Ecstacy and Delight Quote

I need to interrupt my own train of thought with this, which I just read yesterday:

Ecstasy and delight are essential to the believer's soul and they promote sanctification. We were not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration, and the Christian who goes for a long time without the experience of heart-warming will soon find himself tempted to have his emotions satisfied from earthly things and not, as he ought, from the Spirit of God. The soul is so constituted that it craves fulfillment from things outside itself and will embrace earthly joys for satisfaction when it cannot reach spiritual ones...The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ and savoring the felt comforts of a Savior’s presence. When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers...”

--From The Thought of God, by Maurice Roberts

Wow. Embrace your desires, my friends.

Religious Right, R.I.P.

Excellent article. I hope you enjoy it.

The Third Party

I hate to be political, but I don't feel particularly Democratic or Republican. Never have. I have always registered as Independent.

But I never really looked into any other parties until recently. I have recently discovered that I am most similar to a Libertarian. Here's what appeals to me (from www.lp.org):

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

I think those paragraphs describe me pretty well.

Will I vote for Bob Barr? Who knows...

--Jon

What to say...

Someone I loved died in 2003, a few days after quadruple bypass surgery. I spent the last night of his life with him in the hospital, listening to his breathing get more and more difficult. He couldn't sleep at all, so during the night we chit chatted a little now and then, but the oxygen mask and his own lack of breath made it hard for him.

So he just lay there. And I just sat there, listening to him breathe, looking at him in the dark.

Until the morning, when the nurses came in to see us. Around 9, a doctor came in and decided to move Dad into the ICU. Why they didn't do it sooner, I'll never know. They packaged everything up and rolled his entire bed out into the hall into an elevator, and took him down to the ICU floor.

I followed them as they wheeled him into his new room, his breathing even more difficult than before, and watched the nurses start getting him ready for whatever it is they do in ICU. One of the nurses told me I would need to go back out into the waiting room, so I said, "I gotta go now, see you later, Dad."

He said, "See you later."

I walked toward the door, and at the last second, I turned, and for the first time in my adult life, I said to my Dad, "I love you."

I said it loudly enough that everyone in the room could hear it, which kind of surprised me. He lifted his head up and looked at me, and said, "Love you, too."

It would be the last words I would speak to my father. The last words that he would hear from anyone in his family, and the last words I would ever hear him say.

Fifteen minutes later a nurse came out and told me his heart had stopped, and they were trying to revive him. Fifteen more minutes later the same nurse came out and told me they had stopped trying.

------

So many things I wish I had said. So many things I wish I had asked him.

I wish I had told him I loved him more than just that once.
I wish I had told him that he hurt me when I worked construction with him as a teen.
I wish I had told him that I had forgiven him, and that I wanted his forgiveness for holding it against him for so long.
I wish I had told him that I knew it wasn't easy when he was a kid, being pulled out of high school to go work at the sawmill.
I wish I had told him that I was proud to be called his son.
I wish I had told him that I admired what he made of his life.
I wish I had thanked him for taking care of my mom and all of us so well.

I wish I had asked him to tell me what it was like to be him when he worked for his own father.
I wish I had asked him what it was like raising six kids, working three jobs.
I wish I had asked him what he thought of me as a young man.
I wish I had asked him what he thought of me as a middle aged man.
I wish I had asked him what he wanted me to know, but didn't think I cared to hear from him.
I wish I had asked him how I could become as strong as he was.
I wish I had asked him when I would start to feel like an adult.
I wish I had asked him if he thought everything was going to turn out ok.

------

That night in the hospital, it was hard to think what to say. I didn't know he would wake up Monday morning and die before lunchtime. Neither of us realized he would be dying that day.

------

What would we say, if we knew someone we loved was dying? What would we ask?

If I had the chance again, I would first take a notepad and start writing, and I wouldn't stop writing until I was empty. I would think of some things to say. And I would not leave anything unsaid. I would not leave anything unasked.

I have watched this scene play out in my head a hundred times. My words gushing out, spilling all over him all over the floor, filling the room with my words, my love, my admiration, my questions, my need of his words. The flood would raise us both up from the floor and carry him to the other side.

He would not die in silence. He would die with the sound of my voice in his ears. He would die knowing that he still had much to give me until the last moment of his life. That I wanted what he had to give, and that I would spend the rest of my life wishing I had more time with him.

