the 13th week

pictures from my birthday!

Monday. I woke at 5 AM, kissed Skyler goodbye, and shot off to downtown Cincinnati to open with Dave. Monday Nights were good as usual, but I didn't stay long, since sleet began to fall early.

Tuesday. I finished Season 4 of The West Wing after work. I picked up Chipotle for dinner. The girl at the register LOVED how I said "Right on." Bringing back the 80's! She thought it was the coolest thing. Her loss. Isaac & I visited Julie at the Happy Hollow. Whiskey and orange juice: one part man, one part kid, just like my personality and looks.

Wednesday. I spent the afternoon hanging out with Blake: he's been sick at home. Today we made it to Wave 34 on MW3. We're awesome. When Blake went to bed and when Isaac headed out, Ams came over and we watched "Raging Planet": lightning and tornadoes. Pretty cool shit.

Thursday. I opened with Eric, a pretty crazy day: we hit $1600 in sales by 1:00, and that's saying a lot when you have a skeleton crew and usually don't even hit $1500 in an entire day. I spent the evening playing Assassin's Creed III and went to the Loth House to hang out with John, Brandy, and Amos, and we shared an evening of video games, Kentucky basketball, cuddling with Clover, and eating giant chocolate chip cookies I nabbed from the pastry case. Amos was going to get another job but that fell through, and Frank put in his two weeks and retracted it; Eric had tentatively hired two replacements, and today he had to call them and tell them he couldn't give them the job. "That sucked," he moaned. 

My 26th Birthday! I worked 6:30-1:30, training Sarah on a few peculiarities with F.P. Luke brought in two growlers from R.B. for my birthday: Brown Bear Brown & the Fire Chief Ale. I had three glasses and was quite buzzed by the time of the lunch rush. Ams, Andy, Amos and I got dinner at the Chinese buffet down the street and then hit up the Happy Hollow Inn with Blake, Traci, & Isaac. They kept buying me shots and I kept taking them, and I had three times what I normally cap off at. We played darts and cranked up the jukebox: Damien Jurado, The Black Keys, Rachid Taha ("Barra Barra") and Celine Dion (the Titanic theme, what else?). I staggered home and people filtered out, and then began a LONG night of vomiting and restless sleep. First time in years that I've thrown up because of alcohol. Now the thought of a shot of whiskey makes me nauseous. But it'll pass. 

Saturday. I woke around noon, still feeling pretty awful. I felt out-of-it all day long. I got a book on Civil War tactics and another on the WW2 Pacific theater from 1/2 Price at Kenwood. Ams came over, and we celebrated our birthdays (hers is next week) with Penn Station for dinner, and we spent the evening watching The West Wing: I'm halfway through Season 5!

Sunday. I woke at 6 AM (no, 7, with DST) after a night of lucid dreaming about women, juggernauts, and legless zombies. I beat Assassin's Creed III and hit up The Anchor before rushing to the early service at U.C.C. Anthony J. preached again, and it was really good. Ams came over around 11 AM and we met up with Mom & Dad at Longhorn Steakhouse at Rookwood Commons. I got a 16 oz ribeye paired with a Caesar salad. Mom & Dad got me a signature bottle of Maker's Mark whiskey for my birthday. Ams & I returned to my apartment, spent the afternoon playing video games with the window open and birds chirping outside. I made a trip to 1/2 Price and spent the evening reading and watching The West Wing, and Isaac and I crossed the street and hung out at the Happy Hollow for a bit before calling it a night. Oh, our exciting lives.

03/10/13

How are we to respond to God's love? In repentance and faith. Repentance is defined as a change of mind: turning to God and from selfish ambitions, dreams, and goals. Repentance involves a decision to want to want God (because our hearts are convoluted). The Kingdom of God is an invitation to plug into what God's doing in the world, and becoming a member of God's family comes with both privileges and responsibilities. As part of God's kingdom, his family, we're to make him and what he's up to our motivation. We have a responsibility to partake in God's universal recreation, beginning with ourselves. This transformation of the self isn't about gaining membership but living it out. It comes from a safe place: we're secure in God's family, secure in our status and identity before God, irrespective of how we perform, entirely respective upon Christ's work. This repentance is a lifelong thing: there's initial repentance, that decision to want to want God, that decision to turn from devotion to self to devotion to God; and then there's consequent, daily repentance: the implementing of that repentance, putting it into practice, and continuing on the journey of spiritual transformation into Christlikeness.

