Mixin' It Up

Jelani Has Moved!

2011-02-21T11:35:00.000-08:00

If you've come to this blog for the continual thoughts and ruminations of Jelani Greenidge, you are now officially in the wrong place.

I am now blogging (albeit still quite occasionally) at JelaniGreenidge.com. Through the magic of third-party utilities, I managed to transfer all of my material from this Blogger site onto my Wordpress blog, so all of the great material that has been known and loved by so many (thanks to you both) is now available there.

That is all.

Tried By Fire & Coming Out Gold

2009-10-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
Job 23:10 (NIV)

Being a card-carrying citizen of the hip-hop nation, I have a passing familiarity with gold.

Back in the late 80s, if you wanted to be rapper, you needed to look the part. That meant gold chains. Big, ostentatious, glittery gold ropes were the accessories of choice, along with gold rings -- four-finger rings if you were a DJ.

(Or Radio Raheem.)

Of course, nowadays it's not enough to have gold around your neck. It's gotta actually be in your mouth. Makes me long for the days when the only gold you saw in a kid's mouth were gold fillings.

This preoccupation with gold is not just with the young rappers, either. Older, down-and-out rapper MC Hammer has taken to shilling his likeness on commercials for Cash4Gold.

(Hammer probably agreed to this once he realized that his 24k gold chains no longer counted as collateral for his mortgage refinance.)

Even without gold itself, people still love the idea of gold.

When the Cleveland Cavaliers redesigned their uniforms for the arrival of LeBron James, their color scheme was not simply maroon-and-yellow. No, that would never do. In a nod to the upper-middle-class fans who attend most NBA games, the Cavs identified their colors with the two classic symbols of decadence: wine and gold.

This gold fixation is everywhere.

We eat hamburgers under the Golden Arches, and cereal with Golden Grahams. Photographers have the golden ratio, and philosophers have the golden rule.

It's not enough to have a regular old American Express card, you've got to have the AmEx Gold card. Same thing with XBox Live, you can't just have the silver account, you gotta have the Gold membership... you slap the word "gold" on there, it makes anything look valuable.

It's what makes the Olympics so popular -- everybody wants to go for the gold. And lest you think this is simply a problem of modern society, may I remind you: the Olympic games have been around for a long time.

Obsession with gold is not just a modern trend; it's a symptom of the human condition.

* * *

It's against this backdrop that the Bible offers a stunning contrast between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world.

The world simply chases after gold.

As followers of Christ, as servants of the most high God, we are to become gold.

Metaphorically speaking, anyway. (No, I'm not on some King Midas Greek mythology trip.)

In this short quote from the book of Job, the Lord reveals to Job His own methods for bringing out the best in humanity, and Job expresses it with the language of the refiner. "I will come forth as gold," he says.

It's no coincidence that it's Job making this proclamation.

The story of Job (rhymes with "robe" ... the e on the end is both silent and invisible) is a story of tremendous trial and testing. Job sustained an unbelievable series of losses, none of which her his fault, each more tragic and crippling than the next. Job's losses were the kind you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

I mean, Job got a raw deal. He had an ordeal for every weekday, and a bonus crisis for the weekend.

Job went through so much drama, he had tragic angling for story rights.

I mean, Job's life was so hard, he used to watch the evening news to cheer up.

Job's situation got so bad, it got to the point that when he would walk past the lepers, they would give him money.

Job's situation was, as Charles Barkley would say... turrible.

Fortunately, his story ends well. In the final reckoning, Job gets his life back -- and then some. Truth be known, Job ends up with a fuller life after going through trials then he did before.

Today, we're going to look at Job's story, as well as some other key Scriptures, in order to ask a big question, a question that many of us will ask at one point or another -- why.

Why was Job's life fuller after such a string of horrific losses? Why did God allow those things to happen? Is there a purpose for such hardship? Is there any comfort to be had in such trials?

These are important questions, because all of us go through seasons of trial and testing.

And because we're all in different places along our journey of faith, many of us have already been through the fire, time and time again. Everyone who follows of Christ lands somewhere in this process. We're all slowly being conformed into His likeness, and some of us have been going through it longer than others.

So just because we're taking the time to focus on this as a church doesn't mean that this is a new thing.

On the contrary, God has been doing this for awhile.

So if these questions are burning inside you, I pray that together we'll find some answers in God's Word.

* * *

Before we do that, though, let's take a closer look at the gold itself.

Gold has always been a popular, valuable commodity, but in thinking about Job 23:10, I started wondering... why? Why is gold so valuable? What makes a precious metal precious?

To find some answers, I did some basic research (which is code for, "I looked it up on Wikipedia.")

Here are a few things I found:

Gold is more resistant to rust and other forms of corrosion compared to other metals, which means that it's safer to expose to the natural elements.

Gold, when purified, is an effective conductor of electricity. It's often used in high quality wiring for the purpose of preserving signal fidelity.

Gold is also soft, making it unusually ductile and malleable compared to other metals. This makes it useful for fashioning into things.

And of course, it's considered beautiful.

Gold is a mineral, so it's found in the ground, picked and chipped away one nugget at a time. Then it goes through an intense process of refining before it becomes desirable to the eye.

In order for gold to be refined, it must be subjected to an intense fire. This fire is what purifies the gold, because it separates out all of the impurities in the gold, also known as the dross. As the dross is burned away, only the pure gold remains. The refiner knows when the gold is sufficiently purified when he can look into the nugget of gold and see his face in the reflection.

This refining process is the only way gold is made. There are no alternatives, and no shortcuts.

Which leads me to the first lesson...

Refining is a process for every believer.

"Test me, O LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth." Psalm 26:2-3

Let's move off of Job for a minute and look at another popular Bible character. This psalm was written by King David.

I don't know about you, but on first glance, this passage seems awfully arrogant. It makes it sound like David was just a perfect guy.

But if you actually read the Bible, you find out -- David was anything but. David was sort of an Everyman of Bible times... he has his moments of epic triumph ("down goes Goliath!!") and just as many epic failures ("Bath-sheba? Isn't she married?").

But this does not stop David from honestly petitioning God to be tested. Amazing.

If I had all the same colossal failures on my record as David did, there's no way I would want to ask God to be testing me. There's no way I'd be boasting about being blameless and above reproach. I'd be wearing a ski mask (or something similar) and sunglasses, hoping nobody could identify my hidden sins.

The fact that David says what he says in Psalm 26 means that he wanted to know and please God more than he wanted to get away with any misdeeds.

As a matter of fact, in the previous psalm, David makes reference to sins that were eating away at his insides because of his concealment, most likely an allusion to his murderous affair. This leads me to believe that by the time he's writing this psalm, he's writing from a place of restoration. Having repented of his previous sins, he appears to writes this psalm out of a holy fear of God and a desire to remove any barriers of relationship to Him.

It's because of this kind of radical devotion to God that David is known as a man after God's own heart (1 Sam 13:14). This is the legacy of one of the greatest kings in the history of Israel, who, despite his victories, was a tragically-flawed hero.

Which means that the rest of us... well, we have no excuse.

If we're going to learn anything about God, we must be willing to be tested. James 1:2-4 tells us to consider it joy when we face trials, not if we face them. What James knew then is what we need to be reminded of now and again:

Just like in school, testing is not just for the smart kids. It's for everyone.

Here's the second lesson:

Refining is a process that we do not control.

Let's go back to Job.

The beginning of the book of Job starts with God. God is having a conversation with Satan, and God is bragging about Job. "Have you seen my servant Job?" God says to Satan. God is proud of Job, proud that he is above reproach and fears Him only.

But Satan is cynical, and accuses Job of false motives, saying, essentially:

Yeah? He only does that because you do good things for him. Take those away, and he'll curse you to your face.

So God makes an agreement and allows Satan to harm Job, just to see what his response will be. In short order, Job loses all of his wealth, all of his worldly possessions, and even his children are killed in a freak accident. So Job becomes saddened and despondent, but he clings onto God's sovereignty. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, he says.

This was Job's first test.

So then Satan goes back to God and says:

Oh yeah? A man will do anything to protect his health. If I make him sick enough, THEN he'll curse you to your face.

So God allows Satan to afflict Job will all these horrendous sores all over his body. It was so bad, the only way Job could get some relief was to scrape his wounds with pieces of broken pottery.

Now you would think that after all of this, Job would have nothing to do with God. But Job 2:9-10 records his response:

"His wife said to him, 'Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!'

He replied, 'You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?'

In all this, Job did not sin in what he said."

Here Job makes a profound theological statement -- God is in charge.

Period.

This means we cannot cheerfully and freely accept his blessings and then turn around and curse him when things are not going our way. It's the refiner who decides how hot the fire needs to be.

Sometimes as believers in Christ, we believe in our minds that God is in control, but we live as though we think that God somehow owes us prosperous circumstances. We wouldn't come right out and say this, but we tend to operate on the principle that if we give our life to God, then that means that life should be easier, not harder.

Let me tell you something.

If someone told you that being a Christian would automatically make your life easy and drama-free... they lied to you.

Which brings me to the third lesson:

The refiner's fire is fueled by suffering, which makes us like Jesus.

Hebrews 2:5-10 says this:

⁵It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. ⁶But there is a place where someone has testified:
"What is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
⁷You made him a little^[a] lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor
⁸ and put everything under his feet." ^[b]
In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. ⁹But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

¹⁰In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Two main points to highlight here. First, it says in verse 8 that God left nothing that was NOT subject to Jesus. That means everyone, and everything, was, is, and will be, in the final reckoning... subject to Jesus.

But the second more important point is that because Jesus was made perfect through suffering, He has the same process in store of each of us. Each of us are working out our salvation and slowly being made perfect... through suffering.

And by going through this suffering, we become more and more like Jesus.

No matter how you may feel about the suffering itself, this is VERY GOOD NEWS. This means that our suffering is not in vain, that there is a purpose behind it.

Being more like Jesus is that purpose.

So when Job proclaims that he will be as gold, he is foreshadowing the gold standard of human expression and achievement - Christ Jesus.

Just as the refiner knows his gold is ready when he can see his face in it, we'll know that we're becoming more like Him when others can look at us when we're going through suffering... and see His face.

This is what it means to be tried by fire and come out gold.

Gold Characteristic: Non-Corrosive

Consider the first characteristic of gold that I mentioned -- it's non-corrosive. That means it doesn't rust. It's not affected by natural elements like wind and rain. It retains its molecular configuration.

Romans 12:2 says:

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

As believers in Christ, Jesus sends us into the world to make disciples for Him, but He wants to make sure that the world doesn't make disciples of us first.

This is why sometimes He allows us to experience certain ways of the world, in all of its brokenness and moral depravity, so that we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, where those roads lead.

As believers in Christ, some of us experience suffering because we still find ourselves drawn to these worldly ways. Not saying we're not saved, or that we're not trying to live for God... maybe we are, but we still find ourselves intrigued and mesmerized by the enemy's counterfeit pleasures now and again.

So God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, allows us to experience the consequences of our actions... and we suffer as a result.

You know that you're becoming more like Jesus when you can face those temptations square in the eye, whatever they are, and choose to run like crazy in the opposite direction. When you're able to resist being conformed to the pattern of this world, but instead, choose to actively engage in God's word and allow the Holy Spirit to renew your mind... that's when you know:

You're comin' out gold.

Gold Characteristic: Preserves Signal Fidelity

Gold is also great conductor of electricity, which means wiring made of gold has strong ratio of signal fidelity.

John 5:19 says:

"Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Jesus made sure he had a clear signal coming from the Father at all times. With all of his miracles, he only did what God the Father was already doing.

So being more likes Jesus means we allow His fire to burn away all the impurities in our life that prevent us from really being connected to Him.

Some of us have a problem hearing from God because we have habits, situations, maybe even certain people in our life, who are causing interference.

Jesus is standing there, like the Verizon guy, saying "can you hear me now?"

If we can't, then He turns up the heat. He allows someone to hurt us, or allows a negative situation to come about, knowing full well that pain and suffering often get our attention and open up the lines of communication.

How many of us have ever gone through something difficult, and then realize that our relationship with God is better for it?

God uses our suffering to purify us, so that we can receive clear signals from Him. The more we're pure, the more we're like Jesus.

So when you find that you're no longer groping around in the dark trying in vain to discern His will, that's when you know.

When you can encounter Him in your times of private and public worship, reading His word, and having in conversations with other believers, that's when you know.

When you can lay aside the distractions and dead weight that prevent you from really fulfilling your calling, and when you can fall asleep at night with a Godly satisfaction, knowing full well that you've heard from God and you've expended every ounce of energy possible pursuing His call... that's when you know:

You're coming out gold.

Gold Characteristic: Soft and Malleable

Gold is also much softer than most metals. This softness makes it more malleable, which makes it ideal to be fashioned into whatever the refiner wants.

Consider Mark 10:1-12:

¹Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

²Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

³"What did Moses command you?" he replied.

⁴They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away."

⁵"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied.

⁶"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.'^[a] ⁷'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,^[b] ⁸and the two will become one flesh.'^[c] So they are no longer two, but one.⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

¹⁰When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. ¹¹He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. ¹²And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."

Normally when this Scripture is preached, the point is to reinforce the idea that God hates divorce. And make no mistake... this is true. God hates divorce.

(Lest you think I'm reading too much into this, I offer Malachi 2:16a: "'I hate divorce,' says the Lord God of Israel...")

But I want to draw your attention to a verse that is often overlooked in this passage -- verse 5.

Moses gave you this law because your hearts were hard.

What Jesus seems to be implying here is that by asking about the rabbinical laws concerning divorce and remarriage, the Pharisees were completely missing the point.

Where man looks at outward behavior, God sees the heart. Divorces happen because men and women harden their hearts toward God and each other. Therefore, God doesn't just want to change our outward behaviors, he wants to change our hearts.

In this way, becoming like Jesus means allowing our hearts to soften.

See, God always has purpose for what He does. And He has a perfect plan for each of our lives. But many times, we become so fixated on the hurt and pain that we've endured that we harden our hearts against Him.

When this happens, we're no longer flexible. We're no longer submitted to His will. We're no longer able to be molded and shaped as He sees fit.

This is why sometimes God allows us to go through tests and trials, because pain and suffering can make our hearts soft again. Because we know what it feels like to suffer, we can be more compassionate toward those who are suffering.

That may have been why Job went through so much drama. I don't really know if that's what Job needed or not. Scripture seems to imply that this was all Satan's idea and God was just going along for the ride. There's certainly nothing in Scripture that implies that Job needed or deserved to experience so much tragedy.

But God always has a purpose for these things. Perhaps He wanted Job to continue being humble. Maybe God knew that without some adversity coming his way, Job might have eventually become like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11, who thanked God that he wasn't like all the other sinners.

Like I said, I don't know. To me, the Bible isn't explicitly clear about this.

But what is clear is that God values softness of heart. This is why God hates divorce so much, because divorce is the ultimate embodiment of hardheartedness. It's a blatant reneging of a sacred covenant, and in many cases, a sure sign of unbelief -- for how can you have enough faith to submit to God's plan for your life, when you've already rejected a large part of God's plan for your life?

Having said that, divorce is still not the end of the world.

And speaking of the end of the world, Jesus already taught us that by the time the resurrection happens, there will be no marriage as we know it. So divorce is obviously not by any means an unforgivable sin.

But it's evidence of a hard heart, and God has a cure for hardness of heart. It's the divine heat of the refiner's fire, where anything that is impure, anything that is not like Him, is burned away. Anything that is left over... looks like Jesus.

So when you find a way to finally push through the anger and bitterness and forgive the person that has caused you so much harm, that's when you know that you're coming out gold.

When you're afraid of the unknown, but you still allow God redirect your plans, even though it may mean the postponing of some of your needs being met... that's when you know that you're coming out gold.

When you find yourself in a situation you did not anticipate, engaged in a form of ministry you never thought you would ever do, and even though it's not what you asked for, you find a deeper sense of purpose and satisfaction doing this thing than anything else ever before, including the thing that you thought you wanted so badly... THAT is when you KNOW... that you're coming out gold.

Beware of gold-plated counterfeits

Remember, when it comes to the refiner's fire, there are no alternatives and no shortcuts. Even so, the enemy of your soul would have you believe otherwise.

It's not for nothin' that he's called the Father of Lies.

He wants you to believe that there are shortcuts, and that suffering is for suckers, or for people who don't have enough faith.

Satan's offer is to make you gold-plated. He wants you to look the part without knowing the material. He wants to give you a form of godliness without the power.

Don't fall for it. Don't go for the okey doke.

The world doesn't need another church full of CHINOs... Christians In Name Only.

If the world is going to truly experience the redemptive power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who died, was buried, and resurrected to break the power of sin and death, it's going to have to see real Christians live out their suffering, up close and personal.

So it starts with you, and it starts with me.

The world needs to see you and I, not being conformed to the world, but being renewed day by day.

The world needs to see you and I, standing firm amidst suffering, because we know that God will use it to make us more like Jesus.

The world needs to see us being tried by fire, and coming out gold.

As I close, consider the words of John Rippon, author of the great hymn of the church, "How Firm A Foundation":

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

"Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed!
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

"When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to you your deepest distress.

"When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell shall endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake."

Set to music and verse, these are the words of Jesus.

As the refiner's fire burns, I pray that His thoughts, words, and actions would become ours.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

Defenders of ObamAmerica: Remember This Moment

2009-09-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

(So I've almost given up blogging in general, in favor of Facebook status updates and other forms of communication. Nevertheless, when something compels me to write, I must.)

Judging by many recent news stories and a flurry of Facebook status updates by friends, the outburst by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), which interrupted President Obama's speech on health care reform, lies somewhere on the scale of infamy between embarrassing and traitorous -- not nearly as bad as Oswald on the grassy knoll, but way worse than the Howard Dean scream.

(Did I say "lies"? Sorry, bad choice of words.)

For the uninitiated, Rep. Wilson shouted the words, "you lie!" during Pres. Obama's speech, right after Obama reassured his listeners that the provisions under his health care plan would not apply to illegal immigrants -- a claim that has been verified several times over.

This act of blatant disrespect to the sitting commander-in-chief, while now officially apologized-for, has been, as most aspects of Presidential media events tend to be, decried, analyzed, rebutted and rehashed ad nauseam by Obama supporters and moderate independents of every stripe. Even Sen. John McCain, Obama's former rival in the 2008 presidential election, denounced Rep. Wilson's brief eruption.

For most liberals, the only good thing that has come out of this is the outpouring of support for Wilson's opponent in the 2010 midterm election, Democrat Rob Miller.

Perhaps, once the vitriol directed at Wilson subsides, we can add to that list another even more important outcome.

So here is my impassioned plea:

Supporters of President Obama... let's remember this moment.

Remember the outrage, the indignation, the absolute fury that many of you have been directing at Joe Wilson for his behavior, and at many of his Republican allies for their similar, though less outrageously strident, political opposition.

Savor that feeling.

You're going to need it later.

I'm not sure how much later you'll need it... perhaps as early as 2012, though realistically maybe not until 2016.

You see, sooner or later, there will be another whirlwind of change that will blow through Washington, and it very likely could involve another Republican in the Oval Office.

If or when that happens, you're going to need to remember how much you believed in honoring the office of the president, regardless of who is actually in it.

You'll need to remember how repugnant you thought it was that the then-current President couldn't schedule a first-day-of-school address without touching off a fresh new batch of conservative protests, including allegations of covert liberal indoctrination.

(Forgive my digression here, but few things amuse me more than hearing conservatives murmur about Obama "having an agenda" of some sort. Really? Ya think? The President of the United States of America actually has a set of goals and priorities that he wants to enact? FASCINATING.)

I'm taking this time to give liberals advance notice now, because it seems like most of them don't remember exactly how severe a media beating was regularly unleashed on ol' Dubya after all the weapons of mass destruction came up missing.

And don't play dumb, either. I can hear some of you already.

I never behaved THAT badly. My friends and I were never THAT belligerent and obnoxious.

Maybe, maybe not.

All I know is, driving around my hometown of Portland during 2006 and 2007 was, among other things, an exercise in reading snarky leftist bumper stickers like "Fire the Liar," "Somewhere In Texas There's A Village Without It's Idiot," and "When Clinton Lied, No One Died."

(And those were the few that I could quote on a family blog.)

Clearly, the memo on bipartisan presidential respect didn't make the rounds enough times for us all to get it.

So consider this a reminder.

And if you really want to support President Obama, you can start a new letter-writing to his communication staff, telling them that if his health care legislation passes, they might want to avoid printing a banner with the words "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" emblazoned on the front.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

Fill the Blanks. (Sunday Sermon, August 16th)

2009-08-16T01:16:00.001-07:00

So at Irvington Covenant Church, we've just finished wrapping up one series, and we're heading into another.

For those who have been missing-in-action for awhile (and you know who you are), here's the skinny.

