Redeeming Prufrock

From Boston

2008-07-16T17:05:00.001-04:00

He knew all the lyrics, but his mind had chosen only these two lines to recycle:

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice!

He paused. People? Or peoples? He could not remember. He knew all the words but this one letter troubled him. Regardless, on cycled the lines, unceasing and uncontrolled.

The scene around him seemed familiar. Night’s darkness stretched out in all directions around his highwayed car, except to his front where the decreasingly faint glow of a city seemed to hover. Escaped light oozed into the sky creating the haze. He recalled his freshmen astronomy lab, many years prior, where he had anticipated studying stars, galaxies, universes! Oh, what heavenly glory! Instead, the first lab taught on the tragedy of carnal light pollution. The TA had spoken as if the issue were the most urgent humankind faced in the 21st century. Genocide? AIDS? Sex trafficking? They could all wait.

He had failed that lab. The only assignment he would ever fail in college. Apparently haze was his thing.

I-93S now stretched out in front of him towards the glow, the airport where he was to pick up an incoming friend his destination. He loved driving, loved the windows down and the music up. But tonight, he kept the distracting radio off. The silence was new to him.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people(s?) rejoice!

His last visit to the city had come in a dream. He did not remember much – night, fear, a call that intuited: “Come.” This night reminded him of that night in a way he could not grasp. But unlike that dreamed night, fear was far from him, and this was rare. Also unlike that night was the fact that he was very much awake, not the object of sleep’s oppressive fantasy but the alert, alive, awake shaper of his own thought. He should have had control and yet his thoughts, like the recycling Sunday song, felt uncontrolled.

He was awake tonight. That unnerved him.

Only miles from the city, his Sentra pulled up to a toll booth. His prior home knew of no such thing, the money for road maintenance secretly hidden away in taxes on such things as gasoline, food, and cigarettes. In New England, the toll had become more obvious. Until, that is, he had discovered the E-Z Pass. As much a sign of New England as Tom Brady and Dunkin’ Donuts, the purple E-Z Pass attached to the upper windshield of a car and allowed the driver to roll through tolls sans stop. It appeared easy, as if the journey demanded no cost.

As he passed through the toll booth that night, E-Z Pass electronically detracted $1.50 from the bank account where he stored his treasure. He was no different than those who stopped to pay, who knew the physical toll, except that he allowed E-Z Pass to deceive him. He even paid for the misdirection. The deceptive purple E-Z Pass box had cost $26.79 to purchase. A small price to pay for a pass to the E-Z life, he had thought.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people(s) rejoice!

The lights of the city had taken shape by now, the haze of the previous miles giving way to the articulate clarity of the night skyline. A bridge stood out amongst the copse of skyscrapers, it suspensions seeming to defend the TD Banknorth Garden. The building’s tenants, the Boston Celtics, would play a do-or-die Game 7 there the next night after failing to earn a series-clinching win on the road the night before. The Celtic pride that overflowed in thumped chests and condescending sneers in the friendly paradise of the Garden seemed terrified of taking its talents to a hostile environment. He despised the hometown team for this and secretly (the locals would tar and feather him if they knew!) hoped they would get what he knew their heartless team deserved – a Game 7, season-ending loss.

The car dove closer to the city. The Prudential Building stood alone off to his right, cut off from the community of scrapers that composed the city proper. He always found this set-up peculiar. Did Prudential’s offer of insurance have no place?

The uncontrolled refrain in his head quickly forced the question into silenced submission, as it continued its cerebral tyranny.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the peoples rejoice!

If he had to guess, “people” should be “peoples.” He knew not why, but “peoples” was his gut feeling.

Speeding into the city, the car quickly plunged into the Big Dig, the underwater and undercity tunnel which would lead him to his final destination. Boston Harbor floated above his head as he sped through the tunnel. The harbor again brought to mind his last nocturnal visit to the city when he had recalled it as the foot of the watery trail which carried America’s first settlers. A trail must run in two directions though, and he wondered why he had defaulted Boston Harbor as the foot. It could just as easily be the head if something were to be sent.

The thought jolted his worldview for a moment. This beloved city he had always seen as a destination, both in American history and in his own life. The place seemed to beckon. Or perhaps he had only made it seem to beckon. . . .

Foolishness! America always beckons! People yearn for this place. We send nothing because nothing wants to go. The watery trail ran and runs to, and not from, Boston. It must. We can send nothing because nothing needs to go.

His car emerged from the tunnel, where a green exit sign for “Revere” immediately called to it. The town took the name of the patriot who was sent to tell the good and dangerous news that ultimately led to freedom for many.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the peoples rejoice!

The silver Sentra soon passed by the sign that read: “Welcome to Logan International Airport.” He had arrived at his destination.

In an unexplainable and uncontrolled instant, he became certain, absolutely certain, the word was “peoples.”

Top 10 Things I Learned Hiking Mount Lafayette

2008-07-07T15:45:00.003-04:00

I went hiking last week, climbing the successive peaks Lafayette, Lincoln, and Haystack up in northern New Hampshire. Below are the top 10 lessons I learned from my 8.5 mile 3500-foot elevation increase.

10. Moose kill.

My friend and I passed a road sign on the way there which stated: "Brake for Moose". I commented that I thought this a kind gesture towards our much antlered friends. Craig informed me that the sign was actually there for our self-preseveration. When a car strikes a moose, often times the legs come out from under the moose, lofting her onto the roof of the car. Moose are big, and the the driver often ends up smushed by the car roof. Moose kill. Who knew?

9. Hikers do not litter.

I traversed 8.5 miles of trail and never saw one piece of trash. I am uncertain I have ever covered 8.5 miles of any ground in America without seeing litter.

8. The "Old Man Viewing Site" is now the "Old Man Historic Site."

This is perhaps my favorite story of New Hampshire. The state's signature attraction is, er, was The Old Man in the Mountain, which is, I mean, was a rock formation on Cannon Mountain that looked the shape of an old man's face. New Hampsire loves, oops, loved this old man. He is on her license plates. He is on her road signs. He is on her driver's licenses.

But he is no more.

Five years ago the old man's nose fell off. I thought this was hilarious. Plastic surgery! Soon after that though, his entire face fell off. Plastic surgery anyways! Who needs The Old Man in the Mountain when you can have The Michael Jackson in the Mountain. New Hampshirans don't find this funny, incidentally. Anyways, the old man is no more, yet he is still everywhere. The expense to re-do all of the state's stationary is so great that we continue to live on with his image everywhere. Everywhere, that is, except where actually is supposed to be. And so it was with great humor that we passed the brown government sign now proudly locating New Hampshire's greatest new tourist attraction: "Old Man Historic Site".

7. I am becoming an old man.

No, my face has not fallen off. Neither has my nose. I remember playing basketball at the YMCA as a teenager and remembering how badly the 40 year old men smelled while trying to guard them. They were hairy and smelly. I knew my stuff stank too, but it seemed to me that older men smelled particularly egregious. Granted, as an insecure high school male, I was applying deodorant to my armpits like it was frosting on birthday cake, but nonetheless, adult men stunk. So it was with great horror, amidst the humidity of the morning, that an hour into the hike I bowed my head and got a whiff of "old man smell." My old man smell. Sigh.

Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, dear writer, it tolls for thee.

6. There are parts of New Hampshire where no one lives.

They call the northern part of the state "North Woods." People will live on plains. They will live in towns. They will live in the hills. But only Hansel and Gretel's antagnoist and Grandmother's House dare settle in the woods. And even Grandmother's House is "through" and not "in" the woods. The entire north half of NH is sparsely populated, but the top third is darn near barren. Which makes it all the more astonishing this state sets the tone for the Presidential primaries every four years. Earn the witch's vote, head over to Grandmother's House for a town hall meeting, and you are well on your way to the nomination.

5. A good fart goes a long way in all terrain.

Even amidst the pines, the sweat, the firs, the flowers, the snot, the breeze, and the many other scents of nature, you can still smell a good fart.

4. My body is my enemy.

One of my favorite professors I had in college, Dr. Armitage, once quipped: "You will learn one day, dear children, that your body is your enemy." (Incidentally, he looks and speaks like one of my favorite authors, John Stott. I think I came to like Stott because he reminded me of Armitage. Or maybe the other way around). He emphasized the word "enemy" in a dark, mischevious voice so that I remember laughing at his cynicism, though deep down I thought he might not have been joking.

Wednesday, I found out he was not. Long gone are the days of my cross country fitness. Long gone are the days of 4:50 miles. Long gone are the days when no athletic challenge could be more difficult than my daily fitness regime. Say hello to the days of a bad achilles. Say hello to the days of a sore hip. Say hello to the days where 8.5 miles, which was once a nice summer jog, now brings me to my knees.

3. I am right-legged.

My right leg became fatigued long before my left. As I analyzed, I realized I lead with and push off my right leg all the time. I knew I was right-handed but did not know that I was, or even could be, right-legged.

2. My driving motivation in life is my own comfort.

The hike was beautiful. 40-foot water falls, 70-degree temperatures, clear skies, good fellowship - we could not have asked for a better day. Yet, the entire last two hours of the hike I was desperate to be done. Every joint in my right leg throbbed in dull pain. Flies landed on me whenever movement ceased. And the end seemed to never get closer. All around me was beauty I only see on (HD, thanks roomie!) tv, yet all I wanted was to be back sitting in the cab of the pick-up truck with my shoes off.

I have noticed this about my life this year in various situations (fund-raising, difficult times on campus, futile attempts at establishing an exercise regimen) that my first concern in nearly every situation is my own comfort. I believe I am a product of my culture in this, as I think that a desire for comfort runs our economics, our politics, our leisure, and even our religion. There is not much profound in this, I do not think.

What is profound is that I follow a God who tells me to daily take up my cross. I follow a God who says in Psalm 119 that I only learn to obey through affliction. I follow a God who says that his power is made known through the thorns in my life. I follo the God of the cross. And so my overriding desire or comfort (or at least my submission to it) often takes me away from deeper intimacy with God which, though often times painful, is the end of all my life's means.

I spend much of the time missing the striking, sublime, transcendent beauty of The Beautiful One because all I want is the seat cushion of a 1994 Ford pickup.

1. When standing on top of a 5000-foot peak, I remembered that all of creation is groaning for redemption. But I learned that in some spots where man is wont to go it certainly does feel that the rocks really are crying out.

My Work

2008-06-25T16:10:00.003-04:00

Gentlemen may cry “Peace! Peace!” - but there is no peace.
-Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

revivol
conkwest
viktoree
kingdumb
gloree
dreems
renowwne
phaame

Your thoughts? Nay, mine. My ways? Not thine. And yet
My word goes forth, oft in thy hand, to do
All I see fit. Ripe fruit it does beget.
The word, the work, the will are mine and you,

comeonjesus!
everyoneislookingforyouhurryup!
wevegotalongday
people!everywhere!
healings!
miracles!
our plans!

