2005-02-16T09:36:00.000-06:00

Kelly and I had to postpone our Valentines day celebration until last night due to the weekly pilgrimage to Memphis. So last evening we had dinner and a movie, and all kinds of cuddling.

I have some recommendations that have been building up, and the movie last night was the last straw, so here they are:

Recommendation One, category: film.
Hitch
This is what Kelly and I saw last night, and I laughed my face off. This is the romantic comedy movie done up to the nines. The romance is good, the comedy is very good, and every facet of the movie is in my opinion well done. I think the sucker even has something to say, and the movie doesn't revolve around casual sex. I think the casting, down to all the minor characters, is perfect. It's well written and pretty much a sure bet for the ladies. I really am missing a face now.

Recommendation Two, category: fiction.

The Gunslinger (Dark Tower Series)

Okay, so I've read more and more fiction over the past three years, and I want to recommend to you a set of books that might not normally get your attention. I would recommend to you the Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. the series is basically an epic story that spans seven volumes. It's a tale that doesn't fit into the horror nitch, even though there are times when it gives me the willies. It's also rough, so don't jump in thinking its G rated. the story and characters move me though, and the battlelines between good and evil are well drawn, ambiguities not avoided. If you get a chance and are llking for some fiction, check out the first volume, The Gunslinger (link on the left) and see if it grabs you. All but the last two are available in paperback, and unless you fly through them in the next few weeks, the sixth one will become available in April. the storyline follows a characater named Roland who is a gunslinger, a sort of combination between a wild west sheriff and a knight from camelot. the series tells of his quest for the Dark Tower, a mysterious entity that Roland will seek as long as he hsa breath. Other characters join him and interfere with his progress, but still the tower looms. the series is more Lord of the Rings than it is Carrie, but I have a whole lot of respect for King's craft.

I've got two other recomendations, but this post is long in length and perhaps in boredom already, so I'll save those for later.

Report from Academia

2005-02-15T14:23:00.000-06:00

Another day spent in Memphis, soaking up the wisdom of the academy.
Grad School Note A:
Today's class was invested mostly in discussions of Vatican II, and was perhaps a little dry. There's just something old school about a bunch of protestants critiquing the Roman Church, even if the tone from both the Hatfields and the McCoys is a bit more conciliatory than in the past. I believe there's hope in that tone but there is so much tradition that stands between us. Shouldn't this always shame and sadden us? Next week we're going to spend in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, which is more unfamiliar to me, and I'm looking forward to it.

Grad School Note B:
That ridiculous copier in the basement of the library drives me crazy. Today Shannon and I just took the reserve articles we needed to copy to Kinko's. I felt like this saved me about three hours. The copier that's in the library now stinks. I think there's a little bird that lives in the bottom of it, Flintstone style. I imagine this little bird looks at whatever I put on the glass, and copies it with a pencil. If you try to use the feeder, the bird takes this literally and tries to eat whatever you give it. I think in the morning they actually put bird food into the feeder, for the nourishment of the bird. I bet that bird gets hacked off when put theological articles into the chute instead of seeds.

Grad School Note C:
Next week Shannon and I are going to play disc golf with our friends Donnie and Zac. This is somewhat perilous, since Zac's trunk contains more discs than I have ever seen in one place. I mean I bet there were 150 in there, conservatively. It was awesome to behold. It should be some serious good times, if not good competition. Maybe if he plays lefthanded...

Finally, Grad School Note D:
Shannon wanted me to post this link, and I think it is only fair warning.

2005-02-14T12:28:00.000-06:00

Steven consuming the best burger in the Rock.

Little Rock's finest

2005-02-14T12:26:00.000-06:00

You'll have to wait for my mushy valentines day post, and I'll post something non-edible tomorrow, but while we're on the subject of the Grill, allow me one more thought.