In May, we launched a series on prayer called Pray With Simplicity, where we examined the topic of prayer through a series of teachings drawn from the text of The Lord's Prayer. We ended this series with a prayer service, because it's a little silly to talk about prayer without taking the time to... actually... pray.

(Haven't we learned anything from MC Hammer?)

Following that we had a Missions Sunday, where we talked to people connected to our church about the work they do both locally and globally -- including a live remote via Skype to Trevor and Chrissy Davies in Johannesburg. We ended that service with a challenge from my man Ronn Elzinga, drawn from John 4:34 -- look around, check out the harvest before you, and pray for an opportunity.

This is all part of a larger season of examining our spiritual foundations. We want anybody connected to ICC -- even tangentially -- to understand why it is we do what we do. We want folks to be armed and dangerous with the truth, always prepared to show and prove (1 Peter 3:15-17). You know, "Take the Stand" and such.

So now we're turning our attention to the church.

But before I do that, let me tell you about this book I read earlier this week.

I'm a fan of John Grisham, and legal thrillers in general really, but I recently picked up his first work of non-fiction, entitled The Innocent Man.

As always, I was absolutely spellbound.

The Innocent Man is the story of Ron Williamson, and his friend Dennis Fritz, who were wrongfully arrested, convicted, and in Williamson's case, almost executed -- for a capital murder they didn't commit. Set in rural Ada, Oklahoma, it's a tale of small-town injustice.

Once I started, I zoomed through it pretty quickly, for I was confounded by the basic premise:

How does this happen?!? How does a man almost get a lethal injection for a crime he had nothing to do with???

* * *

As it happens, I wanted the answer so bad I was trying to figure it out before I even started reading the book.

Which happens often, actually. As the mind races to try to make sense of such abject tragedy, we often fill the blanks with familiar notions.

Like, for example, one might subconsciously think... hmm... small town... wrongful conviction... death penalty... must have been a Black guy.

But that would be wrong. Williamson and Fritz were both White.

Okay, well... fine... then, it's a case of small-town folks being distrustful of outsiders.

But that's not exactly the truth either. Ron Williamson grew up in that town. As a matter of fact, he was once considered the pride of Ada, having parlayed a successful high school baseball career into a shot at the big leagues.

Well then, what was their deal??

I'm glad you asked.

The truth is that Fritz and Williamson went through their ordeal not because the policemen and the district attorneys of Ada, OK are evil people. (Though, by the end of the book, it really does make you wonder.)

It happened because those civil servants made some assumptions pretty early on in their process. And as the investigation went on, their view of the evidence continued to be slanted toward their original assumptions. Through a combination of ignorance, fear, and arrogance, they fought to keep those assumptions from being challenged.

The result: two wrongful convictions, several verdicts overturned, an absolute tempest of bad P.R. for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations, and one man who was almost executed for a crime he never committed.

After finishing The Innocent Man, what I walked away with was this:

One wrong assumption, over time, can produce a world of hurt.

* * *

Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens much more than we think.

And not just in the criminal justice system, either. The people of God, the people of church, people who call themselves Christians, are often guilty of false assumptions -- about God, and about the church -- that produce a world of harm.

And just like those Ada cops, they don't do it because they're evil, but mostly because they don't know better.

It's not hard to do, really.

If you're part of a church for awhile, chances are you might experience some benefit. You might kick an addiction, or be healed of some affliction, or have some sort of mountaintop epiphany in the middle of a service.

So you keep coming back, because you're not dumb enough to turn down more of a good thing.

Churches are aware of this, and some even market themselves this way.

"Come to our church to receive a blessing!"

There's nothing inherently wrong with this, because hey... if God is in the house, and the people encounter God, the people will be blessed.

The problem comes when churchgoers start to make the unspoken assumption that you go to church in order to get a blessing... that the purpose of the church is to get one's needs met.

Unfortunately, successful churches often instill this mindset unwittingly because they do such a good job of meeting the needs of their parishioners.

But this mentality, over time, tends to skew our perceptions. It leads us into a MeChurch mentality, where the church is just another consumer-driven entity that exists solely for the purpose of meeting my needs.

Now I realize some of you have heard part of this before. You're probably thinking:

Okay fine ... the church isn't about me... I get it.

But it's not enough to just get this far. Such a realization begs the question: if the church is not about me, then what is it for?

Unfortunately, many churchgoing Christians have never taken the time to find a solid answer, so the blanks are occupied by their assumptions.

But if we are to truly function as the church of Jesus Christ, this is the question that must be answered. We must intentionally fill in the blanks, and eradicate these fault assumptions once and for all.

For the answers, we must, as always, go to the Scripture.

[And speaking of Scripture, there are great free Scripture study tools available online, so you have no excuse for not studying the Bible, other than, well, you just don't feel like it.]

Here are three foundational ideas that will help us answer the question of what the church is for...

The church is for gathering.

As a matter of fact, that's what church means. The word translated as "church" in the New Testament is the Greek word ekklesia, which means "gathering."

This is an important idea, this gathering thing.

Because us postmoderns have embraced the idea the church is not simply a building. But we often take it to the opposite extreme, where we act like anytime we're in the presence of other Christians, or reading the Bible, listening to Christian music, or doing anything remotely spiritual, then that counts as "church."

(And don't even get me started about people sleeping in and trying to churchify it. We Christians have all kinds of euphemisms for sleeping in on Sunday mornings. Bedside Baptist, Pillow Presbyterian, and my favorite, courtesy of my wife's mother Deanna: Church of the Inner Spring.)

Jokes aside, though, have you ever heard anyone say anything like this?

"Hanging out with friends at a coffee shop? That's church to me."

"Communing with God out in the wilderness with my family... that's church to me."

"Spending quiet time at home with God... that's church to me."

Problem is, the whole church-is-what-I-want-it-to-be thing not exactly Biblical.

Oh sure, people who say that may quote Matthew 18:20 ("where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them") but Jesus was talking in that quote about church discipline.

Scholar Frank Viola says it this way:

New Testament scholarship agrees that the word ekklesia (translated "church") meant a local community of people who assemble together regularly. The word was used for the Greek assembly whereby those in a city were "called forth" from their homes to meet (assemble) in the town forum to make decisions for the city. The Christian ekklesia is a community of people who gather together and possess a shared life in Christ.

As such, the ekklesia as used in New Testament literature is visible, touchable, locatable, and tangible. You can visit it. You can observe it. And you can live in it. Biblically speaking, you could not call anything an ekklesia unless it assembled regularly together.

In Hebrews 10 there's a passage that embodies most of the essential elements of what we do in a church.

Consider:

¹⁶"This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds."^[a]
¹⁷Then he adds:
"Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more."^[b]
¹⁸And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. ¹⁹Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. ²⁵Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

The author of this epistle to the Hebrews (who some think may have been the apostle Paul, but there's no clear consensus on the matter) is using Old Testament imagery to relate to Jewish converts to Christianity.

See back in the OT times, there were laws that required sacrifices, including blood sacrifices, for a variety of things: entering into a covenant agreement, receiving the forgiveness of sins, the consecration of the priests, etc. (See: Exodus 24, 29.)

Not only that, but part of the duties of the Levites, the priestly tribe of Israel, was to enter the Holy of Holies, the veiled part of tabernacle where the Most High God, Yahweh, was believed to dwell. God's presence was so powerful that only the priests, who regularly purified themselves with ceremonial cleansing rituals, were allowed to enter the veil into the Holy of Holies.

And even this was dangerous, for if a priest dared to do so without purifying himself, he would be struck dead (Leviticus 16:1,13).

What the author of Hebrews is trying to say is that, because of Jesus' death and resurrection, the veil separating us from God's presence has been torn. The Most Holy Place, previously inaccessible to ordinary folks, is now accessible. Because of Jesus, we have incredible access to God.

This should be the basis for our gathering. This access to God is the reason why we have church. And it's the undercurrent of all that goes on in our church services.

Go back and reread this Hebrews passage, keeping in mind the kind of things we do in church.

Putting His law in our hearts (vs. 16), that's understanding and internalizing the truth of God's Word. And then there's receiving the forgiveness of sins through the sacrament of communion (vs. 17-18), entering the Most Holy Place in worship (vs. 19), drawing near to Him in devotion (vs. 22), holding onto the hope we've been given (vs. 20), spurring each other onto good deeds (vs. 23)... all of these things we do as part of the church, and we do them together.

This is why the last part of the passage (vs. 24) is a reminder to his Jewish audience to not forsake meeting regularly. It's not because the author is concerned about poor attendance levels, or because the author is worried about contributions to the church drying up.

He wants them to keep meeting because so much good happens when believers assemble in one place in Jesus' name.

This is what the church is, a gathering of God's people for God's purposes. You can't call it an ekklesia unless these things are happening. Conversely, wherever these things are happening, that's where the church is.

Which is not to say that these things -- the absorbing of God's Word, the receiving of Christ's forgiveness, the sacrament of communion, etc. -- can't happen in a Starbucks, or out in the woods, or in someone's home.

But in order for it to be ekklesia, there must be an intentional gathering of believers for these purposes.

This is what the church is, and this is what sets it apart from the world.

Which leads me to the next foundational idea...

The church is for displaying God's glory.

The access to God that we saw in Hebrews 10 is the main thing that sets the church, and Christianity in general, apart from the rest of the world.

God wants us to connect with Him, not just for our sake, but for the purpose of putting His glory on display.

Consider the apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, where he is discussing God's patience with unbelievers (in this case, Jews):

Romans 9:22-24 (emphasis mine):

"What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? ²³What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— ²⁴even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?"

Consider also Paul's second letter to church in Corinth, where he is discussing the new covenant under Jesus' blood, and the glory that awaits those who trust in Him:

2 Cor. 3:17-19 (emphasis mine):

¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

God loves humanity, because He is love and we were created in Him image. But God did not ordain the church only to serve the needs of its members. Rather, He desires to use the church in the same way that, in Old Testament times, He used the nation of Israel -- as a light to show off His glory to the rest of the nations.

Think of just about any of the Old Testament stories you were taught as a child. Moses and the Red Sea (Ex. 14)... Elijah and the prophets of Ba'al (1 Ki. 18)... Daniel in the Lion's Den (Dan. 6) ... the Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3)... the list goes on and on. These stories exist as part of God's sovereign plan to show off his power and authority to those who did not know Him.

And this is a large part of the purpose for the church today, for there is no greater witness to the redemptive power of the blood of Christ than when unbelievers get to see people, fallen, fleshly, imperfect human beings, somehow choose to gather together week after week to confess their sins to one another, worship together, rejoice and mourn together, and generally live in the confines of authentic, messy community.

When viewing this divine experiment up-close and personal, unbelievers should (and often do) gawk in disbelief.

How in the world do they DO that?!

Unbelievers are often confounded by this because they are conditioned by the world's system to believe that higher, nobler forms of living can only be achieved through decades worth of self-refinement. In the world's way of living, we must work to become better versions of ourselves, more well educated, more physically fit, less emotionally needy, more giving and less corrupt, etc.

As believers in Christ, we rejoice in God's goodness precisely because we know we can't make any of those things happen. Yet somehow He makes it work. His grace animates and lubricates the functionality of the church, inexplicably causing the impossible to become possible on a week by week basis. We come in, needy, frustrated, driven by fleshly desires, prone to anger... and yet, somehow we refrain from killing each other. Somehow, we forgive. Somehow, we reflect His power, and by extension, His glory.

Later in the same letter to the church in Corinth, Paul refers to the ministry of reconciliation between God and man, the ministry that God has entrusted to him, this way:

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"^[a]made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. ⁷But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2 Cor 4:6-7).

That is the glory of the church, in a nutshell.

He pours Himself out into weak, plain, unspectacular vessels. And He does this intentionally so that people will know that the treasure is from Him.

We get continual life transformation, and He gets to pad His rep as God Almighty.

Talk about a win/win scenario.

This leads me to the final crucial thought...

The church is for advancing God's kingdom.

Come with me now to Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus:

Eph 1:18-23 (emphasis mine):

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, ²⁰which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. ²²And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

Wow.

Paul's prayer is a theological mouthful, and properly unpacking it could take all day. However, let me sum it up this way. Paul is praying that the believers in Ephesus would truly embrace the hope they have in Christ, and that hope is rooted in Christ's power, which fuels their relationship and participation with Him.

The key verses are 22 and 23, where Paul says that Jesus has been appointed head over everything, and that the church, then, becomes his body.

Paul is hoping that these Ephesian believers will be able to fully get on board and embrace the power that Christ has conferred onto them. This is what Paul means when he refers to the church as Jesus' body.

In churches, we often are taught the Pauline analogy that we are one body with many members (Romans 12:3-5), but here Paul is taking it further. He's saying that we are not just the body of some random joe schmoe... but we are Christ's body. We are the embodiment of all of the authority and dominion that has been given to Christ Jesus by God the Father. And if we truly embrace our identity as part of His body, then we'll be able to exercise that dominion and authority.

The image I keep coming up with is from Voltron, the 80's cartoon show. It was a show about these five, giant, primary-colored robotic lions, controlled by these fierce human pilots. And they would rove the anime battlefields, generally kicking evildoer booty, until they came upon a truly evil behemoth that could not be conquered normally.

And then, all five lions would come together, lock into formation, and transform into this superpowerful robotic being called Voltron. And if you thought the five lions were powerful... look out. Voltron's power was on a whole 'nother level.

When Voltron was on the scene, absolutely anything was possible.

And that's the image that I think Paul is trying to impart to these Ephesians, a message just as relevant to believers today.

We are Christ's body. We are His voice, His fists, His muscles. Jesus said that we would do even greater things than He did (John 14:12).

That means all of the miracles.

All of the prophetic confrontations.

All of the Chuck Norris-style roundhouse kicks in the face of evil.

And that, and then some.

Wow.

The thing is, Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). He was fully committed to doing His Father's business. In other words, Jesus was God's vehicle to advance His agenda.

And that's what He wants us to be.

That's His desire for the church.

Consider one more foundational scripture... Matthew 16:18-19:

¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter,^[c] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades^[d] will not overcome it.^[e]
¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be^[f] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be^[g] loosed in heaven."

Ignoring for the moment how momentous a moment that had to be for Peter personally, consider what this means for the church.

I've heard some Christians quote vs. 18 as a sort of pre-emptive lament over the inevitable trials of the world that will rock the church to its core.

Oh yes, the gates of hell will unleash their fury against us, but by the grace of God we will somehow prevail (*gulp*)... I hope.

It's as if this verse is talking about defense.

That's the thing, though... Jesus is talking about defense here, but not the church's defense.

He's talking about the enemy's defense.

Jesus is speaking prophetically here, saying to the knucklehead disciple who will one day become a pillar of the church... look, I'm going to build a church through you, and it will eventually become such an offensive juggernaut that the very gates of hell will be powerless to stop it.

This is an INCREDIBLE idea, and it's so countercultural compared to what I see from so many Christians in so many churches.

From the beginning, God's design for His church was for it to be a powerful agent of change in a corrupt world. He designed it to be a light to the rest of the world, a powerful beacon of hope that can withstand a constant onslaught of depravity.

And, in a manner of speaking, that's what it is.

Not just our church, not just our denomination, not even just the North American church, but the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ has, throughout the annals of history, been a powerful force for change.

Not that the change has always been for the better (see: The Crusades), and we've certainly endured our share of scandals, but that's beside the point.

The point is that the overall catholic church (as in universal, not Roman Catholic) is a force to be reckoned with, and that's exactly what God had in mind from the beginning.

That's why we gather, that's why we show off His glory... so that His will and His kingdom may be established on the earth.

Here at Irvington Covenant, we're in the middle of a reboot of sorts, where we are rapidly evolving into a different version of church compared to what we were in the past.

But at the end of the day, our mission is the same as it's ever been.

And if the changes have come too fast, or have been too scary, or too painful... then, speaking as a staff person, i apologize. We haven't always done the best job of communicating what we're trying to do, or following through on our commitments. We haven't always done the best job of walking alongside people and helping folks to find meaningful places of connection. Truly, there is a laundry list of mea culpas that I could rattle off from here to kingdom come of things we've found some way to screw up.

But you know what we won't apologize for?

We won't apologize for identifying, prioritizing, and walking in our purpose.

If you're reading this, and you're considering whether to engage with us in our brand of Christian community, or any church for that matter, then I urge you -- decide for yourself, and don't let anyone dictate what you should do because it's convenient for them.

But if you're trying to figure out whether or not a church is really being true to its calling, then you better fill in the blanks. You better examine your expectations. And you better read the Scripture and see what it says, because if you don't, I promise you... you're in for a world of hurt.

Igniter Media sums it up with a great video contrasting church metaphors.

Check it out, and tell me what you think.

And if you're an ICC attendee or member, tell me what you think we can do to live up to this standard. Because that, among other things, is why we gather. And I need just as much help as anybody else in filling in the blanks.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for mixin' it up with me.

Dad, Do What Is Best

2009-07-05T19:04:00.001-07:00

Today's sermon title comes from The Message's rendering of those iconic words from the Lord's prayer, "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Dad, do what is best.

That's what dads are supposed to do, and as a kid growing up, I didn't always appreciate some of my dad's choices. There was one time in particular where I bought something and he made me return it because he didn't approve. At the time, I was really upset at him, because I felt like he just made me do what he wanted, and I had to go along with it.

The way I saw it, he got his way because he was the adult and I wasn't.

This, by the way, is the same reason why I used to have a problem understanding this part of The Lord's Prayer. I never understood why we're supposed to pray for God's will to be done. My analytical, philosophical side couldn't really make sense of it.

It's God's will. Of course it's going to be done.

Praying for God's will to be done seemed to be the logical equivalent of praying for the sun to rise every morning. It's happening regardless, whether we pray for it or not.

So why pray for it?

That's a question I struggled with, one that many struggle with today. What is the point of praying to God about an issue that seems like a foregone conclusion?

Looking back, I can honestly say that part of what led me to this question was an incomplete understanding of God's will. Like many good Christians, my concept of God's will was like… well, it's a stretch, but it was sorta like playing Madden.

See, anybody who has played John Madden football – the gold standard of video game football – knows that there's a great little option in the game called "Ask Madden." Former NFL coach John Madden was a legend in coaching back in the day, and so the game programmers were able to crunch a bunch of data and figure out the kinds of plays and formations he used a lot. So in any game scenario, if you don't know which formation to use or which play to call, you can just "Ask Madden." You press a button, and get a recommendation. If you use Madden's play, you usually end up looking like a genius.

This, to me, was my concept of God's will. Life is full of choices here and there, and amidst all of the options and alternatives there's always an official "God's Will" option, and if you can figure out which plays are "God's Will" plays, more often than not, you'll come out on top.

I realize not all of you are big football video gamers, so here's another metaphor:

I also tended to see God's will like it was a consumer incentive program.

It was as if when I became a Christian, I was issued this purple God's Will ™ Club Card, and every time I read my Bible or spent time in prayer, I earned some Discernment Points. These points would become useful anytime I needed to purchase something, because having my God's Will ™ Club Card gave me access to discounts on select divinely-endorsed "God's Will" products and activities. Using these products and engaging in these activities – in conjunction with regular Bible reading and prayer, of course – would earn you more Discernment Points, and thus keep you on track with "God's Will."

(Considering all the Christian bookstores I've browsed, I'm surprised this doesn't actually exist.)

Obviously, something is wrong with these images of God's will. Neither of them is totally wrong, but they're both incomplete. What these images lack is perspective.

Henry Blackaby, in his book Experiencing God, says that when people ask the question, 'what is God's will for my life?' they are asking the wrong question.

It's not that they're wrong for asking that question… it's just that it's the wrong question.

A better question is, "What is God's will?"

"Because people are naturally self-centered, we tend to view the whole world – even God's activity – in terms of our own lives … but that is actually an inverted life perspective. Once I know God's will, then my life gains its proper perspective, and I can adjust my life to Him and to His purposes. In other words, what is it that God is purposing to accomplish where I am? Once I know what God is doing, then I see what I should do. My focus needs to be outward on God and His purposes, not inward on my life."

God's will is much more than just you or I knowing which plays to run, which products to consume, or which activities to engage in. God's will is something much greater.

As we continue in this discussion today, I'd like to give you five rock-solid ideas about God's will that will help your understanding, and help make some sense of why it is that we pray for God's will to be done.

The first of these is foundational:

God's will is bigger than you.

Ephesians 1:9-10 (emphasis mine):

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

Luke 3:5-7 (emphasis mine):

'Every valley shall be filled in,

every mountain and hill made low.

The crooked roads shall become straight,

the rough ways smooth.

And all mankind will see God's salvation.'

Daniel 7:13-14 (emphasis mine):

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Those are just three examples, but the Bible is literally full of them… if you read the Bible to cover, you'll begin to see that it's not just an anthology of books of various literary forms, but it's a collective tapestry of God's interaction with humanity. The Bible is way more than just "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth" (did anybody else learn that in Sunday school?), it's a written record of God's desire to save humanity from itself by establishing the headship and rule of Christ over all.