------

To those who suffer and to those who are dying, I say this:

May you remember now what one day you will only be able to wish you had said.
May you find the courage to say and to ask everything on your heart.
And may your words become like a river of love, like a baptism for the dying one.

------

Even so, there will be things unsaid. Memories will come back later, and we will sigh and say, "Oh, I wish I had told him this," "I wish we could talk again about that," or "I wish I could ask her about ---." It will happen.

But I want to give us all hope. Once a person becomes a part of us, they never stop being a part of us. Even now, I can hear my dad's voice. I know him, even now. I know what he liked, what he disliked.

Part of him is part of me. And part of me is now part of him.

Which is actually an answer to Jesus' prayer, fulfilled 2,000 years after He asked for it.

"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."

The distance between Dad and me isn't really that important now, because he's closer now than when we sat in silence that last night. I know that sounds very "Disney," but it's true because the only place I can talk with him now is in my own heart.

Which is the same place I talk with the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit.

I have shared already that I believe we will be raised again to a new life very much like the one we lead now, but without all the heaviness. Without the ache, and the sorrow, and the grieving, and the struggle, and the failure, and the accusation.

We will live life again, but this time the way it was originally meant to be lived.

What will it be like? I don't know exactly, but I keep having these foreshadowings, these inklings...especially when I get to talk with someone I love.

My Word is Me

How are people known?

How can you know me? Of course, there is the easy stuff. I can tell you things about me, I can share my autobiography. I can explain to you a lot of the things I've done, where I've been, how it's been for me. You can ask people who know me about me. If I was famous you would be able to google my name and read a wikipedia article about me.

Telling, sharing, explaining, asking, reading. That's all pretty obvious. But you can only get so far with WORDS, whether spoken or written. You could spend a lot of time listening and reading about me and still not really know me. If that's all you got, then you would be missing a great deal that could potentially reveal so much more to you.

You need more than words to really know me. In fact, you need a lot more than words.

Because there's a lot more about a person than what can be told. It has to be experienced.

Anything that emanates from me to you is fair game as a window into my soul. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean:

Sorrows. You can sense another person's sorrows. Even more than that--this is the good part--you can actually feel them. YOU can feel MY sorrows. And by feeling them, a little part of me is becoming part of you.

Joys and pleasures. You can sense them, and you can be delighted by them. When you are delighted by what is delightful to me, then a little part of me is becoming a little part of you.

Dreams. When you "see" what I "see," when you imagine what I imagine, a little part of me is becoming a little part of you.

Passions and compassions. When I give them away, and you receive them fully, then you are allowing a part of me to become a part of you.

Love. Receive it, and you will become more like me. Return it, and I will become more like you.

Creativity. You can look at what I've made, my handiwork. If you admire it, then my expression might leave a mark. And if it leaves a mark, then a part of me has become a part of you.

Intents and my actions. My animation, my quietness. My anger, my anxiety. Read them. Feel them.

My ideas, my ponderings, my curiosity. "Wonder" along with them, and you will know me.

My humor, my gravity. My calm, and my excitement. My diligence, my rest.

All of these kinds of things (the list is longer than a server can contain) are how you know someone. In fact, they are weightier than all the words you could hear or read about a person.

In short, they ARE me. Collectively, they might be called my WORD. They are the essence of my soul. They don't require anything of me, because they ARE me. I don't have to think about how to present them, because they simply ARE me. They are not an expression or reflection of me.

They ARE me.

Know them, receive them--and KNOW me.

You might say, this is the Logos of Jon. The Word of Jon.

My Word is ME. And your Word is YOU.

-----

Now, this is not a plea for people to care about me. If you are with all this craziness so far, then I want to take this one step farther. As my PASSION is to ME, so JESUS was to GOD. He was the visible form of God's very SELF. God Himself. He didn't simply reflect the Father. He and the Father were ONE. They were one and the same.

Jesus is the Word of God.

Know my sorrow, know me; know Jesus, know the Father.
Know my love, know me; know Jesus, know the Father.
Know my passion, know me; know Jesus, know the Father.

So here's where it gets crazy. In order to know me, you have to "receive" me. This isn't about understanding, or having knowledge. This is about CONSUMING. To know me you must allow part of me to come to be part of you.

You must consume me. (And you must be consumed to be known.)