The picture above records what I am convinced is Little Rock's best burger for sale (sorry cothams, but reputation isn't everything). It's hiding for you at Bennett's market in the Rock Creek shopping center, which is in tunr located at the corner of Markham and Bowman (home also to El Porton, Mardel, blockbuster, and Hobby Lobby). This burger is absolutely delicious, but threre is a trick. Bennett's offers two burgers, I believe 8 and 12 ounces. the larger specimen is not only bigger, but it is qualitatively better. If you don't think you're up for the large version, you must order it anyways and save half of it for later, or take a friend and split it (my right hand holds one half of the burger, and as you can see, it will satisfy). they will put bacon and chees on this if you ask, though whether those are unacceptable condiments, I will leave to you and your own conscience.

If you live in Little Rock and have not eaten this burger, you should get up and go immediately. If that is not possible, then check your schedule and make it happen. Trust me on this, people. I know burgers.

Roll Tide!

2005-02-13T12:17:00.000-06:00

Alabama 71, Mississippi 45

Roll Tide!

OSEA

2005-02-13T12:08:00.000-06:00

When I was in school at Harding my friends and I also had this weird thing going on that involved a lot of tradition and community. It all revolved around grilling out, and in particular these two events. We called ourselves the OSEA, (Old School Eating Association) and the two events were KOGS (Kick-Off of the Grilling Season) and WUGS. We made up all kinds of rules,lingo, and rituals, almost a little subculture. It started off as a little grillout we were having in my backyard right off campus, and then in a couple of years we having like 400 people show up and moved over to a little park that was close by. It was totally a blast, and I still meet people and have them say things like "I think I came to some grill-out you had one time." It was hilarious how people got into the rules and all. For instance, our motto was "if you need condiments, you need another burger." So we would forbid people from bringing any kind of condiments. Every once in a while, somebody would playfully bring a bottle of ketchup or something, and when they would pull it out, everyone would gasp and look horrified, until somebody snatched it away, and disposed of the vile condiment. Or they would have a rookie come up and ask where the mustard was, in which case we got everyone's attention, and began the phrase so that everyone could finish it. There was really nothing like hearing a couple of hundred people say, "...you need another burger" to some poor unsuspecting rookie.

What great fun.

Saturday morning writing and playing

2005-02-12T18:39:00.000-06:00

So today I got to spend most of the day trying to help some friends write a skit. So darn fun. I mean really, we spent all this time playing with ideas, improvising, talking about our experiences of God and life. It was great.

I spent a great deal of time in college as part of this group, which is called theatron. Each year people move out of it and the recruit new members, so the group is made up of a totally different group now than it was when I was there. It was fun to contribute today, though, and rejkoin them in the writing process. It's been to expereince a living organic group like that, to take part in what has become a thing with tradition. They still do some of the same skits we wrote, and some that are new and different. It's neat to think of how a bunch of very different people have contributed to some of those skits, so that they've added gags along the way and grown.

That was one of the places where I have experienced community in an intense way. I think some of what I learned there was the importance of sharing life with people, and in particular, sharing in the experience of ministry with a group of people. It forever shaped the way I think about teams and how groups work together.

Keith posted here an experience of his where he found a community experience among a group of Trekkies. I was thinking about another experience of community that I had, but I think it would make this post too long, so I'll save it for tomorrow. In the mean time, you're welcome to comment about times that you've experienced community.

a place to...

2005-02-10T09:34:00.000-06:00

Okay, here's a way I'm thinking about ecclesiology these days. I've been plugging words and phrases into this formula:

our church is (or should be) a place...

It's a local ecclesiology, in other words it how I'm coming to understand our assembly of brothers here in this place. I'm okay with that, since it seems that we know the church first of all as local and particular before we understand it in the broader, universal terms. More on that later, but here are some things that come to mind in the little formula:

Our church is a place...
to follow
to grow
to be safe
to belong
to understand
to be understood
to share
to be challenged
to love
to be loved
to serve
to contribute
to worship
to wonder
to see Jesus
to share life

thoughts?

Roll Tide!

