Probably the coolest thing in history

Hello blogging world. I have taken a couple month break, but I'm back and I'll try and stay back for a while. I mostly posted on this blog before when I was either procrastinating from college homework or working overnights at my hotel job. Now I neither have college homework nor an overnight front desk job. So I'll have to find a new rhythm.

And now, to revive this blog to life, I will post about:
THE BEST AND GREATEST THING IN HISTORY

http://www.godrev.com/joy-in-heaven/

Go there. And watch the ticker and the map. You will see certain cities across the globe highlighted, switching from city to city about every minute. What is happening on Godrev.com is this: They are presenting the gospel to people in several interactive steps. Then they are leading people through a prayer for Jesus to cleanse them of their sins and lead them into the family of God. Then, if people pray this prayer, they show up on the ticker. The website reads the IP address of the computer and then the city pops up on the map. On average, someone comes to Christ through this website about every minute.

AS I WAS TYPING THAT LAST PARAGRAPH: Six people came to Christ through this website. Six. They are from: China, Peru, Columbia, Mexico, Venezuela, and France. Oooh, there's another one: TURKEY! Praise God. Yesterday there were 1,946 people who clicked that YES, they prayed to become a Christ Follower!

Now, there's no way to be sure if people aren't just clicking through the steps and saying "yes" just for fun or without their hearts being fully in it. You can read through the FAQs to see just how it works. But still, isn't it cool to have the heavenly view on things? Constant parties in heaven, almost. The angels get to see this unfold, and have a toast with the Lamb Who Was Slain about every minute. Wow.

Oooh: decisions in Ireland, Turkey, and Peru. All these Latin American countries, that's pretty neat. United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Praise God! Are those countries even open to the gospel? This is incredible!

Lord, I praise you for the eternal work you are doing around the globe at this very second! You are so good, God! May we continue to serve you with our technology to your glorious purposes!

We're all in this together

Working in the hotel business has been funny. It's made for the perfect in-between job for me this spring/summer (except for the hours. Nights. Learning experience).

One thing that makes the hotel business go is special events. Few people travel just for the heck of it. Luckily here in Ames we have lots of random things going on. Many times events and conferences are the same every year, so we know to expect this group from such-a-place and they'll want rooms by the pool for so-and-so and cook extra such-and-such for breakfast because they eat lots of those. For example: two weeks ago was the Special Olympics. Last week was this event for smart kids called Odyssey of the Mind. Both had about the same amount of fussy adult supervision. The Olympians ate a lot more for breakfast, though.

Which brings us to this week. We have a full hotel yet again with a bunch of pastors and lay-leaders for a certain state wide Christian conference going on in town. I'm not going to say what affiliation or anything. The problem is, this group of people is notorious for making things just a little difficult for the hotel. Lots of people with particular requests and changes that we have to make.  There are entitled to have a good stay that meets all their expectations, sure.  But something is wrong when your manager tells you at the beginning of the week, "oh no, this is going to be a hard week, I don't like it when this group stays here."

This concerns me.  I don't necessarily have a close affiliation with this particular Christian group or denomination or anything.  It would be easy to bash them and say that they have strayed from the gospel and if only they were on MY team than maybe the world would repent and everything would be made right.  But that simply isn't true.  My team has lots of sinners on it.  Actually, all of them are sinners.  On every team.  Except for that one star player who is on every Christian team.  He bats cleanup and makes every pitch a strike.  The lefty from Nazareth.  Perfection.

So here's the simple plea: How about all of us Christians strive to be the kind of people that a hotel staff would enjoy to have stay at their hotel.  The rest of the hotel staff knows that my other part-time job is at a church.  And they know that the particular group that stayed and made problems was from a bunch of churches.  And they aren't impressed.

Yet.

There's still time.  Jesus, You are the faithful witness (Revelation 1:5).  Come do your "redeeming" thing.  Right now we still look like dirty empty pop cans, so could you turn us into shiny nickels once more?  