You are mine, too. I know when you will rise
And you will set, a star within my sky.
My word went forth, a-lit thine darkened eyes
To see, afore you e’er did think to try

Ive done
I do
I will do
why dont you?

To find me. In surety, peace I labor
From town to town, the reason why I came.
Now still, as then, no fret in me doth stir
For I am Do – all work bows at my name.

I will my work, my world to re-conquest;
My word shall do, so you, in work, can rest.

Or Maybe. . . .

2008-06-18T09:53:00.001-04:00

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly." -Soren Kierkegaard

Perhaps there really is no ordering to them. Perhaps the Beatitudes really are this easy:

Be humble. God will bless you, and something good involving the kingdom of heaven will happen to you.

Take heart in times of grief. God will bless you and comfort you.

Think of and treat others as more important than yourself. God will bless you, and one day something good will see your inheritance.

Desire what is good. God will bless you, and one day you will see righteousness win.

Give mercy to other. God will bless you and will have mercy on you.

Pursue righteousness. God will bless you, and you will see him.

Work for peace. God will bless you and adopt you as his child.

Stand when you are abused for loving good. God will bless you, and you will receive the kingdom of heaven.

Perhaps in looking for order in the Beatitudes, I am trying to explain away that which is patently clear.

More Beatitudinal Musings

2008-06-17T17:00:00.003-04:00

Another, perhaps more conventional, grouping of the Beatitudes would seem to differentiate the first four as describing our oppression while the last five would describe our efforts.

The postures described in v. 3-6 all describe an earthly oppression derived from some lack in this world (spiritual poverty, grief, humility, desire for righteousness). These postures are never ideal by the world's standards, as they involve pain, a lack of happiness and comfort, which one perceives to be the goal of life by mere observation. Christ describes these folks as blessed, however, because in this earthly oppression, one finds the spiritual freedom of blessedness, defined here simply as the reality of God's presence.

The postures described in v. 7-12 all describe efforts one makes in pursuing righteousness (offering mercy, being pure, working for peace, standing amidst persecution, again refusing to bend when persecuted). Christ describes these folks as blessed because they aim to pursue righteousness, to do that which God commands them to do. In their efforts to serve and please God, they become blessed by the reality of his presence in their actions.

One could then conclude from this that God's presence follows us regardless of circumstance. Whether his people find themselves in times of godly dissatisfaction or in times of Kingdom work (and perhaps all times in between?), Jesus has called them blessed, that is living with the reality and knowledge of God's presence in their lives.

Perhaps the Beatitudes simply reveal the truth that God's presense and work in the lives of His people is not chained to circumstance.

Beatitude Thoughts

2008-06-14T13:43:00.001-04:00

If you get a chance, take a quick look at the Beatitudes:

Do you think there is any flow or reason to the ordering? Do they each just stand alone as nice postures to be in or is there a grander theme by what is chosen and the order they are chosen in?

What do you think about this:

There are 9. The first 4 seem to argue that those who are blessed are in a posture of need (poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungry and thirsty). The middle one is mercy. Perhaps all 9 turn on the entrance of mercy into the equation. The last 4 seem to argue that those who are blessed are in a posture of righteousness (pure in heart, peacemaking, persecuted, persecuted again).

Could this not be the Gospel? Sin and Recognized Need --> Mercy and Conversion --> New Heart and Sanctification

Am I oversimplifying the ordering or imposing on it what I want to see?

Story Telling

2007-10-03T21:33:00.000-04:00

An excerpt from an introduction to student testimonies I gave a couple Thursdays ago at our weekly Large Group meeting:

One of the hallmarks of true community is honesty, vulnerability, this idea of “being real.” In community, we truthfully share our lives with each other, that we might really know one another and truly be able to care for one another. So in the interest of real community, I am going to get vulnerable with you all tonight. I’m going to share with you one of the deepest, darkest secrets I have in my life – something that no man in his right mind would ever admit:

I like Grey’s Anatomy. If you press my on the issue, I might even say I LOVE Grey’s Anatomy. I think it’s the most intriguing show on television, the only one which I will carve out specific time in my schedule to watch – or TiVo because I'm at Large Group.

I’m fascinated by the stories of the characters – of Meredith’s strained relationship with her mother, of chief’s being torn between the woman he loves and the woman he’s committed to, of Addison’s attempt to find purpose in a world full of broken relationships, of Alex’s life change from tough guy bad boy to female heart-throb, of George’s attempt to navigate life without his deceased father, of Christina’s battle to choose love over stress, of Bailey’s story to try to keep this whole hospital full of interns intact, of McDreamy and his hair, of McSteamy and his ego.

I love these characters’ stories. And I love how all their stories come together to form “Grey’s Anatomy.” All their stories come together to form this one great story.

InterVarsity is a Christian organization, and we believe in God, the God who came to earth and revealed himself to humans through the person of Jesus Christ. We believe this God has a story. From the beginning of time, he has been writing it. Today, he is writing it. And forevermore, he will continue to write this never-ending story.

God’s story is the story of his interactions with humankind. It is rife with romance, with tragedy, with redemption, with victory, with sacrifice, with adventure. It is the story of God’s love for us, of our rejection of that love, and of God’s ceaseless work to bring us back to that love. It is a great story.

Whether you realize it or not, you have a story, a story of your interaction with this God, a story that is part of God’s greater story. Just as Meredith’s story, George’s story, McDreamy’s story come together to form the story of "Grey’s Anatomy," so do all of our stories come together to form part of the greater story that God continues to write.

The stories of our interactions with God are as numerous as there are people in the room tonight. At various points in each of our stories, there have been dramas that would make Grey’s Anatomy look like child’s play, there have been comedies written by circumstance that even Dane Cook couldn’t think up, there have been adventures known only in the days of ancient Sparta, there have been horror stories with fear that would intimidate even Stephen King, there have been romances which Nicholas Sparks’s notebook could never contain. They are great and wild stories. And we believe that all of our stories have the same theme - God stopping at nothing in his work to call his people into a deeper and deeper relationship with himself.

He is bringing forth his story one story at a time.

Just a Little Friendly Heads Up

2007-10-01T22:24:00.000-04:00

I made a mistake last night. I said it was cold.

And it was cold. After a sunny day in the mid-70's, the temperature had dropped to the chilly 40's as I walked to our Leadership Meeting at 7:00pm dressed to the hilt in khaki shorts and flip-floppery. Here, I uttered my climatic slur.

I received varied reactions from the UNH IV student leaders. One let out a Santa Clausian chuckle which communicated, "I know something you don't. Ha Ha Ha." Another gave me a quizzical look wondering why her staff worker was telling a lie. A third informed me that the weather outside was not, in fact, cold but "nice." I quickly quieted down and resolved to send Meteorological Me into hibernation for the rest of the winter.

Upon returning to my apartment after the meeting, I found an e-mail from the Prayer Coordinator of entitled "Just a Little Friendly Heads Up." It made me laugh. Then I reflected. That made me cry. Whether you are in the mood for comedy or tragedy, I thought you all might enjoy:

"NEW ENGLAND TEMPERATURE CONVERSION CHART

60 F: Southern Californians shiver uncontrollably. People in New England sunbathe.
50 F: New Yorkers try to turn on the heat. People in New England plant gardens.
40 F: Italian & English cars won't start. People in New England drive with the windows down.
32 F: Distilled water freezes. Maine's Moosehead Lake's water gets thicker.
20 F: Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats. People in New England throw on a flannel shirt.
15 F: New York landlords finally turn up the heat. People in New England have the last cookout before it gets cold.
0 F: All the people in Miami die. New Englanders close the windows.
10 below zero: Californians fly away to Mexico. The Girl Scouts in New England are selling cookies door to door.
25 below zero: Hollywood disintegrates. People in New England get out their winter coats.
40 below zero: Washington DC runs out of hot air. People in New England let the dogs sleep indoors.
100 below zero: Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. New Englanders get frustrated because they can't start their "kahs."
460 below zero: All atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale). People in New England start saying, "cold 'nuff for ya?"
500 below zero: Hell freezes over. The Red Sox win the World Series."

Come, Lord Jesus.

Preferably before winter.

Will You Take Me Back?

2007-09-29T22:25:00.000-04:00

So, yeah, about the last couple weeks. . . .

This seems a bit awkward.

I guess I owe an apology to anyone still hanging around Redeeming Prufrock. I feel like I have returned to middle school where one ends relationships not through conversation or even an argument but through silence and the total disregard for the other's existence.

Ah, but dear reader, I did not mean to break up! I merely needed some time alone. You know, to clear my mind. I mean, it wasn't you, it was me. . . .

Ok, I'm a prude. I know, I know, I could've at least called. Or blogged. Or commented. Or something. Anything.

I really hate to write that I have been really busy. Everyone says they are busy to the point that the word carries no substantive meaning any longer. I sometimes think "I'm busy" has replaced "Good" as the generic response to the introductory question: "How's it going?" Saying "I'm busy" is like saying nothing.

Thus, I shan't say I have been too busy to blog. Had I wanted to badly enough, I would have made time for it. This week, I made time to watch the Tar Heels. I made time to read a book. I made time to eat lunch. If I (and I suspect we) want to do something badly enough, I make time for it.

So as to the silence: I have discovered over the past month that my Meyers-Briggs test stands correct. I am an introvert. My new job demands that I spend most of my time with people, which I love. People matter. However, I have found that spending time with folks wears me out. At the end of the day, I usually meet relational and intellectual exhaustion. So when time comes to write, I have trouble stringing coherent words together. I love words too much to treat them so lightly.

I have not retired from the blogosphere as previously reported in the comments. I merely must re-find my place in it, a place where I can contribute something blogworthy without eight hours of book-shelving/brainstorming each day. This process occupies my thoughts at the moment.

Consider this a DTR (Define the Relationship, for those unfamiliar with the lingo these days). I hope to redefine our relationship in a manner that works well for both of us.

If, that is, you will take me back.

So I'm Here, Now What?

2007-09-06T11:45:00.001-04:00

I give my first ever talk at an InterVarsity Large Group tonight with the hopes of providing a welcoming place for freshmen new to the college environment and of inviting them into God's transformational work at UNH. If you are the praying type, this all goes down around 7:30, so any prayers before then will receive great thanksgiving from your humble hack. Here's a snippet from what I hope comes out of my mouth tonight:

“So I’m here, now what?” It’s the question of the week. Somehow or another, you all got to this room, tonight. “So I’m here, now what?”

I cannot answer this question for you. At the moment, I cannot even answer it for myself. Quite a case of the blind leading the blind. What I can answer for you though is where InterVarsity is going, and I chose these words carefully because I do believe that we are, in fact, going somewhere. We are a Christian organization, and one of the biggest misconceptions of Christianity – both inside and outside of the church - is that it is a monument, a place to gather people who believe like us and think like us and look like us and just sit around and do stuff like wear halos, have no fun, “grow,” and be holy.