2005-02-10T09:32:00.000-06:00

Bama 72, Tennessee 54

That helps take a little sting out of the beating we took from Florida last weekend.

Roll Tide!

Ash Wednesday Report

2005-02-09T13:36:00.000-06:00

Okay, as a part of a pretty non-liturgical church, I don't have any kind of normative lenten expectations. Still though, like many evangelicals in this situation, this time of year affords an opportunity to dabble in the church calendar by participating in some sort of personal fast.

Every year I approach lent in pretty much the same way, eagerly anticipating the chance to embark on a temporary fit of discipline, particularly one with a little more spiritual flavor than your typical new years resolution. Every year I have trouble knowing exactly what to give up, though, so I spend most of Ash Wednesday trying to make up my mind. This is a great opportunity for the weakness of my flesh to show itself.

I always have dozens of ideas of things I could fast from during lent. The problem is that almost all of them require virtually no sacrifice whatsoever, and thus seem to be unfit. I'm trying to have a little sense of humor about this, even though it really is silly that I think of some of these things. Anyways, in recognition of my own weakness and in a little bit of humor, I think I'm going to submit a list of things that I've thought about giving up for lent.

10. sodas
9. political conversation
8. physical labor
7. salad
6. dancing
5. sermon criticism
4. sandals
3. x-Box
2. the radio in my car
1. lunch.

Really biting sacrifices, eh? I feel so embarrassed when I think of what this season really represents.

Okay, okay

2005-02-08T13:06:00.000-06:00

Okay, so in a world where I would reveal my masked subjects, it might be possible that I would agree to the identifications proposed in the comments to the last post. But I'll never tell, so there!

Today I'm in Memphis at grad school and have spent the day puzzling through my class, which is called Contemporary religious Thought (syllabus) and basically covers different thinkers of the last century. Today we were working through what is called process theology, which I have to say contains, in my view, what a whole host of problems. I think it's good to take time sorting through systems like that though, even if in the end you don't buy what they're selling. I think learning to talk with and learn from those with whom we differ is a major skill critical thinking, and can open up so many possibilities of understanding. I don't mean that in a fluffy we can learn from everyone kind of way, either. I just think thoughtful dialogue and the ability to think critically and honestly are useful skills in sharpening our own conclusions. So thanks, process theologians, for the food for thought.

Today we also had a great discussion about whether God created the world from nothing, ex nihilo, or whether he just ordered the world out of its chaos. (Process theologians are not the only people who would argue the latter position.) Particularly, at least some people think that what some places in the Old Testament describe is God becoming master of the chaotic world and giving it form and order. Other places read as though God whips up the earth from scratch, or less then scratch, nothing. Personally, I think that scripture describes it both ways at different times. I believe that ultimately he made the world from nothing, but that accounts like in genesis 1 describe him giving the world order against the forces of chaos to describe the battle god is engaged in from the beginning of creation. He created a world where struggle was possible, where chaos was allowed to have some play. In the end, though, he is at work fighting the chaos, and will be ultimately victorious over it. I need to spend some more time sorting this out though.

Report from fifth period

2005-02-07T13:20:00.000-06:00

Okay, this class has easily been the best as far as work level and general behavior. Also, I'd like to record the following conversation, as I think it is a funny one for high school sophmores. I do this with permission, though I will still mask the identities.

Student A: "Hey, Student B."
Student B: "Yeah?"
Student A: "Do you know what I'm going to do if John Williams wins an academy award?"
Student B: "What?"
Student A: "Scream."
Student B: "Okay."

Substitute blog

2005-02-07T11:08:00.000-06:00

Today I'm blogging from a pretty unique location, among some new friends. I'm substitute teaching for high schol english, which is a great way to make new friends. Except last time I made a new friend I forgot her name. It's Kim, I now know since she's in my class today, too. Everytime I'm here I meet her again, then I forget her name, which is very bad for friendship. She's either terribly offended, or just used to it, which can't be good for her self confidence. I think she has good self esteem, anyways. She denies it though, which makes me feel worse.