"The Girls High School State Tennis Meet" or, "How to Make Sure You're Not Creepy"

Thursday I had the amazing opportunity to watch my little sister compete at the State Tennis meet. A huge honor just to make it. And she's just a freshmen, and her doubles partner is a sophomore! So it doesn't sting that they lost both their matches in a row. They competed at a very high level and proved that they had earned the invitation. Look out for next year (and the year after and the year after...).

Okay, now that we got the mushy proud big brother moment out of the way, let me completely hijack this post into something else. The last couple posts here have been too heavy, time to totally wreck the mood. Fasten your seatbelt:


So my Dad and I were enjoying $3 hot dogs courtside at the tennis meet. It happened to be next to the merchandise table. Roughly 2/3 of my wardrobe is composed of t-shirts that commemorate some event, usually family vacations and sporting events. But as my Dad and I squinted at the memoribilia table, we realized that, although a nice gesture to go with the moment, we could never really wear t-shirts that say "Iowa High School GIRLS TENNIS State Tournament." Do you really want to walk down the street later and advertise "I went to, and wish to remember and commemorate, a High School Girl's __(fill in the blank with event)__." Just doesn't really work.

Usually, as a upper middle class white male, I walk in aloof confidence about my place in society. But musing about the slippery message of the t-shirts with my Dad made me realize that I was one of the only twentysomething males in attendence to the tournament. And I began to wonder if people were wondering about me. "Who's that creeper from the college who came here to ogle athletic high schoolers all day? Sicko!"

Which brings me to a helpful guide for today, should you ever find yourself in a similar situation. I present to you: The STOPLIGHT of Males attending Young Female Sporting Events

RED LIGHT
Don't do these. Ever. It's for your own sake and the sake of the people around you. You could have some public servants jump out of the bushes and read you your rights.
YELLOW LIGHT
Proceed with caution. You can get away with it... but... everyone will be thinking things. Things that you don't want them to think.
GREEN LIGHT
Go ahead and try these. Couldn't hurt. It'll throw people off your scent for sure.

RED: talking to girls you're not related to.
YELLOW: making eye-contact with girls you're not related to.
GREEN: staying within 10 feet of a relative, keeping your shoulders and probably your hips turned toward the family relation at all times

RED: wearing a trenchcoat and a mustache
YELLOW: wearing reflective sunglasses
GREEN: wearing a bike helmet

RED: Dressing in a suit and slicking back your hair
YELLOW: Dressing like an Express model, complete with brooding pouty facial expressions
GREEN: Dressing in a windbreaker jogging suit in bright school colors and carrying a clipboard

RED: telling the person running the concession stand you'd like to buy a gatorade for "that blonde on court 4, tell her it's from Rique."
YELLOW: buying candy from the concession stand and saying "I probably won't eat all of it, maybe I could just give some of this candy away. Everybody loves free candy!"
GREEN: smearing ketchup all over your face while you eat your hot-dog from the concession stand and leaving it on your chin until your mom wipes it off.

RED: sitting alone in the back of the bleachers with a telephoto lens
YELLOW: sitting courtside with a camera and saying things like "oh that's going to be one of my favorite shots" or "can you do that again, but flip your hair the other way?"
GREEN: periodically grabbing unsuspecting relatives and taking self portrait photos with your cell phone camera and the victim that's related to you

There you have it, folks. Keep these guidelines in mind and you'll be sure to make the next event in no way awkward and in every way a family favorite. We're pulling for you.

Neil Anderson daily devotion

I subscribe to Neil Anderson's daily devotion, simply called Daily In Christ. It was an amazing devotion today. I thought I would copy and paste it so that I could have an amazing blog post. The ironic thing? He didn't write it either, he's referencing somebody. You can go ahead and reference my blog to keep the cycle of friendly plagiarism alive. Here we go:

DO IT ANYWAY
Galatians 6:10 While we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith
After I had driven home the point that nobody or nothing can keep us from being what God wants us to be, one of my students gave me this nugget of truth from an unknown author.

