I’ve decided to start a series of blessings here. You can read the first one here. So much of what we read on blogs is angry and complaining about stuff, and that’s fine, the medium lends itself to that. But ranting tends to not be a healthy activity for me. I end in cycles of complaint where I develop increasingly more eloquent ways to curse things that piss me off without actually moving past my anger. Welcome to Bitterness, population: Dan. So instead I’m going to bless various things that I have been blessed by as I become aware of them. In case you’re wondering, I did steal this idea from someone else.

So, Coldplay. Apparently it’s not cool to like Coldplay anymore. I was a late coming to them as Yellow was a slower time catching on to me, but I did catch on to Parachutes and by the time A Rush of Blood to the Head came out I was sold. I like piano and I like melody, so it was sort of inevitable that I would like Coldplay. There is something else though. Chris Martin and I are roughly the same age, and we got married around the same time, and our daughters are similar ages, and our sons are similar ages as well, and while were not facebook friends or anything, I kind of feel like we’re traveling companions. While it’s not very explicit (thank goodness) the life circumstances influence the art. They have to. So I feel like the music of his band provides a soundtrack that helps me make sense of my own life.

I remember hearing Stuart Mclean talk once about how he wished that John Lennon had been around for him to grow old with. He wanted to hear what songs John Lennon would write about about middle age and life transitions and empty nesting and all of that stuff. I know how he feels. There are certain artists (Coldplay, Rufus Wainwright, Donald Miller maybe, ) that I feel privileged to share the planet with, and I hope they remain vital and writing songs and books for a long time.

So thank you Chris Martin and Coldplay, for giving me music to rock out to, to unwind with, words to sing to my daughter. Besides legally purchasing your albums, I give you this blessing

” ‘ “The LORD bless you
and keep you;

the LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;

the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace.” (Numbers 6)

I had never heard of the pastor from Australia with the unpronounceable last name before his story broke a couple of weeks ago, so I didn’t have an emotional attachment to his apparently popular song. I also don’t want to diminish the damage his sin has done to people who trusted him and the Body of Christ around the world. His lies caused an immense amount of pain to a great number of people and there are no excuses for him and there can be no rush to cheap forgiveness. True forgiveness is rarely fast and it is never cheap. That said, I think his song is more poignant now.

Full disclosure, I generally don’t like the Hillsong-y type songs. I find them kind of… stupid. The lyrics never say very much and what they do say is flat and trite and doesn’t really move me. Whatever, I hope I’m mature enough that I don’t have to like every song we sing in order to sing God’s praises. It’s not about me.

But now the story has broken that the disease that this man is trusting God to heal is not the cancer he is elaborately lying to everyone about, but something else; something deeper, something more sinister, something that endangers not only the body, but could destroy body and soul.

I can’t imagine the depth of fear and dread that would make someone try to pull off a charade like that but I can imagine not wanting to show people what I’m really like. I can imagine wanting people to like me, to think I’m smart, or good or worth something more than what I think I’m worth. And I know that this fear and doubt is real and dangerous and deadly and tougher than I am so I need a cure for that dis-ease. I need a healer who can bring me peace.

Now the song has layers. Now the song speaks of something bigger even than cancer to source of our inner conflicts. We fear, so we lie and we hide. But nothing is impossible for Jesus. Even making of us brave people who are able to love, live, and forgive.

I was having a late night conversation with my wife not too long ago and we were talking about, well… pretty much everything, mostly a project that I’m working on about church.

Some background for our conversation. People leave Church. Not just my church or your church but Church. They do this for a variety of reasons. Some are big and dramatic, some are subtle and draining, some we can call good, bad, whatever the reason, they drop out of community with God’s people. Now, I know many people in this situation and most of them would still call themselves Christians and many of these claim that they would like to be part of a church if it was … something.

The basic plot of the story is this: Person A meets Jesus and becomes involved in Church, there is a period of  happiness and contentment, at some point there is a conflict, large or small, where the Church fails to be what “A” expected it to be and they remove themselves.

If this seems like an incomplete story, that’s because it is. I know so many people who have run this far in the story who are still God haunted or church haunted, longing for a community they know intuitively should exist but seems incredibly difficult to locate. I could write more but you’ll have to wait for the book.

