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old navy

the search for the one hits a snag...

01.30.06 (3:59 am) [edit]

pritzl vs. roe

01.29.06 (1:40 am) [edit]

went down to deep ellum tonite and met a friend at a pizza place on elm that ive never been to called zinis. it was decent. not great - but not bad - and the price wasnt too bad either. the girl behind the counter had the coolest and most strangely placed tatt ive seen in a long while. it was a phoenix looking thing with a 13 in a circle in the middle of it on the front of her neck all the way up under her chin. that had to be painful but i didnt have the nerve to ask bc any girl who can handle pain like that could have whooped my butt for asking.

so after dinner we went to see an acoustic show by two of my fav musicians - mike pritzl of the violet burning and michael roe of the 77s did solo sets then played together at the end. it was a really great evening. heard some old songs and some songs that still weigh heavy on my heart. they did a version of the first song i ever heard by the 77s called 'i cant get over it' - that alone was worth the admission. anyway - heres some pix from the gig especially for my bro up in denver who couldnt make the flight...

meanwhile i got home and its late and im too lazy to wash off the ink on my hand and im trying to figure out how to explain a club stamp to the folks at church in the morning who dont understand that going to clubs doesnt make someone a sinner...

the journey this far...

01.27.06 (2:32 am) [edit]

lurking in the fog

01.24.06 (10:36 pm) [edit]

the man behind the curtain

01.24.06 (5:45 pm) [edit]

the testimony of leaves

01.23.06 (2:31 am) [edit]

a leaf. behold a single leaf. so fragile it tears like paper crushes in your hand to a moist stain sharply fragrant. dry, it burns swift and crackling as newsprint pungent as gunpowder. yet a leaf may withstand hurricanes stubbornly clinging to its limb.

hold it open in your palm. it is perfect as a newborns smile. pinch its stem between thumb and forefinger and hold it to the light. eden bleeds through. its veins are like bonework in silhouette. this single leaf joined to the tree drinks poison from the air drinks it serenely as socrates dowing his cup of hemlock and refuses to return in kind instead spilling out life-giving oxygen. this leaf tilts to catch the sun to distill the heat and light down to the shadows down to the roots back up to the limbs. to shade the earth. to feed you and me.

a leaf. God makes these season after season one after the other billions upon billions from the garden to the new jerusalem most for no eye but his own. he does it faithfully or else i would not live to tell about it or you to hear.

perhaps of all my many sins against heaven this ranks with the worst: until this moment i have never thanked God for a single leaf.

~ mark buchanan in the holy wild

my visit with jehovahs witnesses

01.23.06 (12:40 am) [edit]

up til last night it hasnt rained here in forever and so ive spent many an afternoon soaking the foundation of our house so it doesnt fall into the cracks. aware of the impending rain i was out in the yard kicking it with my ipod on saturday afternoon watering the foundation in hopes of getting it ready for a saturation. as i ducked behind the row of shrubs to get a good angle at the corner of the house i saw a car pull up across the street and two nicely dressed older ladies got out and began walking toward my front door. like a good coward i stayed where i was and acted as if i hadnt seen them hoping my wife would answer and in her own wonderfully polite manner send them along their way. i somehow completely forgot that our doorbell is broken.

anyway - they proceeded up to the door and after a moment or two turned and began to walk away. i sighed in relief - but all too soon. they spotted me and made their way over to the corner of the shrubs where i was watering. their mouths were moving as they came closer but all i heard at the moment was:

hello! hello!
were in a place called vertigo!
lights go down and all i know
is that you give me something
i can feel!

i knew that neither one of these ladies was bono so i turned off my ipod and excused myself for not hearing their first statement. they proceeded to ask if i was the resident and even tho on the inside i wanted nothing more than to spray them with the hose and run them out of my yard i have a rough time being quite that mean and im just no good at lying to nicely dressed old ladies so i said that i was.

so the first lady asked me if i believed in evil. of course i believe in evil. i read the news. then she asked if i believed the world was coming to an end. of course i believe the world is coming to an end. i read the news. then she asked if i believed in the devil. of course i believe in the devil. i voted for him twice before i repented of my previous political leanings. so she breaks out her pocket bible and shows me some scripture about the devil being crushed under the feet of the saints and i was thinking: well - he cant run again can he?

now i am being just a bit facetious in relaying my thots above but the point is that i was not engaged by anything they were saying. and it got me thinking - go figure eh?

how often do xians have so much to say and for the most part we have no comprehnsion that the people we are talking dont think like we do? dont process ethical and moral questions like we do? dont care if they water their foundations on the sabbath? it seems like xians in general think that we deserve an audience simply bc we are sure we are right. but in a pluralistic world that particular view is held by xians alone. so how do we engage the culture in a way that will be meaningful to them? sadly most xians do not.