Anthony J. examined Philippians 2.1-13, bringing to light 4 aspects of this lifelong repentance.

The Starting Point: Confidence. Lifelong repentance, absent confidence in our secure position within God's family irrespective of our performance, turns into moral performance: we keep check of our status with God through what we do, and when we sin (as we will), we begin losing confidence. We become hesitant to come before God in prayer; we become overwhelmed with guilt that stifles our energies for the kingdom; we become inward-focused on our performance rather than outward-focused on what God has done and is doing for us. Lifelong repentance involves confidence in who we are in Christ. We shouldn't be fearful and scared of "falling out" of God's grace and favor every time we fuck up. We don't have to jump through any hoops to keep our standing with God. Yes, repentance involves things we'll have to give up and things we'll have to adopt even though we don't necessarily want to; but from a position of confidence and trust in God, we can do these things knowing God has our ultimate good in mind.

The Ethic of Repentance: Self-Denial. Repentance isn't about adhering to a certain list of dos and don'ts. Yes, scripture has those; but the main thing is our internal disposition. The issue is who we are, and repentance is living out our identity, and repentance operates from the safe, secure place we have in God's family. Repentance is ultimately about subordinating our interests to the interests of others and, especially, to the interests of God and his kingdom. This involves a turn from self-centered living and vain glories, turning from a lifestyle and internal disposition that makes our own interests premier. Repentance involves humility: regarding others as better than our selves, and reversing the classic human position of a pompous view of ourselves and suspicion of others. Lifelong repentance is the slicing and dicing of selfish ambition, not of sticking to a list of good and bad behaviors. When we make it about what we do, the heart of the problem (our internal disposition) is left uncensored. Moral behaviors are often, if not usually, done for selfish reasons: to feel good, to get a pat on the back, to look good before others, or to achieve self-assurance of God's approval for us (and this self-assurance vacillates from arrogance to self-defeat depending upon our actions). Lifelong repentance involves seeing our selfish ambition more-and-more and warring against it. 

The Goal: Christ. This atmosphere of repentance as self-denial is embodied in the hymn of Philippians 2. Christ is the CAUSE of all the benefits we have in God's family. Christ is the epitome of self-denial and sacrifice. He is the model of the Christian life; and even more, he is the model of what it means to live like a genuine human being redeemed from the fall. Our goal in repentance is moving towards Christlikeness. Or, to put it another way, the goal is to become, in greater and greater measure, what we truly are: redeemed human beings. And how do we get there? We often see God as a concept or as an idea rather than as a reality; thus when God conflicts with what we want, as a concept it's easy to compromise or ignore those things we don't like. But when we see God as REALITY, when we understand the gospel to be REAL, that's when change happens. God is voraciously inviting us into character transformation with him.

The Power: God At Work In Us. Philippians 2.12-13 tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in us. God exists in Christians differently than with non-Christians. Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit; God literally lives in us, and he's working in us. All that language about working out our salvation highlights the responsibility we have in the enterprise. God doesn't just make us change, he doesn't flip a switch. We have a role to play, in tandem with God, in our repentance and Christian life. This role is secondary to the Spirit, of course, but God has set up this thing in such a way that we have a part to play. This isn't surprising, since all along God created us to work; we were created to work the planet, to subdue the wilderness beyond the Garden; and now we are called to do the same thing, starting not with the wilderness beyond the Garden but with the wilderness in our hearts. We are to move forward in repentance, in tandem with the Spirit, in "fear and trembling," a classic phrase back in the day that translates into English better as "reverence and awe". We are to see God as he is, we are to submit ourselves before God as our Maker and Creator, and we are to have a humble, open heart before the God who works in and, dare we see it, for us. 

Yes, a life of repentance is a life of struggling, of tension between desires. But there's joy and peace in the tension. When we struggle, we're moving in the right direction, growing in Christ. Approaching repentance like this, with the confidence of our position before God, with the example of Christ, and with the power of the Spirit in us, is relieving. It's not all up to us, and we don't have to earn our place in God's family. We can engage in this process without fear, in boldness and confidence in Christ. 

for dylan: pics of Park Avenue

the view from the balcony

Like I promised, here are pictures of our new place (click on them to zoom in):

My Room

The Living Room (plus Blake)

The Kitchen

I didn't take pictures of the bathroom, the kitchen alcove, or Blake or Isaac's room. 