I can speak to this story because I lived it. I can tell bad church stories with the best of them and it amazes me everyday that my faith survived where it died in so many of my friends. More amazing to me is that I feel a deep bone call to serve this Bride that has left me scarred. The problem is that I did this young. My conflict and rejection of the church happened early enough that by the time God dragged me to Bible College at 22 I had been angry and fighting for close to a decade and I was tired. I had to figure out a way to live with God’s people or break the other way and, for me, that just wasn’t an option.

So when I hear people talking about leaving church and their anger and ambivalence and how they feel lied to and ripped off, I understand it. I really do, but sometimes it sounds adolescent to me because that’s the time in my life when I was going through this. Most of the time I manage to not be a jerk in this, but I feel myself categorizing people and I don’t want to be that guy. People walk their paths at their own pace in their own time.

So for me, the lesson of the day is patience. Patience for you, patience for me, patience for God who is working in his time to bring about peace for all of us who seek it.

I’ve been published over at wreckedfortheordinary.com. You can check it out, but if you want the version with the word penis in it you’ll have to read it here.

In case you’re wondering it amuses me to write the word penis often enough to get false traffic here. If you googled penis and found me Jesus loves you!

Seriously, he does. I’m not joking about that part.

Anyway, wrecked for the ordinary is pretty cool. Thanks guys.

By now most of you have heard about the murder that took place on a bus between Edmonton and Winnipeg. When things like this happen people sometimes look to me as a pastor to answer questions. Questions like where is God when a psycho stabs a random guy to death on a bus. Questions like that don’t have satisfying answers, or answers that heal.  Answers don’t heal anyway.

Here’s what I’ve got.

This world, this planet is sometimes very big and at other times very small. It is a place of amazing beauty and wonders and also great dangers. But this world is never enough. It’s not big enough for our joys, not for our sorrows nor for our anger. When we lose someone, no matter how, we never feel we have had enough time, or enough conversations or space to make all things right. When someone is taken from us, no matter how, there is no amount of vengeance that will satisfy. This world is not enough.

So if this world is not enough, what is? Eternity. This world, this lifespan of however many years we’re granted isn’t enough because we were designed for more, life that goes on eternally. All we are is too much, we don’t fit here.

So we look at and hope in an empty tomb and a better kingdom and we long for the day when, like Sam Gamgee waking up after Mordor, we ask “Is it over? Has every sad thing been made untrue?” any the Answer that heals will speak an overwhelming  “Yes”.

I don’t generally write rants here. Not because I don’t like a good rant now and then, but you can find a lot of them online and I don’t need any more space in my life to complain about stuff. So forgive the next 200 words or so.

Matthew Paul Turner has a post on not liking Third Day on his site and he’s received many comments both for and against their brand of Christian generi-pop. (I just made that up. In case you need an explanation it’s a combination of “generic” and “pop.” Music writers, you can have that one for free) All in all a civil and somewhat humourous conversation on the merits of the music of Third Day. Until the inevitable happened.

The “nice” Christian showed up.

You know this person. They go to your church, or they work in Student Life at a Bible College, or they write letters to the editor for a living, and they will always let you know when you’re in danger of stepping outside of their piety. In this case it was roughly “I don’t know if it’s edifying to write about what we dislike about a Christian band, they are worshiping and playing the gospel, blah, blah, blah,” topped off with a whopper like “A better question would be what would Jesus think of Third Day”

Well, since you asked, I think he would find their music bland, inoffensive, and boring. I am just guessing because the gospel accounts unfortunately don’t give us a playlist for Jesus’ iPOD. (although as we speak some Christian Music Executive is planning a promotion, an ipod pre-loaded with Jesus’ music. God help us all) I also don’t think that just because a band has the adjective “Christian” in their genre they are exempt from criticism. When we begin to follow Jesus we don’t have the opinion part of our brains cut out. It’s okay to like some stuff, and by the same rule, it’s okay not to like other stuff, even if lot’s of Christians like it. I’ll show you with a short list of things I don’t like that other Christians like:

1. Settlers of Catan- This game takes like four hours and nothing really happens. It’s like Risk without pot.

2. Come, now is the time to worship - it just bugs, and it takes like four hours too.

3. Tony Campolo - I’m sure he is a lovely person and he has does amazing things for the Kingdom, but I find his speaking style really annoying.

See how easy that was? You may like them, I don’t. None of these opinions, or my expression of them, in any way affects my ability or disability to love God and neighbour.

But I’m going to go a step further, nice Christian person, I call bullshit.