Asha is another new friend that it appears I've met repeatedly. Kaent didn't seem sure, but I think he was just being nice.

Substitute teaching is the best. Really it boils down to hanging out with students all day as they do various forms of busy work, or play games...er...build hand eye coordination. It's funny to watch the students react to the assignments. Different classes react so differently to the exact same set of instructions. Some take them ultra seriously, and hurry through them, and some just sit there and do absolutely nothing. Most of the students today have been pretty good about getting through their work, but the variance is still pretty interesting to watch. The main function of the substitute teacher is to man the holding tank and make sure the students don't escape, and I feel as though I'm fulfilling that obligation. I even feel like they're getting some work done, so hoorah for being a part of the educational process. Before I passed out the worksheets for the class I'm in now I gave a fine motivational speech about how valkuble their education is and how they had a chance to be active in their own learning processes. The kids seemed to enjoy it.

Oh yeah, my Super bowl pick. I was very disappointed at the last touchdown by the Eagles. It looked like my 10 point prediction was going to be dead on up until that last TD. Overall, I thought it was a great game, and one of the best football games I watched all year. Congrats to the Pats!

Picking the Pats

2005-02-06T08:08:00.000-06:00

Okay, it's super bowl sunday, so really quickly before church, Let me make my pick. give me the Patriots by 10. Here's to football played as a team sport!

We're also taking part in the "Souper Bowl of Caring" which is a national grassroots fundraiser. Check it out at:http://www.souperbowl.org

There's a really neat story behind this and how it's grown.

Come Together

2005-02-05T13:18:00.000-06:00

Alright, a sleepy saturday morning with nothing much to do except read and write on the blog! Now that doesn't come once a week like the calendar says it should. Seems like it was 1992 the last time a saturday llike this rolled around.

I'm still reading in this Luke Timothy Johnson book, Scripture and Discernment and he gives another good road sign that points towards how we think about the church. He suggests that the doctrine of the church must begin with the local assmbly, because of Jesus words, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." (Matthew 18:20).

does that suggest that this is the primary identity of the church? Is it primarily the gathering together of people in the name of Jesus? I think that opens a lot of doors of self-understanding for the church if we begin in that place. to meet in the "name of Jesus" is such a loaded phrase, and can mean so much. It gives us a good boundary too, since it would mean we can only do as "church" what we can faithfully do in Jesus' name. It is full of promise too, since it comes with Jesus' pledge not only to be with us, but to honor our askings. The more I look at it, this passage in Matthew 18 also deals with accountability(if a brother sins against you...), forgiveness(seven times?), mission (lost sheep), and even leadership (who is the greatest). I think this is a place I want to spend some time over the coming days, and see what it yields.

Grace.

Woo-hoo for "being" healthy!

2005-02-04T09:48:00.000-06:00

Okay, this week seems like a dull blur in my mind, but the fog seems to have lifted and I feel much, much better. Therefore, as an act of gratitude I hereby lift the "healthwatch" curse that has been on this blog over the past week, and pledge to post nothing about my nose, throat, or other congested area for a period of no less than two weeks. Hoorah!

Luke Timothy Johnson in Scripture and Discernment: Decision Making in the Church, Abingdon press, 1996

...Some groups tend to be defined more by the tasks they perform, while others by simply "being" a certain way. It is not always possible to distinguish one from the other since both kinds of groups make both task and identity decisions. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that groups defined by "being" a certain way (a "community of the pure," a "witness to the truth," a "school of the Lord's service") will find decisions concerning identity more difficult and threatening than those Concerning tasks. For groups whose purpose is fulfilled by a certain kind of "doing," on the other hand, "task" decisions will be more difficult.

When I read this, it made me think about some of the resaons we miss each other in the church, and come away without understanding each other's perspective. I think we're all over the map in how we understand her. some of us think of her as identity driven, some of us think of her as a task organization. Probably most of us think of her somewhere in between, with different purposes that sometimes seem to be in conflict with each other, if not in some sort of ambiguous relationship with each other.