I hope all is well in Mozambique.

And we're all looking forward to seeing you in five months!

I love you.

the 12th week

Monday. I'm back to working only opens (with the exception of a princess shift tomorrow), and after my 6:30-1:30 shift, I spent the evening doodling at home and hanging out with Blake & Traci. Isaac came over with DeJuan on his heels. Monday Nights was good as always. Andy got quite out of his mind and collapsed repeatedly on the floor, and Clover was fanatical and wouldn't stop trying to wrestle. When Blake arrived at the Loth House, I got so excited to see him that I tripped and fell flat on the floor between the sofas. He broke down laughing outside the door's window. The car ran a lot better today: I think the new cables may have been the solution. "Exhaust's still all messed up, so it sounds like I'm in the Grand Prix whenever I drive under a bridge." Yep, sure does.

Tuesday. I didn't go in until 10:30, so I woke late and grabbed breakfast from McDonald's and watched The West Wing. I was walking into work, distracted by my marvelous new iPhone, when I felt something crunch under my feet. Lo and behold, I'd stomped a tiny dead bird. It's beak was stuck in the rubber sole of my shoe and I had to scrape my shoe against a brick building to unhook the bird. We've got the Wii working again (Amos put it into a coma when he and Isaac engaged in drunk combat). I finished Ken Burns' The War, and after a dinner of grilled chicken, caramelized onions, and a baked potato, I joined Isaac for a trip to the Happy Hollow and we bought one another drinks.

Wednesday. Today was supposed to be Ana's last day (we've been training Sarah, her replacement), but she didn't show up so apparently yesterday was her last day. No call, no show, we didn't find out till a while later that she'd come down with a migraine "or something." I think she just got sick of work and cut out early. And as the ASM, I can't blame her! My evening was spent watching The West Wing, and Ams came over and I fixed us a damned good, made-from-scratch-except-for-the-dough Greek pizza. Raided the salad bar for the ingredients, quite the perk.

Thursday. I worked 6:30-2:30, trained Sarah on salad bar shut down. Amos and I spent the evening together: Call of Duty and South Park. I picked up Wendy's on my way home and finished Season 3 of The West Wing before calling it a day.

Friday. Eric & I opened, a crazy day: the grinder broke, we ran out of small bills, we were slammed, and I had to deal with several assholes. Sarah seemed quite taken aback by the rude customers; I told her usually they weren't this bad, people were just in foul moods today. I headed up to Dayton to house-sit for the parents: Mom's in Georgetown, and Dad's in Haiti on a mission trip. I spent the evening cuddling with Sky and watching The West Wing. Mom tried to hide Girl Scout Cookies but she failed. She'll come home to several empty boxes right where she tried to hide them.

Saturday. Light snow fell for most of the day. I went to the Centerville Starbucks to energize with an iced caramel macchiato (not a real macchiato in the least) and read about The Great Awakening, Old Lights & New Lights, moderates and radicals. I think I'd be an Old Light, such a traditionalist. I ran by the bookstore and spent the evening reading and watching The West Wing. I picked up China Cottage as an early dinner. 

Sunday. Tyler and I were supposed to hang out, but that fell through. I spent almost all day watching The West Wing, and I grabbed Gyro Palace and paired it with feta-stuffed olives from Dorothy Lane Market. I finished Stokebury's A Short History of the American Revolution, focusing almost solely on The War of American Independence and foreign campaigns in the "world war" side of it all (the actual American mainland served only as one of five campaigns in the war, and it was the least important of all of them). 

03/03/13

This is the fifth sermon in U.C.C.'s eight-week series on God's love and our response to that love, but I didn't record any notes from the last sermon because it was primarily testimonies, and it'd feel weird to transcribe other peoples' experiences. This week Anthony J. started a two-week focus on repentance; this week focuses on different aspects of repentance in light of the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, and next week will examine the actual art of repentance.

Repentance is one of my favorite subjects, so much so that I wrote a 360-page treatise on it (it's still sitting in rough draft form on this computer). With that said, I'll do my best not to get sidetracked in these notes, or we'll end up with the equivalent of a fifteen-page post (or whatever fifteen pages would look like on a blog). Anyways, here we go.