But this is not Christianity. Christianity is not a monument. It is a movement. And we here at InterVarsity are a part of that movement. Tonight, I want to respond to the question “So I’m here, now what?” with an invitation to you all to come along with us to where we are going.

I have recently become fascinated by the Greek myth of Sisyphus. According to lore, Sisyphus was an ancient king of the Greek city of Corinth. He was a wily man, known specifically for his deceitfulness and trickery. Tales range far and wide of how he seduced his niece, how he usurped his brother’s throne, how he betrayed the secrets entrusted to him by Zeus. My man Sisyphus was a rascal, a rogue, a rapscallion even, and this troubled the Greek gods to no end. When Sisyphus died, they decided to punish him for his life of deception. His fate: they condemned him to an eternity of rolling a huge boulder up a steep hill. Now, rolling a ball up a hill isn’t that bad. But here’s the kicker. Every time he neared the crest of the hill, the boulder would slip from his grasp and fall back to Ground Zero where he must begin again and again and again. . . . all with the same futile result. His eternal fate was frustration.

I have fallen in love with this story because, in times of transition such as now, life often feels like this to me, that I am pushing a huge boulder up to the top of a hill but each time I get close it merely falls back on top of me. I work hard all through high school to get to college – where I feel new, awkward, lonely even, left at the end of my labors asking the disappointing question, “So I’m here, now what?” I study for hours on end, rearranging my schedule and saying “No” to things I really want to do - only to bomb the midterm anyways. I spend weeks leaving everything I’ve ever known behind me and moving 900 miles from home all to realize that I’m here now, and I have no clue what I need to be doing - except pulling against the Yankees and eating Dunkin’ Donuts.

Life often feels like the boulder never crests the hill, despite my best efforts.

I tell that story as a point of contrast because the Kingdom of Jesus Christ is not like this. In fact, it is the exact opposite of this. If life sometimes seems to be a laborious and futile upward push of the boulder that never really accomplishes anything substantial, then the Kingdom of God is a snowball running downhill collecting us along its path and giving us purpose, progress, and peace. It is a bold, but tender, movement.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at UNH is a part of this movement. We are going somewhere.

An Elephant Invasion of UNH

2007-09-05T14:51:00.000-04:00

A little UNH in the news:

Tonight, a Republican presidential primary debate will be held at the Whittemore Center on the campus of the University of New Hampshire. Tune in to Fox News at 8:30 to see the arena in which my new second favorite college team - I'm a Tar Heel born and a Tar Heel bred - plays hockey. I was unable to find any tickets for tonight, which is good preparation for me because I hear hockey tickets are few and far between up here. Still, I never miss a chance to brag a little on my new school; the center of the political universe, or more aptly the right of the political universe, comes to Durham, NH tonight.

Cutting Out a Home

2007-09-04T21:14:00.000-04:00

When moving to a new region, one must find certain places of comfort. Church, for example. Life often feels unstable in a new place without church community. I still seek the feeling of home which this comfort will provide me.

Today was a big day for me though because today I found one of these places. I found my barber.

His name is Al. His title: "Master Barber" at Champion Cuts. That's right, folks, not an "Apprentice Barber" or even a "Regular Barber." A "Master Barber." His business card says so.

Now you may think I exaggerate, that perhaps this topic does not seem blog-worthy. However, I do not like hair. It annoys me. I hate it when it creeps onto my ears, and I hate it when it sprouts on the back of my neck. I hate when it becomes long enough I can twist it and play with and not keep my hands off it. Thus, if a barber does not adequately fight back the side-hair climbing onto my ears and do some good tapering work, he has monumentally failed me. I take this very seriously.

I have spent the better part of the last four years of my life away from Charlotte and have yet to find a barber who does an adequate job. Chapel Hill, Williamsburg, Boston - none provide the comfort and home of my barber in Charlotte.

So when I strolled down to Champion Cuts today, I almost did not enter. I had lost hope given past experiences. Perhaps another barber simply did not exist who could match the standard set for so many years in Charlotte. Yet, my friends, suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope.

I choose to hope. I enter.

Al is a big dude with a bald-head. As we began, he asks me what I have up today, and I say I work at the university. Soon I would go to work. He asks me what I do. I reply I work with a campus ministry. This almost kills our conversation, as it almost did with my landlord, as it almost did with George the Chinese take-out guy last night, as it almost does with most folks I meet up here. People find Jesus awkward here, and they do not hide it. I respect that. Facade does no one any good.

I have become adept at pushing through the awkwardness caused by my occupation, so I make a comment about Appalachian St. beating Michigan. Unlike nearly everyone in New Hampshire, I knew of App. St. before they beat Michigan. I feel like I have known a secret that everyone else has just learned about, and now is my time to shine. I shine, talking about a friend I know who goes to school there and must have had a grand party Saturday night.

Pushed through awkwardness. Al and I still have a chance!

On the wall in front of the chair hangs a great deal of Boston sports memorabilia. This is Champion Cuts, after all. Right in front of me hangs a picture from the New England Patriots Super Bowl victory over my beloved Panther Nation in 2004. I have never cried over a sporting event. I came closest at that loss.

This almost ruins me and Al. Some things I cannot tolerate. Re-opening old wounds remains one of them.

But Al tapers. Al takes a two-guard to the edges of my ears. What's best, Al only charges 11 bucks. The price remains low enough that I can leave a substantial tip and still feel like I get a deal. The quickest way to a man's heart may be through his stomach, but the surest way to capture it is through his wallet. Thus, I find reason to ignore the Super Bowl poster. It's only a game, after all, and some things are more important than sports.

Like hair.

I have still yet to find a church home. I still do not know where I will go watch the Panthers on Sunday. But today, I found a barber.

Today, Dover became a little bit more my home.

Coffeeloo

2007-09-01T07:18:00.000-04:00

Today presents itself as a watershed moment in my life. Today, I abstain from Dunkin' Donuts for the next 30 days. Today, I also embark on the longest work day of the year.

Napoleon had his Waterloo. Today, Ben may have his Coffeeloo.

We welcome 3000 new students to UNH today, 1000 of whom attended InterVarsity's Ice Cream Social last year. The number has doubled each of the past three years, so we expect at least quadruple digits tonight. We spend the day advertising and preparing for tonight's festivities, before diving into that daunting, week-long task known simply as "follow-up." After meandering through ice cream, door knocking, more ice cream, coffee, ultimate frisbee, the week ends Thursday night with our first Large Group Meeting of the year - and the first of my UNH life.

Exciting times, these are.

Demanding ones, as well. Especially without Dunkin' Donuts.

Lord, have mercy.

A Holy Jealousy

2007-08-30T21:59:00.000-04:00

My favorite story of this past week's chapter camp came courtesy of a student from the University of Rhode Island. He began his story by telling that of Gideon, how the latter brought an army of 22,000 to wage battle against the Midianites. The Lord told him 22,000 was too many, so Gideon sent 12,000 home. The Lord again told Gideon that 10,000 was too many and proceeded to scatter the army all the way down to 300.

22,000 troops down to 300. Yet, the Lord, and undoubtedly not the army, brought victory in the ensuing battle.

Similarly this week, the Lord whittled down the URI contingent at camp to disappointingly low numbers, especially given that URI has one of the largest fellowships in New England that crests triple digits in numbers of students regularly attending their events. Yet, this student told of vision given, hope restored, God's purposes accomplished.

Triple digits down to single ones. Yet, the Lord, and undoubtedly not the students, brought victory this week at chapter camp.

I spoke to the student after he shared, thanking him for telling his story. He replied quite simply:

"The Lord is very jealous of his glory. He refuses to let it go to another."

I love this about the Almighty. He remains jealous of his glory, refusing to allow us to take credit for the wonderful things that he does. Certainly, Israel could not take credit for a major military victory with only 300 soldiers present. Certainly, URI could not take credit for the kingdom's advancement this past week. The credit, the glory goes to the Lord God Almighty, as it should all the time. Praise God for times like this when he shows us that reality and refuses to let our pride take credit for the transformational work that he is doing.

The Lord is very jealous of his glory indeed. He refuses to let it go to another.

Lent in September

2007-08-25T17:48:00.001-04:00

You can tell a lot about someone by his or her trashcan.

Case in point: I like Dunkin' Donuts. In North Carolina, Dunkin' Donuts exists as junk food; accordingly, my semi-addiction left me a glutton. In New England, Dunkin' Donuts exists a staple, a way of life even; accordingly my growing addiction leaves me, well, normal. Normality eludes me most days in this strange and foreign land, so I cling to it on a daily basis at the purple and orange. My trashcan reveals this.

This September, however, my trashcan will remain empty. I will not consume Dunks coffee. I will not gorge on Dunks donuts. In fact, I will not visit Dunks at all.

Lent comes early this year for your humble hack.

Now, dear reader, you may find yourself asking, "Why this new found abstinence? Health kick? That seems rather out of character. Budget cuts? Well, coffee only costs $2.00. Tired of taking out the trash, perhaps? Foolishness! A small price to pay for such excellence! If not these reasons, then why?"

Glad you asked. Allow me to explain.

The InterVarsity chapter at the University of New Hampshire will travel to the Gulf Coast this Spring Break to help with the continued Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Three years later, much work still remains to help people recover their lives, though you might not know this since the media and many celebrities have not found it chic to continue pointing towards the need. Regardless, it remains and desperately so.

Last year, InterVarsity in New Hampshire sent 70 students (2 of whom were the co-captains of UNH's nationally ranked football team) down to the Gulf, half of whom did not profess a faith in Christ. Here, they found themselves exposed to suffering, Christians who care about that suffering, and the biblical truth about how God responds to this suffering. In short, they heard the Gospel and saw it in action. This year, we have implemented a new program called "Bring a Friend to Build." The gist: this Spring Break, any IV student who invites and brings someone not currently involved with the fellowship goes for half the $400 price. The invited friend also attends for half price.

We have to raise money to make this happen. To do so, some of the InterVarsity staff, self included, will embark on a marathon. No, not the kind that involves lots of running. We will take on a task much bolder, much riskier than that. We will tackle a 100-hole (yes, 100 holes!) golf marathon in one day, that day being September 24. Trees, houses, rodents, anything within reach of my slice, beware!

I seek sponsors for this endeavor.

Enter: my trashcan.

Now, I do not have a lot of money to fling around. Most of you find yourselves in similar situations, especially considering I have already approached most of you for money to fund my salary. However, I do somehow find enough money to fling around each day at Dunkin' Donuts - specifically, $3.00/day for a coffee and 2 donuts, 6 days/week, 4 weeks/September. Abstaining from coffee and donuts will free up $72 over the course of September.

I challenge you, dear reader, to find something in your trashcan you can give up for the month of September to enable someone to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ this March. Magazines. Coffee. Little Debbies. Deodorant. Sweet Tea. Beer. Movie Tickets. Join me in giving something up for the month of September and committing the savings to non-Christians seeking Jesus Christ.

