It's time to move on...

My new "imagination conversion" has moved here:

www.imaginationconversion.wordpress.com


Join me on my new journey...

New Poll on Religion

"Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers from the 'unchurched,' the survey found most converts to evangelical churches were raised Protestant."
From this article


And this is why something... or everything (to use the Brian M term) must change.

I'm a Bad Toothfairy

So my oldest daughter lost her tooth last night and was all excited to get a gift from the Tooth-fairy. She's a smart 5 year old and already knows that this magical fairy is dad.
Well, dad woke up the next morning early to get to work and my daughter, who still should have been sleeping cracked open her door and said, "Dad, where's the Tooth-fairy?"
She recognized the look on my face and of course there was a big "Oh no!" that escaped my mouth.
Fortunately she thought the whole thing quite funny, laughed, and said, "I kept looking all night!"
So to render matters I told her to put her head down on the pillow and I quickly took the tooth-pillow from under her head pillow and threw 86 cents inside without taking out the tooth. With her giggling all the while, I put the mini-pillow back under her head and said with a sigh and smile, "Okay, look now."
She was thrilled, and said she'd put the money in her piggy bank (which is really a hippo-bank).
All the while, my car pool ride was patiently waiting outside.

When she got to school she proceeded to tell everyone with much glee, whilst holding her tooth in a zip-lock, that Daddy the Tooth-fairy forgot to put money under her pillow.

So I figure now, either all the kids in her class now believe the Tooth-fairy isn't real or the Tooth-fairy is some guy living in Fort Collins prancing about the world giving children loose change and has a daughter in Kindergarten.

I'm a Bad Toothfairy

So my oldest daughter lost her tooth last night and was all excited to get a gift from the Tooth-fairy. She's a smart 5 year old and already knows that this magical fairy is dad.
Well, dad woke up the next morning early to get to work and my daughter, who still should have been sleeping cracked open her door and said, "Dad, where's the Tooth-fairy?"
She recognized the look on my face and of course there was a big "Oh no!" that escaped my mouth.
Fortunately she thought the whole thing quite funny, laughed, and said, "I kept looking all night!"
So to render matters I told her to put her head down on the pillow and I quickly took the tooth-pillow from under her head pillow and threw 86 cents inside without taking out the tooth. With her giggling all the while, I put the mini-pillow back under her head and said with a sigh and smile, "Okay, look now."
She was thrilled, and said she'd put the money in her piggy bank (which is really a hippo-bank).
All the while, my car pool ride was patiently waiting outside.

When she got to school she proceeded to tell everyone with much glee, whilst holding her tooth in a zip-lock, that Daddy the Tooth-fairy forgot to put money under her pillow.

So I figure now, either all the kids in her class now believe the Tooth-fairy isn't real or the Tooth-fairy is some guy living in Fort Collins prancing about the world giving children loose change and has a daughter in Kindergarten.

I Wonder What Mother Mary Would Say

Just read this (if you haven't heard):
Female Ref Not Allowed to Coach Basketball Game

Kudos to the men who also walked out in support.

One Picture. One Synchroblog. One Love.

Anyone recognize this? Besides it being the earth of course. (note the *)

Other Synchro pictures (I'll actually get the links tomorrow for they are on my work email):

Sonja Andrews: "Put a Little Love on It"
Reba Baskett: "Love"
Mike Bursell: "Synchrophoto"
Billy Calderwood: "Family"
Jule Clawson: "Photo Synchroblog"
Sally Coleman: "Photos...Love grows"
Jenelle D'Alessandro: "Day Thirteen"
David Fisher
Steve Hayes: "Father and daughter"
K.W. Leslie: "When you can only express your love through police procedurals"
Sam Norton: "Images of love"
Paul Walker: "Love Is..."
Erin Word: "Love Is..."
Phil Wyman: "What Does this Say to You?"

Do Leaders Have To Be Arrogant?

The obvious question to this is no.
But that begs the next question: Why are there so many of them who are?

Personally I think we need more of the former...

although i do like the shirt

BTW I'm Voting for Obama and You Should Too. :-)

We Are Living 'Missionaly' In A Hotel...aparently

My oldest daughter is in Kindergarten and one of her friends Mom gave her a ride home today saving her, my wife, and my youngest daughter the walk (due to snow).

Her friend (also 5) came into our apartment and said, “Wooowww your kitchen is so small!” And if that wasn’t enough, he then said, “Why is your hotel so tiny.”

Ahhhh the honesty of five year olds.

*note to reader - the above picture is NOT our apartment but a motel in Tuscon AZ. And no, I have never been there. But if I was, apparently they wouldn't tell you. ;-)

This is a response email to a friend of mine who is for the death penalty and sent me an article from a scholar who defends the death penalty with the premise that religious societies have the death penalty whilst secular societies do not and since Americas is founded on Christian principles; we should have the death penalty (This is probably going to be my longest post of the year...)