All of the battles, all of the miracles, all of the stubborn kings, all of the evil prophets, every story that has ever unfolded from any page of the Bible… they're all chapters in the story that God has been writing from the beginning of time.

Once you begin to see that, even a little bit, it changes the whole equation.

It explains how the most brutal, unjust killing in the history of man can be commemorated on a day called "Good Friday." What makes the crucifixion good? It was part of God's plan.

So when you pray for God's will to be done, you're not just praying for your little thread in the grand tapestry. You're praying for the whole thing. That's part of the reason it says "on earth, as it is in heaven" … because God's will encompasses it all.

Despite its brevity, this is a big, huge, massive prayer.

While there are times when the choices we make play a part in God establishing His kingdom, our choices are infinitely small compared to the grand stage that God operates on. That's why it's so foolish to reduce God's will to only a series of choices that we make as individuals. God's will transcends and supersedes our choices. His will cannot and will not be thwarted, ever.

The chief proof I have of this, by the way, is the fact that He entrusted His majestic endeavor to fickle, random, unpredictable human beings. Nothing sinks a project like getting incompetent, sinful, fallen people involved in it. And yet, centuries and centuries later, disciples are still being made, Christ is still being preached, and God's kingdom is still advancing in every corner of the earth, even today. If that's not proof of God's omnipotence, I don't know what is.

The bottom line is, He's God and we're not.

Thus, when we pray for His will, we don't always know exactly we're praying for, which brings me to my second rock-solid thought:

God's will can't be fully understood by us humans.

Isaiah 55:8-9:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,

declares the LORD.

As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

The fact of the matter, not only is "thy will be done" a really big prayer, but it's a really dangerous
prayer, because when we pray this prayer, we do not really know what we're asking for. We may have a certain set of outcomes in mind when we pray this prayer, but fundamentally, we're acknowledging our inability to discern what is truly best in the largest sense of the word, thus entrusting that duty to One who is worthy of such a task. It's a spiritual blank check that only He can cover.

This, by the way, is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to belief for certain people. Some people, for whatever reason, cannot reconcile this… they think, well if God is all-loving and all-powerful, why is there so much evil in the world? How could an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God allow 9/11, or the Jewish Holocaust?

For centuries, philosophers and theologians have wrestled with this very question without coming to a uniform consensus on the matter. So if you're struggling with it, let me provide a fail-safe answer: I don't know.

For some people, that answer is a deal-breaker. If it doesn't make sense to them, they cannot commit. They refuse to worship a God they cannot understand. For me, of course, that's entirely the point… why worship a god that can be understood by mortal men? Such a god, by definition, is not worthy of such adoration.

(Unless it was designed by Steve Jobs, of course.)

Jokes aside, the sad thing about such intellectual perfectionism is that it tends to be an all-or-nothing deal, where the baby gets thrown out with the bath water. Though God cannot fully be understood, that doesn't mean that there's nothing about Him that can be understood.

On the contrary, if we know how and where to look, there is plenty to be found, which leads to my next rock-solid truth:

God's will becomes evident as His character is revealed.

My favorite cable TV network is the USA Network, and not just because my two favorite TV series ("Psych" and "Burn Notice") are there, but because of their slogan: "Characters Welcome."

People become devoted to their favorite series if they can make a connection with the main characters involved. Likewise, people become devoted to God once they begin to experience a revelation of His character. And just as a person's character is not established by only one action or one line of dialogue, but from a series of actions and interactions, that's the same way God reveals Himself to someone who is looking for Him … over time, across a series of interactions, both interpersonally and historically.

This is why it's so important to read the Bible… like, all of it. We must use the Scriptures as the lens by which we interpret our own experiences, rather than the other way around. Every story or poem or letter or account in the Bible gives us a unique piece of insight into who God is and what He likes to do, and by taking these stories in, we give God a chance to reveal a part of who He is to us.

So for example… if you read the story of David and Goliath, you can tell that God likes to confound conventional wisdom, because it was the little runt from the house of Jesse, the kid that everybody forgot about, that eventually slew the giant, and later, was anointed as king.

If you read about Jonah and the great fish, you can tell that God wants to reach out to those who don't know Him, and that He cares about people who are lost more than He cares about making things convenient for His servants.

If you read about the story of Achan in Joshua 7, you learn that God is particular about obedience, and will find a way to get your attention if you disobey.

If you read about Nehemiah and how he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, you learn that God cares about cities, and that casting vision and community organizing make a difference.

These are the kinds of revelations we can experience if we get to know the God of the Scriptures. And every time we have an experience with God, either through His word, or personally, it's important for us to view it in light of all of the other things we know about God. If God reveals His will through His character, it's important to make sure you have enough information to have a clear picture of His character.

This is especially true when we're talking about the Lord's Prayer, because in it, we address God as Father… and there are many different kinds of fathers out there. Not all fathers have the same character. When we say, "our Father," I don't think we're all necessarily seeing God the same way.

Speaking of characters, does anyone remember Gordon Gartrell?

For those of you who haven't earned your 80s-sitcom-trivia merit badge yet, Gordon Gartrell was and is the name of a designer, a high-end NYC fashion designer, whose name was immortalized in one of my favorite episodes of The Cosby Show.

In this episode, Theo has promised his girlfriend he would wear a Gordon Gartrell shirt for an upcoming date, but when his father Cliff finds out the shirt cost $95 — in 80's money –, Theo must return the shirt for something more reasonable. Desperate to avoid losing face, Theo asks his sister to sew together a replica shirt of similar design… and wacky hijinks ensue.

Here's a question… if you had never seen the Cosby Show before, would you automatically assume that Cliff was being a good father when he ordered his son to take the shirt back?

I suppose it depends on your background and how much you would be willing to pay for a new shirt. Your interpretation might also be affected by your own experience, especially if, like mine, your father ever did anything similar (more on that later).

By and large, though, I think the episode is funny only because we believe that, in general, Cliff is a good dad, and his choice to deny his son the object of his desire (the shirt) is done out of a general desire to look out for his wellbeing. If we as viewers didn't have any other reason to believe that the character Heathcliff Huxtable is a good dad, we might see the episode differently.

This principle is critical to understanding the will of God. God's will is revealed through His character, so if you're going to evaluate His character, you can't just pick a few isolated situations or experiences and hope you've gotten a good picture. The key is to put those experiences in the proper context.

My other, non-USA-network favorite show is "Lost."

One thing that frequent "Lost" viewers recognize is that episodes often start with one single image, usually an extreme close-up.

In the pilot episode, that image is of a human eye.

It's kind of weird at first, but then it eases up. Then you see a head, a man's head. Eventually you can tell it's a man lying down in the middle of the jungle. The man gets up, and begins first jogging, then sprinting toward what we can now tell is the wreckage of a plane that just crash landed onto an island.

On a normal TV show or movie, the first images you see are normally wide shots of picturesque locales: an urban skyline, a boundless meadow, a majestic meadow, or wherever the action is supposed to be taking place. It helps the viewer establish a sense of setting.

But for this pilot episode, the director J. J. Abrams takes the opposite approach – a choice that is designed to leave the viewer, well, lost.

When we try to decipher God's will without really getting to know His character first, we end up the same way – disoriented, confused, and lost.

My earlier attempts to conceptualize God's will were futile because they focused mostly on the choices that I made from day to day. Knowing God's will is more than just making the right decisions, buying the right products, or engaging in the right activities. To know God's will, you must first know His character. Trying to do one without the other is futile, like trying to guess the plot of a random show based only on a few close-ups.

That doesn't mean that said decisions, products and activities are unimportant, just that they must be placed in the broader context of who God is and what He is doing in the world. The close-ups will come, but come on… first things first.

Which leads to my next rock-solid idea…

God's will is proven through the daily renewing of your mind.

Romans 12:1-2:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Doing the work of discerning, proving, examining and discovering God's will as it pertains to life requires mental renovation every day. Renewal of mind can take on several forms – personal worship and/or devotion time, prayer, and Bible reading all quickly come to mind – but it's got to happen, and it's got to happen every day.

And part of the reason why I advocate for reading Scripture, especially in large quantities (several chapters at a time), is because if you grow up in church, you might hear people quote certain scriptures, and without reading them in context, you might be taking away a message that's not necessarily what God intended for you to receive.

For example, earlier I referenced Isaiah 55:8-9, where the prophet Isaiah is relaying a word from the Lord about how His ways are higher than our ways. If you're a Christian and you've been in the church for awhile, you've probably heard those verses dozens of times. But you might not have ever read the whole thing.

Take a few minutes now, and read all of Isaiah 55, including those two verses, and see if you look at those passages differently:

1 "Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

2 Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

3 Give ear and come to me;

hear me, that your soul may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

my faithful love promised to David.

4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,

a leader and commander of the peoples.

5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,

and nations that do not know you will hasten to you,

because of the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel,

for he has endowed you with splendor."

6 Seek the LORD while he may be found;

call on him while he is near.

7 Let the wicked forsake his way

and the evil man his thoughts.

Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,

and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,"

declares the LORD.

9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 As the rain and the snow

come down from heaven,

and do not return to it

without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish,

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:

It will not return to me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

12 You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills

will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field

will clap their hands.

13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the LORD's renown,

for an everlasting sign,

which will not be destroyed."

Looks pretty different, doesn't it?

I don't know about you, but when I read verses 8 and 9 alone, I tend to project onto it a tone of derisive mocking. But that's not at all what the Lord is saying to Isaiah. When you read the whole thing, you read an invitation. It's the warm greeting of a loving God who desperately wants to extend His love and authority to His children, a God who wants His children to know Him, to be loved and reassured by Him. When He says that His ways are not like our ways, He's really saying, I'm not petty and vindictive, I don't seek only to tear down, but to restore. I know that's probably a foreign concept for you, but it's true.

What an incredible image this is!

This is why we must renew our minds daily. Renewing our minds through Scriptural intake is what helps our image of God's character stay fresh and accurate, and it helps us defend ourselves against the enemy's lies. This is a crucial, because whether consciously or unconsciously, we use our concept of God's character to evaluate His will.

So if we slack off with renewing our minds, then we're liable to believe things about God that aren't true. We end up thinking, just like my man Theo Huxtable, that Dad isn't really looking out for our best interests, that He really just wants to keep us from having fun, that He doesn't ever want us to have meaningful relationships, and that He's punishing us by being stingy with His resources.

And I know somebody is probably thinking, okay calm down, Jelani… it's just an old episode of Cosby. That's not really how I behave toward God.

If so, you're probably more mature than me.

That Cosby episode resonates with me because I actually had a similar exchange with my Dad during high school. Only it wasn't just a shirt, it was a suit, a magenta-colored, polyester and rayon blend jacket-and-pants combo that I purchased from Jeans West, the leading teen apparel store of choice at the time.

Unlike Theo, who charged it to his father's account, I paid for the suit with my own money.

And Dad still made me take it back.

Yeah, he tried to tell me that if I'm going to buy a suit I should spend a little bit more and get better value. He tried to tell me that it wasn't professional looking, that I had a responsibility to represent myself well in public, and that I wouldn't be able to wear it anywhere except high school dances. (Which, of course, was the very place I wanted to be seen wearing it.)

I wasn't hearing any of that. All I could think about was how unfair it was that I didn't have the freedom to choose. I was absolutely furious. And I would have stayed that way, possibly for a long time, except for the fact that I had a chance to sit and think for awhile.

And remember.

I remembered all the times where I took his correction and it ended up working out well for me. I remembered all the gifts he had given me, all of the times he did something special for me. All the times when I had disobeyed his correction and gotten myself into wads of trouble.

After sitting for awhile, I realized I only had two options. I was either going to ignore those memories, remain angry and hold a grudge, or I was going to let go, and just do what he asked me to do.

Eventually, I did the latter.

After awhile, I gradually understood that my Dad really did have my best interests at heart.

After awhile, the magenta suit joined the ranks of juvenile appearance fads that I coveted at first, then eventually let go of (along with jheri curls, Hammer pants, and African medallions).

By taking the suit back, I gave myself a chance to learn some powerful lessons, ones I would have learned the hard way had I kept it.

Which brings me to my last rock-solid idea…

God wants us to participate in His will.

Matthew 12:46-50 (emphasis mine):

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

As we've established, God's will is more than just the choices we make on a day to day basis.

But that does NOT mean that our day to day choices are irrelevant!

God wants us to be connected with Him, to have an intimate, familial relationship where we know Him as Father. And yet, as Jesus is pointing out here in this passage of Matthew 12, the only way to be in His family is to do the will of His Father.

Jesus wasn't trying to diss his blood relatives here. You have to understand the context. He had just spent all day healing people and teaching the crowds from the law. Yet, here He was being challenged by the Pharisees, who asked to see a miraculous sign, even though He had already been performing miracles of healing, and those miracles were denounced by many of those same Pharisees as being from the devil!

Jesus was tired of their relentless verbal traps, tired of their posturing, tired of them exalting their rule of law as the standard, and what's worse, doing so on the basis of their religious family traditions. So when He received word that His mother and brothers had been waiting for him outside, Jesus finally threw down the gauntlet:

You wanna be in the real family of God? You want to be a relative of my Father?

Do. His. Will.

Sometimes, it's really just that simple.

Because yes, you need to understand that His will is bigger than you. Yes, you need to be prepared for the fact that sometimes you won't understand His will exactly. Yes, you need to experience a revelation of His character, and you must also renew your mind daily to help apply it to your everyday experience.

But at the end of the day, if we want to be called Christians, if we want to be in the family of God, if we want to actually live for Him and not just pretend to live for Him, we must follow through and do what He is asking of us.

And that, in my opinion, why we pray, "thy will be done" in The Lord's Prayer.

When we pray that part of the prayer, we're not simply giving our intellectual assent to the certainty of God's purposes taking place.

We're taking a bold step of faith, and declaring to God:

No matter the ramifications, no matter what it costs me, no matter where or in what condition I end up as a result, I commit myself to discovering Your will and carrying it out.

That's why Jesus included "thy will be done" in his example of prayer, because that's how committed He was to His Father's will.

John 5:19 -- Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Jesus knew that without that level of commitment, you won't last long in His Father's kingdom.

Now here's the deal.

Praying this prayer and living it out… is hard.

It's simple to say, but difficult to pull off, because it requires us to consistently give over our will to His will.

And some people think it was easy for Jesus because, well… He was God. Of course He did everything the Father said. They were almost the same person.

People who say this don't usually take the time to read the whole gospel narrative, because if they did, they would stumble onto Matthew 26:39:

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

This was Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, praying to His Father, asking Him to find a way to avert what Jesus knew was coming – his crucifixion at the hands of the people.

This was NOT easy for Jesus. He didn't want to go through it any more than we would if we were in His place.

(And don't get all religious on me here… you know good and well that if you were in this same situation you would be doing the same thing, looking for some kind of loophole or something. Nobody likes going through what Jesus went through, not even Jesus.)

This is what the writer of Hebrews was referring to in Heb. 4:16:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

Jesus modeled that prayer because He modeled that lifestyle. When given the option between the Father's will and His own, even when His very life was on the line… He did the Father's will.

Jesus had this in mind when He asked us to pray the radical prayer of "thy will be done," because He knew that sometimes actually following through and submitting to God's will is tremendously difficult.

And yet, it is the path to which we are called, a path that, almost inexplicably, almost paradoxically, offers us the greatest sense of fulfillment imaginable.

And that is part of the divine mystery; that such self-denial could lead to such glory in the end.

What Jesus knew then is the same thing that we are invited to learn every time we have a chance to submit to His will… that God is good, and thus, His will is good.

Good enough to sign up for, sight unseen. Good enough to give our lives for.

And certainly good enough to pray for.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

Driving in the Spirit: Traffic Epiphanies for the Modern Christian

2009-01-15T17:14:00.000-08:00

While vacationing in December, I stumbled upon an engrossing book with a gloriously inflated title (even longer than the title of this post):
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), by Tom Vanderbilt.

It's a fascinating read, because it manages to synthesize mountains of research into understandable concepts illustrated with funny stories. I recommend it, if only because it sheds some much-needed light onto a subject that you probably think you understand more than you do -- the way that you drive your car.

One of the overarching concepts in Traffic is that safety is a malleable concept, and that our preconceived notions of safety are often too-far removed from reality. Roads we normally consider to be safer -- wide, clearly marked lanes running straight for miles and miles at a time -- are actually more dangerous, because the predictability lulls us into driving faster while paying less attention to the road. Conversely, roads that look dangerous -- two-lane mountain roads with no guardrails, for example -- are statistically safer, because people actually have to SLOW DOWN and pay close attention.

After crunching the data and examining the topic of driving from every which angle imaginable, one of Vanderbilt's conclusions is that advances in technology do help, but traffic fatalities persist because people always find ways to push the envelope of socially acceptable behavior. You can post a sign and set a speed limit, but that doesn't mean people will follow it. Engineers cannot factor in the capricious, unpredictable outcomes of human decision-making.

In an Amazon Q&A session, he sums up the human element of driving:

We make mistakes, we misjudge our abilities, we’re not as aware of what’s happening in traffic as we think we are, we act differently in different situations, we get angry over things that matter little in the long run, we’re susceptible to distortions in our sense of time, we have trouble living beyond the moment, of seeing the big picture — oh, and also, that everyone has a different opinion on who the worst drivers are and where they live…"Los Angeles! L.A. drivers are the worst… No, Atlanta has terrible drivers… No way, Boston drivers are nuts…"

Straight from the horse's mouth -- sorry Tom! -- there it is.

The problem is humanity.

Being human is a condition that no government safety mandate can fix. So we all struggle in similar ways, among them being a willingness to break the rules as we see fit, while railing against the gridlock that such lawlessness inevitably produces.

Humanity, as the problem? Sounds like a spiritual issue to me.

No, seriously.

If you think I'm out of line, just try this exercise. Look up a few Scriptures that use walking as an analogy, and then exchange the word "walk" for "drive":

"Blessed is the man who does not drive in the counsel of the wicked" (Ps 1:1a)
"I am God Almighty; drive before me and be blameless" (Gen 17:1)
"If you drive in my ways and obey my statutes and commands ... I will give you a long life" (1 Kings 3:14)

Feeling convicted yet?

As Christians, we ought to pay more attention to the way that we drive, if for no other reason, so that we don't ruin our witness. (Nothing says "hypocrite" quite like a maniac driver with a Jesus fish bumper sticker.)

Not only that, but driving usually stands alone in the category of Most Mentally Demanding Activity With Unspeakably Catastrophic Potential. Unless you practice brain surgery as a weekend hobby, you probably don't do anything else quite so dangerous quite so often.

Furthermore, I'm convinced that by examining not only our personal driving habits but also the driving cultures that surround us, we can learn and discern a lot more about life in general.

As always, the Word of God is the key.

(The IGNITION key! ** rim-shot**)

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself there.)

* * *

Not Just A Good Idea, It's The Law

The way we drive says a lot about how we interpret and understand the law. And the way we understand and interpret traffic laws influences the way we interact with God's law. If you grow up in a Christian household, you are taught to obey the law as an extension of God's authority in your life. This makes plenty of sense, especially in light of Paul's teaching on the subject. For a ten-year-old budding believer, obeying God, the law, and your parents are essentially the same thing.

Problems crop up, however, when we reach adulthood and we do the converse -- we obey God in the same manner that we obey the law.

Because how do most of us obey traffic laws? Selectively. Sure we generally obey the traffic laws. But the rules of the road seem much more elastic once you've been around the block a few times.

This, by the way, is part of the natural struggle when parents begin teaching their teenagers to drive. Children are astute observers, so it's hard to make a compelling case for coming to a complete stop at every stop sign if your natural habit is to slowly roll through them.

Some of this is complacency, but part of it stems from incomplete understanding.

God's laws are fundamentally different from traffic laws, because God is fundamentally different than man.

Traffic laws are designed to coerce citizens into order by threat of punishment by enforcement officers. If you break the law, you'll face a sanction from the state, either as a fine, or as in some cases, incarceration. But, if you run a red light and no human (or camera) is there to record your infraction, then practically speaking, it didn't happen.

Not only that, but traffic laws tend to change over time. Child safety devices are much more strict than they were three decades ago. Speed limits increase as more and more vehicles are designed to maintain stability at higher speeds. So if enough people think a law needs to change because it's unfair or unsafe or unconstitutional, it will change.

God's law is fundamentally different, because it's not supposed to be an external code of conduct that results in right living. Christianity is more than just obeying the rules, it's engaging in a personal relationship with an almighty God who knows far more about our lives than we can ever hope to know. This is why James referred to God's law as a mirror... it's God's way of giving us tangible signs of warning in case we go astray.

God's laws do not need enforcement, because they are inherently immutable -- they do not change, because He does not change. As humans, we have the freedom to engage in behaviors that go against God's will for humanity (as stated in the Ten Commandments, for example). But by doing that, we place ourselves outside of His will. As a result, bad things that God never intended to happen, happen.