Same thing with Jesus. You must consume him. Now, most of protestantism would have us believe that reading the holy writings (all the poetry, prophecy, and history of the OT, the gospels and the letters and the revelation of the NT) is how we consume Jesus. I think not.

That would be a great place for anyone to start. After all, if you want to get to know me, then you might start by asking a few people what they think of me. Ask them about the stuff we have done together, what they've seen me do. You'll get a good perspective in their words and their stories. And maybe some of that perspective will hold up once you get to know me.

But ultimately, you might actually forget all those accounts--or they will at least carry less weight--because as you get to know me directly, as parts of me become part of you, eventually your firsthand experience with my pain and dreams and desires will outweigh someone else's thoughts about THEIR experiences with my pain and dreams, etc.

So, the question is, how do we consume Jesus? Just where IS he?

Purveyors of Shame

I was watching some Olymics coverage at lunch today, and during a commercial break I flipped around the stations. Landed on the Steve Wilkos show, which I had never seen before. It was shameful. Literally, full of shame. The point of the show was to get a lot of closeups of some guy who had been bad in his past and was lying about some stuff. So Steve had all the ammo--testimonials, police reports, pictures, videos--and he let this poor guy have it. There in front of a live audience.

It was a show literally built around producing shame. Making money on someone's shame. Reliving evil. Put a guy on stage, show how rotten he's been, prod him into a corner, and see what happens.

Never really watched one of these shows until today, and it only took about ten minutes for my stomach to turn sour. But it made me think...

What if someone built a show like this on glory. Bring some guy up on stage who feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. Who doesn't believe he's ever achieved anything of any consequence in his life. Who already thinks the least of himself.

And let him have it with both barrels. Bring up his third grade teacher. Bring up his youngest daughter. Bring up the boys' little league team. Bring up his sister. Speak of his good deeds, his kindness, his humility, his strength.

Bring out his glory. My, that would be voyeuristic, wouldn't it?

----------

Now that I think of it, that's why I love watching "Extreme Makeover Home Edition." Lots of times they do exactly what I'm suggesting Steve Wilkos ought to be doing. Tell the stories of the unsung heroes, or those who have suffered long, or who have been waiting for just one chance in a lifetime.

Unveilings are such fun, aren't they?

GTD - Life isn't about Productivity

Recently I spent a few weeks trying to "implement" a system to help me be more productive at work and at home. There's a guy named David Allen who seems to have cracked the secret of helping people live with a "mind like water." His system is called "Getting Things Done" (GTD). Google it and you'll find something nearly like a cult following for GTD. (Computer geeks seem to love it.)

The "mind like water" thing comes from having gotten everything out of your head and into a system, thereby allowing you to think clearly about one thing at a time. You don't have to keep trying to remember everything that you need to do--you have a handy system in place and you relate to it with something like trust.

I'm all for having a mind as smooth as calm water, but it nearly killed me to try and put this thing together. It's all about identifying the "inboxes" of my life (email, desktop, stacking trays, workbenches, etc.), putting everything into them, identifying the next step required for each item, and then doing those steps, top to bottom. Virtually no regard for priority--simply boil everything down into its basic tasks (things that require multiple steps are called "projects") and do them one at a time.

I've never really been a "task list" kind of guy, so this was going to require a Herculean effort to simply get all my "open loops" (stuff that needed action) into my "inboxes." He suggested that to kick off this GTD it may take three full days to simply gather everything and put it all into my inboxes and then identify the next tasks (and create projects for things that require multiple tasks)--never mind actually getting down to doing some of the tasks.

Once you set up your life with inboxes, then you do it every moment of every day. Everything that comes at you is dealt with immediately.

Everything gets identified, gets acted upon or delegated or filed.

The net effect is that every aspect of your life gets broken into and dealt with in its smallest fraction--a task. Allen says that "you must start at the very bottom--with the smallest unit--to truly maintain a high level of productivity." Productivity systems based upon "priorities" (top-down) fail, he says, because your mind still gets cluttered and foggy with all the little tasks that you have to remember.

So, I tried it. Read half of the book. Read a bunch of people's blogs and forums about it. I even bought a label making machine and a whole bunch of file folders.

And I heard the sound of class five rapids ahead.

I tried, and I failed. Achieved a mind like whitewater. Ok, I succeeded in getting a few things filed and organized a couple rooms. I even learned a few things about mentally identifying things as they come to me. But I simply could never imagine actually practicing this system every day, every week, month after month, year after year.