we fuss over gay people playing the part of a missionary in a current film. we argue with scientists about matters of faith. we quibble over our moral laws being displayed in every public building as if the state is obligated to revere the biblical law. and not only do we completely miss what being a xian is all about but we further alienate the gospels target audience.

have we forgotton that paul engaged the mars hill forum by understanding where it was coming from and how to best communicate with those involved there? in all our efforts to legislate the city on a hill have we misplaced the idea that we are to be the bearers of good news instead of condemnation? why arent a horde of christ followers lobbying capitol hill to proudly display grace on our judicial walls?

i dont know and as i sit here thinking about it im wondering what i can do. i want to engage the world around me and introduce them to christ. i want to express my faith without prosyletizing. this is part of what the holy wild is all about. so tonite i pray that somehow God will reveal himself thru me - not for my sake but for his. and i pray that im not annoying in the process bc i think the world has enough trouble grasping christ without me being an idiot and lousing up my opportunity to be useful to him in this way.

my struggle with doubt

01.22.06 (11:13 pm) [edit]

been battling some severe doubts for the past several months. doubts about God and the religious traditions i grew up with. about my current understanding of God and how much of what the church holds as orthodox really is versus how much is corrupted. been having some real problems with paul as well.

but let me tell you whats happened...

6 months ago our dryer and then our washer went out in consecutive months. in each case we were given a new one within a week. our bills have been on the verge of bankrupting us for at least that long if not longer but every month someone has stepped and given us money for whatever we needed. $500 here for seminary. $750 there for rent. and just the other day i was hanging at starbucks with some guys talking about the new church start im investing my life in and a man ive never met overheard us and walked over and made a $3000 contribution. he said thats why God brought him there. weird.

anyway my point is this. i have no reason to doubt God. i guess some people could attribute these things to coincidence but i dont. i know they are from God. and thats whats bugging me. here i am trying to wrestle with these doubts about traditions and church orthodoxy and God is blessing us in a big way as we continue to move forward with starting the church.

so im doubting and God blesses me monetarily and when he does my doubts are eased but im frustrated with myself for it taking monetary blessings to ease my doubts. make sense?

anyway - just wanted to vent a bit and ask for your prayers. being a pastor isnt easy. and tho i will never let go of my faith in christ the struggle im having with it is really kicking my kiester. its like hauling in a marlin that wants desperately to not be hauled in. sometimes i think i cant hold on any longer and sometimes i think the pole will snap but i hang on and the pole holds and i get a little closer...

okay. im done. thanks for listening.

empty worship

01.20.06 (4:13 pm) [edit]

declaration of faith

01.18.06 (1:52 am) [edit]

recently i have been accused of being anti-xian and i wanted to address this for the sake of all who are interested and especially for those who have made the contention.

first there is the need to distinguish the difference between being against xianity and of being against Christ. Christ was/is a person. xianity is a religion formed around that person. as these things go the religion and adherence to or rejection of are seen as being equal with an adherence to or rejection of the person. but such is not the case for the simple reason that there are various and contradictory forms of the religion but only one person. that is to say – one may well follow Christ and not follow the religion of xianity. it is especially true that one may follow Christ and not follow a particular form of xianity.

this is generally where i find myself these days. i follow Christ. i love Christ. i worship and adore Christ. yet i have a very hard time with the various forms of the religion of xianity. this makes me a heretic to some and an apostate to others and a scoundrel to yet another group. i am not bothered in the least by these accusations for the simple reason that no man will be my judge and no mans judgment of me will define me in Gods eyes. i am in strict obligation to my own conscience before God alone.

so i have come under fire by various people who hold to various forms of the religion and by a few who dont hold to any known form. this is not surprising for the history of the religion is wrought with example after example of the different forms persecuting and attacking each other. xians on the whole have been their own worst enemies and now i have become the enemy of the religion itself as confused with the person of Christ.

but i am no enemy of Christ. i openly confess that he is my lord and savior and i believe he was crucified buried and rose again according to scripture. i lay down my life at his feet to do with as he will – my only hope is to know him and be known by him. this is my daily prayer.

the rev dr martin luther king jr once said...

01.12.06 (11:19 pm) [edit]

"nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

now i honestly dont understand that but i really think its something we should all strive for. Ü

mystery cult or travelling temples?