This is the fundamental difference between God's law and traffic law. Traffic laws can be broken; God's laws cannot.

If you violate His law, you're the one that gets broken. The punishment for violating a traffic law depends on whether or not you get caught. With God's laws, there is no punishment. There is no punitive action designed to coerce a desired response. Rather, there are only the natural consequences of being outside of His will.

So, for example, God does not mete out His divine punishment upon someone engaged in an adulterous affair, simply because their choice violates the 7th commandment. Rather, He allows the consequences to unfold -- in this case, a broken relationship. And it doesn't matter if the cheating spouse is "caught" or not, because the relationship is severed either way. The very act of violating a spouse's trust is what rends the relationship -- which is one of the reasons for the commandment in the first place.

It seems to me, then, that the current state of affairs as it relates to driver behavior tends to follow this general pattern:

First we learn to obey traffic laws.
Once we get older, we realize traffic laws are a pain in the arse to obey all the time, so we stop trying. Instead, we just do our own thing, trying not to kill anyone in the process.
The only thing that keeps from abandoning the law altogether is the fear of getting zapped for a serious infraction.

Come to think of it, that's the way most people follow God's laws, too.

But anyone with an authentic Christian spirituality knows that it's not just about following God's rules, it's about engaging in relationship with Him. As Christians, we need to be plugged into the Holy Spirit if we want to really live. We must maintain a real connection, in real time, to a real God who really knows what's going on.

Assuming that there's a most excellent way to live, why can't there be a most excellent way to drive?

What would it look like to drive in the Spirit?

I'm guessing that in some cases, it might look a lot... slower.

* * *

Of, But Not In

In Traffic, Vanderbilt cites Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an English transportation planner, who, in discussing complex traffic configurations with multiple types of vehicles, makes a notable observation about eye contact:

"Hamilton-Baillie suggests that it is more than coincidental that as drivers get above 20 miles per hour, we lose eye contact with pedestrians, while our chances of dying as pedestrians if hit by a car also begin to soar dramatically... in the modern world, Hamilton-Baillie adds, this may explain why being struck by a car becomes so much more exponentially dangerous above that speed" (emphasis mine).

As eye contact declines, so does our awareness of our fellow humans. For Christians, this is not merely a safety issue; it's a spiritual issue. It's a matter of actively engaging in the world rather than blithely zooming through it.

Consider the nature of the car -- a private space amidst a public arena (the road). As Christians, we are called to traverse this public space with grace, humility and awareness. Our behavior is supposed to stand in contrast contrast to the pattern of the world, which is to generally look out for yourself. This is why many of us like to say that we are "in but not of" the world -- a phrase derived from a passage in John where Jesus is praying for His disciples.

That's the goal, anyway. But the reality too often is the exact opposite.

We mirror the world in our driving habits; we're myopic and self-centered, lenient regarding our own failings but harshly critical about the failings of others.

Yet we often use our cars as a safe little cocoon where we can escape the oppressive rigor of modern life. Our Christian radio stations are there to drown out any vestiges of sound that may bleed into our sealed, climate-controlled interiors.

Thus, as we drive with little regard to others around us, we are of the world, without being emotionally present in it.

This is one of the true tragedies in the parable of the Good Samaritan. We're all used to hearing accolades go to the Samaritan who helped out the victim, but that good deed happened only after the religious people, who are charged with the responsibility of helping others, passed right on through without a second glance. The priest and the Levite might have seen him, but they didn't really see him.

Maybe it was because they were haughty and did not want to get into something messy and inconvenient. Maybe they were just moving too fast to stop and take notice. Maybe both.

One modern equivalent to this parable would be when marginalized people are displaced from their neighborhoods because of freeway expansion. It's been happening for years. To those on the receiving end, it's like a slap in the face. In both cases, the poor and victimized are shunted aside in favor of the upwardly mobile.

These are injustices. As Christians, we are called to care about them.

If more people outside the church are passionate about these issues than people inside the church, that's a sad indictment against the state of the church in America. The extent that we fail in this arena is the extent to which we fail to learn the lesson of the good Samaritan.

Driving in the Spirit means, at least some of the time, we need to slow down enough to interact with our neighbors.

And like any other example of obedience to God, it also has a bonus side effect -- safety on the road.

It's God's version of traffic calming.

(See, who said the Bible isn't relevant to everyday life?)

Rules Rule... Except When They Don't

Now you'll notice I said, "some of the time." I didn't say that being a Christian means you never drive over 20 mph, because if that were the case, a vast majority of Americans would be going to hell in a ~~handbasket~~ Honda, and fast. The fact is, there are some situations where driving 78 miles-per-hour would be less reckless than driving 20 -- in the left lane of an interstate freeway, for example.

Then again, there are also certain situations where driving 20 mph in the left lane of a freeway is the safest thing you can do -- like when you're attempting to travel from Portland to Seattle and the rain and snowmelt leave several inches of standing water on the roadway, leading officials to eventually close off the freeway.

(And yes, I was on I-5 when they closed it off. It was annoying, a little bit scary, but quite redemptive. More on this later.)

So let me see if I've got it... you're supposed to drive slow in general, except for when you're on a freeway where you can drive fast, except for when it's raining cats and dogs and then you should drive slow again?

No wonder people get in trouble on the road.

Often rules appear to be the solution, yet relying on rules only can be just as bad as ignoring them altogether.

Abiding traffic rules is not as simple as it seems, because rules are never supposed to be followed without interpretation, especially rules of the road. (This is why it's so difficult to teach a robot how to drive.) Rules exist to guide us toward a particular way of action or existence. Attempting to follow each rule as it is written, without an understanding of the underlying principles involved, can end up creating outcomes that actually violate the spirit of the rule in the first place. (Hence this great scene from "Rain Man.")

Things get even more complex when you add the human element.

People are unpredictable. Sometimes they follow rules, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they have good reasons for not following the rules, and sometimes they don't. The temptation, then, is to keep adding more rules and raising the ante of enforcement until the general populace will behave according to a pattern of manageable conformity.

The only problem is, this doesn't work.

What you get is actually more chaos.

Kill, Or Give Life?

There's a reason why the Lord limited the Commandments to ten -- because anything more than ten just brings more confusion and frustration. (The American tax code comes to mind here.) There is a limit to how many rules and statutes we can juggle before we start dropping them, one by one, until they’re all over the floor.

God's laws are supposed to be moral signposts that we can rely on to figure out where we stand in relationship to Him. But when humans decide to help God out by introducing more and more rules, this amounts to more and more signage. At some point, we become over-saturated with stimuli, and we lose our ability to discern what we should do at any given moment.

This happens in the physical world of the road, and in Traffic, Vanderbilt provides another great illustration (last one, I promise!), when he discusses the work of the late Hans Monderman, one of the world's great traffic engineers:

If people have heard of Monderman, they tend to recall something about "the guy in the Netherlands who hated traffic signs." But there is, in fact, one traffic sign that Monderman loved. It stands at the border of the small village of Makkinga, in Friesland. It announces a 30 kilometer per hour speed limit. Then, it says, welkom. Finally, it says: verkeers-bordvrij!! In English, this means, roughly, "Free of traffic signs."

A traffic sign announcing the lack of traffic signs is a good joke, but it's also a perfect symbol of Monderman's philosophy. The sign itself is superfluous, for a driver can see that there are no traffic signs in Makkinga. After all, Monderman pointed out, what do traffic signs actually tell us? One day, driving through Friesland in his Volvo, Monderman gestured toward a sign, just before a bridge, that showed a symbol of a bridge. "Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?" he asked. "Why explain it? How foolish are we in always telling people how to behave. When you treat people like idiots, they'll behave like that."

Monderman's methods were so bold that his premise was sometimes misunderstood.

It's not that rules are bad, but rather, it's better to promote a broader rule like "be considerate of others on the road" rather than a bunch of smaller directives posted on signs like, "turn here," "slow down here," "watch for pedestrians," "yield to bikers," etc. None of those instructions are bad, but taken as an aggregate whole, they do more harm than good. It’s much better, then, to go by the spirit of the law. “For the letter kills,” as Paul says, “but the Spirit gives life.”

Jesus espoused a similar principle when He was challenged by the local authorities of his day, as recorded in Matthew 22:

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hand on these two commandments."

Here we see a similar idea. According to Jesus, all of the Ten Commandments, as well as the thousands of rabbinical commandments that had been built upon them, can be summed up in two very simple ideas.

(Along with being a profound truth, this passage is proof that Steve Jobs did not come up with the simpler-is-better ethos.)

The biggest difference, though, between Monderman’s vision and Christ’s commandment was that Monderman put his faith in the goodness and intelligence of man, whereas Jesus made it abundantly clear that God is to be the source of all that is good, authoritative, or trustworthy.

This is where the Spirit-gives-life part comes in.

Giant Rubber Skis? No Thanks.

As a frequent driver along the I-5 corridor between Portland and Seattle, I like to think I have a pretty good handle on the spirit behind all of the traffic laws, and I do my best to stay on top of the little things that enhance the overall usability of the road. I signal when I change lanes. I slow down for construction workers. I leave a lane of clearance if there is an officer conducting a traffic stop on the shoulder. (And thanks to Tom Vanderbilt, I no longer feel bad about being a late merger.)

These things I do because I Generally Try to Do the Right Thing.

Yet, sometimes my instincts fail me. Why? Because I am a fallible human being. To expect otherwise would be foolish.

The good news for me, though, is that I don’t have to rely solely on my instincts. I can listen to the Holy Spirit, because as a Christian I know that the Holy Spirit dwells inside me, 24 hours a day. (Like OnStar, but without the overbearing commercials.)

Thing is, though, I’ve been a Christian for a long time, and yet I still occasionally have a hard time discerning the difference between my instincts talking and the Holy Spirit talking.

Sometimes I don’t find out which until much later.

Which brings me back to that ill-fated journey up toward Seattle for a presentation I was supposed to do last week. It had been raining and windy all day, and I wanted to leave around noon so that I could still make it to my destination before dark.

But, true to form, I was running behind on my packing and other stuff I wanted to take care of before I left. Pretty soon, my noon departure turned to 1:30, and then 2:00, all the while I still had plenty to get done. At this point, I had a decision to make.

I could:

A) cut my losses and leave, still making it into Seattle before dark, or

B) stay and finish what I started, but not leave until closer to 5pm, driving almost completely in the dark and hopefully making it there by 8pm (my presentation wasn’t until morning).

Normally my choice would be A, because I generally try to be as safe as possible on the road, and every bit of daylight helps. But I promised my wife I would tidy up the living room and take care of some of the dishes I had left in the sink from days prior. So for once, I took the nobler path, and hoped for the best.

Fast forward to mile marker 68… it’s pitch black, raining cats and dogs, and through the blurred visage of my windshield I see a sea of red.

Brake lights.

Briefly, I shudder.

Another accident? Geez… we’ve all been driving too fast in the rain. Slowing down will help us all.

As I got closer, I could see the road flares, the orange cones, and the emergency vehicles that normally mean an accident has taken place. The only thing I couldn’t see was wreckage. And then I noticed.

Waitaminute… ALL the lanes are closed? What the… ?!?

I had no choice but to follow the stream of traffic off of the freeway, where I learned of the flooding and road closure from a convenience store clerk who had her hands full trying to explain the situation to dozens of irritated motorists. (“I guess we’ll just have to party here tonight,” she said. “We’ve already got the snacks!”)

My first response was disbelief, because I had never seen an interstate close because of rain. Snow and ice, sure, but rain?

My second response was frustration, because I knew if I would’ve just left the house sooner, I would’ve made it through with no problem. Choosing option B ended up with me missing my presentation. That part sucked.

My third response came while I was driving back to Portland, and it was a mild sense of relief. Just because I could’ve made it before the roads were closed doesn’t mean something bad wouldn’t have happened to me on the way. I thought back to a comment I heard a Drivers Ed instructor make when I was in high school:

“It only takes an inch of standing water for a car to hydroplane, which is fancy word for waterskiing without a boat.”

I’d never been waterskiing before, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t want to try that way.

But my fourth response happened the next day, after I told Holly that I felt a little bit guilty because I know I could’ve left earlier and still made my appointment.

“Yeah, that’s true,” she said. “But then you’d still be stuck there.”

She was right. The interstate was closed for three days, and I had another three-day journey due the following week. If I would’ve left when I planned to, I would’ve spent eight days away from home.

It was at that point that I realized… picking option B wasn’t just my instinct.

It was the Holy Spirit.

What Does This All Mean?

I was drawn to Vanderbilt’s book because in it, I found more evidence of Biblical truth in action.

Sometimes rules can be helpful, but sometimes they’re not. What’s more, we need more than rules to live by. We need understanding. We need relationships with one another. Most importantly, we need a relationship with God.

I recommend Traffic, but what I recommend more than reading it is embracing the conviction that precipitated its existence – the need to examine one’s self and surroundings. I’m convinced that nothing innovative, revolutionary or legendary ever happened without someone asking the questions, “why are things the way they are?” and “is there a better way?”

Finally, I offer an addendum to a time-honored axiom.

My mother-in-law used to tell my wife Holly when she was little that couples who are thinking of getting married should first be forced to tile a bathroom together.

In our first year of marriage, we never had to tile a bathroom together, but we did move across the country, taking a few days to drive from Chicago to Portland. So I offer the multiple-day road trip as a worthy substitute trial.

Because trust me… you haven’t seen how a person really lives, until you’ve seen how they drive.

I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.

For Those Who Must Drink Coffee in Church

2008-12-31T07:47:00.000-08:00

I know that a few of you will be in church services this evening, because many churches hold New Year's Eve services. And because it'll be an obviously late evening, many of you will probably do something you normally do when you come to church -- bring coffee.

With that in mind, I offer a parody of one of my favorite songs, Kirk Franklin's "My Life Is In Your Hands." Here's a rendition on Youtube if you've never heard it.

Like many parodies, it's actually much funnier if you actually sing it. If I had more time at my disposal, I would record it myself and send it around. (One of these days I may do just that.) Until then, those of you with taste for satire, feel free to actually sing it on your own, out loud even.

By the way, I wrote this parody over a year ago, and I'm realizing now that I was in a much darker place than I thought. Writing this was a form of stress relief, methinks. When I shared it with my wife, she didn't find it as funny as I did -- probably because she drinks coffee and I don't.

To each their own, I guess.

My Latte's In My Hand

(sung to the tune of Kirk Franklin's "My Life Is In Your Hands")

I don't have to worry
I don't have to be afraid
The lines are short at Starbucks
And the coffee is Fair Trade

See, every Sunday morning
This routine is what I do
I can only sing with one hand
Cause really praising Him takes two

Oh, I hope the church will make it
I hope it's in God's plan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte's in my hand

I used to go to small group;
But it took up all my time
We studied from a workbook
And I kept forgetting mine

Now my ministry is different
Now consuming is enough
And I find my inspiration
From the quotations on the cup

Oh, I hope the church will make it
I hope it's in God's plan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte's in my hand

Without it I feel naked
And in a year, I'll spend three grand
But no matter what may come my way
My latte's in my hand

Some people don't drink coffee
That's a promise I can't make
If I don't have my latte,
Then I cannot stay awake

Cause I used to get in trouble
When I fell asleep alot
But all I need to hear the Spirit,
Is a couple extra shots

I hope the church will make it
I hope it’s in God’s plan
But no matter what may come my way,
My latte’s in my hand

If there’s a need, let pastor take it
He seems like a good man
But no matter what my come my way
My latte’s in my hand

I hope the church will make it
I hope it’s in God’s plan
But no matter what may come my way,
My latte’s in my hand

I still might send an offering
To that mission in Sudan
But no matter what may come my way
My latte’s in my hand

Let the church say amen. And if you can't say amen, say 'ouch.'

The Seven Pound Blues

2008-12-29T03:25:00.001-08:00

In the neo-beatnik classic Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller extols the virtues of the titular great American music (I’m referring to jazz itself, for those who don’t know what titular means) by saying that it, like life, doesn’t resolve.

I’m curious, then, about what he would feel about the latest Will Smith vehicle, Seven Pounds, for many of its qualities share a commonality with jazz. It’s mysterious, beautiful, enigmatic.

And it, too, refuses to resolve.

Which isn’t to say that the film doesn’t come to a conclusion, because it does. And it’s not that this conclusion isn’t believable or emotionally satisfying, because on many levels, it’s stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. It’s just that, well, it doesn’t pass the reality test. You know, the that’s-just-not-how-real-life-works test. Will Smith’s character makes a choice that is well intentioned, but ultimately misguided. The film works, sort of, but only because what’s happening is onscreen.

I dare not reveal much else, because the effectiveness of director Gabriele Muccino’s storytelling is rooted in not giving the audience too much to work with on the front end. Eventually, the viewer is tossed morsels of plot, one at a time, until the protagonist’s journey begins to finally make some sense.

It’s the journey, of course, that makes the film so compelling. In Seven Pounds, Smith’s IRS agent Ben Thomas is bent on executing a plan with unflinching determination. In a great display of emotional range, he is alternately ruthless and sympathetic, someone who can punish wrongdoers yet still be drawn to beauty and wonder. Those two qualities are epitomized in spades by love interest Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), whose unexpected vulnerability sparks a bond between the two.

One of the pivotal scenes in the film comes when this bond is still in its initial stage. (Minor spoiler!) After Ben has done his best to engender trust and favor from Emily by serving her and generally becoming her friend, she asks him a few probing questions, and he recoils. “That’s not part of the deal,” he says. This angers Emily, who retreats into her own shell as a result.

This exchange illustrates the problem Ben faces in his attempt at redemption. Ben wants to help others, but only on his own terms. His refusal to alter his plan short-circuits his desire for relationship and connectedness. In a way, one could say that Ben is playing God. Like all others, his attempts are well-meaning, but futile.

The pain of a life-threatening situation like Ben’s makes his adamant, steely-eyed resolve toward redemption sympathetic, but ultimately the finality of his choice forfeits the moral high ground that the film works so hard to establish. As such, the screenwriter shoots himself in the metaphorical foot. By placing the protagonist on such a rigid collision-course with his fate, the ending sabotaged all of the audience’s built-up goodwill.

If film theory analysis isn’t your thing, I’ll put it this way: I know what it’s like to be stung by the pain of regret that drives you to make things right, but I guarantee you, if I made the same choices as Ben Thomas, my story would NOT end up being memorialized in a theatrical tearjerker.

Thus, it doesn’t ring true. And no, it doesn’t resolve, at least not in my book.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable. Smith and Dawson are both in fine form, and their on-screen romance is touching and visceral. It’s too bad they couldn’t have been in a real love story, or at least one that isn’t such a freaking downer. That this film comes so close to being really good is a testament to the chemistry between the two leads. Saying they carried the film would be an understatement on par with ‘These Detroit Lions are terrible’ or ‘the economy isn’t doing so well.’

By the way, if you’re like me and you finished watching it only to still be confused by the title, then you might want to brush up on your Shakespeare.

The Upside Down Kingdom Does Football

2008-12-23T20:24:00.000-08:00

If you're tired of giving the regular answer, and someone asks you what Christmas is about, you can tell them that sometimes it's about football.

(And not the Charlie-Brown-and-Lucy kind either.)

Some people refer to Christianity as a backward religion, but I prefer to think of it more as an upside-down kingdom.

Obviously, I'm not the first person to coin such a phrase, but sometimes I think it just fits. Because, when you get right down to it, Christianity at its core tends to run counter against everything this world tends to stand for. And sometimes the contrast is downright startling.

Like, for example, this story, brought to the masses by ~~Sports Illustrated's~~ ESPN's Rick Reilly. I'm not usually one to prop up the work of a mass media juggernaut like ESPN, but in this case I think this story deserves all the hits it can get.

Suffice it to say, though, it won't make everyone happy. I'm sure that Christopher Hitchens could read Reilly's piece and think, those dumb Christians... they can't even figure out which side they're on. And in a way, he'd be right. Most of the time, we don't.

But every once in awhile, we figure it out, and the results are priceless.

Don't Just Do Something: Experiencing God In Snowpacalypse 2008

2008-12-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

(My apologies to a commenter at Eugene Cho's Beauty and Depravity, from whom I so judiciously ganked the term "snowpacalypse" ... considering all the hysterics from Seattlites and Portlanders who aren't used to a ton of snow, it just seemed perfect.)

First, I offer a passage from the latest edition of Experiencing God, a Bible study that I have recently embarked upon:

Don't Just Do Something

We are a doing people. We always want to be doing something. Every now and then someone will exclaim, "Don't just stand there; do something!"

In contrast, I think God is crying out to us, "Don't just do something. Stand there! Enter a love relationship with Me. Get to know Me. Adjust your life to Me. let Me love you and reveal Myself through you to a watching world." A time will come when doing will be called for, but we cannot skip the relationship. The relationship with God must come first.

Truer words have never been spoken or read, especially for me in this time.