And frankly, if I can't imagine it, I can't do it.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was more curious as to why I couldn't imagine it than I was in actually Getting Things Done. Typical, eh.

According to Myers Briggs, I'm an INTJ (if you know what that stuff is about), so I wondered what other INTJ's felt like about it. Of course, I googled INTJ and GTD. And I found a lady who, like me, forgot who she was while trying to do GTD. Her explanation schooled me--

"GTD boils all of life down into tasks, and disconnects me from the story of my life."

Holy smokes. "Life is a story." Suddenly, my mind was like water again. How could I have forgotten?

Life isn't measured by productivity. Life isn't the sum of all the tasks in my life. Life isn't projects. Praise God that my value isn't determined by how much I get done or how effective I am. There's no job review in the kindgom of Heaven.

Life is knowing what's going on and knowing my role within it. A mythic cannot live without context--because the story is what gives meaning to every task I put my mind to.

And meaning is what it's all about.

Trust the Meaning of the Images

A fantastic quote from CS Lewis:

I suggest two rules for exegetics: (1) Never take the images literally. (2) When the purport of the images--what they say to our fear and hope and will and affections--seems to conflict with the theological abstractions, trust the purport of the image every time. For our abstract thinking is itself a tissue of analogies: a continual modelling of spiritual reality in legal or chemical or mechanical terms. Are these likely to be more adequate than the sensuous, organic, and personal images of Scripture--light and darkness, river and well, seed and harvest, master and servant, hen and chickens, father and child? The footprints of the Divine are more visible in that rich soil than across rocks or slag-heaps. Hence what they now call "demythologising" Christianity can easily be "re-mythologising" it--and substituting a poorer mythology for a richer.

--Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer

This lands right on the "Mythic" of "Mythic Reality," my friends.

First some terms...

Exegetics: the interpretation of scripture. Sounds to me like he's referring those who would try to interpret scripture for us, rather than the activity itself.

Purport: the meaning or sense of a thing.

Examples of "legal or chemical or mechanical terms": Forgiveness, judgment, debt, reconciliation, punishment, condemnation, regeneration, sanctification, purity.

Examples of sensuous, organic, and personal images: light, darkness, rivers, wells, seeds, harvest, master, servant, hens and chicks, fathers and children, compasses, trees, flowers, back porches, mothers, moonshine, wrinkles, etc. On and on the list goes.

This is what we spend our time doing here. Adding to the list of sensual, organic and personal images that Lewis names in his own list--the list God started long, long ago. Funny, but He's been using this imagery since He imagined and then spoke light into existence.

These kinds of images are all around us, and, I believe God is still speaking to us through them today.

I heard a quote by an African leader this week that struck me in the terms he used to express his thought. Here's what he said, "...some people...are content to curse the darkness, while making absolutely no effort to light the candle!" He could have chosen to explain himself in political terms, but he chose (like many from African cultures tend to do) a picture, an analogy, to do his explaining.

Exactly like Jesus did. Exactly like Jehovah did...

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel...

This is still happening, my friends.

May we learn again to speak to one another in this language of the heart. May we remember that the Truth is alive.

The Voice of God -- Reprise

I've written on this a little before, and now it's time to revisit the whole mysterious notion of hearing the voice of God. It seems to be pretty critical for those of us who claim to "follow" Christ and who want to believe that this means more than simply memorizing the Bible and "doing what it says."

I want to follow his voice today, right now, as I'm typing, when I get up to get another cup of coffee, when I doubt myself, when I am wondering what to do next. And just as much, I want to walk with those who experience the same.

Without the voice, my faith is nothing at all. My faith is nothing but pure imagination, and "I am of all men most miserable."

I do not believe I've ever heard God speak to me with his own voice in an audible way. That is, my eardrum has never vibrated with the sound of his words. I won't discount anyone who claims that he's vibrated their eardrums with his own voice, but it's never happened to me.

I do believe that I hear sentences in my head and heart that do not originate with me. They sound remarkably like my own sentences, the ones I "hear" just now as I type. But the sentences from the world of the spirits are not simply my own humdrum thoughts and preferences and observations and random statements. The voices from the spirit world have a different flavor, a different purpose and tone. Here's what I hear daily:

Condemnation. The voice of condemnation says things to me about me, like "you idiot," "you blew it now," "you have no idea what you're talking about," "they can see right through you, you know," "who do you think you're fooling?" "you are living a lie," "you #$*@$%!" "you can't possibly make it right," "they'll never believe you," "you're too fat," etc.