This self-understanding of the church is something I think about all the time. Who are we? What are we supposed to be doing? The more I think about it, it seems like the problem isn't that scripture says too little about those things. It's that it says so much! I mean, in reality, isn't that what so much of scriptre is doing, telling us who God is so we can understand who we are, telling us what he did so we can understand what we're supposed to do? Our understanding of identity and task is response to our understanding of his identity and task.

So where do we come out? I think He is the creator, so we are the created, and we are partners in his creating. I think he is the Savior, so we are the saved, and partners in his saving. He is revealer, so we are the ones who have heard him and who continue to proclaim him. He is Lover, and so we are loved, and we are part of his loving. Is this a good way to start?

sickly, but working on it

2005-02-03T08:58:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this year it seems worse. I mean, I know that every year there's a cycle when it seems like everyone on earth is sick, and we're all passing around some crazy germ that makes us cough our heads off. But for real, I think this year it must be worse. Some schools around here have closed for a couple of days, and the ones that haven't aren't able to get a lot done, with so many students gone. No quorums anywhere.

I've got a couple more days in front of me before I finish off the junk I'm hacking through. I felt better today, but my throat hurts...ah, a new pain, at least. My wife has somehow still managed to stay healthy, and that's good, particularly since I would never be able to get her to take any medicine anyways. I'm glad she doesn't have to worry about it.

I haven't felt social at all the past couple of days. Usually my spirits stay pretty high throughout this sort of thing, but maybe I'm just past my threshold for it. I just want to crawl in a solitary hole for a couple more days and emerge a healthy human. Alas, that's just not the way it works.

Home, Sweet hom...zzzzzzzzzzz.

2005-01-30T15:52:00.000-06:00

Alright, we're back from the weekend adventure to tulsa, and I gotta say it feels good to be back home. Although feeling good isn't really all that accurate because I've acquired a pretty wicked cold, the kind that makes my whole body feel more sensitive. A little cough, the sniffle action, and the feeling that I have grown nerves in the individual hairs on my head. When I scratch my head it feels like I'm using a hundred hands.

That being as it may, I am still grateful for what was an excellent weekend with our students. The passion of a conference like this is so contagious, I think mostly because everyone has some desire to actually be there. that makes the level of intentionality go up through the roof, and the effect on worship and learning seems to be as raised as the sensitivity of my nerve endings on my head.

It feels good to be exhausted when you've spent the energy on that sort of event. But, exhausted is still what I feel, so I'm going to have to leave this entry at what it is. Perhaps I'll think through it all some more and give a fuller debriefing.

Peace.

kingdom seeking

2005-01-29T11:40:00.000-06:00

Okay, here's a report from kingdom seekers.

We're all settled into the Sheraton on 41st street in Tulsa, and are about halfway done with the conference. The kids have really been great...playful, energetic, and engaging what's going on around them. Classes are finishing now for the morning, so we're about to go into solo time and some service projects.

the theme is dirty, and revolves around the idea of getting down to the wok of Christ. Last night they used an acronym (ugg) Decision, Intense, Real, Tough, and You. That seemd like an okay acronymn, even if a little stretched.

The themes of intensity and authenticty (real) hold a great appeal to me. The others make sense, and surely hold some value, but these two weigh substantially with me right now. I'm going to spend some of the solo time thinking and reading about the biblical concept of zeal. I think there may be some insight ready for the taking there.

The kids have been responsive so far, and I am hopeful that this will be a marker moment for them, a shaping event. All hope is in the power of Christ. Perhaps even here he is making all things new.

Later.

Off we go!

2005-01-28T11:52:00.000-06:00

Okay, now we're down to the last few minutes before taking off for Kingdom Seekers. It's a leadership type conference based in the tulsa area, and we're taking a few kids for the weekend. It should be a blast, but I hope it moves us in the direction of being more like Jesus. I feel like that will be so, but there is one exception.