Most of my heroes in the faith are men of action, people who identified injustice and were led by God to do something about it. People like my friend Kevin Bruursema, whose heart for God is the engine that turns his holy motor. (As an aside, doesn't Holy Motor sound like a Christian metal band?)

I am reminded, by this Henry Blackaby passage, that action is always a byproduct of, rather than an avenue toward, relationship with God. And this truth has been made real to me in a very practical way.

Today is the eighth straight day of snow and subfreezing temperatures in the Portland area. I am not unfamiliar with such weather after spending eight years in Chicago, but this kind of heavy snowfall almost never happens in the urban centers of the Pacific Northwest.

This time of year, most of the conversation I have about weather usually consists of bragging about how people here don't know how to operate in snow, how after an inch or two the whole city shuts down.

Only this time it's not an exaggeration. After almost a foot of snow in the last 24 hours, the city really has shut down. And the most visceral part of that shutdown was that yesterday morning, we canceled church.

Yes, we canceled church. And we weren't the only ones. Most of the churches in the area canceled service.

On a normal week that would actually be a relief for me, but this week it was particularly sad. See, yesterday was supposed to have been our big Christmas service. We had all kinds of special music planned, and a little pageant for the kids. It was going to be the highlight of the season.

Only, it never happened.

Yesterday, during a time of pensive contemplation, Holly mused that maybe this was God's way of telling us we all need to slow down. Maybe He's trying to humble us. She thought of James 4:13-15 (rendered by Eugene Peterson's The Message):

And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, "Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we're off to such and such a city for the year. We're going to start a business and make a lot of money." You don't know the first thing about tomorrow. You're nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, "If the Master wills it and we're still alive, we'll do this or that."

Even though service was canceled, I headed down to the church anyway, because I'm sorta stubborn like that, and I wanted to be there to greet anyone who didn't get the word of our cancellation and trekked out in the snow anyway.

(Plus I wanted to have fun doing doughnuts in the church parking lot.)

While I was there, I had a lot of time to think.

So much of what I've been trying to do for God has been so fruitless. My motive has been good, but I've just gotten into the habit of hunkering down, squaring my shoulders, and soldiering on in the work of the Lord. Preparing music, scheduling rehearsals, sending emails, making phone calls, following through on action items, et cetera, et cetera.

As our church has gone through so much drama and decline, I think I was partially motivated by the desire to provide a seasonal respite from the neverending church drama. No matter how bad it gets for our church, went my thinking, the least we can do is do Christmas right.

But in the end, my specially-arranged Christmas music (including a hip-hop rendition of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing") was no match for a foot of snow blanketing the metro area. Apparently, God had other plans.

One of the best things about twelve inches of snow (and still falling!) is that the monumental effort required to go anywhere provides a disincentive for running errands and scurrying about. Weather like this beckons us to just sit, and be calm, be thankful, behold the beauty... to just be.

This, I am stubbornly and painfully learning, is where God wants me right now.

So despite my pride at finally putting chains on my Pontiac for the first time, I will resist the urge to go out just because I'm not afraid of driving in the snow. I will be satisfied with loving my wife and taking some time for introspection. I will learn my lesson and be grateful for the humbling experiences God has blessed me with.

I will sit and be.

And I will experience God in the process.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

Just Saw Fred Claus. No, Really. It's Good.

2008-12-09T07:32:00.000-08:00

So I gave into a small guilty pleasure tonight.

I watched the movie on the airplane.

Usually if I’m watching a movie on an airplane, it’s something I’ve brought myself for that express purpose, and I’m watching it on my computer. I normally can’t stand watching the movies that the airlines play, because I hate craning my neck, staring at that tiny little screen, and listening to the terrible audio.

But I made an exception, and I’m glad I did, because I enjoyed it pretty thoroughly -- more evidence that a fun story with compelling characters can cover a multitude of shortcomings. If a film's characters are cardboard cutouts and the story does nothing interesting, then it can be showing on an IMAX screen ten times a day, for free, and I’ll still probably avoid it like the plague.

My guilty pleasure was last year's Fred Claus, starring Vince Vaughn (The Break-Up, Dodgeball) and Paul Giamatti (Sideways, The Negotiator). Like many interesting pictures, Fred Claus is a mashup of three time-worn story archetypes, the wholesome holiday fairy tale, the fish-out-of-water tale, and the slacker-does-something-good-for-once story.

The heart and soul of the movie comes from the bond of two brothers – Nicholas (a.k.a. Santa Claus) and his maladjusted younger sibling Fred, frustrated and misunderstood after living in the shadow of his jolly, charismatic older brother.

I had relatively low expectations for this film, but found myself being pleasantly surprised over and over. Some of this was Vince Vaughn’s patented blend of abrasive charm. Despite maintaining the grounded, smart-alecky style of delivery that made him a star in the first place, many of Vaughn’s lines as Fred sound downright conservative. This is what makes Fred such a sympathetic character, because even though Fred doesn’t always make the best decisions, his heart is always in the right place – like when he lectures a young girl who attacks him for repossessing her family TV. That scene is golden.

Mostly, though, it was the interesting family dynamics that really pulled me in. In a sense, Fred Claus is like many holiday films based around families (The Family Stone, Dan in Real Life, This Christmas), except that the deftly-cast family involved just happens to belong to good ol’ Saint Nick.

As such, the movie has a winning way about it, because it manages to depict a well-known -- but normally boring -- character as a three dimensional figure. Sure, he’s Santa Claus, but first he’s a regular guy, who has regular guy issues. He struggles with enforcing his boundaries. He’s got weight issues. He has to deal with tension between his wife and his mother.

Most distressing is the pressure he receives from a joyless suit (Kevin Spacey) intent on cracking down on inefficiency at Santa’s workshop. This is the first movie I’ve ever seen that manages to make Santa Claus seem not only human, but downright vulnerable.

Fred Claus is not without its issues, of course. It still maintains many common Christmas movie clichés, including wrapping up every conflict way too neatly -- gift-wrapped and bow-tied for the convenience of screenwriter and viewer alike. And for those who suffer from acute saccharine intolerance, there are a few scenes that will prompt bouts of eye-rolling and plenty of oh-please-give-me-a-break.

But staving off the overdose is a nice combination of levity and gravitas. Two of my favorite scenes have good amounts of both.

[MINOR SPOILER ALERT!]

There’s a scene where Nick confronts his brother and the confrontation goes downhill, first into name-calling, and then into a full-on brawl. And then later there’s a scene where Fred visits a support group for siblings of famous people. (Cameos aplenty here.) In both scenes, the humor is undergirded by the simmering tension of decades worth of unresolved issues between the two brothers.

As Christian, I have to learn how to extract the laudable and virtuous elements from the other aspects that might not be in line with my standards or worldview – otherwise, I just wouldn’t watch any movies at all. Fred Claus is no exception. The main message is that troubled kids are just as deserving of love and attention as nice kids, and this is a great message that I wholeheartedly endorse. That this message is saddled with the baggage of ambiguously relativistic morals is unfortunate, and occasionally annoying.

Key example: the film’s shining reunion between Fred and his love interest [ANOTHER SPOILER] culminates in him magnanimously announcing that he’s moving into her apartment and they’ll be living together. The scene is written, shot and edited as a climactic, romantic proposal. His proposal, though, is mere cohabitation.

NOTE TO SCREENWRITERS: in a real family film, this couple would’ve actually gotten MARRIED. It’s called commitment, Vince Vaughn. Check it out sometime.

On the plus side, though, there is no profanity whatsoever, and very little crass humor. (One suggestively-costumed, cleavage-showing woman, and one fleeting reference to marital sexuality.)

That, combined with the powerful relationship between two adult brothers, makes Fred Claus more than worth the price of a rental. It might actually be the rare holiday film that is, dare I say, rewatchable.

Just make sure you don’t let any of those Santa-themed Christmas songs get stuck in your head. Those things are brutal.

MTCC: Making Training in Columbus Count

2008-12-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

I’m tongue-tied and bIeary-eyed, but I made it through.

I have emerged, healthy and generally in my right mind, from what has affectionately come to be known as “J.R.’s Hostage Weekend.” That term, admittedly melodramatic, is actually a pretty fitting description of what I’ve just endured (and for the second time, no less).

The “J.R.” in question is J.R. Cifani, one of the head honchos at the Monster Worldwide subsidiary Making It Count. And I just spent three days certifying on two – not one, but, count ‘em, TWO – presentation scripts at the training weekend in for the MIC spring season of 2009.

If those details mean nothing to you, they’re just more evidence that I have the privilege of stringing together seven of the coolest words in the English language:

I am a Making It Count speaker.

For the uninitiated, Making It Count is a company that convinces large companies to help underwrite the cost of sending speakers into high schools and colleges, then trains and deploys those speakers to do the presentations, educating the students and giving the partner companies positive branding opportunities in the process.

While it doesn’t necessarily pay that well, it’s quite addicting work. There’s nothing quite like the high you get from corralling a bunch of students, establishing a connection with them, and then imparting to them information that could impact their trajectory for the better.

Of course, in order to experience that high, you must first be certified by MIC to present the material. So that’s what I was doing this weekend, going through the grueling process of learning the content and refining my technique, and collaborating with others doing the same.

One of the coolest things for me about attending a Making It Count training weekend is that I get to spend three intense days with a bunch of people who are a lot like me. It’s a great change of pace from the everyday grind, and a great opportunity to make and develop relationships. And not just in the networking sense, but you know, actually making friends. It’s a blast hanging out with people with whom I have so much in common.

And I mean that on several levels. Not only is the whole conference populated with a whole crop of dynamic, engaging personalities, but a significant portion of the speakers – a sizable majority actually -- are people of color. So both hotels were besieged by African-American, Hispanic/Latino, and biracial folks from all across the country. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I’m not used to seeing so many passionate, intelligent, good-looking Black people at any event that’s not a concert or a church service. So gettin’ to chop it up like that in a corporate training environment is always a special thing for me. We worked hard, but we had fun.

And speaking of church, that’s the other thing that many of us had in common. I met so many people who were in some form of Christian ministry in their “other” lives. Pastors, youth pastors, even a few music ministers. During my first training in August, I thought it was just a big coincidence.

Now, I can see why.

Most people in some kind of vocational ministry need some form of supplemental income. Working for Making It Count means we can get a little extra cash by giving people a message of hope and empowerment, which is what we would normally be doing anyway. The chance to travel, do some networking, and still maintain the flexibility we need to continue in ministry, practically makes it a lock.

Now I’m not gonna lie… even though I really enjoy this work, I wasn’t particularly excited about coming to this training. The holiday season is always busy, especially for a church music director. I had a lot of stuff going on, and I didn’t get to engage in the weekend as fully as I wanted to because I was still spending some of my downtime taking care of tasks related to church.

On top of that, just getting there was a challenge. The first leg of my trip was delayed about 8 hours, which means instead of taking a noon flight to Houston and getting into Columbus that evening, I didn’t even LEAVE Portland until almost 11pm. Instead of spending the day flying and the night in a hotel room, I spent the day at the airport and the night in cramped airline seats that I couldn’t sleep in. It threw off my body clock something fierce, and the next morning I ended up oversleeping by two hours and nearly missing my opportunity to certify.

But still… it was all so worth it. I’m not kidding. Flight delays and bitter cold and hustling from concourse to concourse for almost 24 hours straight, if it means I get to spend a weekend with likeminded (read: insane) people, all reaching toward the same goal of strengthening our ability to reach people, then I’m down.

If I had to do it all over again, I absolutely would.

I’d just make sure to get a loooooooooong nap first.

I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.

Really, Apple... A Vending Machine?

2008-12-08T12:29:00.000-08:00

I’m not the type of cat to throw stones at an innovative company like Apple, Inc.

(Even though I don’t have a problem with laughing with others who do.)

As a Windows man, I have a healthy amount of respect for Apple's slick, easy-to-use products -- many of which (including the ubiquitous iPhone and all the iterations of the iPod) have achieved significant market penetration for Apple, if not outright domination.

But I do believe there can be too much of a good thing, and I saw it with my own eyes during a layover in the Houston airport recently – when I walked past an iPod vending machine.

Yes, that’s right. A freaking iPod vending machine.

It’s always been my understanding that vending machines depend primarily on foot traffic. So in this economy, it seems like a major stretch to expect Charlie and Cathy Consumer to shell out several hundred dollars on an impulse purchase, even one as popular as an iPhone or an iPod.

Yet, there it was, in the middle of the concourse.

So I guess that must be what the brain trust at Apple is banking on. Either that, or they’re just expecting spontaneous brand conversions, as consumers cave to the massive waves of peer pressure that result from such market domination.

Or maybe this is just one big ego boost.

Screw it, I’m Steve Jobs, and I say we sell iPods in vending machines. Don’t give me figures, lets MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

I enjoy seeing that kind of moxie when it’s depicted as comedy – like the fictional Gillette exec in this great archived piece from The Onion (WARNING R-rated language).

But in real life, it’s not as funny. I hope nobody loses their shirt over this, because as far as I know, they’re not selling those in vending machines yet.

Links To Make You Th--LAUGH (Obama Edition)

2008-12-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, so these are Obama-related but I promise they're not political.

Mac enthusiasts are in an uproar over what they perceive as a stunning betrayal of their biggest brand celebrity, because someone saw President-elect Obama working out with a Zune music player -- a Microsoft product, instead of an iPod or an iPhone.

I can see the editorial from Huffington Post already: "School Vouchers, Maybe, But a Zune?!"

Oh, the humanity.

The line of the day from this story came from a commenter on Gizmodo: "Duh... he is the change candidate."

Also, a Florida Republican had to be contacted by a member of her own party before she believed the two phone calls she had just received were actually from President-elect Obama and not an impersonator pranking her. She had to be told because she'd just hung up on him -- twice.

And finally, only in a city like Chicago does it take a reporter -- from out of town, mind you -- to file a story about how Chicago drivers aren't intimidated by anything, including presidential motorcades.

The headline from the NBC Chicago story: Don't Mess With the Black SUVs.

Speaking as a fan of 24, I call those words to live by.

Conservative 'crazies' have a lesson to teach

2008-12-04T18:02:00.000-08:00

I am a fan of Eric Zorn, the liberal progressive columnist of the Chicago Tribune, mostly because he is usually well-reasoned and honest. I share his frustration with the legions of Obama-haters who are latching in vain onto whatever they can to attempt to prevent him from taking office -- in this case, a half-cocked attempt to disqualify him on what appears (to me, anyway) to be a fabricated technicality related to the geography of his birth.

But his latest response ("Sigh. The crazies are back.") seems petty, partisan, and short-sighted:

Silly me. Here I'd been thinking that the wild-eyed foamers who were driven nearly to madness by the prospect of Barack Obama's election to the presidency would have crawled back into their basements and waited for Obama to be sworn in before they began waving their arms and ranting again.
But no. Political insanity knows no holiday.

Sorry, EZ, but the truth just isn't that simple.

First, the necessary disclaimer: I am not beholden to either political party.

I'm certainly not conservative, at least not how the majority of the electorate tends to use that word in its most simplest sense. I voted for Obama, and I helped to vote in Portland's first openly gay mayor. I'm in an interracial marriage, and I'm on staff at a multi-ethnic church founded in a denomination that is leading the charge for diversity among others of its kind.

I recycle, I read Slate, I ride my bike, I rail against corporations, I'm a fan of NPR. I'm a college graduate, I'm part of the creative class, and I run my own business. From a demographic standpoint, I'm probably every Prius salesman's wet dream.

But I'm not really liberal either.

I may be a registered Democrat at the moment, but I only registered this year, for the express purpose of voting for Barack Obama in the Oregon primary. (In fact, I had to restrain myself from openly laughing at the guy who knocked my door yesterday, because his pitch included all kinds of wrongheaded assumptions, starting with the idea that I would ever give money to the ACLU.)

On many -- dare I say, most -- bellwether issues, I fall just right of center.

So forgive me if this sounds preachy or vindictive; it's just that I feel so uniquely qualified to make the following statement:

Conservative crazies won't let up on Barack Obama because liberal crazies never let up on George Bush.

I hate to oversimplify issues, but on this one, I really do think it's that simple.

Portland is the land of the leftist bumper stickers, and I'd bet a pair of NBA playoff tickets that the "Is it 2008 Yet?" bumper stickers went into circulation as soon as Dubya won the right to a second term.

It wasn't fair then, and it's not fair now. But if you fail to acknowledge this, all the complaints of fairness reek of liberal partiality.

Zorn, if you're reading this, I know you're not a fan of the Bible. So forgive me for alluding to Hosea 8:7a in this case:

If you sow the wind, don't be surprised when you reap the whirlwind.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

The Definition: More Than Just A Nickname

2008-12-04T16:39:00.000-08:00

When it comes to this year's Portland Trail Blazers, I can honestly say that I really like our players.

All of them.

And I don't just like them as players, I like them as people. Granted, I don't know them all that well, I only know them as much as any fan can know a professional athlete -- through quotes, interviews, video clips, et cetera.

In my 20s, I spent many formative years cheering for all the talented-but-troubled players who have worn the red and black over the years (Rasheed Wallace, Bonzi Wells, Isaiah Rider, Zach Randolph, etc.) so it makes it all the more satisfying to actually be able to cheer for a group of guys that are just as likable off the court as on.

Brandon Roy is the star, the go-to guy, the clubhouse leader and one of the main faces for our team. Because of this, and because the Blazers are starting to get more national press, there will continue to be throngs of people lining up to praise B-Roy -- dubbed as "The Natural" by Blazers radio personality Brian Wheeler.

I share in that adoration, and I continue to be impressed by the way Roy continues to deliver in key moments, game after game after game. As is has been said ad nauseam by writers off every stripe who cover this team or the NBA in general, the Portland Trail Blazers have a great foundation in place with Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, and LastYear'sNumberOneDraftPick Greg Oden (yes, that's his full name now).

But none of them are my favorite player.

My favorite player is Martell Webster. He's the guy I put on the masthead of this blog, and he's the one with whom I identify most. He's articulate, he's honest, he's ambitious, he's confident, and he's from the Pacific Northwest.

(Yes, I know he's from Seattle and not Portland. Nobody's perfect.)

I still remember when I heard the news that the Blazers had drafted Webster... I was very, very pleased. I was living in Chicago at the time, and since there weren't any other Blazer fans in my immediate circle, I was resigned to reading the OregonLive Blazers Blog.

And since we weren't any good, really, most of the hope for our team was to be found in scouring stori about potential draft picks. As I sifted through all the information about which players would be available and where, I couldn't help but notice that everything that was written about Webster seemed loaded with potential: 'Good NBA body,' 'long range shooter,' 'eager to learn,' 'good work ethic,' yada yada yada.

I'm thinking, where's the downside? Is there some cocaine problem we don't know about?

The clincher was when I read in a pre-draft story about the nickname that Webster had given himself. Normally I frown upon guys trying adopt a nickname on their own (that's usually your friends' job) but this one seemed to fit so well: The Definition.

A play on his surname, Webster stated in no uncertain terms that he wanted to be the very model of a modern NBA player. And he wanted that for all aspects of his game. He didn't just want SportsCenter highlights. He wanted professionalism. He wanted consistency. He wanted to be great.

So I've been following Martell's quest for greatness ever since. Over the years, he's had his ups and downs. He's been known mostly as a great shooter with confidence issues, who lacks the consistency to take it to the next level. When he first came into the league, Martell appeared to be somewhat of a sensitive soul who wore his earnest desire on his face at all times.

Now in his fourth year, Martell has been maturing all along. And he's always shown evidence of that fire for greatness within, particularly in the way he's responded to less-than-ideal circumstances.

He could've gotten upset when the Blazers drafted Brandon Roy, a guy who played the same position and who came up in the same city. But he didn't. He could've taken veiled shots at the coaching staff when he was demoted to the D-League in his second year. But he refused. He could've been upset when he wasn't invited to the Three Point Shootout, even though he shot pretty well from downtown last season. But he wasn't.

And he could've pouted or gotten frustrated when he went down with his first real injury earlier this year. But he didn't. And the evidence of that is in this interview with official Blazers blogger Casey Holdahl, where Marty says all the right things, and sounds like he actually means them:

When some players get injured they withdraw a bit from the team, but you’re on the bench for every home game and always at practice. Why?

Martell Webster: There’s no “I” in team. Just plain and simple. I know that’s just an old saying, but I always feel a part of this team. I love my teammates. The chemistry is incredible. We have a bond. Why would you want to be away from that? You want to be at ever game. Unfortunately I couldn’t go on the road trips because I was in the boot, but being here at home, sitting behind the bench at every game just makes me feel that much closer to getting back on the court. I love being there. It’s not a matter of needing to do it; I want to do it because I love being with this team.

Do you feel like you have a good balance right now between your personal and professional life?

Martell Webster: Yeah. When you think about it, kids commit more hours in school than we do to basketball all day. We come to practice for two hours and I get the rest of the day with my family. I feel blessed. We don’t deserve it, but I make sure that I play hard and I have no regrets. The most important thing is your family, but this is your job so you have to take care of this first. But two hours a day? Why would anyone complain about that?