It’s interesting to point out (me being a down the middle moderate/independent) that as most people assume that the Conservatives are the thinkers while the Liberals are the feelers, that I myself when hearing about a child rapist emotionally responds, “That man has to die!” and then later reasons out that maybe death is not the best alternative even for heinous crimes. Quite the reverse of what is typified between the right and the left.
However, being moderate to a fault, I cannot in good conscious say that 100% of the time the death penalty is wrong.
However also coming form a post-modern perspective, I also cannot make a list of what would justify the death penalty and what wouldn’t.

That being said, I am still much more opposed to the death penalty than I am for it. You could say that I line up quite liberally in this debate (although it’s interesting to note that most democrats also support the death penalty in some form or another).

First of all, it’s obvious that Walter Berns approves of the death penalty and he uses the argument that religious societies are much more likely to use the death penalty than secular societies because we have a higher sense of moral code and right and wrong.

I would present this question however: Would Bern’s also support the death penalty as it is enforced in places like Saudi Arabia? In most Muslim countries, where there is a strict moral code, the woman who is raped may be stoned to death. I’m sure Bern would agree that their moral code is different than that of the US constitution. Therefore, does pulling the moral code card an effective argument in supporting the death penalty? If it is, then who’s moral code? If it’s the Christian moral code than Bern needs to make that distinction in his article or his argument has the fallacy of generalization.

So let’s assume (safely) that Bern is talking of a good American Christian moral code and does not think that Muslim Nation States are relevant to this argument. My next question is, should Christianity be treated as a religion? Or should it be treated like a subversive relational organic movement?
That’s certainly a discussion for another time. Suffice to say, Christianity is a religion whether it should be or not. So let’s say, “Yes, Christianity should be treated as a religion.”

Then the point becomes; should Christianity be treated and lived out like all other religions? Christians try so hard at saying, “But were different!” when we want to express the grace and love of Christ – the only ‘religion’ where one is saved by grace and not by works. We are indeed different. But we are different when it suits us, and we are the same when it suits us as well. If we truly are different, should we not take a different approach to the death penalty than all the other religions which support the death penalty – which Berns claims. (I also take issue with this because it’s another fallacy of generalizations but I’ll give Bern the benefit of the doubt in conceding that many or most religious societies support the death penalty, which still brings me back to the point that Christian societies should be different anyway).

My last set of questions lies between Europe and America, since Berns uses Europe continually as a comparison and contrast.
First, is crime higher or lower in Europe than in America since they do not have the death penalty and we do (generally speaking)? Berns himself admits, (and it’s an old argument) that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime. If we can all concede that in Western civilization at least, that this is so, why have the death penalty in the first place? Bern’s answers this by saying, “Punishment has its origins in the demand for justice…” I won’t go into the whole quote here as you can read it. It’s actually a very convincing conclusion that he makes, but even though it’s worded eloquently and articulately, it still boils down to one thing – “You’re guilty, you need to die.” It’s simple vengeance in the hopes that vengeance makes us feel better. However, have you ever heard a psychologist tell a patient, “You need to extract vengeance. It’s the only way.” Now I’m not counselor, but being in ministry for nearly 20 years I can safely say that this is the opposite of healthy advice. Even secular psychology will state that forgiveness is the healthiest way to move forward.

Now you can argue that you can forgive them while you watch someone stick a needle in their arm and argue that forgiveness is not letting someone get away with a crime and to a large extent I would agree with you. However Berns here is making the vengeance argument and I am simply stating that vengeance cannot and should not ever be reason to take a life. There may be other reasons, but this is not one of them. Isn’t vengeance reserved for the Lord?

And if the death penalty is not a deterrent (for if it was I would be more of a proponent of it) then can we not have law and order without the law supporting orderly death?

Lastly, Bern makes a comment about how Europe is involving themselves in our business buy saying that they should essentially butt out and leave their secular ways within their own borders. I completely agree that each country should determine her own laws regarding justice and law.
But it does beg the question – Should we then let the rape victim in Saudi Arabia die because that’s their law and we should butt out?
Social Justice knows no borders and I would rather allow Europe to have some of their butt’s in America, because you can be darn well sure that America will butt into other countries injustices…. Or at least they should!
In the world of globalization and information, it’s unavoidable. We are not longer isolated units but an entire planet and everyone’s noses will be into everyone else’s business whether we like it or not. Rather than telling the rest of the world to butt out, maybe we should listen first.

My Favorite Darwin Award of 2007!