If you commit $0.25/hole, that would be $25. $0.50/hole would come out to $50. If you committed $2/hole, you would send one non-Christian to the Gulf. All donations are tax deductible.

If this peaks your interest, send an e-mail to ben_humphries@ivstaff.org to let me know. I will let you know how, when, and where to give. If we can get enough people interested, I will write a post on it, and we can keep track of how our abstinences progress (or, even more entertainingly, fail) throughout the month of September. I may even ask some of you to write a post to let us know how it goes.

What's more, we will have much to celebrate together come Spring Break.

You can tell a lot about a person by his or her trashcan. May your trashcan make a statement about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ this September.

Slaughter Rule, Anyone?

2007-08-23T13:43:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: "BAL Bullpen: 4IP 20H 24ER 7BB 7K"

This box score line rolled across my television last night, as ESPN rocked me to sleep with its Sportscenter lullaby. For those not familiar with baseball, that line reads as followed: four innings pitched, twenty hits, twenty-four earned runs, seven walks, and seven strike-outs.

The line did nothing to help me sleep. It simply made me laugh out loud. In my 400-sq ft apartment, all alone, I shamelessly cackled for seconds on end. It reminded me of the time I laughed out loud while reading a book on punctuation. Despite how it may sound, I stand not embarrassed. It was just that funny. Same deal last night.

The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles last night 30-3. And no, these teams do not play football. In fact, that Baltimore FOOTBALL TEAM had not given up 30 points since 2005. This may, in fact, exist as the grandest professional sports thrashing of my lifetime. For certain, the four innings pitched by the Baltimore bullpen have to exist as the worst collective effort of any group of athletes in recent sports memory (though I am open and eager for a discussion of this which will no doubt lead to more smiles and laughter).

The stats around this thing are horrifyingly hilarious. They are also well-documented (and will continue to be) by ESPN. However, I feel a couple comments particularly noteworthy:

-Going into the 4th inning, a third of the game already over, the Rangers trailed 3-0. Going into the 6th inning, the game more than half finished, they had a paltry 5-3 lead. They won 30-3 with a, uh, strong finish.

-They set the record for most runs ever scored in a double-header - BEFORE THE SECOND GAME HAD EVEN BEGUN.

-The Rangers had scored two runs total in their last two games.

-The Rangers catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia entered the game batting .179. He finished batting .262.

-Two players hit two home runs in the game. Texas also hit two grand slams.

-Not one of the runs given up by the Baltimore bullpen, not a one, came as a result of an error. No blame, no excuses, no rationalizations. Every run, hard earned.

-And perhaps my favorite stat of all, Texas pitcher Wes Littleton EARNED A SAVE for his work to protect a 27-run lead. On a night of hilarity, nothing remained funnier than the diction and reality of this.

Oh, why not? One more time. We may never see anything this funny in professional sport again.

BAL Bullpen: 4IP 20H 24ER 7BB 7K

Where's My Denomination?

2007-08-22T13:54:00.000-04:00

I never knew I liked denominations until now.

In my observations of folks my age, I think this love for denomination places me in the minority - or at the very least, in a majority which makes far less noise than the minority.

I liken church denominations to political parties, something else which seems to have fallen out of favor these days. People often claim that parties divide us and make us hate one another. 'Tis not the parties which divide us but the issues around which parties form; these divisive issues would remain with us whether parties went the way of the woolly mammoth or not. As far as not liking each other, we do such a fantastic job of that in most realms of life that certainly we cannot blame our relational discord on such constructions as political parties. They simply organize our dislike which could actually make it easier to quench.

Parties do a fantastic job of relaying to the public a general political ideology to which a candidate subscribes. This can then clue us in to where this person stands on specific issues. Certainly politicians do not line up rank and file on all issues, and they often cross party lines. Even then, the line crossing creates such a stir as to alert us very forcefully to the person's stance on said issue. Thus, we become informed. For the job of informing the public, parties perform adequately.

Denominations perform a similar task, articulating where certain groups of the body of Christ stand on certain issues. Disagreements within the body exist as a simple reality. This should not surprise, as the perspective of a big toe would stand quite different from that of the elbow joint.

Denominations have taken much heat for causing these dreaded (cue dark, haunting voice) "divisions in the body." I often find this phrase hyperbolized, as generally denominations differ on tertiary issues unrelated to the heart of the Gospel, that Christ died for sinners among whom I am foremost. Using such harsh diction as "divisions," we often make mountains out of molehills, divisions out of differences when really we stand more on the same page than not. What's more, these disagreements would exist irrespective of the existence of denominations. We would simply disagree in a less organized fashion which could prove even more disastrous.

What I find particularly useful about denominations lies in the accountability which the concept provides. Forgive my use of the cultural curse word, but stereotypes do exist in our world and often ground themselves in much truth. Denominations carry stereotypes, but the fact that they do provides constant opportunity to ensure that we combat the negative aspects of these stereotypes.

For example, the denomination to which I subscribe often stands accused of being too academic at the expense of the relational and of caring too little about social causes. Whether fair or not, this reputation forces us to make sure we do focus on the fact that God very really LOVES us and that we very really love the people in the world whom he also loves. If we avoid becoming defensive, the very existence of denominations can help ensure that the main thing is that we keep the main thing the main thing - or something like that.

I have found that the New Hampshire (and I suspect the New England) church does not deal in denominations as heavily as the church in the South does. Perhaps this emerges from the fewer amount of churches here in the Northeast or from the desperate need for unity in an environment overtly disinterested, and often hostile, to Jesus Christ. I stand certain that good, godly, biblical reasons explain this lack of denomination.

However, it makes it darn hard for a new person, namely me, to find a church. Without denominations, I have no clue where to start my search, as I know nothing about any church I visit save for what their website may articulate - which is to say, not much. I imagine I could visit a church for several weeks without knowing rather important beliefs like whether it thinks the resurrection is metaphor or reality or whether it believes all religions follow the same God or not. Without denominations, it makes it difficult to ensure orthodoxy.

I do believe the lack of denomination a good thing for the church in New Hampshire if for no other reason than the people here have obviously decided it so. It merely makes it inconvenient for me, and so I whine. I'm impatient! I want a church!! And I want it now!!! [insert whiny, 3 year old in the grocery store tantrum now] The lack of denomination has slowed that process down.

I never knew that I like denominations until now.

Prayer Request

2007-08-20T10:27:00.000-04:00

If you have read Redeeming Prufrock for any amount of time, you know by name and comment the husband and wife combo of Chris and Jenn Pappa. They comment often, with wisdom and wit no less. I found out this morning that Jenn has been hospitalized with what doctors suspect is viral meningitis after recently returning from a two week stint on an overseas mission trip. I once sat in a hospital bed a room over from a person with meningitis and discovered by audible observation that the disease does not play around.

Somehow, an odd and unexplainable community has risen up around this blog. I can feel it, and I sense that many of you do as well. It was not intentioned, and I really do not know how it happened. Jenn and Chris have been a part of this.

In that spirit, I ask you all who read regularly to pray for them this morning. Pray for speedy recovery for Jenn. Pray also for Chris during what must be a tiring, worrisome, and overall difficult time for him. Please pray also for their faith, that their onlooking family and friends may see the power and relevancy of the Gospel in the way they navigate through this difficult time. I believe they want you all to pray this.

Thanks.

Transitory Thoughts

2007-08-17T10:03:00.000-04:00

I received an e-mail from a prayer supporter yesterday that merely said:

"you=blog
soon"

Oh yeah, blog. I can do that. If I still remember how.

Hello, dear reader! Long time, no see. My apologies on my blog silence of late. Much has happened over the past two weeks including a 950 mile move complete with interstate and Penske rental truck; five days of meetings, conferences, and, well, life; and my first couple days in my currently internet-less new apartment.

Alack and alas, I have found blogging rather difficult during this time of transition. But no more! Enter: Dover Public Library, the hero of our story, with its close proximity and wireless internet.

We talked about these times of transition in a New Hampshire team meeting recently, looking at the Joshua 1 passage where the leadership of the entire nation of Israel transitions from Moses to Joshua.

Most of us on the team enter into some period of transition heading into this school year, so the question was asked, "What promises from God do you claim heading into this transition? What will you cling to when you hit your first obstacle?"

This easy question remained difficult for a few pensive moments, as I kept thinking of things that I wanted God to promise but which he had not. Perhaps my answer needs to begin there, with that which God does not promise.

He does not promise success as I would see or define it. I think of Moses. The Joshua 1 passage starts out with a striking statement from the Lord of Life, "My servant Moses is dead." Moses died never seeing the Promised Land, the goal to which his life-long endeavors bent. He never tasted the milk and honey, only catching glimpses of it from a far cliff.

Similarly, the Lord does not promise me the Promised Land. He does not promise the chapter at UNH to grow. He does not promise that we will see people come to love Jesus. He does not promise that the students will like me. I pray that these things will come to pass. What's more, I hopefully and confidently expect them to because I do think they will bring glory to God. But God does not promise them. I have no guarantee.

What he does promise is that I am where he desires me to be in a very literal and geographic sense. Perhaps more than any moment in my life, I know southern New Hampshire exists as the exact PLACE to where God has called me. He promises this because of his sovereignty. He promises this because so much had to happen for me to claim this place as home that he could have stopped it at any number of points along the way. He promises this through my fundraising hitting a level which allowed me to move, through no traffic during the move, through the fact that my bed fits perfectly (but just barely) in my new apartment, through the fact that the rain stopped when we began to move my stuff in. . .

Furthermore, he promises to refine me independent of success or failure. In this place, the Lord will not cease to draw me closer to him and to continuously refine me in his image. This often hurts. The blacksmith must melt and mold the metal before a sword emerges. But the Lord will not abandon, forsaken, or become indifferent towards me. This remains his promise to which I can cling come mountaintop or gully.

Which brings us back to Moses's example. Certainly he must have found it difficult to never enter the Promised Land. Yet, his life did not sink to futility and purposeless. Why? Because he knew God. Above and beyond perceived successes and failures, he knew God. He prays, "Let me know your ways that I may know you" and "I pray you, show me your glory!" He does not ask for success but for God.

Transition or not, this prayer God promises to fulfill.

1

2007-08-06T00:07:00.000-04:00

1. The local church is the hope of the world.

CAUTION #1: I did not write this statement. I shamelessly ripped it from Bill Hybels because he captures my sentiments in his statement better than I can myself.

CAUTION #2: We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ and not by church attendance or anything related to the church. Accordingly, the acknowledgment of the supremacy of Christ's Gospel remains more important than what I shall soon write. As Chris Pappa commented, we peak only at the Gospel. Still, given my personal history and the world's opinions, this lesson struck more forcefully and more poignantly than any other this year.

And with that, off we go. . .

I love the church.

I have never had the ability to honestly say this at any point in my life. Not as a youth. Not in college. Not as recently as nine months ago.