Accusation. The voice of accusation speaks to me about others, with statements like "she will never change," "he's a moron," "ha ha! what an idiot he is," "God is off doing important things, he doesn't have time for you," "she's not listening to you," "why can't they understand," "he doesn't like you at all," "look at how stupid he is," "don’t waste your time on him," etc.

Sometimes there's a double whammy, sort of a double dip of condemnation and accusation. "You don't have anything worth saying, and even if you did, he wouldn't listen."

I believe today that a large percentage of these kinds of statements in my head originate with the agents of darkness who have sold themselves out against the human race and are out for my ruin. The rest of the time it is me simply mimicking what they (and other human voices) have told me all my life. The net effect of these voices is to reinforce my perception of isolation from God and from those who are around me. These voices work on me every day, and I confess they have some degree of success each day.

They would have me believe that every human is less than he or she really is. That we are somehow disgustingly and unalterably flawed and unlikeable and unacceptable. But, as I have embraced the realities that I speak of in this blog, the evil intent of such simple statements has become very transparent to me.

They are the continual drip of poison that drains us of our energy and our love, and, worst of all, our very identity as children of the God of the universe.

If we are to be followers of Truth, we need the voice. To hear the voice of God, we must on the one hand stand against the voices that would shame us, and on the other hand, we must fight for silence.

We must recognize the false messages for what they are and stand against them in every form in which they come. Resist them we must, for to believe them is to doubt God. I cannot stand against what I believe is simply me, nor can I stand against what I believe is actually true.

Awareness and practice is required.

It's not enough for the agents of darkness to maintain their own poison drip of condemnation and accusation. They have recruited. Every commercial on TV tells us we are not thin enough, chiseled enough, beautiful enough, buxom enough, thin enough, clever enough, cool enough. Dr. Phil reminds us that we are not sensitive enough, or candid enough, or loving enough, or whatever.

Even the pulpit reminds us that we are "deceitful and desperately wicked." Most subtle of all is their caution against pride. This one hurts us softly but very deeply, because we who would believe are now conditioned to deflect (think about this for a while) the words of affirmation that God himself whispers to us. At least this has been my own experience.

The voice of God: Affirmation. Can you truly imagine words like these landing on your heart, shaping you, answering your question, knowing that God himself is uttering them:

"I like the way you live your life."

"I am proud of you."

"When I see you, you remind me of Jesus."

"I'm glad I made you--I have no regrets of calling you my child."

"You just did the right thing."

"I like hanging out with you."

Seriously, how would you receive these words, if they came to you in sentences that don't originate with you? My guess is you would deflect them too.

Not only are the false messages systematically reinforced, not only do I deflect the words of affirmation that God might whisper to me, but I hardly have a moment of silence in my life—the kind of silence that allows me to actively listen and maybe even have a conversation.

Just try to find a couple hours to get away and be quiet and listen.

For each of us, this "getaway" place will be different. But it must be fought for. Otherwise, the noise of life and the echoes of accusation will never fade, and we will not learn to recognize the voice of the one who wants to find us and rescue us over and over.

May we remember how bad the poison of accusation and condemnation are.

May we hunger for affirmation and receive it when it comes.

May we remember to fight for silence.

What the World Eats

Remember the post about what people eat around the world? I found out today that it originates from a book called Hungry Planet.

TIME Magazine pulled some of the pictures from the book, too. There are a few more families in there than what came in the email I initially received.

Just want to give credit where credit is due...

Jon

Knows and Knows Not

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool; avoid him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a student; teach him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep; wake him.
He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man; follow him.

Persian Saying

The Gods Aren't Angry

Following up on my previous post, this just came in my email:

The link takes you to Rob's website called The Gods Aren't Angry. I haven't had time to check it out yet, but the teaser image caught my eye.

(I'm not trying to get you to buy Rob Bell stuff...)

You know what, I think I believe some of this...

Check out this article on ABCNews.com.

It takes the imagination to see the kingdom. Without the imagination, we are simply theologically-inclined monkeys.

Can a person who "thinks" that belief is simply a function of imagination actually abandon their rationale in favor of believing?