After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies....
The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

Some days, I'm they crazy person that escapes (I wonder what happened to them?)
Some days, I'm the bus driver.
Some days, I'm the average person that got on the wrong bus.
Some days, I'm the psychiatrist.

This my friends is a modern day parable - now for some deep meaning behind it all...

The Man is the Head...Until the Marriage Vows?

So here's an argument complimentarians make:
The structure in a marriage is like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are all equal, but the Father is the head and therefore in marriage the husband should be the head even though the women is equal (I'm not sure where the Holy Spirit fits into this...). I find this argument is more based on extrapolating scripture rather than taking scripture as a whole...

For one, we are assuming that the 'husband' is perfect as the Father is and that the wife is also as perfect as Jesus was.
Secondly, I'm not sure that argument fits scripture in its entirety. Jesus did everything what the Father told him to do, but that was in his earthly form. He set us an example therefore of how we are to live closely with the Father, but I don't think this transposes to marriage.
Thirdly, and correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the correlations I find in scripture is that men are to love their wives like Jesus loves the church, and the Father is not mentioned in these analogies. There are more things I can say here, but in an effort to keep blogs short this year, I'll let you read between the lines based on my concluding position. :-)
Among other things if we did take this position theologically, then we must be confronted with the fact that the Father has given all power to Jesus and that he is the one that will rule an reign forever when he returns. (Philippians and Revelation).

Since this is known as the marriage supper with the Lamb, should we not then conclude that the juxtaposition of this would be that the man is the 'head' during dating, but the woman takes over after marriage?

With all due respect to those who are complimentarians, as I search the whole of scripture and the character of God, I find it more compelling to believe that God wants me to be egalitarian.

What does a paleontologist and King Jr have in common?

Erik Dickman, "Good and Evil are Within"
Found on the blog Stumbling into the Great Beyond

Richard Owen was a brilliant but ruthless scientist. One of the foundation layers of modern paleontology, the man was completely self-centered and had no regard for anything but his own ambitions.

He stole other people's ideas and claimed them as his own. He re-named the fossil's of ancient creatures to his own liking. He seemed to take glee in the destruction of other scientists and their discoveries.

In fact it's easy to hate this man, except for one astounding fact. If you've ever been to a museum and marveled at the bones of a T-rex, or gazed in wonder at the night sky while sitting in a planetarium show; if you've seen an IMAX movie about the grandeur of the Rockies or the raising of the Titanic; or if you smile to yourself in watching hordes of elementary students gaze upon the mummies and monuments, then you have Richard Owen, jerkface, to thank.

Owen was the revolutionary who saw that science could be open to the masses, the uneducated, and the common. Before Owen, only the rich, influential, or those of the scientific community, could apply - yes apply - and maybe be accepted after an interview to spend an hour or so gazing at the artifacts of the elite.

So, we should consider the words of Martin Luther King Jr in our lives when he says this:

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

In all of us, there is a bit of Richard Owen and a bit or Martin Luther King Jr.

Selah.

We Remember Martin Luther King Jr

"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."

Old Friends - Where the hell are all these people coming from!

I wonder if there is something sociological about when, after a certain amount of time, people you haven’t been in contact with suddenly appear or try and connect with you.

In the past two weeks Makeesha and I have run into or received several messages from people that we haven’t talked to in months or even years.

They all came at once!

It’s good to hear from old friends though even if our lives have taken us different directions.

So for all you old friends out there, “Hello! I pray your path may be made clear, and God would lead you into great adventures; that He would hem you in, and protect you, while you dance along the way extending your arms to others as you go.”

Ship of Fools - Synchroblog Updated!

So this is a real conversation that really happened... for reals. Only the names have been changed to protect those involved because I have not asked permission from them to use their names. Except "Pomo" who is me.

The room upstairs is dark and the smell of coffee fills the air. Already sitting on the scene are three church leaders; Deck, Art, and Mode. They proceed with small talk but also appear a bit nervous because of the conversation that is about to take place.

Enter Pomo, who is shocked at seeing all three of them sitting there. He usually only met with Deck.

Pomo: Um, hi guys. What's up?

Deck: Hi, how are you?

(Now 3 or 4 minutes of small talk ensue which not need be elaborated here. Then some specifics were brought up regarding vision and direction and trust; which is too laborious to get into on a blog. But now, for the exciting conclusion!)

Deck: I was trying to think of an analogy and this is the best one I could think of: Your on a bus and those with you are also on that bus. And your driving this bus but you really don't know where you are going. You're just going off in some direction but you don't have a map.

Art: See, when you drive a bus you need a specific address. We feel like you maybe have a city, but a city is pretty big and you need an address.

Deck: So, we'd like to ask you to step down from leadership, just for now. Until you know what your address is. If you find out that address is the same destination as ours then you can come back, but for now, we feel it's best that we take over the ministry.