Anthony J. started with Mark 1.14-15, where we have the declaration that the Kingdom of God is here: God's reign has come to earth, the rescue operation is in progress. Grace, love, mercy, forgiveness: all of this is breaking onto the scene in the person and work of Jesus. The appropriate response to the in-breaking of God's kingdom is found in Mark 1: "Repent and believe the Good News." This--repentance and belief--is the response God desires, even demands, from us. When we ask, "How should we respond to the gospel?" it's easy to shortchange what God has done for us as we turn the focus from God upon ourselves. In all the talk about repentance, it's critically important to remember that it isn't primarily about our behavior. When repentance turns into what we do or don't do, the Christian life becomes one about floating in and out of God's family through the interplay of our current sins and our efforts to make up for those sins through moral behavior or spiritual disciplines. The story of the Prodigal Son opens windows, letting us see repentance in a new light as we come to see God's love and our response in a refreshing light.

Though nowhere in the story of the prodigal sin is repentance mentioned, the story is through and through all about repentance. Repentance can be defined as turning to something as well as turning from something. The story starts off with the son shaming his father in three ways: (1) he demands his inheritance, which is the equivalent of saying, "Dad, I wish you were dead."; (2) he gets his land and then jets to another country, which means his inherited land is given up for sale; and (3) since there was no medicare, social security, and no welfare or food stamps, sons were expected to take care of their fathers. By leaving the family farm and high-tailing it to another country, the son essentially leaves his father hanging. All the while the son's relationship with the father was a means to an end; namely, the son used his father and his inheritance as a tool to get what he wanted: to be his own man, to have fun, to chase after worldly pleasures and waste his money on whores and drink. The father bears this rejection without losing control in anger or sadness. When our love is rejected, we get mad and bash others, and we try to numb the hurt through our anger. God's not like that.

The son went off to do his own thing, and he wound up living with the pigs. This is the ultimate low for a Jewish person, the absolute rock bottom. He simply can't sink any lower. The son knows he's fucked up, knows that he's ruined everything. He decides to go back to his dad, confess his sin, and be a hired hand. He understands that he isn't good enough for family membership, and he decides to try and buy it back by working for his father. When he returns home, his dad runs out to meet him. Grown men in that culture aren't supposed to run, but he doesn't care, since he's so overwhelmed with love. The son can't even get his plan out of his mouth before his dad says, "Forget about all of that, don't worry about making it up to me, let's party and eat some MEAT!" Meat was a big deal back then, so what we have is the dad embracing his son as a son, demanding a lavish feast, and not even giving his son time to clean up: he's dirty, smells like pigs, but his dad doesn't care. He's throwing the party of a lifetime anyways.

The older son gets pissed. He refuses to go to the party, shaming his father. He refuses to see reality as his father sees it. The son claims he's worked like a slave for his father, but that's simply not true: the son has his own land, and the two work as business partners. His dad doesn't blow up, doesn't scold his son, doesn't put him in his place. He says, "All that I have is yours, so come to the party, all right?" 

The story of the prodigal son shows us several things. In this story, Jesus is communicating God's love: it's radical and some would even say "blind" to our own condition. The young son's a hot mess, covered with filth and sewage, stinks to high heaven. But the son's repented. He's decided to forsake his own goals, desires, and ambitions for his father. He understands his condition, he's been made humble by his experiences. And at the slightest turn of repentance, his father ran out to meet him. We get a glimpse of God's love for us, how at the slightest turning of our hearts, God is there to welcome us into his family. We don't have to wash up and get spiritually cleansed beforehand. All that comes next: it isn't a prerequisite for membership in God's family, it's what happens after we become members of God's family. 

The story also shows us a thing about humility. The younger son was separated from his father because of his sin, reveling out with the whores and pigs. The older son was separated by his goodness. Both wanted their father's blessings without wanting their father, and used their father as a means to an end. In the end, the younger son showed humility while the older son was steeped in pride. The humble are exalted, but the proud will be brought low.