Friends told me I should, but I refused. Youth group simply provided more ridicule for a smart kid, so I did not attend. InterVarsity and my summer ministries gave me plenty of spiritual growth, so I only attended church because IV required it of leaders. Even at the beginning of this year, I attended out of obligation and not desire.

Then I took a membership class at my church. I wanted the name tag. Here, the teacher brought us to Ephesians 5:25 which states "that Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." The verse likens Christ's relationship with the church to a husband and his wife. In my walk with God, I had striven to love the Bible because Jesus loved the Bible. I had striven to love people because Jesus loved people. I had striven to love evangelism because Jesus loves it when people follow him.

Yet, I did not love the church though the Bible unequivocally teaches that Christ loves the church.

I became unable to avoid this set of hypothetical questions: Could I really love a friend if I did not care for his wife? How could I claim to love him if I refused to love the one with whom he had become one? How could I love him but not the that which mattered most to him?

In rapid time, the Lord used these Scriptures and questions to develop in me a love for the church. I still cannot explain the transformation, only attest to the results. I love church.

Now love does not necessitate hope, and I boldly proclaimed with Hybels that the church stands as our greatest hope. I believe the church works in necessary tandem with every lesson I have written about so far: It provides grounding for our faith, it meets our needs and our gifts at every age, it calls us out of ease to sacrifice, it guides us in the redemption of our past decisions, it provides a safe community of believers, it motivates and provides opportunity for generosity, it provides an answer for the searchings of our souls, it refuses to acknowledge death's lies, and it proclaims and protects the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In short, in the world I have seen this year, it provides hope.

The Lord has uniquely equipped the church for this duty. He has provided the leadership structure in Paul's epistles and in the example of the early church in Acts, laying out qualifications for and duties of the offices of elder and deacon. Furthermore, he has provided the necessary funds with which to minister to the world's spiritual and physical needs. Can anyone imagine the pile of money a 10% tithe of every world Christian's income would create? We could do unfathomable good if everyone called Christian would simply return to God that which he requireth. He has financially equipped the church as the hope of the world if we will only obey.

Yet, any organization can have solid leadership and plenteous resources. The church finds a great start there, but it differs from every other entity because of the spiritual and largely unexplainable activities between God and his church.

First, the church originates from the mouth of Jesus. Well before the first church ever appeared in Acts, Jesus Christ told Peter he would build his church upon this rock. The word order remains stark, as Christ clearly denotes that "he will build." Nothing can stand in the way of that which Christ claims to build. As Christ continues on and says, "Not even the gates of Hades will overcome [the church]."

Secondly, Jesus gives the church the authority of the keys of the kingdom. He elaborates, saying that whatever the church binds on earth will be bound in Heaven and what the church looses on earth will be loosed in Heaven. I confess, dear reader, that I do not know the specifics of that which Christ speaks. If you have any insight as to this binding and loosing, feel free to unleash in the comments. However, Christ clearly gives the church this extreme power which has consequences and repercussions in the heavenly realms. No other body possesses such outstanding authority or influence.

Thirdly, God has bestowed spiritual gifts for the edification of the church. Paul famously lays out a litany of spiritual gifts in 1 Cor 12. His words toward the end of the chapter draw less attention where he claims that "God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues." The Lord has certainly bestowed upon the body various and plentiful gifts but he does so by appointing them "in the church." In unsearchable fashion, the Lord has bestowed upon the church the perfect amount and combination of individual gifts that she may not lack and that her duties may not suffer.

Finally, Jesus Christ loves his church like a bride. Some of you know the love of husband and wife. Many of you know the love of boyfriend and girlfriend. Nearly all of us know the love of dream. Christ loves his church with that same intensity, fierceness, and commitment that a husband has for his wife, except this Husband loves perfectly. Just as a husband fights for his wife in all ways, so Christ battles for his church and will let nothing harm or abuse her. He looks out for her best interest and cares for her. He perfects her.

For what shall stand in the way of the love of Christ? Let the cross-crushed gates of Hell attest that nothing, nothing shall impede his fierce love!

Now certainly the church falls short of perfection and often even of goodness. It will continue to do so until Christ comes and perfects her members. Lest we use this as a fatal barb against her, if any of us required perfection, we would never marry. Still, the Lord has uniquely equipped his church to cure the ills of the world, both spiritual and physical. He has made claims about her which no other entity in the world may boast, and he has provided for her. What's more, he loves her.

In the face of a world which points to the church's sin and ignores her accomplishments, in our own experiences of disappointment within her walls, in our natural bent towards cynicism and despair, may we love her whom Jesus Christ loves.

She is the hope of the world.

2.

2007-08-02T17:29:00.000-04:00

2. The Gospel of Jesus Christ reigns supremely.

I do not have all the answers. In fact, I do not have many answers. The beauty, and perhaps curse, of a blog remains that the author can choose the topics he wishes to choose and avoid those he wishes to avoid. Know that many exist out there which I purposefully avoid in ignorance because I cannot explain God or his Gospel fully.

I find all life philosophies possess this same quality. All religions, all theories, all politics, all philosophies have critics. Hard questions often find silent answers, even when I speak of Christianity. Yet, I have become utterly and violently convinced of this one thing during my year off:

The Gospel of Jesus Christ, that Christ died for sinners of whom I stand worst, fully satisfies the soul and reigns supremely over life.

The Gospel reigns supremely over the existence.

I wrote yesterday of death. I confess this burdened me all day. I felt bad. Dwelling on death does that to us because God did not make us to die. Romans says that death exists as the wage of sin, and the Lord designed us as sinless. 'Tis our sinned that ruined life and brought about death. No wonder death feels so unnatural. Like everything that results from sin, it is. This is why I wrote yesterday that death has nothing to do with life. God gave us life apart from death. Our rebellion brought death onto the scene.

But through the cross, Jesus has destroyed death and returned to us the life God intended us to have all along. This death which hounded me all day today, which often hounds so many of us, it is no more! Hear again, it is no more!

I love the tone the New Testament takes with death. "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" cries 1 Cor 15:56. Romans 8:36 proclaims: "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." It continues, "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life. . . will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The apostle Paul, in his divinely inspired words, mocks death. He calls out its weakness. He claims us conquerors, victors over death all because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Mockery. Strength. Victory. These are our words to death.

Hear the arts as they join the chorus. Poet John Donne rudely addresses death in his Holy Sonnets, saying, "Death, thou shalt die." The hymn writer echoes with perhaps my favorite verse of song: "Death, in vain, forbids [Christ] rise" because Christ the Lord is risen today. In vain! Ha!

The death which consumes the world, which awaits all of us, which lyingly says we have no recourse, finds embarrassment, humility, and ultimate defeat at the cross of Christ because the Gospel reigns supremely over the existence.

The Gospel reigns supremely over the emotion.

Because of Christ's work on the cross, we have found new relationship with the Almighty God who has promised his presence with us always to the end of the age. Here lies the companionship for the lonely, the shoulder always available to which we turn, the constant Father, the constant Brother, the constant Friend. Because Christ died to remove the sin between us and a Holy God, we have everlasting companionship with the One who alone knows exactly how to love us.

Paul sits in a Roman prison facing torture and death. He is not alone.

A widow spends her days in a retirement community with only sparse visits from others. She is not alone.

A missionary couple sits in a foreign land, cut off from all they have ever known. They are not alone.

A man enters his 30's single, told by the world he should feel misery and pity. He is not alone.

A solitary middle schooler sits at the end of a table, reading because he finds no audience with the cool kids. He is not alone.

We never have to know loneliness because the Gospel reigns supremely over the emotion.

The Gospel reigns supremely over the social.

Just as Jesus Christ reconciled us to God, he calls us to reconcile with each other. From the Gospel of Jesus Christ emerges the greatest call to social justice the world has ever heard, not one of condescension or of politics or of guilt or of works-righteousness. No, the call sounds greater, nobler than that. It calls forth from thanksgiving and response.

Because of the right standing with God that Christ has given us as an indescribable free gift, we understand that we deserve nothing. In fact, we are not even our own; we were bought for the price of Jesus Christ. Who are we to elevate ourselves to any position above another? Let us respond and serve!

The Gospel of Christ shows us the way. Just as all stand equally dignified before the throne of God, so we should desire all to have equal standing in our world. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female before God. Let us strive, therefore, to love each other across the boundaries of race, ethnicity, gender, and difference that we have made. Just as the Lord has provided all of our needs which we could not meet at the cross, so we should give generously of ourselves to supply the poor, the widows, the orphans, the oppressed the ones with whom Jesus hung out.

Let us strive for justice for others, even at our own expense, because of the One who expended himself for us!

What's more, the Gospel uniquely provides the power with which to accomplish this task, a power which no organization, no principality, no government has at its disposal. He is the Holy Spirit. He convicts, guides, helps, empowers, and works to bring about the Kingdom of God in justice as the Lord intends it to be.

We desire all these things because the Gospel reigns supremely over the social.

The Gospel reigns supremely over the intellect.

Though the minds of this world would call it foolishness (and the Bible says that they shall), let us not forget that smart men have analyzed the evidence and concluded the Gospel true. Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel set out to prove the Gospel false; instead they found conversion. Smart folk like Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, and C.S. Lewis loved Jesus. Even great philosophers like Kierkegaard thought so highly of the Lord as to write things about him which most of us cannot understand.

People have thought on the nature of life and on the nature of man, they have observed our history and our writings, they have written and philosophized themselves. And they have concluded for, and not against, Christ. In the end, the message of Christ and the world they observed actually made sense. We should expect nothing else as we seek the one who told us to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and WITH ALL YOUR MIND" (emphasis mine).

Christianity does not require that we disregard our minds because the Gospel reigns supremely over the intellect.

The Gospel reigns supremely over the mission.

Let one never say that Christ leaves us without purpose in our earthly lives. He has commanded us to "go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Every moment, we have a purpose because the Gospel reigns supremely over the mission.

Every moment, we work towards that mission, to proclaim the supremacy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

4, 3

2007-08-01T20:17:00.000-04:00

4. We all seek to fill some intangible lack in our lives.

The sheer amount of spiritual material initially shocked me when I began to work at Borders. I remember taking the store tour and seeing, in order, "General Metaphysics," "Magic," and the section that contained so much weird material we could only call it "Other Divination." In my naivety, I laughed at this seemingly insulting label.

I laugh no longer because this is dead serious.

People search for something out there. What it is, I do not know. What they hope it will do for them, I do not know. Borders introduced me to Positive Thinking, "The Secret," and "The Law of Attraction," all of which say the exact same thing but have somehow marketed themselves to individual riches. I discovered that people really do believe in magic, and not Merlin from "Sword and the Stone" magic, but magic that openly claims the names of Satan and the Anti-Christ. Wicca flourishes. A co-worker of mine sports a pro-Druid bumper sticker on his car. The Self-Help section has taught me a new term: "New Age."

Here I thought our only options were Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Atheism.