How can you NOT root for this guy? Between this interview and his potential to get even cranky ex-journalists like Dwight Jaynes excited, the sky is the limit for Martell Webster.

So all you Blazer fans who keep bellyaching about how we could've drafted Chris Paul instead, put a sock in it. Trust me, you'll forget all about Chris Paul when Martell starts raining down threes in the playoffs with regularity.

And I hope that one day, if I have a son, and my son expresses a desire to play basketball, I can buy him a poster or a bobblehead and say the following:

"You wanna know what a basketball player should be like? Here's The Definition."

If A Tree Claps In A Forest And No One Actually Hears It, Is It OK for Sufjan Stevens to Write A Song About It?

2008-12-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

So, on a lark, I decided to Google the phrase "the trees of the field will clap their hands" because of the tune "Ye Shall Go Out With Joy" that the ICC worship team pulled out for the 1st Sunday of Advent.

What I found was a Youtube video of a song by Sufjan Stevens, a song called "All the Trees Will Clap Their Hands."

Now, I understand the Scripture reference (Isaiah 55). And I kind of understand the lyrics, a little. What I don't understand is what's happening in this video. Or, more to the point, the meaning behind it. What's the drinking, and the shower, and water, have to do with trees and clapping?

Hmm... after reviewing that chapter of Isaiah again, I'm convinced that it has to do with water, and the Word. But I still think I'm missing something. Either that, or this video is just not that interesting.

Gay adoption remix: Steve Chapman vs. Me

2008-12-03T11:21:00.000-08:00

I'm more than a little flummoxed by this column by politically moderate columnist Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, who wrote a scathing indictment of conservatives who use political means to prevent gays from adopting children. His thesis is that doing so is particularly spiteful because it means that more children are prevented from being in the homes of loving parents. I agree with his general point, although I also see the flipside to his argument, one that I'm adapting from a recent piece on transracial adoption in Seattle's alt-weekly, The Stranger. (If that link and subject matter seems familiar, it's because I just posted extensively on it.)

The flipside is this.

When it comes to transracially adopted kids that grow up and become adults, many of them do not want to talk about their fractured upbringing, because of their gratefulness. They don't want to talk about the ways in which their parents were ill-prepared for the reality of racialization in America, because in their mind, the alternative would have been no home with no loving parents of any sort.

This sort of response is understandable, but it ignores the broader reality. Is a home with White parents better for a Black child than a home with no parents at all? Probably. But just because they are plucking these children out of abject poverty does not absolve them of the responsibility they have as parents to help prepare them for the reality of racialization in America. To assume otherwise is tantamount to sticking your head in the sand, and then wondering how you couldn't see the storm coming.

To me, the issue of gay adoption is similar. Is a home with two gay parents better than a home with no parents or foster care? Maybe. Dare I say, probably. But that doesn't mean that those gay parents are off the hook in their parental responsibility of providing a balanced outlook in the form of one or more key role models for their children of the opposite sex. Two loving men or women can do a lot to parent a child in a healthy manner, but blithely assuming that their good intentions will compensate for what they lack biologically is naive at best and perilous at worst.

A Little Too Much Bucket Love

2008-12-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

Kevin Bruursema, the man who married my wife (to me, that is) is a brutally honest dude, considering he's a pastor. Most pastors I know are not as straight shooting as this cat. I mean, Dr. Laura probably thinks this guy is blunt. Anyway, he posted recently about the idolatry of buckets, which is what happens when you have too many little gods that you're trying to please:

I'm not sure this bucket bonanza approach to life is healthy. Okay I am sure. Its not healthy. Lots of compartments for everything, no mixture, lots of stress to keep all the buckets working. I think that bucketization is fracturing and fracturing is the hallmark of idolatry.
Think about idolatry for a minute. In idolatry, if I need help in this area, I go to this god and please it and it helps me a little. I need help in this other area, I go to this other god and please it and it helps me a little. God after god, a god for every bucket, make all the gods happy, don't mix the gods around, life is good as I run around pleasing all these gods that in turn please me.

I was relieved once I read the post, because at first I thought he was attacking the theology of street drummers who play the buckets. As for these four, I don't know what their theology is, but I know they're tearin' it up:

And while I'm on the subject of buckets, here's my own bucket list, things that aren't what Kevin was talking about:

Bust A Bucket, the early 90s rock/rap ode to the Portland Trail Blazers
The Buckets (a comic strip)
The wikipedia definition of a bucket (more than you possibly could ever want to know about buckets)
An explanation of the term "kick the bucket" from World-Wide-Words

Extreme Abstinence, Chicago Style

2008-12-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

I was alternately excited and saddened at this story in the Chicago Tribune about a couple whose abstinence before marriage extended all the way to kissing.

Excited because I think it's great to see positive mentions of abstinence in the news, especially when it's not connected to politics. (Even more of a bonus that they're a couple of color.)

Saddened, because... well, I'm not gonna lie. I was a little jealous of the coverage. My wife and I had that same standard before we got married in 2004... where were the cameras and reporters then? Is it more newsworthy somehow because the couple is of Latin descent? I'm just asking because, well, I went to a Puerto-Rican church for a few years when I was in college, and I remember there were plenty of folks in that church who would kiss on the cheek at the drop of a hat. Maybe that's why.

I'm just saying... maybe a little news coverage could've gotten us a few more wedding gifts.

Then again, maybe I should stop being so venal.

UPDATE:

Apparently the story is even better. The reason why it's so newsworthy (both the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times covered it extensively) is because both Melody and Claudaniel teach abstinence in Chicago Public Schools. And, ironically enough, once I read through the article, I realized... the church where the wedding was held? Maranatha Christian Revival Center... the same church I attended off and on during college for three years. Small world.

When Good Intentions Just Aren't Enough

2008-11-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

So here is the thing.

For many reasons, I'm not the best person to be talking about this. Yet, I'm a blogger. So when it comes to spilling out my commentary on issues du jour, I haven't let lack of qualification stop me before.

I'm not a parent yet.

I do plan to be one, though I'm not sure when yet. My wife and I are continuing to trust God for the timing, so the truth is I don't know when I'm going to become a parent. Unless we're led to go the adoption route, I won't have more than the standard nine months to figure out exactly what I'm supposed change about my life in order to become a good parent. God knows, I'm not there yet.

And it's probably no mre coincidence that, at this moment, as I write this, my wife is watching her favorite movie, I Am Sam, an emotional tour de force describing the journey of a developmentally disabled man as he attempts to fight for custody of his daughter. This is one of our favorite movies, in part, because it illustrates the desperation that both main characters (Sean Penn as Sam, and Michelle Pfeiffer as his lawyer) feel in their inability to care for their children like they really want to. They're doing the best they can, but despite their best efforts and intentions, they just keep falling short.

This, I'm sure, is a vexing problem that eventually befalls parents of every stripe and category. Sometimes I'm overcome with flashes of overwhelming ineptitude when it pertains to just my professional and ministry life, so I can't even really imagine how hard it might become once a child enters the mix. But when the time comes, my child probably isn't going to care about -- or even understand really, until they grow older -- my perfectionist issues, or my insecurity related to my health and getting older, or any of that stuff. At the end of the day, my responsibility as a father will be to do whatever I can do help them develop into fully functional adults. All those issues will just be stuff I've gotta deal with in the process.

Maybe, when they grow older, they'll be able to understand more of my shortcomings, and have some empathy for their dad. Maybe they'll find in their hearts to forgive their dad for screwing up so royally, in whatever ways I most likely will. This process of evaluating your upbringing, of realizing what was missing all along, this is a hard thing for parents and children to go through. Some people don't get to it until it's much too late.

Fortunately for me, though, I still have time to become a better parent. So it's to people like me, people who hope to become parents, people who believe in multiculturalism, people who appreciate and savor the symbolism inherent in blended familes, that I need to send this message:

Please, please, please... know your limits.

The Beatles said, "All you need is love." I wish that were true, but it's not.

There are signs are everywhere showing that the best of intentions are never enough to provide a fully functional, stable upbringing. This feature on transracial adoption in Seattle's alt-weekly, The Stranger, illustrates this point so well. The premise of the piece is that transracial adoption, specifically of Black children by White parents, is all well and good in theory, but in reality it's fraught with emotional and psychological peril.

There are many White parents who take on Black children with the best of intentions, but without the knowledge and intentionality on the front end to maintain their child's racial identity, these parents will end up inadvertently stunting their cultural development. Color-blindness is still blindness.

The thing is, adoption even within your own generalized sense of ethnicity can still be tremendously difficult. Some friends of mine have done a yeoman's job of raising up several children that they received from the state, all of whom have had significant difficulties with various forms of mental illness. And they've struggled tremendously with how to raise these children, in part, because they had no genetic similarities to draw upon.

Lest you think I'm dreading the prospect of parenthood altogether, let me say for the record: There is hope. The fact that our nation's 44th president will have come from a similar upbringing as that of many transracially adopted children speaks to this sense of possibility. So to those who have adopted children of a different ethnicity and have struggled with what it means to bring them up with a sense of cultural normalcy, I mean to salute you, not vilify you.

Nevertheless, my hope is that, moving forward, people will count the cost when they make these important decisions. Being married can be pretty difficult on its own. Staying married and having children raises the ante considerably. So if you're going to ratchet up the degree of difficulty even further by adding layers of racial, ethnic AND biological differences, don't do so lightly. Make sure you do your best to know what you're getting into, and don't make the mistake of thinking that mettle and determination can compensate for ignorance and naivete.

Because this isn't just some grand social experiment. These are real human lives we're talking about. And having a loving resolve to be the best parents we can be... that's a great start. But it's only a start. So if that's the end of our deliberation process, then our children pay the price.

Sometimes, it seems, good intentions just aren't enough.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

Kanye's Cautionary Tale: Be Careful What You Wish For

2008-11-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

Kanye West
808s and Heartbreak
Roc-A-Fella

I suppose it's a sign of the times that a superstar rapper can release a throwback homage to a legendary drum machine and it can come off sounding more like a hybrid of new wave punk.

Kanye West has done just that with his latest release, 808s and Heartbreak. What's most notable is how little it resembles what we've come to expect from hip-hop these days. The contrast is startling, especially coming from one of hip-hop's most celebrated figures. And in some ways, this is a very good thing.

As is the case with most of West's work, 808s and Heartbreak is rife with contradiction. The titular number is a reference to the Roland TR-808 drum machine, an iconic instrument of hip-hop with a history and tradition as rich and proud as that of Gibson guitars or Stradivarius violins. Kanye's extensive use of the 808 would seem to be an intentional act of nostalgia, yet there is no sense of warmth or reverie here. Rather, West has, if only for the aesthetic of this release, transformed his persona to a cold, languid soul. Hence, the rest of the title: heartbreak.

Much has been said about Kanye's obiquitous use of auto-tuning, the pitch-correcting effect that often leaves a vocal track sounding cold and robotic. (Oliver Wang, writing for NPR, has the line of the day: "Who knew ten years ago that Cher would predict the future sound of hip-hop?") Auto-tune has been the saving grace of many recording artists, particularly in the realm of contemporary R&B and hip-hop. Without it, there would be no T-Pain. Yet here, West uses it to create a sense of despair, as he wails on and on about the loneliness and pain that consume him.

This is what makes 808s and Heartbreak such a departure from Kanye's original style. More than any other rapper of this era (or any other, for that matter), Kanye's public persona has been founded upon a naked ambition to rise to the top. So here he sits, at the top of his game, so to speak, and yet all he can do is lament what he doesn't have, as he does in "Welcome to Heartbreak":

My friend showed me pictures of his kids /And all I could show him were pictures of my cribs / He said his daughter got a brand-new report card / And all I got was a brand-new sportscar

This album is a sign of hip-hop's coming of age, despite the fact that Kanye sings on it more than he raps. Heartbreak is the siren song of the king of self-aggrandizement, a sad, ghostly realization that there is more to life than what American celebrity culture seems to offer. Kanye has always shown his introspective side now and again, but this time it's on full display. Armchair psychiatrists might call it an attempt to grieve the untimely loss of his mother, but either way, such stark vulnerability is far from usual fare from West or any other titan of modern hip-hop.

From a musical composition standpoint, 808s and Heartbreak is a mixed bag. A few of the tunes are catchy, but many more are scattered and inconsistent. And while great hip-hop can sometimes mix the sober and macabre in with a sense of celebration, there's very little fun or humor to be extracted from Kanye's therapeutic output.

Nevertheless, there is cause for hope here. It's possible that Kanye's act of contrition may help destigmatize the idea of depression for African-American men, who have long resisted the idea of showing such weakness and vulnerability, according to this Newsweek piece of Blacks and suicide.

But more importantly, 808s and Heartbreak may be the proof that Christian evangelists to the hip-hop generation have been looking for: direct evidence that this world and all it has to offer will not satisfy. Like a modern day Solomon writing Ecclesiastes, Kanye West has seen, tasted, and experienced what we would call the high life... and it is utterly meaningless.

Despite all of his rampant ego-tripping and the strain of spiritual hypocrisy that has dogged him ever since "Jesus Walks," Kanye has finally gotten it right for once.

We'll see how long it lasts.

These Portland Trail Blazers are making some noise

2008-11-15T19:29:00.000-08:00

I know their record is only 6-4, but a 3-1 road trip and a gut-it-out win against lowly Minnesota, where the Blazers only had their C game and still found a way to get it done, is heartening to Blazer fans everywhere.

Quite a few talking heads (writing heads?) said that if they could end up 5-5 after the first ten games, that would be a great moral victory, considering the tough schedule for those first ten games: @ Lakers, San Antonio, @ Utah, Houston, Minnesota, @ Orlando, @ Miami, @ New Orleans, and @ Minnesota. Well how does 6-4 taste? Three home wins, three quality road wins. Losses only to LAL, UTA, NO, and SA... all quality, playoff teams (and they hung tough against New Orleans, nearly shutting down Chris Paul).

This is not a sports blog, so I'm not going to dish on and on about the slow emergence of gentle giant Greg Oden (left for dead by many after his early re-injury), the flashy duo of Spaniards in Sergio Rodriguez and Rudy Fernandez (probably a leader in early rookie-of-the-year talk), the maddening inconsistency of Travis Outlaw, the mystery of MIA guard Martell Webster (the three-point maven of this masthead... when will he return?) and crowd favorite Channing Frye (who, I'm sorry to say, I thought was a White guy until we traded for him... something about his name just sounded too suburban... I'm just being honest here) and the undeniable clutchness of team leader Brandon Roy. (Still think your guy was better, Minnesota fan? It's okay... I used to think Clyde Drexler was better than Michael Jordan. Fandom can be hard sometimes.)

Instead, I'll let it suffice that ten games in, these Blazers have rightfully lived up to the hype, and I'll be shocked -- SHOCKED -- if they don't end up as a dangerous lower seed in the playoffs, the team nobody in the Western conference wants to face in the first round.

That is all. Back to more serious topics.

Obama's In, So No More Business As Usual

2008-11-13T20:34:00.000-08:00

Well, he did it.

My brother lost the bet that he and I made several months back, wherein he all but swore on a Bible that there was no way that Barack Obama could beat John McCain in a general election.

I believe his quote was,

"A brotha... in these times? Against a war hero? Come on, now."

Honestly, I was convinced Obama would make a good president even before he finished consulting his exploratory committee, and almost two years ago, I said so in this space. (Though if I were to be honest, I'd have to give credit to Eric Zorn for saying so first.)

Two years later, he's about to become president. As so many have said, his election signaled a momentous mile marker in the history of these United States of America, and for many reasons, most of which I need not enumerate.

However, I am concerned about the dark side of his imminent presidency.

No, not the Republicans-that-think-Obama-is-the-antichrist dark side. I'm not so much worried about his policies per se -- though I do have some concerns, and I'll surely have more as time goes on -- as I am about his supporters.

Now here's the thing... part of the reason why President-elect Obama won is because he was able to collect a broad constituency of supporters. People of color (however you choose to define that term), the educated, urban dwellers, and younger voters all turned out in record numbers for Obama. Black and White, straight and gay, in coastal cities and in so-called flyover states, many, many people chose to support his as their choice for president.

As a result, my generalizations about "Obama supporters" should not to be taken too broadly, as many of them will not fit sizable portions of his constituency, just as generalizations tend to fall flat when applied to any large group of people. There are always exceptions to the rule here.

On the other hand, if the shoe fits... you know the rest.

My biggest question for Obama supporters is this: what now?

If the biggest accomplishment in President-elect Obama's campaign was successfully engaging people in the political process who had previously been relegated to the sidelines, then I fear the biggest letdown will be most of those people feeling satisfied, complacent, and ultimately returning to business as usual.

This is an understandable response, because right about now the emotional highs should be all but worn off. Even Chicagoans, who probably felt as much pride about Obama winning the presidency as they did about the Bears winning the Super Bowl, still have to confront the fact that they still live in Chicago. Just because their guy is about to take the highest office, that doesn't mean that there aren't problems in the here and now. Neighborhoods need help. Bills need to be paid.

The problem, though, with business as usual, is that it violates the spirit of all the promises that were made in the campaign. All the rhetoric of Obama-going-to-bridge-the-divides-and-usher-in-a-healing-dawn... well, if you were an Obama supporter and you meant it, then it's time for you to do your part in living up to the promise. You can't be all high-minded and idealist during a campaign, and then, now that your guy has been crowned, go back to doing things the way they've always been done.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about several things.

First, I'm talking about policy.

Those of you dyed-in-the-wool blue-state Dems should not expect the entire framework of policy advocacy coming from the executive branch to simply march to the left, because that's not what Barack Obama promised. On several issues (none of which I will name because I don't want to get too bogged down in minutia) he has been known to embrace certain tenets of conservative ideology -- personal responsibility, for example.

Midway through Obama's campaign, his policy wonks made several concessions here and there in order to maintain a broad constituency and ward off attacks of being the most liberal Senator in recent history. And even though it angered his vocal Democrat base ... it worked. Obama was elected. So if he doesn't back some of that talk up with pragmatic solutions rather than standard liberal dogma, the moderate, independant core of voters that sided with him will turn against him. And he and his staff are smart enough to know that. So those of you who expect the incoming Obama administration to be an avalanche of leftist initiatives, don't hold your breath.

I'm not just talking about policy, though. I'm also talking about personal conduct, especially as it relates to the political process. Now I realize that some issues are hot-button issues, and no amount of high-minded speeches about unity will appease the rabid constituents on either side of the debate. (Gay marriage and Proposition 8, for example.)

But I hope that we can take some cues from our leaders and stop treating every issue like it's "us against them." The truth is, unless you're talking about sports, most of the time it's hard to figure out who represents "us" and who represents "them," because people are different and different people respond to issues in different ways.

And since there is a clear Democratic majority in at least two of the three branches of our federal government, and since we can therefore expect some amount of public opinion and policy to gradually shift leftward, I hope Democrats will remember what it was like to be on the outside looking in, and be gracious enough to respect the opinions of those in the minority. After all, our president-elect made his case to America largely on his initial opposition to the war in Iraq, an unpopular stance at the time. There will surely be other urgent issues where many of our credentialed, experienced, qualified leaders will disagree. If Democrats simply resort to using their numbers to shout down the opposition, they'll quickly relinquish the moral high ground that they worked so hard to gain. Because nothing screams "business as usual" like doing very the thing you've been accusing your opponents of doing.

Finally, it's my sincere hope that admidst the throngs of inspired, dedicated Obama supporters, there will remain a remnant of folks who will continue to engage their government on state and city levels now that the hype has worn off.

Here in Portland where I reside, it's a badge of honor for progressive types to complain about how terrible the Bush years have been for our country, which is one of the reasons why sarcastic, leftist bumper stickers sell so well here. Well guess what, folks? Our guy is going to become president now! How about we turn some of that energy into doing something better instead of simply complaining about it?

I was amused by so much celebrity support of Obama during the general election, because I knew supporting Obama was the hot, fashionable thing to do. But if more actors, NBA players, singers and artists of all flavors put a little less attention into being sexy and more attention into living lives of substance, then maybe our country would be better off. I would call some of them out by name like I did over the Tookie Williams thing, but there are just too many to mention, so I won't.

Besides, celebrities can help bring attention and visibility to certain issues, but when it comes to doing the real work of healing America, the lion's share of that burden falls on regular people, people like you, Whoever You Are. Policies can help, sure, but regulations can't and won't take the place of being respectful and choosing to engage in the areas where we have opportunity.

And when opportunity meets preparation, then boom ... we're in business.

Let's just make sure it's not business as usual.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

It Never Rains in Southern California (Unless the Iccsters Are In Town)

2008-11-04T06:47:00.000-08:00

In my book, any weekend spent rockin’ mics and reppin’ Christ is a great weekend. And despite my battles with an overcrowded schedule and a nasty chest cold, this weekend was no exception.