Is "they eyes of the heart" simply another term for "the imagination"?

Is a mythic simply a person with an over-active imagination?

Till We Have Faces

I just finished this book. Anyone read it?

The conversation between Psyche and Orual at the top of the mountain is EXACTLY what it must have been like for Jesus to talk about the Kingdom, and also what it's like for mythics to speak of the Kingdom today in a world of Greeks.

Hope that's enough tease to get you to read it...

Summary of the notion of "Mythic Reality"

From today's Ransomed Heart Daily Reading--

In this desperate hour we have a crucial role to play. Of all the Eternal Truths we don’t believe, this is the one we doubt most of all. Our days are not extraordinary. They are filled with the mundane, with hassles mostly. And we? We are . . . a dime a dozen. Nothing special really. Probably a disappointment to God.

But as C. S. Lewis wrote, “The value of...myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity'.”

You are not what you think you are. There is a glory to your life that your Enemy fears, and he is hell-bent on destroying that glory before you act on it. This part of the answer will sound unbelievable at first; perhaps it will sound too good to be true; certainly, you will wonder if it is true for you. But once you begin to see with those eyes, once you have begun to know it is true from the bottom of your heart, it will change everything.

The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.

That Lewis quote intrigues me, so I thought I would look up the context. Turns out he was writing to Tolkien about his Lord of the Rings. Here's a longer passage:

"The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the veil of familiarity. The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savoury for having been dipped in a story; you might say that only then is it real meat. If you are tired of the real landscape, look at it in a mirror. By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves. This book applies the treatment not only to bread or apple but to good and evil, to our endless perils, our anguish and our joys. By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly. I do not think he could have done it in any other way.”

THAT is mythic reality.

Flour Tortilla Recipe

In response to Sam's post on the Pop Tarts thread, here's the flour tortilla recipe we've used.

1. We use shortening, not lard.
2. Take a little oil and put it on a paper towel and rub a fine layer on the pan once in a while.
3. Adjust the temperature of your frying pan so that the dough doesn't scorch right after about the fifth one.
4. Use a rolling pin to roll out the tortilla balls. They'll be irregular shaped, but that's ok. They cook in about 30 seconds total, both sides. I use a big spatula to press them into the pan.
5. When we make these they turn out sort of thick, like the ones in this picture (but not as perfectly round). They're soft and bendable when they're warm.
6. If you want really flat ones, you need a tortilla press.

Makes me want to go home and make some right now.

Forms of Blindness

Here's what Jesus had to say to a guy he had just healed of blindness (John 9):

I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.

What do you make of that?

By the way, that whole episode is fascinating in John 9. Look who was telling who what time it was...

Love it.

Pop-Tarts and Tortillas

A Pop-Tart is a flat rectangular toaster pastry approximately 3 in (75 mm) by 5.5 in (115 mm), made by the Kellogg Company. Pop-Tarts have a sugary filling sealed inside two layers of rectangular, thin pastry crust; each layer of this crust is about 0.1 in (2 mm) thick. [Wikipedia]

Here's the ingredient statement, broken down into the different parts of the Pop-Tart--

Strawberry filling: corn syrup, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup, crackermeal, water, modified wheat starch, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, dried strawberries, citric acid, caramel color, red #40, xanthan gum, soy lecithin

pastry: enriched wheat flour, sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, corn syrup, water, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium sulfate), gelatin

topping: sugar, rice flour, corn starch, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, gum arabic, xanthan gum, natural and artificial flavor, mono- and diglycerides, red #40 lake, blue #1 lake

fortification: niacinamide, reduced iron, vitamin A palmitate, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin (vitamin B2), thiamin hydrochloride (vitamin B1), folic acid

"Blue #1 Lake"?! "Pyridoxine hydrochloride"?! Mmmmmmm. Nummy.

Today's churches are like poptarts, don't you think? Think of all that goes "into" the church. A pop-tart is basically four parts: strawberry filling, pastry, topping, and some fortification. Churches might be broken down similarly: the building, the programs, the worship service, and the ministers. Sounds simple and nutritious, but it's exactly the opposite.

(But at least it's fortified, right?!)

We Westerners love to get things right by adding complexity. That way we can have the icing just the right thickness, the worship with just the right drive, the filling with exactly the right sweetness, a preacher who "reaches me where I'm at," and a sunday school class to suit every taste.