It is going to be extremely cold. I have a very adverse reaction to that. It's going to be like being in my office all weekend. But hey, it's for Jesus.

Okay, time to load up.

brrrrrrr.

2005-01-27T10:01:00.000-06:00

Why do we keep this office so cold? this must be the coldest church office in the country. It's like some odd form of penance or something, freezing the sin out of us. brrrrrrr. I'm just not one of those people that likes to wear my coat all day, even at my desk, you know?

The other day, I could never warm up. It was cold outside, my shower in the morning was cold, and when I got home, I tried to take a warm bath, only to find that the dishwasher had used all the warmth to wipe food off of our plates. It was very sad. My wife returned a favor I had done for her a couple of months ago and heated up some water on the stove, but alas, it never turned out to be enough to get the temperature up.

While I'm griping, I know other apartment dwellers would probably argue with this, but it seems liek our pad must be the least well insulated home on the planet. sometimes I think the heater is sucking the heat out of the apartment, or that there must be a hidden window somewhere that I don't know about. Why can't I warm up???

hope and despair

2005-01-26T14:41:00.000-06:00

this afternoon I got an email from a friend, and he sent me a short paper that laid out where he was in thinking about life and the church. I'm afraid it held a bit more despair than I was really expecting. I mean, I knew that's where he was, but it still made me sad to see him verbalize it that strongly.

Basically, I think so much of his disappointment comes from the way that the supposed body of Christ in the world, the church, fails to look anything at all look like the Jesus it claims to follow. Honestly, I think he (and I, and every sane person I know) has had a problem with that for a long time. I think the feeling intensified though, the more he was around two groups of people. The first was people that have been hurt by that attitude, and sent away from Jesus because of the foolishness of his followers. I mean, how many conversations can a person have that go "Yeah, I'm curious about Jesus, but frankly, Christians are jerks" before losing some hope that things can be different in the world. Secondly, I think he the people he was around who claimed the name of Christ just really didn't care that anything was wrong, or even see anything wrong with the church. That's a big fat problem. See, the church is majorly sick, all over the place. But it seems like most people don't feel that way at all, or don't care. I think that's because they judge churches based on the wrong criteria...How happy people there are, how successful people there are, how many show up for worship, do people participate in the worship, if they're "reaching the community" and such things as these. Nobody says, "well, our church doesn't seem to be doing very well at being like Jesus." or even, "Yeah, I'm a part of a neat church, and I think the people there are helping me be more like Jesus." When's the last time you heard something like that when people talked about churches? I don't know if I ever have, and I work in a church, one I really like! It's not that its an evil place, but sometimes I really wonder if we could throw out everything in the gospels and our church would still operate in exactly the same ways. I think that's bad. I wish that I felt like if all of sudden somebody took away the gospels then the church would collapse. But I'm just not sure that's the case. How the heck do we get there?

Hoorah! Disciple.

2005-01-24T11:43:00.000-06:00

This morning I'm giving a big shout for joy, glad about a few things. For one thing, yesterday one of my students decided to become a disciple of Jesus. He took the rite of baptism yesterday evening in the presence of the church, gave a confession of faith in Christ, and a pledge of obedience. I was pretty pumped about it, after a long, long day. Thanks be to God!

The second matter for hoorahs is the birth of my partners' child. Ryan and Sarah, my coworkers among the youth at Pleasant Valley, gavebith to a baby boy late yesterday evening, after a long day of labor (over 20 hours seems long to me, at least). The moment wehn Karen, the doula (sp?) came out and said, "He's here!" was filled with such a unique joy, and it was great to eb a part of that. The grandparents who had come over from Oklahoma to pace the waiting room for that long wait were so relieved, and the joy...the joy was tangible. So thanks to God again!

A new life. What an unbelievable, mindblowing concept. A new person, full of the ambiguities, complexities, certaintites, hopes, fears and dreams that live inside me. It's amazing that human life, our life, exists in the form it does, with all that goes on inside of us, and among and between us. Here you ahve a new kid, who can't verbally communicate at all yet, one who sees daylight and other people for the first time. A person, catching the first glimpses of the life we share.