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for the underdog anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you've got and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

Prayer: Lord, I purpose today not to listen to my detractors or look to the left or the right, but to stay on the clear, sure path You have set before me.

Aaron Weiss

Tomorrow marks the release of mewithoutYou's new album. The title is:

it's all crazy! it's all false! it's all a dream! it's alright

which can be a bit of a mouthful. I'll no doubt have a review coming soon on the blog. My dear friend and companion Matt Van Maanen introduced me to the band about 3 years ago when he wanted to use one of their songs for a video we were making. It was the track "Bullet to Binary" of mwY's first album, [A->B] Life. I thought it was horrible. The grumbling dissonant guitars, some guy half yelling half talking saying "let us die, let us die." Blech.

Thankfully, Matt didn't let up. His next piece of propagana was the music video to the song "Paper Hanger." What made me pay attention was how Matt could re-enact the entire video on the blue fluffy carpet of our dorm room. More precisely, he could re-enact every naive facial expression and daisy-in-the-wind dance move of the lead singer, Aaron Weiss. The song contained some of Weiss's genius:

"Not one motion of her gesture could I forget
The prettiest bag lady I ever met....
....If I was a basket filled with holes
Then she was the sand I tried to hold"

And so, after walking to Matt's dorm room across the hall and seeing him watch the video every day at 4pm sharp, it started to grow on me. There was something to the madness of these mewithoutYou guys. An acquired taste, not sweet and sugary, but lumpy and crusty and at times bitter, but always leaving a good aftertaste.

The center of the madness and the genius is Aaron Weiss. He officially has social anxiety disorder, I believe. I have a friend who was at one of the early shows where he saw Aaron have a little bit of an anxiety attack and he tried to leave the stage. His brother Michael, the guitarist, stopped him and talked to him and got him to at least finish the show. But that was just part of the beauty and mystery of the band. Who knew if they could hold it together. While they did hold it together, Aaron crafted amazing lyrics and performed them more like spoken word poetry.

The angst and the poetry and the genius was real. But over the progression, you could see Aaron grow and mellow out and put deeper roots of faith in the Lord. The first album, downright scary and angry. The second album, more tempered, yet still edgy and on a journey. The process is even chronicled on that album in the song "Tie me up, Untie me" with the lyric

"She's like the hot cloth on a fevered head,
And like a needle she leads me (while I follow like thread)
But you untied me... didn't You untie me, Lord?
And now I haven't even thought about killing myself in almost five months"

Some of the most unnerving encouraging lines you'll find.

The progression continued on the next release which was called Brother, Sister after the a poem that I believe is by St. Francis. In this, much of the angst was expressed in agrarian themes, such as

"the books are overdue and the goats are underfed
the trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead"

The music mellowed out significantly, adding accordians and harps to some songs. They still had the good guitar work, but it was the turning point from being an angry hardcore-ish band to being makers of interesting music.

And so, I come to the whole reason that I sat down to write this post in the first place:
This new album looks to be a step even further in the progression of being less angst ridden and heavy, and more agrarian folklore. Which, as I said, makes for interesting music that is more accessible.

But here's the rub: Aaron is not so angry anymore. He's not a tortured soul, wondering if he's going to make it with himself another day. I dunno, maybe this full album tomorrow will surprise me, but the 3 songs that have been released so far lead me to believe that the shrew has been largely tamed.

Should I feel bad for being a little disappointed? Weiss was fiery, he was intense, he was masterful. His genius shone in the midst of his dark valleys. In some ways, I feel triumphant walking into tomorrow to buy an album that looks to be the top of the summit; Aaron's ascent to a full and victorious life in Christ. But is it okay if I miss the old Aaron, just a little?

The album will still be good. But I think it's the beginning of the end. Some of their old followers will start to loose interest. Hopefully the more accessible horn section and piano ballads will open the door to more fans. I dunno. But already I feel they're becoming a different band entirely.