The story also shows us that sin isn't about a list of behaviors that we have to deny or embrace. It's about motivation, our heart, our internal disposition. Sin is the internal suppression of God's truth, rejection of God, the desire and intent to be our own masters. Repentance is the decision to turn from self-worship to worshiping God; it's the turn from focus on the self to focus on God and his kingdom. It's the decision to forsake our own goals, desires, and ambitions for God and his kingdom. This is a decision made because we want God, and it involves acknowledging our convoluted hearts and layered desires, and when we're repentant, we wish we didn't have the bad desires that we do have. But we don't have to clean up first; we don't have to get our act together. All that comes next.

a shitty day

Today has been a shitty day. One of those days when the ax falls and hope's severed for good. I've been here before, many times, and at the end of it all, all you can do is shrug your shoulders and keep trudging along. It's been the theme of my life thus far, so I've gotten quite good at it. Shitty days are best spent not wallowing in thoughts that bring pain but in remembering all the good that surrounds you. These days I remind myself how blessed and lucky I am to be known and loved by people who I consider family, regardless of blood type. My friends, those who stick closer to a brother, mean a lot to me. Lots of friends go in and out of your life, but there are some that will stick by you no matter what. I've taken such friendships for granted most of my life, but seeing more-and-more that such friendships are rare, and it's even rarer for someone to have as many of these friendships as I do, makes me all the more thankful, and aware, of the inherent blessing. Here's a little collage of *some of* those people who mean so much to me, those people whose faces are lit in the glow of The Walking Dead on Monday Nights, those whose opinions, support, and encouragement I would do far worse without.

how i understand my life...

How I understand my life, how I find significance in the events and the different chapters unfolding, comes from the way that I view reality as a whole. My story fits into the greater story, the greater narrative, and I plug my story into that. Here’s one way I might interpret it:

I was born for a reason, chosen by God as one of many to advance his kingdom using my God-given talents and abilities. My mission in life comes directly from God, revealed to me in prayers, through conversations with others, and by the gut-wrenching conviction of the Spirit. I was filled with joy, with passion, with excitement for God and his kingdom. But somewhere along the line I stumbled away from that, and the stumbling became a slow & steady walk. The pain and depression sent me from God, and I sought to carve my own life based on my own desires with no real regard for his: one unwise and selfish decision after another has led me to this current place of disappointment, regret, disillusionment and lostness. If I were to have stuck with God, to have endured through the temptations and pain, then perhaps things would look wildly different. Perhaps my life is simply what happens when God respects our decisions and lets things unfold without his intervention and help and guidance? Perhaps had I stuck with God, I would be where I thought I would be: preaching and teaching, loving and being loved, maybe even with a family.

And looking back down the line, perhaps all God wants is my repentance. Perhaps God simply wants me back. Perhaps he hasn’t given up on me, hasn’t given up on his plan for me. I can look back over the years and see where God has called me to repentance, with the promise of restoration on the other side. I can look back through it all, and I can see episodes and events both of God’s stern demand for my repentance and of his love and concern for me. Quieter moments when I can hear him, when I can feel him, when I know he’s still there, that he still cares. Maybe the different chapters of my life, chapters promising movement but birthing only stagnation, are chapters of God calling me back to himself. And Cincinnati? Carly said that she felt that Cincinnati was a “dark” move for me, that it would not end up well. I’d always trusted her judgments before, but not when her judgments fell on my shoulders. But maybe she was right: I would be lying if I said that when Cincinnati came, I was sick of the guilt, I was sick of the failing, I was sick of riding the line with God. I went the opposite direction, and where has it gotten me? All along the emptiness, the barrenness, stood in stark contrast to the life I previously knew: where I had been joyful, there was sorrow; where I had been at peace, there was inner turmoil; where I had hope, there was only hopelessness. All this came to a head with The Quest, and perhaps The Quest is yet again one of God’s little techniques to try and steer me back towards him. And then, of course, during this chapter, there is Mandy K., and what she symbolizes: rebirth, renewal. With her I tasted what I always wanted, caught a glimpse of the life of loving and being loved and advancing the kingdom together. It came foreign to me, like it was rising out of the depths, coming back to the surface, and I felt new strength, new vitality, a new eagerness for life. Maybe that’s what Mandy K. is: not “The One,” not the one that slipped through my fingers, but a message from God: “Hope is not lost. This lesson is painful. But learn from it.” And the whole lymphoma scare? It came, it seems, at just the right time to propel me into real, hard thinking about my life and relationship with God.