Jaamar McKelvey (a.k.a. “J-MAC”) and I flew down to L.A. for two performance dates with Church of the Redeemer, a sister congregation in the Evangelical Covenant network of churches. The church, in an attempt to engage the youth and young adults in their neighborhood, called on the crime-fighting hip-hop duo known as The Iccsters to come down and rock mics for their harvest carnival.

By this point, astute readers of this space will have noticed a personnel discrepancy. My regular partner-in-rhyme, Sahaan (a.k.a. Sir-1) was unavailable for this trip, as he and his wife were taking some much-needed time together. So I called on his ably-skilled brother to fill in. Having Jaamar on call for these kinds of occasions is a wonderful luxury to enjoy, not only because he shares our passion for outreach and is also supremely talented on the mic, but also because he already knows all of our material.

(Plus, most people can’t tell them apart on first sight anyway.)

As expected, our trip was an absolute blast. I got to see some old friends (Douglas and Erika Haub and their children Mercy, Aaron and Elijah, as well as Danny and Donna Martinez and their dynamic prodigy Eric) and make some new ones (Richard and Anna, Justin and Ali, Sylvia, Scott, Damion and Isaac). Big shouts of love to all of them, they made our trip quite memorable.

Besides our two sets at the harvest party and ministering during Sunday morning service, we ate great food (including my first trip to Roscoe’s), enjoyed great conversation and generally tried to take in as much authentic L.A. flavor as we could in just over 48 hours.

So watching Mercy swoon, listening to Richard and Justin debate the merits of California’s Proposition 8, breaking down Doug’s chord progressions, waking up to the sickly sound of a rooster outside the guest room window in the apartment where we stayed, choppin’ it up with the bootleg CD salesman outside of Roscoe’s, narrowly avoiding impact with several reckless drivers on the 10, shaking our heads at all the crazy characters on Venice Beach, marveling at the distances from which one can hear the tamale lady yelling “ta-MA-le!!!!!,” and joining in the chorus of people trying to get Damion to quit stalling and do the rap that he wrote… these are memories you can’t buy on a cruise line or a resort. Thanks to all of you.

By the way, I never really understood the significance behind that languid R&B hit by Tony! Toni! Tone!, “It Never Rains (In Southern California).” I thought its title was more of a gimmicky exaggeration than a generalized statement of truth. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest where rain is as surely a part of life as death and taxes, I figured that it must rain occasionally in Southern Cali, just not as often.

So it was with detached amusement that I heard the shrieks (of delight? or horror?) coming from several Angeleno ladies who were getting unexpectedly rained on. The following drizzly morning, my local host dryly informed me that he ordered up some Portland weather to make me feel comfortable. When I casually asked him how long it had been since this weekend’s spate of precipitation, he had to stop and think.

“Almost a year, I think.”

Los Angeles, CA: Where Rain Is An Event.

(Note to any LA county regional power-brokers: I’ll trade you the rights to that slogan for your assurance that the Blazers won’t have to play the Lakers in the first round of the 2009 NBA Playoffs.)

Anyway, I hope not to wait another nine years before I return. Maybe by the next time, instead of people remarking on Doug’s resemblence to Lakers center Pau Gasol, they’ll be comparing me to Blazers center Greg Oden.

Strike that.

What I meant to say is, maybe by then they’ll be comparing my dad to Greg Oden.

(I don’t look that old, do I?)

(You know what… don’t answer that.)

I’m Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin’ It Up with me.

Obama Effigy: By Colonel Mustard, With the Candlestick, In the Library

2008-10-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

With so much name-calling and blind accusations flying around in the wake of the Obama effigy incident at good old Gee Eff You (that still cracks me up), my expectations for thorough, nuanced reporting or analysis have remained pretty low, because most of the noise generated has been voiced in comments sections of articles where, by and large, a lot of folks don't even begin to have a clue about the larger issues at play.

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised by a Newsweek piece that I read today, which does its best to deal with the hardest question surrounding investigators: what was the motive behind hanging Obama in effigy?

The best part was discussion of the concept of "the limited good," which may be an understandable explanation for the undercurrent of resentment that many White students may have toward programs like Act Six:

That's a phenomenon called "the limited good," explains Ron Stansell, a professor of religion at the school, and it may have more to do with the effigy hanging than outright racism. The concept, in anthropology, refers to the perception that wealth is a finite entity, such that one person's gain is at another person's expense; that economic life is a zero-sum game.

"I think that's what I'm seeing here," Stansell says. Students might think to themselves, "Here are minority students that have gotten a benefit I have not gotten. It must mean, in the cosmic scope of things, that I've been cheated."

The point is that academic success is not a zero-sum game, where certain students only succeed if they can do so at others' expense.

Which isn't to say that there aren't winners and losers in college life, because there are winners and losers in all frames of life. It just means that the people who blame other students of color in general, the Act Six program specifically, and (almost inexplicably) Senator Obama for their own insecurity or lack of opportunity shouldn't look much further than the mirror if they want a clearer assessment of culpability.

More specifically, the four individuals who owned up to this abhorrent prank are not losers because they chose to hang a cardboard cutout of Obama from a tree and scrawl "Act Six reject" on it. They were most likely losers in some shape, form or fashion already. All they did with their prank is notify the rest of the world of their decency deficit.

I hope that Newsweek story will be the last word on this particular incident, because what students at George Fox need, more than knowing the motive for the crime, is how to move forward and bring more healing into their community.

And thanks be to God, they already have a clue about how to do that. Matter of fact, they have more than a clue.

They have the whole story.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

Did you know Bruce Lee loved Soul Train?

2008-09-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

Jeff Yang did.

In his column for the San Francisco Chronicle, he interviews Dan Kwong, who wrote a play called "Be Like Water," in which the ghost of Bruce Lee befriends a young girl. Fascinating read, this article.

I'd love to see the play if it came to Portland. In case you think I'm exaggerating in the title of this post, check the money quote:

Like his ghostly namesake, Lee shows the virtue of being soft and flexible, of going with the flow-in this case, to a syncopated, four-on-the-floor inner rhythm. Which is another characteristic the two Bruce Lees share. "Uncle Bruce loved disco," says Inosanto laughing. "He loved the moves, the clothing, the attitude-he was a 'Soul Train' fanatic. Don't forget, before he became a martial arts legend, he was the cha-cha champion of Hong Kong!"

Apparently Change Takes Longer in Rural Universities, Even Christian Ones

2008-09-24T10:43:00.000-07:00

Just when you think that White people have finally come to terms with an African-American candidate -- dare I still say, front-runner -- for the presidency, you see stuff like this.

Hot off the Oregonlive newsfeed: Obama likeness found hanging at George Fox University.

Considering that I know many George Fox alums (I'm related to one, good friends with another) and a few GF students (also related to one)... and, considering I came **this close** to landing a job there as campus liaison for the students in the Act Six program, I can honestly say that this story disturbed me pretty deeply. (Especially the tidbit that the effigy of Obama was labeled with the words 'Act Six reject.')

I will admit, however, that although it took awhile for the sting of losing out on that position to heal (as I am very passionate about reconciliation in academic and faith communities), from the outside looking in, I'm quite thankful not to be either Robin Baker or Joel Perez, who now have the unenviable task of sorting through this mess and leading the campus toward a greater sense of community and responsibility.

I've just now I've become aware of the departure of Burel Ford, the former multicultural director, which apparently happened just a few weeks ago. There's probably no direct correlation between what happened today and his departure, but I wouldn't be surprised if the current working environment that precipitated this prank is part of what made it desirable for him to leave.

And, if that were the case, I wouldn't entirely blame him for that choice.

It seems like only yesterday that I was removing posters with provocative imagery from the sign in front of my church.

Ah, the good old days, when racial tension only flared up in the city.

Lord, help us.

(No, that's not just an expression. Seriously, Lord... help us.)

EDIT (9/30):

Four GFox students have since confessed. I might be wrong, but according to everything I've read, there goes the left-wingers-did-it-for-attention theory.

REVIEW: G1C Sequel Party Music for 'Dreamers'

2008-09-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

Group 1 Crew
Ordinary Dreamers
Fervent Records
2008

So here's the thing.

Astute readers of this blog know that I don't do many reviews, and there are many reasons for that -- lack of time, lack of interest, and reviewing other people's junk takes away from time I could be investing in creating my own.

But every once in awhile I hear something that strikes my fancy, and I wanna tell people about it. And the sophomore release from Group 1 Crew, Ordinary Dreamers, falls into that category.

But first, a few disclaimers.

No matter what the marketing people may tell you, this is not a hip-hop album.

It is an album of urbanized pop music with rapped verses sprinkled liberally throughout. Fans of backpacker style, gritty, grimy boom-bip flavored hip-hop should probably run away in horror because this album is probably going to annoy them to no end.

But for those folks who like to dip their toes in the pool of urban culture from time to time, this album is right up their alley.

Also, while G1C does have a Christian message wrapped neatly into their hooks and chants, most of the lyrics aren't particularly deep, meaningful, or profound. Lyrically speaking, they're not saying anything you haven't heard from other Christian pop artists tons of times before, even faux hip-pop artists (think tobyMac, Fresh Digress, or to a lesser extent, John Reuben). As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to say that even though what they're saying is generally good (as opposed to many of the morally dubious messages in much of today's pop music) the lyrics are not really what this music is about.

I think the lyrics are, more or less, just an excuse to hang some vocals around the sound. But the sound... ohhhh, the sound.

Group 1 Crew debuted with a very polished sound to begin with (hence their award nominations). The second time around, they kept the urban base that was working for them before, but broadened their sound even more. The results are impressive. The whole project has the aural gloss that one would expect from a major label pop release likes this (pitch correction and all), but with a lot of surprises. Taking their foundation of hip-hop and R&B, G1C dabbles with euro-pop ("iContact"), alt-rapcore ("Keys to the Kingdom"), and even jazzy pop ("I See You"), all infused with heaping servings of funk ("Bring the Party to Life," and "Gimme That Funk").

People love to compare Group 1 Crew to all kinds of other groups, and most of those comparisons fail, in my opinion. I compared them to 4th Avenue Jones for awhile (probably because both of their debuts were called No Plan B), but that quickly wore off. 4th Avenue is much grittier, and lyrically much meatier. Lazy music critics will compare them either to the Black Eyed Peas (somewhat comparable) or the Fugees (not even close).

Frankly, I think G1C's closest competitors are a group that started with a meteoric rise, like them, but now finds theirselves on the outside looking in.

I'm speaking of the Washington Projects, formerly known as Souljahz. The siblings in this group (they started with three, now down to two) are also Latino, started off young, and were quickly the darlings of the Christian pop scene, mixing sunny, sassy vocals with brash rap braggadocio.

Sound familiar?

Well, I'm hoping that Manwell, Blanca and Pablo can stay humble, hungry, and keep progressing as artists. If they're smart, they'll try to team up with the WP's, or at least reach out with a few phone calls or emails. There is wisdom in speaking to those who have traveled the road before you.

Nevertheless, even if this is the height of Group 1 Crew's success, it just goes to show you that creativity mixed with a relentless drive for success can take you a long way. If nothing else, Ordinary Dreamers can be a blueprint for such a journey.

Help, My Church Has Been "Vandalized"...

2008-09-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

... by shadowy organization of neo-reconciliatory Christians.

That's just the term that I've given to the four guys pictured on the poster that was seen mysteriously taped to the sign of my church (and to the wall of one of our buildings).

On the one hand, I agree with the overall sentiment of the poster. As Christians, we believe that our identity in Christ is the ultimate common denominator, and that by first being reconciled to God, we can minister grace and be reconciled to each other, and then extend that grace out to a world in desperate need of it.

On the other hand... the iconography of the sign is deliberately provocative, which is great if you're the type of organization that is seeking out controversy, but most churches are not in that category because, sadly, controversy usually does not put butts in seats. (As a matter of fact, it usually removes them.)

Which is why my fear with those signs, the reason why I removed them, is that I wouldn't want anyone to be confused. If all you see are the "stars and bars" design and you don't read the words, it looks like white supremacist propaganda. And I don't trust many churchgoers to be discerning enough to give it a thorough enough look to understand the meaning. I do, however, trust many of them to go flying off the handle and start complaining, loudly, to anyone within the vicinity. And that, our church does not need more of.

So they came down.

Still, I'm so intrigued...

Who did post this? Are there any more at other churches in our neighborhood? Are these four guys pictured even involved, or were they just victims of a rogue Photoshop session? And what was this poster supposed to accomplish? Was it just to stir up some thought and discussion among those of us who think there is no race issue in the church or in America? And considering everything that's gone on with this presidential campaign, is there anyone left who still thinks this is not an issue?

As Arsenio used to say, these are things that make you go 'hmm.'

(or, if you prefer, C+C Music Factory also said it.)

An Open Letter to A Young Republican

2008-09-11T23:04:00.000-07:00

(By the way, this isn't just one of those generic open letters aimed at anyone who fits the description. There is an actual young Republican that I tried to engage recently in conversation surrounding these issues, but his lack of response to my questions and continued rhetoric on his blog afterward have caused me to believe that he is not interested in dealing seriously with these particular issues. This saddens me. Yet it is my hope that there are others who share some of his convictions who might wrestle with these questions, and in so doing, enrich the current wasteland of political commentary with honesty and sensitivity, two facets in short supply in the blogosphere.)

(Also, I realize that I'm going to throw around some generalizations. I'll qualify them here and there, but my sentences are already long to begin with, so just bear with me. I try not to get too bogged down in politics, but I just couldn't keep silent any longer. This post has been a long time coming.)

To A Young Republican,

Congratulations.

Your political party, left for dead by many pundits even before the primary season started because of its affiliation with our once-popular current President, has managed to get back into the game, big time.

The addition of Sarah Palin to the ticket has re-energized the red-state faithful, many of whom wouldn't have ridden the bandwagon for John McCain alone. I'm quite sure that you, like me, have more than a few misgivings about the candidate you're standing behind, but the competitive nature of politics has a way of causing us to suppress those misgivings for awhile. As the thinking goes, if my guy is going to be attacked left and right by the opposition anyway, there's no point in me piling on and doing their work for them.

This, along with many other tenets of conventional political wisdom, scares me to no end.

Not because it means that more people have rallied under the banner of McCain/Palin and that means the GOP might win the race, though that would sadden me somewhat.

No, the thing that most distresses me about the current political landscape as I see it expressed by people in your shoes, is that I feel like I should hate your guts when the truth is that I hardly know you.

You might be wondering what I mean.

Allow me to explain.

Lately, I've seen a boldness come over you and your peers. It's a boldness that borders on belligerance. It seems to come from a collective sigh of relief that finally you have a candidate (or co-candidate, as it were) that can steal some headlines from the celebrity of Obama, which is no small feat. And in one sense, I find this behavior to be mostly harmless. If more young people are getting excited and engaged in the political process, I generally see that as a net plus, regardless of which side they land on ideologically.

And even though I've seen several high-profile Republicans (including Rudy Giuliani, and Sarah Palin herself) take some cheap shots, that doesn't bother me that much. I mean, we are still talking about politics. And as any good Chicagoan will tell you, politics ain't beanbag.

Most well-meaning baby boomers have already seen how divisive and ugly political races become, so it has become social custom for them to simply avoid talking about it in polite conversation. If you don't bring it up, they won't either. Not belonging to that generation, though, you and I tend to play by a different set of rules.

Generations X and Y tend to, according to my anecdotal evidence, wear their politics on their sleeves. In some cases, it's a logical and systematic expression of their core beliefs about life and humanity. But for many of us, it's more fundamental than that... on both the left and right, we younger adults often ride our respective political bandwagons as a statement of identity. More than just believing in certain ideals, we belong to groups of people who are passionate about the same things we're passionate about.

So we dig into politics with the same zeal and passion that we give in other areas of our life, if not more so. It becomes a part of our identity, like the brands that we consume or the sports teams that we follow. (It's no wonder the whole Democrats-are-Macs, Republicans-are-PCs meme is still popular.)

And realizing this helps me to understand why so many of you absolutely despise Barack Obama.

It's because his political ascendance happened so quickly and so dramatically that even before he declared any official candidacy, his media coverage far exceeded the substance of his overall political achievement. Riding mostly on the strength of his ideas, his charismatic personality, and the cultural and historical significance of his biracial heritage, he managed to parlay a few lucky breaks into a seat in the U.S. Senate, and now he's poised as the frontrunner to become President.

Is it jealousy? Yeah, there's probably a little of that.

But I think it's mostly disdain for the culture of celebrity that has surrounded his candidacy for so long. The Hollywood endorsements, the will.i.am tribute song, the endless parade of T-shirts and trinkets with his name plastered all over them. I'm sure by now someone somewhere is selling Barack Obama waffle irons, where you can pour your syrup over waffles stenciled with his high-wattage smile, and melt little pats of butter that spell out 'YES WE CAN.'

It's a little much, I agree.

So combining that with his stances on abortion and gay marriage, his opposition to the Iraq war, and other hot-button issues... it all equals a candidate that you love to hate, even more so than Hillary.

And like I said before, if this only had to do with politics, it wouldn't bother me that much.

The problem is that many of you, dare I say, most of you, are Christians. And many of you are Bible-believing, sanctified, blood-bought evangelical Christians, which means you're not shy about making your beliefs heard in the public square.

And those beliefs, specifically the theological ones that differentiate Christian faith from all the other faiths out there, are beliefs that I share. So I think it's great that you want to advocate for a candidate that you interpret as representing Christianity as you know and understand it. In your mind, you're doing your part to advance God's kingdom.

And trust me, I'm all about advancing God's kingdom.

But it seems to me that, in your zeal to elect the guy you want in office (McCain), it's not enough to argue that your guy is better. No, you've got to tear down the other guy in the process.

Which, again, is not that big a deal if all we're talking about is politics. Laker fans don't care if I call Kobe Bryant a diva or a Jordan wannabe... they know that's what opposing fans do. So I don't mind that you want to tear Obama down in the public square. As American citizens, you have a right to do that.

As Christians, however, you have a responsibility to hold a higher standard of conduct. Name-calling, spreading false rumors, and fear mongering may be standard behavior for political strategists, but Jesus told us to, you know, love our enemies. Even our political enemies.

So the fact that you don't seem to be doing that particularly well makes people take notice, especially people who don't know God like you do. And no disrespect to all the Dallas Mavericks fans, but if even Mark Cuban thinks that politics have gotten a little out of control, then something is very wrong.

Now I know I'm risking looking like a hypocrite here, because many of you might be wondering why I never took the time to defend George W. for the merciless pounding he's been taking from the left. Where was the call to civility then, you might be asking.

Well, you're right. I've been guilty of the same offense. I've chosen to selectively follow God's will and leading based on the convenience of my politics. And since Bush is easy to make fun of, I didn't stand up for him at times when I could have. I chose to ignore that whole passage of Romans 13 that talks about how God has ordained certain authorities to be over us.

But... and no offense, fellow Democrats, but uh... it's a little different when Republicans do it, because the GOP is supposed to be the party that upholds Christian values.

I mean, I know Barack said that whole bit about how "we serve an awesome God in the blue states" during his coming out party in 2004, but I don't think most of America was really picking up what he was laying down. Liberal Democrats already have the reputation of being secular, immoral, and Godless.

And frankly, even though it saddens me to see liberal bloggers, pundits, and journalists engaging in the same name-calling and fear-mongering, it doesn't surprise me that much. The prophet Jeremiah (no, not that Jeremiah) told us the heart of man is deceitfully wicked. So when you have a population of people that is, by and large, without the truth of God as we understand it, what should one expect?

But you, on the hand... you guys are supposed to know better.

And I think that if you really understood how much some of your actions help push people away from God instead of drawing them back to God, you would do things differently.

Now as we watch the rest of the drama unfold in this march toward November, I honestly don't know who is going to win. At this point, I could see it going either way.

But do me a favor, okay?

Regardless of who wins, lets cut out all the vitriol. Lets do our best to keep it about policies and principles.

And lets agree to respect the office of the President, regardless of who actually occupies the Oval Office.

And lets not view the President simply as an extension of the party to which he (or she) belongs, but as a three-dimensional human being with flaws and hopes and bad hair days just like the rest of us. Because it's a lot harder to demonize someone you can identify with.

And if we can all identify with a figure as polarizing and controversial as the President of the United States, then maybe we're not as far apart as it seems.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for Mixin' It Up with me.

Links to make you think: Campaign Edition

2008-09-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

I try not to let this blog get too political because I don't want to be known as a stooge for either the left or right (masthead notwithstanding).

Mostly, I just like to get people thinking.

So here are a bunch of pieces I've read lately that have really got me thinking.