And this only confines our search to that which we label "spiritual." Nevermind the role sports, pets, computers, kids, cars, marijuana play in our search for meaning.

What really fascinates me is the lack of "rational logic" which much of these ideologies can claim. "The Secret" sold millions and millions of copies on the idea that one can create one's own reality simply by thinking about it. Magic has always existed in the realm of childhood, Halloween, and fairy tales. Even the idea of placing sports as the sun around which one's universe orbits seems logically asinine.

I understand the cynic's claim that Christianity lacks reason. We do claim, among other things, that a man came back to life from the dead. From a worldly standpoint, I will not argue how foolish the Gospel may appear. What strikes me is how foolish most of our soul searches really are. Perhaps Christians and much of the world do not play on such different intellectual playing fields as the cynic may like to claim.

If these books sit on the self, they must sell. 'Tis the rule of capitalistic success. The presence of all of this diverse array of spiritual material provides strong evidence for some sort of existential lack in the lives of the public. We must be looking for something with the kind of money we spend here. Quite honestly, we must be jumping around from idea to idea in order for it all to find the success which it has.

Rick Warren sold millions. The Secret sold millions. They say not the same thing.

I have read it quoted that a God-shaped hole exists in the heart of every person. If I learned one thing from my work environment, it was this: that some kind of hole inhabits that intangible called heart. In this post, I shan't be so bold as to offer a hypothesis as to the hole's shape. I will only attest to its existence for which the mere presence of Borders provides evidence.

We all seek to fill some intangible lack in our lives.

3. Death dominates this world.

Our response to death has captured the greatest of minds. Shakespeare said to have kids. Marvell said to have sex. Donne said to simply ignore the tolling bell.

If one thinks on life at all, one must think on death.

The lover of cliche will say that life guarantees nothing but death and taxes. A glib line for certain, but one which may hold more truth than we acknowledge if we delve into it.

Now you might ask, "Humphries, you just learned this this year? Where have you been? What have you been looking at?"

Indeed, I had family, friends, and (sometimes harder) peers die in middle school, high school, and college. Death is nothing new. What surprised me was its frequency and the world's response to it.

This year death hit fast, often, and rather viciously. Early in my year, the father of a co-worker passed away. Then the infant child of my roomate's boss died in her sleep. Earlier this year, my college friend Jason Ray died in a freak automobile accident. Just last week, Wake Forest basketball coach Skip Prosser died suddenly of a massive heart attack. And the list goes on. . . .

What horrified me even more than the actual deaths was the different response I found these deaths met with. Let me provide a contrasting example. A student passed away my senior year of college from a three story fall out a dorm window. The university shut down in the days following this tragedy. Death isn't supposed to happen at college, we said. He was too young, the campus lamented. Why, why, why, the halls echoed.

Death is not supposed to happen in college. It is supposed to happen beyond it.

This year my co-worker's father passes away. She is devastated. We console her, send cards, and. . . . get back to work. You see, in this post-college life, death, like the shit that it is, happens. People die. If we were close to the person, we grieve while the rest of the world shrugs its shoulders and says:

"That's life."

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Death is the opposite of the life in every manner conceivable. To say of death, "that's life" is a lie of the grandest and most tragic order. But this is how we respond. Death is inevitable, and there is nothing we can do about it but submit when it's our time. Death dominates.

I have become convinced that this knowledge of Brad Phillis's "certainty of the uncertain" grounds all that troubles us in this world. The reality of our own death is certain, and I believe no one, no one, can fully ignore this whether they realize it or not. I have become convinced that how we respond to this reality - whether we ignore it, submit to it, run from it, hide from it, or otherwise - determines how we live our lives.

Death does dominate this world. But it does not reign. . . .

6, 5

2007-07-31T14:54:00.000-04:00

6. Community matters.

Perhaps the most abrupt change from college to non-college lies in the overnight shift from communal immersion to individual isolation. This seems fairly obvious, but I found it rather difficult to prepare for and negotiate through once it arrived.

Despite the university's general disregard for Christianity, you can always have Christian community around you in college if you so choose (and often, even if you do not choose). UNC's chapter of InterVarsity carried 350 members with it my senior year. A brotherly community, Campus Crusade, pushed into the 600's. You could not go anywhere on campus without encountering a fellow pilgrim.

Then I graduated. An apartment complex awaited where my roomates arrived home three hours later than me and where I went to bed two hours earlier than them. Often, I worked weekends, the very days which they were free. Nearby apartment doors always seemed closed in sharp contrast to the entrances to dorm rooms. Very few people at work possessed a similar worldview to mine, so though we laughed and complained together, it became difficult to connect. Even groups of friends which hung out weekly, I only saw for two to three hours a week. Similar with my church community.

Having always cherished my alone time, I found myself surprised by the effect this isolation had on me. I had envisioned lots of time to read, to pray, to run, to do all those things in life that I "never had time for." Instead, I found myself alone, feeling stale on a couch, isolated with my thoughts which quickly turned to doubts and having nowhere but bitterness, pity, and unbelief to turn.

I found out this year that it is true what they say - Satan loves to divide and conquer.

Interestingly, I found myself encouraged in my faith in silly places like trivia nights in uncouth bars, sand volleyball courts, and even blogs. The presence of people, the body of Christ, made such a spiritual difference for me.

In fact, my favorite place of all this year (besides Redeeming Prufrock, of course) was my church. I loved church. I laughed there. I cried there. Most of all, I felt safe there. Some weeks, it remained the only place where I felt entirely safe.

There really is something to this community thing. It matters.

Though I find it hard to explain, the Bible supports my experience from this year. You never see an isolated Christian. Jesus, the perfect god-man, still carried along 12 of his closest friends with him. The early church has garnered great fame for the way it broke bread together. Paul, while on his missionary travels, consistently brought along companions with him. And in our final picture of Heaven we see THE MULTITUDES praising and worshiping God in the early chapters of Revelation. For all eternity, we shall exist in community.

And yet perhaps it is not so hard to explain. Our God, the One in whose image we are made, exists as a communal God, the Holy Trinity, three-in-one. Our God is not isolated but functions in a perfectly loving relationship among the three members of the Trinity. Perhaps our need for community flows straight from Him whose image we bear, the One who is love and by definition must have an object of that love. Perhaps, as mind-boggling as the doctrine of the Trinity is, we very simply find our need for community in it.

Community matters to our God. No wonder then that it matters to us.

5. World-changing generosity begins at the cross.

I have a friend who loves people. As a result, he gives his money to them, particularly if they find themselves in poverty, in ministry, or in both. I have met few people tied less to their mammon than he.

I recently asked him why he gives so freely of his wealth. He responded instantly:

"Guilt."

Honesty came through in the quickness of his response, though he sensed the reaction indequate and began backpeddling like a nickel cornerback.

I get the sense that most Americans feel this way. We have lots of money and live out of our wants. The rest of the world does not have lots of money and lives (and often dies) out of their needs.

This makes us feel guilty. We usually respond by giving to charity. Hooray us.

The difficulty is that guilt is an insufficient motivator. Yes, it does motivate but not fully. When we act out of guilt, we do so primarily to appease ourselves. Guilt makes us feel bad. We want to feel good. Donating money makes this happen.

When this selfishness motivates our giving, we will give only up to a certain point. This point consistently lies just left of "where it hurts." If we give to make ourselves feel better, logic demands that we stop when it ceases to feel good.

Meanwhile, the poor still remain hungry, AIDS still ravages Africa, and ministers lose the opportunity to share the Gospel because of insufficient funds.

So what shall be the response? Shall we cease giving entirely? Shall we begin masochism and self-flagellation? What now?

The answer lies at the foot of Christ's cross. Our sin is terrible. Imagine it as terrible as you can, almost as bad as dogfighting if your imagination is good enough, and then know our rebellion against the Lord does not compare. We deserve nothing but separation from God. Yet, Christ bore that punishment, that separation, that Hell on the cross so that we might not have to. Instead, we have peace, joy, life, laughter, Heaven, purpose, reconciliation, freedom. A free gift, that no one may boast. Quite a deal for us.

When we begin to understand what God has given us in his great generosity, giving away our money, even beyond a 10% tithe, ceases to seem an unspeakable request. God has given us so much more than we could ever give anyone.

Hear John Stott:

"For, whether we like it or not, we are involved [in the cross]. Our sins put him there. So, far from offering us flattery, the cross undermines our self-righteousness. We can stand before it only with a bowed head and a broken spirit. And there we remain until the Lord Jesus speaks to our hearts his word of pardon and acceptance, and we, gripped by his love and full of thanksgiving, go out into the world to live our lives in his service."

And so the radical power to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to battle racism and sexism, the power to advance so many causes often most championed by those who care not for Jesus Christ, lies precisely in his cross. Here we find how to become that joyful giver which God loves so much. Here is where our world can change, not in the ungrounded good works which make us feel good, but in the power of the cross. Here is where the world-changing generosity lies.

Because there is no guilt in Jesus Christ. But there is that cross.

8, 7

2007-07-30T23:12:00.000-04:00

8. Ease defines my generation.

I wrote a post around Thanksgiving in which I wondered how history would look upon my generation. I received a couple thoughtful responses, one which argued that we would enter history as the age of technology and another from my friend Alex Kirk which argued that 9/11 would define us, just as war has defined generations which have preceded us.

In reflecting on this, I believe both of these thoughts exist as details which point to this overarching sense of ease with which my generation lives its collective life.

I must begin with the caution of generalization. Speaking in terms of an entire generation always brings with it exceptions and generalizations. Please allow me the wiggle room, as I know many of my peers have very surely not lived a life of ease to this point. Nor does it seem that it awaits them.

It may prove helpful to define this term "ease" because, on some level, we all have hardships and difficulties in our lives. After all, 'tis a sinful and broken world for us all. When I say that my generation lives a life of ease, I mean that no one has ever called us to any kind of selfless sacrifice. We have never had to think of anyone other than ourselves. We have had no depression; in fact, we cry foul when the Dow dips below 10,000. The current war our country fights affects most of us only at a distance. We lost over 50,000 people in Vietnam and had to ration gas, among other things. Our death toll in Iraq sits in the 3000's, and the government has yet to ask the citizenry to sacrifice anything save for 20 minutes at airport security.

What's more, we would not stand for any demands made on us. The greatest noose a politician can currently make for himself exists in the hemp of that thing called "draft." If any politician mentioned the possibility, they would be finished. Hear me out, as a 23-year old male, I want nothing to do with the draft, but that is irrelevant for this conversation. Or maybe, and revealingly, not. What remains relevant is our complete unwillingness to be called into sacrifice. Let a volunteer go fight, we say. Let someone else make the sacrifice. Historically speaking, the current war against terror affects us little, if at all.

We have no economic depression. We have no societally consuming war. We have no necessary sacrifice. What we have in a historical sense is ease.