Hats off to you, Mr. Weiss, for overcoming the inner demons and walking more toward the light. Sorry if I treated you like a side show spectacle at times. Thanks for letting us enter your pain. And thanks for continuing to point people to that light, as you said in "O Porcupine":

"and all I ever want to say for the rest of my life
is how that light is G-d,
and though I've been mistaken on this or that point,
that light is nevertheless G-d."

Hamster Wheels

My apartment currently contains two hamsters. Which is two more than I would prefer, but hey, as long as Chris takes care of them and I don't have to touch them, I won't make a fuss. Claus and Su-Su never did anything to me, so I don't have reason to kick them out or anything.

Claus is a Russian dwarf hamster, making him about a third the size of Su-Su. We're just babysitting Su-Su for a friend who is currently out of the country. Unfortunately, S-squared lives in a cage about a third the size of Claus's cage, with a hamster wheel that in no way fits his girth. Yet he keeps running on that thing, rotation after rotation, with his back arched painfully, covering almost 180 degrees of the wheel.

It's almost painful to watch him run on that miniature wheel. I'm not just saying that because he's a rodent and I generally distaste watching rodents do anything. Even people who appreciate hairball pets have commented, asking Chris, "Why does he run on that thing?" Chris shrugs and answers back,

"He was just made to run, I guess."

It got me thinking, because in that same room across from the hamster cage is the couch where you see my roommates spend hours and hours hunched over Bibles or scrunched in kneeling next to the coffee table praying. I'm encouraged and humbled by the collective yearn for God that is displayed by the 3 guys I live with. But at times their reaching out for God and wanting to meet with Jesus doesn't look comfortable or like it's the most fun thing in the world. But like that hamster folded in half in his wheel, they just keep running. So if a passerby would stop and ask, "Why does he pray and read his Bible like that?" I would have to shrug and reply,

"He was just made to be with God, I guess."

John 14:6

Just heard an amazing sermon online by the likes of Brian Zahnd. I heard him speak once at ISU, and since then I've been compelled to occasionally listen to his podcast. He's a well read poetic pastor who took a church of like 80 people in podunk Missouri to 4,000 members. After his sermons sometimes I have to go to the dictionary, because he'll say things like "it's a scathing indictment on the world we live in." It's great.

Here's some notes from his sermon "Changing the World with a whisper." The gist of it was that in our American culture where 75% claim to be Christian but few actually walk in truth, we need less to preach at people with the bullhorn and come near to people and simply whisper. In it, he unpacked John 14:6 in one of the most thorough ways I've heard. Here are his bullet points:

Jesus is the way to find forgiveness
Jesus is the way to reconciliation with God and one another
Jesus is the way to be human
Jesus is the way back to the garden
Jesus is the way to inner peace, social peace, and world peace
Jesus is the way to prosperous living and abundant life
Jesus is the way for human beings to recover and confer dignity
Jesus is the way for us to love our enemies and end the cycle of revenge
Jesus is the way for legislatures to craft laws and for elected officials to govern
Jesus is the way for families to live together without anger, alienation, or abuse
Jesus is the way for the alcoholic to get sober and the addict to get clean
Jesus is the way for the poor to find a way out of their poverty
Jesus is the way for the wealthy to learn how to share
Jesus is the way for the selfish to learn how to care
Jesus is the way of healing for the sick in miracles and medicine
Jesus is the way for the old world the new world and the third world to become God's good world
Jesus is the truth which leads us to abandon our false philosophies and idolatrous religions
Jesus is the life of authentic Christianity, whether in catholic, orthodox, protestant, or evangelical expression
Jesus is the way for a prodigal people to return from self imposed exile and live again in the father's house where there is room for all
Jesus is the truth which liberates us from the lies of sin and satan which have bound since the fall
Jesus is the life which our best poets writers and musicians always thought was possible but never quite could find
This is our Gospel, God's whisper of love and truth that can change the world

Praise God. I want in on that!