The problem is, complexity just loves to be worshiped. And we all willingly bend the knee to our favorite flavor. Blueberry, Contemporary, 40 Days of -- , Strawberry Sprinkles, Max Lucado...

Selah.

I have a feeling that God likes tortillas.

A tortilla chip is a snack food made from corn tortillas, which are cut into wedges and then fried (alternately they may be discs pressed out of corn masa then fried or baked). Corn tortillas are made of corn, vegetable oil, salt and water.
[Wikipedia]

The thing about a tortilla is that you can eat it alone or with something--almost anything--on it. It goes with everything. Unbranded.

Who would want to put salsa on a Pop Tart?

Think of the friendships that you have. The best ones are simple and uncomplicated, like a tortilla--eat them just about any time and with anything.

The more complicated the relationship, the harder it is to maintain and the less flexible it is. Like Pop Tarts--eat them only at breakfast, toasted, with butter.

Pop Tarts. Churches. Complexity. Ah, but I repeat myself.
Tortillas. Fellowship. Simplicity. Ah, but I--you get the idea.

Enjoy a plate of tortillas this week, with your favorite topping. Even better, let's pray that we get ground up together, mixed with some water and salt, and dropped in a fryer. And let's see what God heaps on us before he consumes us.

Because I really don't think he's in the mood for a Pop Tart.

Everything is Holy Now

For a guy who grew up evaluating everything (every thing) in the name of Jesus, the last five years have been like a reunion with my long lost family. Seriously, I feel like hugging trees and animals and neighbors and strangers and babies and old people and policemen.

Because God loves it all--I love it all.

Holy Now
by Peter Mayer.
[listen to an excerpt of this song, then you can buy it on itunes]

When I was a boy, each week
On Sunday, we would go to church,
And pay attention to the priest
As he would read the Holy Word.
And consecrate the holy bread
And everyone would kneel and bow.
Today the only difference is
Everything is holy now.

Everything, everything,
Everything is holy now...

When I was in Sunday school
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine.
And I remember feeling sad
that miracles don't happen still
But now I can't keep track
'Cause everything's a miracle.

Everything, everything
Everything's a miracle...

Wine into water is not so small,
but an even better magic trick
is that anything is here at all.
So, the challenging thing becomes
not to look for miracles,
but finding where there isn't one.

When holy water was rare at best
I barely wet my finger tips.
Now I have to hold my breath
like I'm swimming in a sea of it.
It used to be a world half there
heaven's second rate hand me downs
but I'm walking with a reverent air
cause everything's holy now.

Read a questioning child's face,
say it's not a testament,
now that'd be very hard to say.
See another new morning come,
say it's not a sacrament,
I tell you that it can't be done.

This morning outside I stood
And saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush,
Singing like a scripture verse.
It made me want to bow my head--
I remember when church let out--
how things have changed since then,
everything is holy now.

It used to be a world half there,
heaven's second rate hand me down.
I'm walking with a reverent air
cause everything's holy now.

Revelation 5

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"

What is eaten in a week...

The following images came to me last week from one of the guys who work with me at SALT International. This is my industry (food ingredients), and it was still eye-opening to see it presented this way.

Here are some things to ponder as you look at them:

--The ratios of proteins and carbohydrates
--The ratios of industrial versus home baked versus stir fried
--The presence or absence of "staple" foods (mainly rice or cassava)
--Foodstuffs bought in the local open-air market versus grocery stores
--Perishable foods versus shelf-stable foods
--The relationship between the home (electricity, refrigerators, cupboards) and food
--Branded versus unbranded foods
--Grain-based versus fruits/vegetables
--Quantity and type of meats
--Variety of food preparation methods (energy sources, utensils or appliances required, etc.)

Fascinating. Really highlights the differences between industrialized and lesser developed countries.

What Is Eaten In A Week...
The Ukita family of Kodaira City, Japan
Food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $317.25


Italy
The Manzo family of Sicily
Food expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11


Germany
The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07


United States
The Revis family of North Carolina
Food expenditure for one week $341.98


Mexico
The Casales family of Cuernavaca
Food expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09


Poland
The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeziorna
Food expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27


Egypt
The Ahmed family of Cairo
Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53


Ecuador
The Ayme family of Tingo
Food expenditure for one week: $31.55


Bhutan
The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village
Food expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03


Chad
The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp
Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23