We have freedom to sit in coffee shops and become bitter about politics, we have time to drink and dance a bad week away on Friday night, we have limitless hours to spend on youtube, ESPN, and Comedy Central (and dare I say it, blogs) all because we have little incovenience.

To make this pesonal, could I imagine a post-Great Depression 23-year old taking a "year off" when a paying job sat available? Of course not! He or she would remain concerned about whether or not they would eat, not whether he/she could find a job about which he/she was "passionate." No way one could turn down gainful employment. To do otherwise would be imprudent and may, in fact, cost the Depression Era American his/her life.

All that to say, we have opportunities that preceding generations have not had because we have not been called from our life of ease.

No wonder the Gospel of Jesus Christ is foreign to us. Take up our cross? Love our enemies? Submit?

Uh, excuse me Jesus, could you quiet down a bit? I'm trying to watch my third episode of Sportscenter today.

7. The decisions of our youth remain with us.

It amazes me how often I refer to my high school days. My reputation as Dad, my academic achievements, my cross country days, they all seem to pop up in conversations more often than I would expect.

In reflecting on this, I have found myself in awe of how the decisions we make as children really can have marked affect on our futures. I spoke with a co-worker recently about a son's teenage arrest which continues to follow him into his adult years. I think of the statistics I hear on the sexual activity of teenagers and think of the emotional and interpersonal consequences this will have on their adult lives. I think of the foolish and sinful immaturities of youth which has led so many of us to recognize sin and thus the Gospel.

I have no suggestions, merely observations.

I really thought that the foolishness of our youth would leave us, consumed by a flood of wisdom and maturity which comes with adulthood. Yet, good or bad, our decisions - and those of people around us - as children mold us. This scares me to think that decisions we make when we are least equipped to make them can have such long-reaching consequences. So much is influential during a time in which we are so ill-equipped to properly influence anything, much less ourselves.

I still cannot get past the effect two stress fractures had on me, the desire for acceptance which middle school unpopularity has ingrained deep in my being, the difficulty in grasping grace and love because of years of uber-ambitious high school drive.

My adult life has not replaced my childhood. It merely responds to it. In this sense, the decisions made in my youth remain very much with me.

10, 9

2007-07-29T22:03:00.000-04:00

10. We all live by faith.

Dear reader, I pose a question: What gave you confidence that the chair in which you currently sit would hold you?

You may reply with physics, that the force of the chair pushes back on you with an equal and opposite force while the feet of the chair exert an equal and opposite force on the earth to uphold the entire system. You may reply that chairs hold people up; it's just what they do. You may reply that this exists as a stupd question and move on to greater intellectual pursuits.

I propose that you cannot have complete confidence the chair in which you sit will hold. Logic and reason may say it will, but you can never know for sure. What if some vile insect has penetrated the wood and weakened it to the point of collapse? What if the wage laborer who helped construct it decided to take a smoke break instead of inserting a crucial bolt? What if your roomie has stealthily pulled it out from under you?

Regardless of all purported logic and reason, you can never know for sure that all the bases are covered, even with something as simple as a chair.

Expand this a little. We eat at restaurants in faith the kitchen remained clean. Yes, the governement inspects, but Hepatitis B still occassionally rears its deadly head. We drive our automobiles in faith that they run as they should. Yes, they always have, but tires still shred. We hop on an airplane in faith that every airline employee has done his/her job correctly. Yes, people work hard so they do not lose their jobs, but I know my work ethic during hour 7 at Borders.

One cannot define life apart from faith. If one lived a completely faithless life, it would drive one mad. Too many uncertainties exist. The details would consume and overwhelm.

I do not write this for fear's sake but to embolden you, loved ones, in faith. If you have entered a bookstore over the past year, you will have noted a rise of anti-faith books written by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. They are smart men and compelling writers who purport to argue against faith, specifically in this concept of God.

This is not new. People have always claimed that faith is irrational, illogical, and unintellectual.

Yet faith exists in our everyday lives. One can claim that the term "faith" is mindless. I shall contend that to say we can live daily life completely devoid of faith exceeds this mindlessness. Faith, the hope in things unseen, permeates our entire day. Science may provide evidence for or against faith, but it cannot eliminate it.

What's more, we all must make a decision of faith in terms of death. One can maybe argue that everything in this world has proof from empirical evidence, but no proof exists as to death. Science has no definite answer. Experience has no definite answer. Even religion has no definite answer. As my friend Mr. Phillis put it, death is the "certainty of uncertainty."

So let them not belittle faith. It must exist, if only in this question. If only in this question, though I suspect and argue more, we all live by faith.

9. Good things exist in every phase of life.

I have often heard it said that college was "the best days of your life." This means I have peaked. I refuse to believe this.

I learned this year that pro's exist in every phase of life, even that which exists outside of the carefree days of college (O, how quickly we forget the stress of study, the lurk of loneliness, the pressure of peers, the questioned questions which accompanied those "best days"!).

A few cheap examples from this year:

-I never had a weekend ruined by the ominous cloud of Sunday night homework.

-When I left work, I left work. It never came home with me like class always did.

-I had cash flow.

I have fond memories of college, yet given the good which came with my exit, I remain uncertain whether or not I could return.

In all seriousness though, the difficulty with the "best days of our lives" theory is that it forgets that the best thing in our life remains with us always. His name is Jesus. He is the same today as yesterday as tomorrow.

The Shorter Westminster Catechism asks the universal question: What is the chief end of man?

The response: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

This charge does not merely apply to youth. It does not merely apply to college students or newly weds or retirees or whatever phase of life one wishes to apply the title "best." In every moment of every day, we have the opportunity to glorify God and enjoy him forever. We do this by seeking the Lord's will, submitting to it, and following in obedience. This is the abundant life Christ promises in John 10:10, and it should not surprise us given that the One who made the rules of the game also made us.

This life is for all ages, stages, and phases. God, the Best, is with us always. What's more, he is with us now. In that sense, now is the best day of our lives.

And this Good Thing exists in every phase of our lives.

Top 10 Year Off Lessons

2007-07-29T21:42:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, I work my last day at Borders. The following Monday, I load up the Penske truck and begin the trek to my new home in New Hampshire. Times, they are a-changin'.

As this most recent and rather brief phase of my life comes to end, I have begun to reflect back on lessons learned this year. My generation seems to label my past year the "year off" - that is, the one which stands between the final year of college and the beginning thrust towards some semblance of that thing called "career."

The term "year off" implies rest, lethargy, and (let's be honest) waste. Many generations preceeding mine had no option to take a "year off," given the existence of things like depressions, world wars, and the like. I shall get to this later.

At times, I have thought this year a waste. Transition and instability can often be. I found it difficult to solidify in a community outside my apartment. My job at Borders provided no financial gain beyond survival. My faith even met challenges, violent and deadly ones at that, which it had never before seen.

What a waste! I might say.

Perhaps, I might respond.

As I reflect back on my last 11 months since I drove home from Boston, Sentra full of my life, I see that I have actually learned a great deal between that time and the literal U-Turn I make on Monday. I have found it difficult not to. The world outside of college forces lessons upon us. Life simply does not allow a year off.

If nothing else, we must learn the value of health insurance, no longer grafted into the family plan.

So what do we do with important reflections on a life-changing time here at Redeeming Prufrock?

That's right. You guessed it. Top 10 List. And not just any old regular Top 10 List. A week-long Top 10 List.

In honor of this week o' closure, I will spend it blogging about my Top 10 Year Off Lessons. Cease the verbosity! Let the countdown begin!

P.S. Oddly enough, I currently only have nine lessons. RP cannot have a Top 10 List with only nine entries. If anyone has any suggestions, you know where to find me.

"Like New Year's Eve, Only Better"

2007-07-25T16:10:00.000-04:00

As I sat in Chick-fil-A eating a value sized #1 combo, I realized that I had not prepared properly for the night. True, I had only a shallow understanding of Harry Potter, our guest of the night, and I had not properly revved myself up for the task of emceeing a large crowd. But at the moment, this did not worry me.

It hit me at dinner that I had forgotten an undershirt for the night. Oh, and socks. On a night in which I stood inherently unprepared by my lack of required reading and my overall lethargy, I had dropped the ball on even that which I could control.

Thirty minutes later, I used the diaper station in the Borders bathroom to change into my rental tux. I had never used a diaper station in my life. A lot of firsts would occur tonight. Like, wearing rental tux shoes without socks.

Now before your barf on your home row keys, let me put your mind at ease. When you grab a pair of rental shoes, bowling or tux for example, you do not fear the shoe. You fear the people who have worn the shoe before you. The ones with the nastiness. Well, dear reader, I am that person you fear. I have nasty feat, most of which I blame on my years of cross country which induced fungus, black toenails, blisters, calluses, broken toenails, toes with no toenails, stench, and that yellow stuff that accumlates at the base of your toenail for which you have no explanation. For this reason, I did not fear what the shoes would do to my feet because I knew what my feet would do to the shoes.

Still, not a comfortable way to enter the night. Unprepared.

By 8:15pm, I had begun the trivia competition. Teams of 3-5, two rounds, top two teams from each round advance to the finals. Winner take all. I explained the game and started reading the questions. Easy enough.

Until I reach question ten. My supervisor had thought it a good idea to include occassional non-Harry Potter related questions into the trivia game. I knew this is trouble but, like John Buford said before the Battle of Gettysburg, I could do nothing but help this fail. I prefaced the question with some garbage about us desiring them to have a well-rounded education before dropping a question on them about "Lord of the Rings."

The place went silent, except for the crickets. You know, the awkward crickets. Too bad I did not have an undershirt because I immediately began to sweat. As murmurs and frustrations began to come my way, I responded with strength. I stood there like an idiot. I could not have made up a Harry Potter question if I had wanted to. I had no way out.

A little girl sits on her mother's lap not three feet in front of me. She is probably two. She is cute, as two year old girls are wont to be. She also probably speaks with that Tiny Tim lisp; when you're the bad guy, that's just how these things go. After a minute of deliberation, she looks up at me and asks, "Sir, why did you ask a question not about Harry? Why?"

I had nothing to say (though I directed a lot of mental cuss words at my supervisor who had made up the questions). I felt like the Grinch when confronted by the cute little Who girl. She had an innocent, holy question. I had no answer. I was stealing Christmas.

You're a mean one, Mr. Bench.

The trivia did swing back to a high point later in the night, however. A competitor asked me if I could change a question since his team did not know the answer. "I can't do that," I replied. "I'm only a muggle." Inside, I pulled a Tiger Woods fist pump. Relevancy! Coolness! Social Acceptibility! I confess, loved ones, that I was exceedingly proud of this.

Trvia ended well. The final four teams got all five final questions right which impressed me and speaks volumes for the dedication of the Potheads (as if more volumes needed speaking). We broke the tie with a spelling contest. "Alohomora" won it for Team Pigworts.

My night proceeded on smoothly with only three major bumps:

1) I missed the dance competition due to work. Not that I wanted to compete. I just hate missing a chance to get the jiggles out.