All through my life there are strange little things to make me think God’s not done with me, that he hasn’t given up on me and what he wants me to do and be for him. One could make the argument that God has something great he wants me to do, as many have prophesied; but that the “powers and principalities”, whatever they might be—a shadowy name for some shadowy things—worked in my life against me, and I succumbed, didn’t stand the test. It could be said that there are forces, hidden and sinister, influencing me away from God’s calling. But at the end of the day, there remains the fact that what’s brought me to this point are my decisions, my choices, my stubborn refusal to repent coupled with my own sinful and rebellious heart. Blame cannot be shifted from where blame is due: I must accept that my current state-of-affairs is not something God has done but something I have done. For as much as I may be disappointed in God, why should I assume he isn’t disappointed in me? When I’m mad at God for not coming through, for not answering my prayers, for not rescuing me from my emptiness, perhaps I should be spending a little more time actually striving to obey and know him? As much as I might ask, “How long, O God?” perhaps God is asking me, “How long, O Man?” A steady stream of bad and selfish decisions has brought me to this point; I dig my own hole and then ask God to bail me out. He doesn’t, I keep making bad decisions, and the hole gets deeper. And I ask some more. But maybe God isn’t giving handouts this time. Maybe I’m too old for that. Maybe I’m no longer the little child who doesn’t know up from down but the rebellious son who takes his part of the inheritance, leaves his father’s house, and tries to carve out a life on his own accord. Maybe the reason God isn’t bailing me out is because I’m not a child now but a man, and as such I need to take responsibility for what’s become of my life and do something about it. Maybe it’s simply time to Grow Up.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the story of the Prodigal Son, how it so easily speaks to my situation. I enjoyed a life of joy, peace, and hope in the house of my father, but I wanted to experience life, I wanted to do things my own way, so I just left the house and plunged into the world. But this world is filled with grot and rot, and like the Prodigal Son eating with the pigs, I’ve found myself entrenched in a life I hate. I keep looking to the horizon, waiting for my Father to come looking for me. But he doesn’t come. The Prodigal Son had to make the first move: he had to admit his mistake, had to confess his sin, had to come to terms with what he had done. By walking up that road, all dirty and stinky, the son was admitting that he was wrong, acknowledging he’d fucked up. And moving towards his father’s house, the father came running down the drive to greet him, to wrap him up into his arms, to bring him into the house, clean him up, feed him, make him warm, and celebrate his return. Let’s not imagine that everything was A OK with the son after that: he spent a considerable amount of time eating with pigs, there’s a lot he’d need to relearn, a lot of issues he’d have to deal with. But he’d be dealing with them in his father’s house, working through them not just with his father but with his fellow brothers and sisters. Perhaps this story, or at least my reading of it here, speaks to my own situation: feeding with the pigs, nostalgic for the Old Life, missing my father’s home; maybe I need to Grow Up, go back to that house, fall into my Father’s arms, confess my sins and shortcomings and fears and failures, and let him heal me as I find strength and encouragement with him and his family, our family.

This certainly does seem like a strange way of looking at my life, at least to some. How I interpret my life comes down to how I view reality. There is reality, and there is just one of it. If any worldview is correct, all others are wrong at points; and if the Judeo-Christian worldview is correct, then this is a coherent understanding of my life in light of that worldview. As skeptical as I am, I must learn that my skepticism has limits. I cannot claim with any absolute certainty that this-or-that worldview is correct; but I can admit, in light of the epistemological uncertainty, that this-or-that worldview may very well be the one where truth abides. If the Judeo-Christian worldview is correct, then this is a solid way of understanding my life as it is, how it’s gotten to this point, where it may very well go. And where might it go? If I continue to refuse God, if I continue to wallow in my guilt, in my depression, in my rebellion, then I cannot expect God to help me. It’s not that “God helps only those who helps themselves”; but if I continually turn my back on him, refuse to heed his warnings, then I am very well taking the spade in my own hands and setting it to the earth. If I repent, then what? I have seen where the life without God goes, and I don’t like it; but if I repent, if I finally do what I have flirted with doing for so long—turning everything over to him, surrendering to him fully, striving with all due diligence to become what he wants me to be in Christ—then that future is yet unwritten.