01.11.06 (11:42 pm) [edit]

the general attitude of the early xians concerning worshiping in a dedicated building may be summed up by a reply one of their leaders made to the accusation that xianity is just another mystery cult:

"You mistakenly think we conceal what we worship since we have no temples or altars. Yet how can anyone make an image of God? Man himself is the image of God. How can anyone build a temple to Him, when the whole world can't contain Him? Even I, a mere human, travel far and wide. So how can anyone shut up the majesty of so great a Person within one small building? Isn't it better for Him to be dedicated in our minds and consecrated in our innermost hearts - rather than in a building?"

~ Minicus Felix in Octavius (2nd Century A.D.)

i think the current church has a lot to learn.

takeaway

01.10.06 (12:52 am) [edit]

the little things i miss

01.09.06 (2:32 am) [edit]

if i fail to smile

will you lift my chin with your crooked finger

tilt your head slightly down and wink

while telling me its okay?

will you take my neck in hand

and pull me closer to your shoulder

guiding my sorrow into your starched dress shirt

humming an old hymn to calm me?

if i fail to stop hurting

will you curl me up into your lap

and rock back and forth slowly

while whispering a prayer over me?

will you pause and gently grasp my arms

pulling me back while still facing you

and tell me its for the birds to be acting this way

when i know good and well that im loved?

if i whimper your name

when im all alone

after the lights are all turned off

and the family is all asleep

will you hear me and shush me

and tell me to get some rest?

its foolishness i know

but these are the little things i miss

tho they never happened

because they never will.

immortality.....and its necessary implications

01.08.06 (1:04 am) [edit]

1 timothy 6:15-16

…he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality…

God alone is immortal. not bc paul said so but bc this makes perfect sense. if God is the ultimate being then he cannot have created another ultimate being. It makes sense then that he created man mortal – bound to experience pain and death. in understanding immortality as having infinite life the only conceivable way of understanding mortality is in its having a finite beginning and end. yet so many xians believe some part of man (the spiritual part) exists beyond death. and what is existence other than a form of life? so there is a contradiction or at the very least a poor usage of terminology.

as God is immortal it is impossible that he should suffer for suffering can only be rightly attributed as a characteristic or natural by-product of mortality. so if we attribute pain and suffering as results of evil instead of mortality we wrongly associate them. evil is not the cause of suffering and pain – it is the mechanism and theres a very important difference.

for a mortal death is the end. the cessation of existence. this gives resurrection its impetus. it is the restoration of life to that which is not alive – the restoration of existence to that which once existed but exists no longer. without this understanding death is nothing more than a dark hallway between one form of life and another. but unceasing existence in whatever forms it may take is immortality and only God possesses this characteristic. so for man to be mortal necessarily means that death is cessation of existence.

this is precisely why God became a man. we puzzle over the reason why God set things up the way he did – a scenario in which he would have to become mortal and suffer death. but it flows as a natural procession from what we know of him that in order to fully relate to mortals he had to become one and experience pain and death as a mortal. his immortality precluded such an experiential understanding of what it meant to be mortal.

so he came down. he took on mortality. he suffered. he died. he bridged the gap between his own immortality and our mortality in this way.

henry david thoreau on intelligent design

01.07.06 (12:56 pm) [edit]

bailey says grace

01.06.06 (1:42 pm) [edit]

children are such a blessing. my daughter teaches me things all the time and im thankful. today at lunch my daughter said the blessing and her prayer was: dear Lord ~ i hope you have a good days with your friends. thank you for this food. amen.

we ate and now that ive put the children down for naps ive been thinking about her prayer. her first thought was to consider God. how often do i overlook that in my conversations with him? oh sure i thank him and praise him but i dont generally ask how his day has been. in moments like this i wonder if all God has to say to us is what to do and where to go etc. maybe we should show some concern and be willing to listen as he explains his frustrations with the middle east.

i guess ultimately our relationship with God is going to resemble the annual santa clause visit until we begin to understand that God didnt just create us to order us around and have people shouting praises. i get the feeling he wants to be known – not just read about. he wants to be experienced - not just theorized.

if i could only begin to have a faith more like my daughters maybe i would begin to know God in a way i never have before. maybe the initmacy with God that i long for is lacking bc im always and only concerned about me when we talk. prolly so – ive been pretty selfish but i think this may be the turn ive been hoping for.

thanks bailey. Ü

psalm 1406

01.04.06 (3:17 am) [edit]

taken

01.01.06 (3:48 am) [edit]

taken

few words exchanged

little time spent together

but love was shared

when it comes

to this

there is little that can be said

and less that can comfort

so in this moment

of suffering

i cry out

and beat my chest

i dont know why

no one can

not now

but someday

so falling

to our knees as one

we embrace our loss

and our God

we remember

the taken

take a breath

and live

in memory of tom alston