You don’t really care about what is edifying or good, you only care about propping your own lagging confidence by establishing your spiritual dominance over others. Your main motivator is fear. Fear of being wrong, fear of being foolish, fear of your inability to control the people and world around you. You don’t trust that God is good and in control, so you have to be.

The problem is that the rest of us just nod our heads politely rather than taking you on because we’re afraid that you’ll play the victim and we’ll look mean, not nice and spiritual like you. You do damage to people by misrepresenting what it means to be a Christian, and the rest of us allow it by refusing to take you on. You make people feel small and inadequate and like the Gospel is not good news. You act as if the Body were yours and you better believe it’s not.

People of Earth, know this. You can be a follower of Jesus and not like stuff.

I got the term from Bill Simmons, of whose writing I am a big fan. Basically he uses the term to refer to those who follow and love pro sports without declaring allegiance to a specific team. I’m splitting hairs a little bit, but a more accurate term would probably be sports pluralist. The sports atheist would be the humourless Noam Chomsky sort who believe that pro sports are the new opiate of the peoples, as if we would solve world hunger and cure cancer if we got rid of the NBA. I agree with them to a point, what fun are they at a party? I’ll take some friendly NASCAR fans, thanks. The sports pluralist, however, stands back from the scene as a supposedly impartial observer. We delight in sport for the sake of sport and while we appreciate how insane fan-dom adds to the colour of our experience, we are unable to choose just one object of devotion.

For Simmons this is ridiculous idea. He was born and bred in Boston and lives and dies with the Boston area teams. The joy of pro sports is for him the emotional roller coaster ride being a fan can give. While this brings joy (the Red Sox coming back from a 3-0 deficit to the Yankees, The Celtics crushing the Lakers in game six) it also brings pain (the Patriots being upset by the Giants, Spygate). In his mind, without a team, you’re not truly a fan, you’re a watcher.

I became a sports pluralist honestly. I grew up in Charlottetown, far enough away that I didn’t have any clear geographic ties and the only sport my Dad really followed was NASCAR, or more accurately, what was then Winston Cup. Free agency helped, as there were no real ties for the players anymore, so why should I have those ties. Video games were part of it as well, as it made no sense to keep playing Madden with my favoured Bengals because they were terrible.

But the biggest issue I think is protection. I didn’t want to be a fan because what do I do when they lose? That sucks, and no one wants to be the bandwagon jumper. Who likes the guy who shows up on Tuesday wearing the SuperBowl winners hat? That guy is a jerk. After a while it was easier and seemed cooler and safer to maintain distance.

This is all in direct contrast to my faith life, where I am not a pluralist. I have pledged allegiance to a team and I believe that the only way to truly follow is to believe in our team exclusively and if our team “loses” (sports analogies fail) I will go down with the ship. I am all in to Jesus. As a person of faith I believe the religious pluralist to be in a sad position. While they aren’t subject to the discipline of following a faith path, they don’t really get to experience the joy, comfort, and connection that comes with choosing to follow the One.

There are times when I feel the pull of real sports fandom, but like faith, at some point it has to happen to you. I can’t wake up tomorrow and decide to be an Oilers fan, on some level the Oilers have to happen to me.

Come, Sam Gagner, Come

Part 3 in a bible reading series

why we read the Bible

I’m a graffiti fan. Not so much if it’s on my house or fence or car, but I do appreciate it if there is thought and effort put into it. I’ve never done it, nor have I really done any of the other elements of hip hop, but it’s an integral part of the urban landscape.

In Edmonton we are priveleged to have the Listen person. That’s one of his or hers in the banner up top. I don’t know if listen is his or her street name or even if it’s one person or more, but there are listen birds all over the city. Everyone knows them.

I’ve taken to using them as a personal liturgy. Every time I see listen bird I stop for a few seconds to pay attention to God and what he’s been saying to me. I’m trying to be pass myself of as super pious guy, I don’t drop to my knees every time I see one, but they make me pay attention. I believe that’s half the battle to having any kind of life following Jesus.

So, thank you, listen person, whoever you are. You make me stop and shake off my self absorption for a brief moment and remember that the creator of the universe has and wants to talk to us. I don’t know what you believe but I give you the best blessing I’ve got:

The LORD bless you and keep you

The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you

The LORD show his face to you and give you peace (Numbers 6)

I’ve been reading GQ for the last five or six years now. They’re hit and miss like any magazine, but I’ve come to trust on of their writers, Andrew Corsello.

Here is an article he wrote and an interview out of it.

The Other Side of Hate

Interview