Yesterday also made me think of what Paul says in Romans 8 about the whole creation being in the pains of childbirth up until three present. He uses this analogy, saying that the world is waiting for it's redemption, and is fighting like a woman trying to give birth to a baby. As the time of labor stretched on yesterday, it brought my mind the labor of the world, of the whole creation. The whole world is struggling, fightin, pushing, in the hope of redemption. Exhausting.

Almost finished

2004-05-22T09:45:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm almost finished with my term paper for the semester. It basically looks at the phrase, "works of the law" in Galatians, and I have learned so much from the work. I really think this has been the best term paper for me, educationally. It remains to be seen what the final form will look like, but the research has really shaped my understanding in a new way.

Basically, the research strongly indicates that what Paul is dealing with in Galatians is a group of Christian missionaries who profess belief in Jesus, but also believe that to fully enter the kingdom of God, gentiles had to become complete proselytes to Judaism. That meant taking on what were the markers for Jews in the first century, namely circumcision, the adoption of food laws, and Sabbath keeping. These are the works of the law, the things required by the law to remain within the covenant people. There was no understanding that these things "earned" a person salvation (the way this is taught in Sunday school), rather, they were signs of the covenant, responses to the grace God had poured out on Israel.

What Paul is very stubbornly insisting on is the sufficiency of faith in Christ to mark out a person as belonging to the covenant people. God wasn't trying to produce more Jewish converts, but in the messiah he was making available the means by which Gentiles, as Gentiles, could be a part of his covenant people.

My Brain's Top Shelf

2004-05-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

In the library of my mind, there's plenty of clutter to go around. I like to keep one shelf clear though, with just a couple of volumes on it. I should make up some kind of a name for it...nothing comes now, but basically it's for those things that I'm working through mentally at the time. I kind of rotate through things that I'm really thinking on...community, peacemaking, social justice issues...whatever's stirring the water in the brain. Sometimes they get kind of wrapped up, sometimes they go back to the normal shelves, to be picked back up later.

Does anybody else do this? Somebody, please!

As per last post, I really want to use this blog to have conversations. So, it seems natural to maybe start out with a short list of what's on the top shelf. So, for what it's worth, here's what has risen above the clutter, at least for now. Peace.

The Future Form of the Church
Open Theism and God's Sovereignty
Church and State
Judaism and Christianity

Such Trivia...

Conversation Starters, (Or, "Conversation, for Starters")

2004-05-17T11:16:00.000-05:00

I've seen books on conversation starters, ways to bring about the miracle of human discussion with a few pointed questions. I've usually seen them as tools for teachers or people involved with youth ministry. Without commenting on the usefulness of such devices, the existence of such published materials points us towards a couple of propositions, true or false. First, we may surmise that the publishers are reacting to a sort of felt need...conversation. Conversation is the most basic human connection possible, introducing us to the possibility that other people, maybe a little like us, exist. Somehow, that idea is inherently helpful to us, offers a little hope. Elvis sang, "a little less conversation, a little more action", but sometimes I want just the opposite, a little more conversation seems to me like a good thing.

Secondly, at least some people view conversation as part of the learning process. Fair enough, sometimes I don't really know what I think until I try to express it. Editing isn't a process of writing to me, it's a process of thinking. I have to let myself think out loud, then hear it and edit what I'm saying to something a little more coherent. Oh, the poor thoughts I've let fly in the first parts of conversations, before the editor even gets a shot to start working! Conversation additionally lets other people into the editors chair with me, opens up my perspective, and allows me to be challenged, confronted, or affirmed. That ain't so bad.

Here, I want to open up some conversations, gain some new people to talk too, have a little fun. I want to think here, grow here. And I want to invite you to do the same. So come on over, from time to time, and pull up a chair. Let's talk.