Art: Then you can ride our bus until you get a map and go in the same direction we are going.

Mode: But we need you. We need you to stay on the bus so we don't loose all the people who got on the bus with you.

Deck: Yes we need you to ride our bus and follow our map. We can't do this without you. But you have to let us drive the bus for a while. You need to give us the wheel until you figure out exactly where you are going.

The conversation pretty much ended there but if I thought of it at the time, this is what I would have said:

"But you see, we aren't a bus. We don't know the destination. We are like explorers on the open sea. We just know we need to go West because land is East. There may be dragons and their most assuredly are storms, but we will let the wind guide us and whether we succeed or fail, we will venture into unknown territory, see amazing sites, meet amazing people, and live each breath by the grace of an amazing God.

"Call us a "Ship of Fools" if you like, but God uses the foolish to confound the wise. I think following Jesus should be more like a sea faring explorer with a compass and the stars and the wind, than a bus driver with a map and a paved road and a gas station every 50 miles."

We are still a ship of fools. I deeply respect those who feel otherwise but we wouldn't change it for the world.

*for the record, I did say that we would step down from leadership in the best possible way, but we would never ever ever come back. It ended very amicably on a Sunday morning a few days later.

Synchrobloggers now here!

The Foolishness of God and the Foolishness of Christians by K.W. Leslie

Fools Rush In by Sonja Andrews

The Power of Paradox by Julie Clawson

That Darn Ego by Jonathan Brink

Won't Get Fooled Again by Alan Knox

Strength on the Margins by Igneous Quill

Foolish Heart by Erin Word

A Fool's Choice by Cindy Harvey

Quiet Now, God's Calling by Jenelle D'Alessandro

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right... By Mike Bursell

Hut Burning for God by Father Gregory

God Used This Fool by Cobus van Wyngaard

Fool if you think its over by Paul Walker

Blessed are the foolish -- foolish are the blessed by Steve Hayes

What A Fool I've Been by Reba Baskett

What a Fool Believes by Sue at Discombobula

That Pine Tree Stale Scent

So imagine the pictue above, but that it's a Hyundai Elantra and not an SUV. That was my car this morning - hauling our Christmas tree to a recycle location. I have pine needles from the passenger front seat, through the back seat and into the trunk.

But now my car smells like forest and not a mixture of french fries and cloves.

I'm sure there's a spiritual meaning behind all this - like eat healthy and don't smoke cloves...

Shhhhhh "many 'moderns' want to see change too"

I was listening to some friends today that are not of the say, post-modern mentality.
And though some of the things they said I disagreed with, I chose to stay quiet and as I did something occurred to me: These people want to see change in the world too. They want to see the church become more than what she is right now. They want to see people live better lives, they want to help the poor and feed the hungry and pray with the sick.

So...we sail a ship and they drive a bus... but in the end, we still see the same thing wrong and see that something must change.

Now granted these are more progressive modern thinkers who although may not be able to wrap their minds around the whole 'post' thing, it was still encouraging and enlightening to me that we ... in fact ... want the same thing. And it's important for us to realize that they have their place and so do we.

We can philosophically debate till the cows come home (I'd really like to know where that phrase came from) but sometimes it's better to stay quiet and find commonality...after all aren't we telling everyone to do that anyway?


By the way the pic is of Owen and Mzee an unlikely pair...

Oozing Messiah

I need to ooze Jesus more.
I can be the same me – good looking, sparkling magnetic personality, brilliant in countless ways and wise beyond measure (LOL) – but if I don’t ooze Jesus I’m missing it.
Time to start spending time with the oozer more.
To be oozed and be an oozer to others.

Christianity is Absurd

It struck me yesterday; that what I believe is absolutely certifiably absurd. It's nuts.

If an alien race studied culture and belief systems regarding humanity and they heard George Lucas talk about the force and they heard my wife (who explains thing very well) talk about some guy named Jesus who lived, died, and rose again some 2,000 years ago, I think they would chalk both stories up to the misunderstood ramblings of a primitive culture.

Who in their right mind would think that there is an all powerful God.? And if one could make that desperate leap of faith, who in their right mind could believe that this all powerful God would want to become a man, born the messy way, so that he could die in his early 30's in the messy way, so that he could be with us and redeem all of fallen creation?

If I were an alien, and I had traveled the galaxy, I would respond has Han Solo did in Episode 4, "...I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything."

But I'd be more inclined to become a Jedi than to believe this Jesus nonsense.


But that's one reason why I do believe it. It's too crazy not to.
So when doubt creeps in and apologetics don't convince me and miracles can be explained away, and the Holy Spirit seems distant, I simply believe and follow because it's the most insane thing I've ever heard.