William Saletan of Slate, got me thinking with this piece that speculates about the possibility of other candidates' daughters getting pregnant just like Bristol Palin -- and the public never hearing about it. (Apparently some people think such speculation to be in bad taste, but I disagree.)
Over at The Root, Indian-Americans (as opposed to "American Indians") are embroiled in a polarizing debate over whether Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, the first Indian-American governor (over the state of Louisiana) is really Indian enough. (Obama fans are wincing in familiarity.)
Bill Stuntz, Harvard professor of law, makes an interesting series of definitions of experience, and then examines the public records of McCain, Biden, Obama and Palin under that lens. (Here are two more comparisons, coming to opposite conclusions
And finally, evangelical pastor Eugene Cho brings back to light a series of rules of Christian civility in politics, rules that originated at Jim Wallis' "God's Politics" blog at Beliefnet.

Sarah Palin: The New Chuck Norris

2008-09-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

For those of you, like me, who couldn't get enough "investigative reporting" about the growing legend of Carlos Ray Norris, the phenomenon is repeating itself with the latest femme fatale, VP candidate (and McCain running mate) Sarah Palin. I give you: Sarah Palin Facts. My favorites:

Sarah Palin begins every day with a moment of silence for the political enemies buried in her yard.
Sarah Palin can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves
Sarah Palin is what Willis was talkin' 'bout
Scientists discovered mysterious watermarks on Sarah Palin's ultrasound images. Translated from Inuit, they read: "ALASKA GIRLS KICK @SS."
Fox is starting a new reality show ... "When Sarah Palin Attacks"
Death once had a near-Sarah-Palin experience
In the original version, He-Man had the power of Sarah Palin, but the writers felt this would make him way too powerful
Jesus has a bracelet that says "WWSPD"

By the way, one of those I made up just now. Astute Mixin' It Up readers should be able to guess which one. enjoy.

See? Black People Can Be Geeks Too.

2008-09-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

The latest in lighter fare from The Root (the African-American blog collective that covers mostly politics but also dabbles in pop culture, sexuality, and sports) is from Geoffrey Dobbins, who laments living in a world of double-outcastednes... being black, and loving Star Wars.

Aaron McGruder is somewhere smiling, I'm sure.

FOR THE LAST TIME! Blogs are blogs, posts are posts. Got it? GOOD.

2008-08-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

I know that writing this, I'm running the risk of becoming Old Man Natural, shaking my liver-spotted fist at those pesky young-uns ruining the English language.

But I'm willing to take that risk.

So let me issue the following PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

The word "blog" -- short for "weblog," remember? -- is a noun that refers to a whole collection of articles.

If you read an article on someone's website, and it's a few paragraphs (or even a few sentences) long and it's stamped with the time and date, that is not a blog. That is a post.

(Or, if you're in Facebook, it's a Note.)

The whole thing is the blog.

As with many social ills, I blame Myspace for this confusion, because they were the first major social networking site to confuse these meanings. In Myspace parlance, a "blog" is both the weblog as a whole AND the various posts that make up the blog.

Not only is that generally annoying and nonsensical for those among us still maintaining a tenuous grip on internet literacy in the age of Web 2.0, but it generally dilutes the meaning of the word.

This is the reason why we have words, so that people can understand and know what the hell we're talking about.

If I say to my friend Chris Johnson, "hey, nice grapefruit!" he's not going to know that by "grapefruit" I mean "blog post" and so he'll be confused and not understand that I'm actually giving him a compliment on a well-reasoned post concerning civility amongst Christians in politics.

This is why I reserve the word "grapefruit" for softball-sized citrus fruits with pink insides and a tart aftertaste. Because that's what everyone knows the word "grapefruit" to mean.

When someone sends me an email or makes a comment in passing over the phone or in person and says, "hey, I read your blog the other day, nice work!" I'm not really sure what they mean. Are they telling me that they enjoy my work overall, or was there a particular thing that I wrote that they liked that they're complimenting me about?

And it's all because lazy people decided to expand the use of the word "blog" into places where it doesn't belong.

You know what it's like?

Back in the early eighties, there was a really annoying cartoon called The Smurfs.

They were little purple people with saccharine storylines and dopey mannerisms. And their most annoying trait was their liberal use of the word "smurf" in their everyday conversations. Everything was smurfing this and smurfing that. The word "smurf" became their all-purpose, sentence-filling expletive.

Because of this, the word "smurf" had no meaning.

Not coincidentally, the show had little meaning either. Eventually it was canceled, and now it's relived only in 80's nostalgia T-shirts.

I love to blog. Obviously, I do it a lot.

And I like the word "blog" because it's simple, and up until recently, everyone knew what it meant.

If you've made it to the end of this post, then please... I beg you:

Don't let blogging go the way of the Smurfs.

Let blogs be blogs, and posts be posts.

Thank you for your time.

Hey, It Worked For George Lucas

2008-08-23T00:56:00.000-07:00

The latest headline from The Onion:

Aaron Sorkin Announces New 'West Wing' Animated Series at SorCon.

(Hey, it worked for George Lucas.)

This is yet another reason why I really love The Onion.

Because every once in awhile I read something so hilarious, it had to have been written by someone like me.

(After I read that last sentence, I realize it came off far more egotistical sounding than I meant. It's not that only people like me are funny. Rather, it takes a certain person with similar tastes and talent to write something that I would find particularly funny.)

As I've mentioned before, often the best forms of satire are, rather than mean-spirited, affectionate jabs at a target with which the author is well acquainted.

In this case, that target is the immensely talented and heavily scrutinized screenwriting auteur Aaron Sorkin.

Speaking as someone who is still rewatching episodes of Studio 60 on iTunes, I was very amused by the premise of the article. And slightly intrigued by the possibility.

I know, I know. That's pathetic.

I don't know if this makes me a "Sorkie," one of the legion of dedicated fans who idolize Sorkin -- and his right-hand director, Tommy! Schlamme! -- but I'm pretty sure that it makes me a huge nerd.

But I don't care.

I really dig Sorkin's work. It just fits me in a way other shows don't.

I had a conversation with a friend once, who was telling me why she didn't like the show, and eventually it boiled down to the fact that she didn't like the fact that the characters talked so fast and were so clever.

"Real people don't talk like that," she said.

But I talk like that!, I wanted to say.

I didn't, though, because, really, she's right. Real people don't talk like that.

At least not all the time, anyway. Real people don't have professional writers crafting eloquent bon mots at every turn. Real people don't usually have the impressive dramatic range and comedic timing to carry Sorkin's trademark walk-and-talk staccato.

But God help us if our biggest problem with a TV show is that it makes us a little smarter.

And for the record, I'm still holding out for a Sports Night feature film. If Joss Whedon's Firefly fans got Serenity, then we should get this, it's only fair. There''s gonna be a 10-year anniversary DVD reissue this year, so maybe that will drum up some support.

Come on, folks.

Someone get working on this.

Felicity Huffman, Peter Krause, Josh Charles, Joshua Malina, Sabrina Lloyd, Robert Guillaume... throw in a little Janel Moloney, Dule Hill... who wouldn't watch that?

I'm telling you.

This needs to happen.

"A Little Cereal With Some Friends"

2008-08-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

[Insert standard disclaimer about being busy to explain more than two weeks of time passing between posts.]

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I just wanted to take a quick minute to point out a new TunePak on ReverbNation that I designed. It features a new internet only joint about social networking (entitled, shockingly, "Social Networking") and another one of our why haven't we recorded this song already joints called "Kingdom Livin' (I Go to Work)."

The whole chorus of "Social Networking" is asking people to post our music (in the form of this tunepak) on their blogs. It's a desperate bid for ~~attention~~ promotional opportunity, I know, but people keep bugging us about making our recordings available.

Baby steps, people... baby steps.

I know it's a little ridiculous to post the link to the TunePak when I have the official Iccsters tune widget embedded right into my blog, but there are several other aggregators that this blog feeds, and those aggregators don't have the RN tune widget (including those of you reading this through Facebook).

What would it look like if I'm begging everyone else to post this song to their blog and I don't have the nerve to post it to my own blog?

Anyway... Iccsters fans, unite.

And put this on your blog. =)

(By the way if you're wondering what the top image is for, it'll be the top slide of the presentation that I'll eventually put together the next time we put on a concert.)

(What, you've never seen hip-hop concerts with Powerpoint before?)

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers: Film Review

2008-07-27T00:31:00.000-07:00

There are several reasons why I went back and forth about whether or not I would even do this review. It was getting to the point where I was arguing with myself about it:

Come on... you haven't posted anything in forever.

No... it's late and I have more important things to do.
Okay, but remember the Augustine quote? Remember how fired up that got you? That's the kind of stuff worth writing about.

Is it worth being late to church over?

Maybe, maybe not, but if you put it off now, you're never going to get to it.
So what... Dan's Merchant's stock is hot right now, all kinds of people will be and have already reviewed Lord Save Us. In another week, there will probably be four or five great reviews that you'll be able to link to.

And none of them will be from me.
Since when is it all about you? Grow up already.

After awhile I realized that arguing about it was probably more time consuming than the review itself. Thus, my first instincts won out and you get to read this.

Lord Save Us From Your Followers is both a film and a book, both of which bring an entertaining look at the cultural divide between evangelicals in America and the scores of Americans who can barely understand, much less stomach, their methods.

Its breezy, irreverent tone evokes a Michael-Moore-meets-Donald-Miller kind of thing. If that last sentence smacks of lazy cult-hero-comparison, it is... but only because it's so easy. Not only is director Dan Merchant clearly influenced by both, but he directly references both.

That Merchant is from Portland, my hometown, is not surprising. Only someone in an extremely liberal coastal metropolis like Portland would possess the requisite balance of moxie, humility, and offbeat nuttiness to make the film entertaining while still keeping an even moral keel. It's clear that Merchant wants to entertain, but not at the expense of promoting understanding.

This philosophy contrasts with what I call the Dave Chappelle Syndrome (alternately known as Aaron McGruder Syndrome) whereby merciless depictions of a subculture's worst elements are justified by the creator identifying with said subculture -- i.e., 'I can make fun of Black people because I'm Black.' This mentality, when carried out to the nth degree, creates a double standard and restricts conversation more than it promotes it, because people outside the group will complain that if they tried to say the same thing, they would be crucified by the P.C. police.

In Lord Save Us, Merchant wisely avoids this. His genteel sense of sportsmanship keeps Lord Save Us from spiraling into mean-spirited caricature by doing things like taking shots at both Left Behind and The DaVinci Code in the same breath. This means that the film should reach a relatively wide audience, even if constituents on both sides of the issues will come away feeling like he didn't go far enough.

The director begins the film with his own story of Christian upbringing, in order to establish the impetus for his journey: to examine what's behind society's apparent rejection of organized Christianity, despite its overwhelming belief in God. To achieve his goal, Merchant travels the U.S. in search of answers to his sub-titular premise ("how the gospel of love is dividing America.")

What results is a thorough explanation of how Christians get it wrong, followed by several compelling examples of what happens when Christians get it right. He does this through interviews with theologians, politicians, and policy wonks, interspersing them with man-on-the-street Q&A and a few memorable vignettes recorded during his travels as a bumper-sticker-wearing conversationalist.

My personal highlights were the opening Augustine quote from Tony Campolo, the "Culture Wars" game show, and all of the Al Franken material. I was surprised by how gentle and humble Franken came off in this documentary, contrasting so heavily with much of the strident rhetoric of his counterparts on the conservative side.

If there was anything I didn't particularly like, it was Merchant's overly conciliatory tone at the conclusion of the film. Throughout the film, many of his subjects repeatedly referred to God or Jesus Christ as being about love, which is definitely true. However, he does little throughout the film (other than a humorous look at historical names of cities) to demonstrate that his enemies in the faith -- those Christians making the church look bad -- have legitimate motives, even if their methods are suspect.

Thus, his pleas for tolerance and universal love come across to me as being a little too Pollyanna for my taste. Not punctuating the film with stronger statements about truth or objectivity may have been a move calculated to maximize positive response with secular press and promote healthy conversation between enemy combants in the culture war.

If that's the case, then I applaud his decision to be strategic. Others might wonder if all his time spent with non-believers has weakened his grip on the truth. To each his own, I guess.

Nevertheless, one thing is clear -- if this film continues to build word of mouth buzz through private screenings in churches, then Dan Merchant will join Donald Miller ("Blue Like Jazz") and Paul Young ("The Shack") in an exclusive club of Portlanders who moonlight as countercultural icons of authentic Christian spirituality.

If history holds to form, the leftist Christian movement will build, and then in thirty years my children will have another iteration of the establishment to rail against.

Lord, help us all.

[Big-ups to Cole Brown at Red Sea NE for the screening.]

Jesus Was Gangsta, and Other Lessons from John Chapter 2

2008-07-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

From time to time, I just like to share my thoughts on certain passages of the Bible.

Consider the gospel of John, chapter 2, the first part of which is the famous passage where Jesus turns water into wine.

(And by "consider" I mean read it. Go ahead and follow that link, and read the passage first. Even if you've already read it... read it again. Trust me... the rest of what I have to say will make more sense if you read the text first.)

______________________

There are a few thoughts that strike me here.

Sometimes great things can come out of what looks like inconvenience.

Jesus' response to his mother in verse four implies that He wasn't just sitting around, waiting for a need to meet. He seems to bristle at his mother's loaded statement, "they have no more wine."

(Doesn't that sound like a good Jewish mother? You can almost hear a gentle, yet goading, tone of voice. They're out of wine, my son. I'm sure you can think of something.)

Meanwhile, Jesus is all, look, you're jumping the gun here. Can't I just relax and enjoy this wedding feast?

Yet despite his annoyance, Jesus has compassion on the hosts of the party, and does His thing. Which leads me to the next lesson.

When Jesus performs a miracle, he doesn't always broadcast it.

You'll notice that Jesus never said: "Fine. I'll just turn some water to wine, then." He just told them to fill the water jars. This is part of the story that's easy to miss.

But think about it for a moment. If the servants were in the wrong frame of mind, they might have completely missed what Jesus was doing. They might have thought that Jesus was just telling them to fill the huge stone water jars because, well, since we're out of wine then folks oughta be able to drink something.

The text in verse nine says that the servants knew what happened, but it doesn't tell us whether they found out after the master of the banquet had discovered the jars were full of wine, or whether or not they knew all along what Jesus was up to. We can only speculate.

But I'll tell you what... if they were anything like me, they probably didn't see it coming at all. Because many times I pray and ask God for things, but not having enough faith to believe that He'll answer that prayer, I stop looking for the answer. And often times, it's right in front of me.

Jesus, I really wish you could just go get some -- hey, is this wine???

That moment of discovery, where your frustration disappears and all you can do is stand there dumbfounded... that's the story of my life. God's timing doesn't match our own, but it's always perfect.

The third lesson from this passage is related to the second:

Jesus never uses miracles to draw attention to Himself.

You'll notice that the master of the banquet went to the bridegroom and remarked -- I'm guessing in a congratulatory note -- about how most of the time by this point in a feast, the host brings out the cheap stuff, but this time, he saved the best for last. Obviously he said this not knowing that Jesus had just transformed the water into wine.

Now at this point Jesus could've stepped in and taken credit.

I'm reminded of D.L. Hughley's great line from The Original Kings of Comedy, where he's imagining Jesus performing this miracle:

"'You know, I don't normally do this, but uh ... [*blessing the water*] y'all keep the party going.'"

I mean, it's not like He would've marched in, all proud and junk. I transformed this water into wine! I am God! Bow to me! Jesus, in my opinion, was far too cool a dude to do something that obnoxious.

But, he could've done that thing some of us do from time to time, where we want to take credit for something without looking like we're taking credit for it. Like we want people to know what we did, but we don't want to look like we're glory-chasing attention hounds.

He could've said, "Yeah, I just figured the good people here appreciate good wine, y'know? So I just put a little something together, no big deal. It's mostly water, anyway."

A few self-deprecating jokes here, a few strategically-placed business cards there, and Jesus could've built a wine distribution network in no-time flat.

But He didn't.

Instead, He allowed the bridegroom to get the credit.

When Jesus said to His disciples much later that they would do greater things than He did, it wasn't so they could claim the authority that their reputation as His close associates would bring. Rather, it was so that they could continue to be a blessing to others, and in so doing, show His love to people who needed it.

_______________________________

Heading into the second part of John 2, we read the account of another famous story, where Jesus clears the temple of merchants. Foreshadowing the exploits of Indiana Jones, Jesus grabs his whip and clears out everybody involved in buying and selling in the temple courts.

One of the most interesting parts of this passage is in verse 17. In this verse, it says the disciples remembered the scripture that says, "Zeal for your house will consume me."

This is an odd thing to read, because it leaves so much out. Like many verses in the Bible, this one is open to quite a bit of interpretation. When did they remember this scripture? Was it, like in verse 22, much later when they made the connection between Jesus' actions and that particular Davidic psalm?

Because of my own life and my own struggles in ministry, this is what I see.

I see that verse and I see a man on a mission. Driving the moneychangers out by force of whip is not the action of a nice man with a few spiritual directives. That's the sign of a man burdened with a dogged, unrelenting passion to see evildoers brought to justice. In that moment, Jesus was like the Jason Bourne of Nazareth.

And I think the disciples saw it. I think in that moment, they got a picture of exactly what makes Jesus tick. They saw "a man possessed" -- take that, Clay Bennett -- by a need to defend His Father's house and prevent others from cashing in on His glory.

And honestly, I think it might have scared them a little.

Because if you read the whole psalm, it's not a nice picture. David is lamenting his plight. He's talking about how he's up to his neck in trouble. About how those who hate him outnumber the hairs on his head. He's pleading desperately to God, hoping this his mistakes will not wreck God's reputation among the people. And the line that is quoted in the second chapter of John, if you read it in its entirety, it reads as follows:

Zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.

Many Christians today use the language of God consuming us, referring to God as an all-consuming fire, desiring God to remove our own desires and replace them with His.

But do we really understand what that means?

Maybe we wouldn't be so casual with that prayer if we substituted the word "consume" with the word "burn."

Zeal for your house burns me.

Not just burns within me, but burns me. As in, I get so overloaded, I get such intense tunnel vision about God's glory, that I get burned to a crisp, all smoky and blackened, like a Cajun entrée left on the grill too long.

Yeah, it's devotion to God, but in the natural sense, it's not very desirable.

Who wants to live burnt?

And for that matter, who wants to be insulted?

That the insults of God's enemies can, would, or should fall on us, is a heavy idea, one that I blogged about just over three years ago.

Once you read the whole thing, that whole zeal consuming thing takes on a whole new light, doesn't it?

This is what was Jesus was referring to at the end of Luke 14, when he talked about the cost of being a disciple.

He was saying, essentially, if you can't forsake what you hold dear and follow me to the point of willing to be crucified, then just forget about it now. Don't start out all gung-ho and then punk out later when things gets tough.

That's what I think the disciples were seeing when they saw Jesus put the smack down on the charlatans in the temple. I think they were seeing Jesus in his rawest, Rasheed Wallace-like form, burning with rage and indignation.

(Valiant rage and indignation looks different to different people, by the way. Some people compare Jesus to William Wallace, but I see him more like Rasheed Wallace. Maybe Denzel's John Creasy character from Man on Fire would be a nice compromise.)

So anyway, that whole recognition of Jesus in his rawest form had to have provoked both fear and admiration. That's what I think happened in verse 17.

Which sets up the next part so beautifully. When the Jews come at Him wanting a sign to demonstrate his authority, he tells them that if you destroy this temple, he'll rebuild it in three days.

And the Bible says that after He had been crucified and raised from the dead, then they understood what Jesus meant. He was referring to his own body, and not the physical temple building.

I always respect when someone can tell me something that doesn't make sense at the time, but then later on their actions give enough context for me to get what they mean. Because often times they do so intentionally, hoping that your lack of understanding will get you to pay attention.

And I love the end of this chapter, verses 23 and 24:

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name.^[c] 24But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.

That's one of those archetypes that is always glorified in the movies. The loner hero who can look into someone's eyes and know what they're up to. Jesus would not allow himself to get too close to everybody who wanted a piece of Him, because He knew their hearts. He knew they would turn on Him in a New York minute.

He didn't need to hear the stories, He just looked at them, and He knew.

And He refused to be played. When the time came for Him, nobody took His life from Him ... He laid it down himself.

______________________

It wasn't until I finished digesting the whole chapter that the title for this post came to me.

Because seriously... when you imagine the two sides of Jesus on display here, the image begins to coalesce. On one side, Jesus is having a good time, and when the homies run out of wine, he's right there to make everything legit. On the other side, you see fools encroaching on territory where they don't belong, and as soon as Jesus rolls up He starts some stuff. Gettin' all up in their business. Regulatin' the situation.

And afterwards He sees His influence grow, to the point where everybody wants to be down with Him. Only, He can't let them get too close, because He can't let them interfere with His Father's business.

If that's not gangsta, I don't know what is.

I'm Jelani Greenidge, and thanks for mixin' it up with me.

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"A Little Cereal With Some Friends"

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers: Film Review

Jesus Was Gangsta, and Other Lessons from John Chapter 2