2) Due to long line, I did not dye my hair.

3) In an attempt to make conversation with a teenage customer, one of those know-it-all 12-year old types, I asked her whether she believed Snape was good or bad.

"He's good," she replied. "I'm sure of it. I've researched. [pause] What do you think?"

I froze.

"I, uh, well, you see, what happ. . . ."

"You're not that into this, are you?"

"Haven't read a word. [pause] I agree with you though. Snape's good."

[pensive pause] "Thanks!"

And she walked away. I had survived my exposure as a fraud.

Midnight struck. Word on the street was a broom in the parking lot turned into a pumpkin. I have no pictures to confirm though.

We counted down from ten. A great shout went up when we reached one. Boxcutters came out, and the books began to fly. A couple thousand books went out of the store that night, keeping us open, despite our best efforts, until 2am.

They gave me the microphone one more time that evening, a little before HP-Day around 11:40pm. I informed the mob about the count-down and made the comment that tonight "felt like New Year's Eve, only better." That statement met with the loudest pre-midnight response we heard in the store.

Well, I said it, and the mob concurred. Consensus! How then shall we sum up Friday night's Grand Hallows Ball?

Like New Year's Eve, only better.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. . .

2007-07-23T18:21:00.000-04:00

. . . though writing is a higher art form. I shall compose a recap of my night with the Potheads soon. But do not fret, I shan't use thousands of words. I fear I must disagree with the cliched conversion ratio; words are far more precious than that. If you cannot capture a moment with the pen, you possess little hope with a camera - no matter how many megapixels you hold in your possession.

Love words, dear reader. It shall change your life.

That being said, the beginnings of a photographic montage of Friday night:

"Spell 'spell.'"
"S-P-E-L, spell."
"Wrong again, Chris Pappa."

I could have been one of Barker's Beauties on The Price is Right. I guess I shall settle as one of Harry's Honies instead.

Blog friends Tasha and Erin (who, I shall add, were real friends well before they became blog friends) made the pilgrimage to visit Redeeming Prufrock in person and to partake in the evening's festivities - namely laughing at me.

More to come soon, as some photographic precincts have yet to report.

Coming to a Blog Near You!

2007-07-23T16:57:00.001-04:00

Pictures will be posted by tonight. I just got a hold of them this afternoon. Hopefully, a recap of the evening shall follow. My apologies for the tardiness. Alas, life. . . .

HP-Day

2007-07-20T10:07:00.000-04:00

If you find yourself stuck in an office today, you may not feel it. Similarly too if you sit in a summer school classroom or library. Boredom acts as a bad conductor. But something electric courses through the air today. Even in the wet, thick, heavy summer air of North Carolina, one can sense it.

'Tis not the colossal effect of the British Open, the third of golf's four majors currently hacking through its second round. 'Tis not the colossal noise of the PETA protest currently roaring into the ears of accused dogfighter Mike Vick, Roger Goodell, and NFL fans everywhere.

'Tis Harry Potter. He releases himself tonight. No one releases Harry Potter except himself.

Officially, Harry Potter does not come out until tomorrow, but millions will not see the inside of their eyelids before they feast their eyes on Mr. Potter and some rather dangerous hallows.

Many have already begun the pilgrimage to their local bookstore to grab their bracelet which allows them to later purchase the book. Others have already finished their pilgrimage, anchored in a line from which even a pack of Death Eaters could not move them.

I do not take my spot as worship leader until 8pm tonight. Borders has provided me, the Harry Potter trivia game emcee, with the rules of the contest and the questions I should ask. My only job: execution.

I shall take pictures and do my best to post them here on Redeeming Prufrock Sunday night. I have never done such a thing, but in response to demand, I shall try.

In thinking over the worst case scenarios, I have decided that a tie in the trivia game ranks high on the list. I will not have enough prizes for more than one team of winners. More importantly, I will be out of questions with which to break the tie. In this case, we shall turn to a spelling bee. As my friend Chris Pappa told me yesterday, just tell them to spell every word I hear.

"Spell Hufflepuff."

"Spell Voldemort."

"Spell Potter."

"Spell spell."

I have decided the final tie-breaking question will not be a question concerning Harry Potter. It will be something more along the lines of "Who was President during the Civil War?" or "Name a broadway production of the last ten years." or "Who wrote 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'?". I want hearts broken, not over a lack of Harry Potter knowledge, but over a lack of historical, cultural, and literary knowledge. This shall exist as my subtle but stark rebellion.

Because there are things more important than Harry Potter.

Of course for the sake of my physical safety, I won't be saying that tonight.

They Would Do Anything For Love

2007-07-18T16:32:00.000-04:00

With a nod of the head to Meatloaf. . . .

I have begun reading John R. W. Stott's book "The Cross of Christ." You will certainly hear more on this later. I recently came across a passage that I enjoyed greatly and wanted to share. Note the simultaneous gravity and delight with which Stott writes of these men who love the cross:

"The verdict of scholars has understandably percolated through into popular Christian devotion. Allowances should be made for Christians who at Christ's cross have found their pride broken, their guilt expunged, their love kindled, their hope restored and their character transformed, if they go on to indulge in a little harmless hyperbole. . . .

Justin Martyr, the second-century Christian apologist, confessed that wherever he looked, he saw the cross. Neither the sea is crossed nor the earth is ploughed without it, he writes, referring to a ship's mast and yard, and to a plough's blade and yoke. Diggers and mechanics do not work without cross-shaped tools, alluding presumably to a spade and its handle. Moreover, 'the human form differs from that of irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having the arms extended.' And if the torso and arms of the human form proclaim the cross, so do the nose and eyebrows of the human face. Fanciful? Yes, entirely, and yet I find myself willing to forgive any such fancies which glorify the cross.

My modern example is the most eloquent description I know of the universality of the cross. . . . Brought up in a Socialist home, and familiar with Socialist Sunday schools and their 'sort of agnosticism sweetened by hymns,' [Malcolm Muggeridge] became uneasy about 'this whole concept of a Jesus of good causes.' Then:

'I would catch a glimpse of a cross - not necessarily a crucifix; maybe two pieces of wood accidentally nailed together, on a telegraph pole, for instance - and suddenly my heart would stand still. In an instinctive, intuitive way I understood that something more important, more tumultuous, more passionate, was at issue than our good causes, however admirable they might be. . . .

It was, I know, an obsessive interest. . . . I might fasten bits of wood together myself, or doodle it. This symbol, which was considered to be derisory in my home, was yet also the focus of inconceivable hopes and desires. . . .

As I remember this, a sense of my own failure lies leadenly upon me. I should have worn it over my heart; carried it, a precious standard, never to be wrested out of my hands; even though I fell, still borne aloft. It should have been my cult, my uniform, my language, my life. I shall have no excuse; I can't say I didn't know. I knew from the beginning, and turned away.'

Later, however, he turned back, as each of us must who has ever glimpsed the reality of Christ crucified. For the only authentic Jesus is the Jesus who died on the cross."

What is it they say, that love makes us do silly and foolish things? And yet I find myself willing to forgive any such silliness. . . .

Holding On

2007-07-17T10:17:00.000-04:00

A couple friends of mine invited me to the lake on Saturday. Early in the day, we threw the water skis into the aqua and had at it.

I had only tried to water ski once in my life before Saturday, and I did not get up. Thus, I have never actually water skied, only tried but fallen before ever getting my body vertical. I attempted 11 times this weekend, making some improvements but only getting close to vertical one time. They say when I did my eyes got real big. Unfortunately, the position of actually water skiing felt so unusual and out of place that I panicked - and fell within two seconds of actually standing up.

The odd thing about my attempts is that I generally fell the same way for the same reason. Rather than letting the boat pull me out of the water, I would pull hard on the rope in an attempt to pull myself out of the lake. This created slack in the rope. When I leaned back, no rope tension caught me, and I would fall backwards.

One time, and one time only, I fell forward. I do not know how this happened, but within seconds of the boat speeding up, the front of my skiis went under the water, and I catapulted forward out of my skis and faceplanted. It was fun.

A lot of power exists in the act of water skiing. I could feel the power of the boat when it started to take off, a power a lot greater than me. I could feel the power of the force between arms and rope, skis and water. I could certainly feel the power when my mismanagement slung my helpless body to the water. So much power remains involved in this whole process that it makes it silly, ludicrous, and downright unintelligent that I should even think to pull myself up. Enough energy exists in the process that all I need to do is hold on for the ride.

So goes my relationship with the Almighty Sovereign. My shortcomings in water skiing paralleled my shortcomings in my relationship with the Father, those shortcomings being that I refuse to acknowledge my shortcomings and allow The Power to do the work. So often I refuse to pray, I work myself to a pulp, I stress over things I cannot control but want to, all because I neglect the role God plays in the work in my life. I speak as a Christian, work as an Atheist. I am constantly pulling back on the rope. More often than not, I fail to stand and topple backwards. Occasionally, I faceplant.

"BECAUSE YOU HAVE TRUSTED IN YOUR OWN WAY, in your numerous warriors, therefore a tumult will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to pieces with their children." -Hosea 10:13-14 (emphasis mine)

Praise God that he continues to circle the boat to pick me back up when I try to do things in my own stregnth, fall into the lake, and miss the boat. The Fisher of Men has picked me up all 11 times, nay 111 times, and has promised to do so again.

We have a lot of power out in front of us, my friends. May we submit ourselves to it. May we pray to it. May we not fight against it. May we simply hold on tight so that we may stand.

So that we may take off on the rides of our lives.

More Potty Mouth

2007-07-13T16:15:00.000-04:00

Today, I encountered Harry Potter for myself. It tasted terrible.

Odd Encounter of the Week: serial comments

I have had a record number of comments the last two posts. This confirms my theory that Harry Potter is popular, though my readers maintain only a small portion of the larger world population. My biased sample could skew results.

On my end, Harry Potter continues as the most relevant force in my occupational life. He dominates customers and, by extension, Borders. I feel as if I have a front-row seat for perhaps the biggest story of 2007.

This supply-and-demand situation leads us to an inevitable conclusion: another Harry Potter post. More Potty mouth from your humble hack.

So we return to my opening statement. Did he finally read part of a book and hate it? one might ask. Is he proclaiming Optimus Prime's superior existence once again? one could query. Does he now, in fact, hate Harry Potter? a cynic could postulate.

None of the above. In an attempt to open my mind (and let's be honest, be "cool"), I encountered Harry Potter today. I bought the jelly beans which carry his name. All $6.50 of them. Apparently, putting the name "Harry Potter" on anything inflates its value, oh, 6.5/.99 X 100% = 656.56%. The flavors: dirt, soap, rotten egg, pickle, earthworm, vomit, black pepper, sausage, booger, and earwax.

Once again, can anybody explain this to me?

My Harry Potter experience tasted terrible. I thought the flavors were a joke, but the flavors tasted as labeled. I tried them all, and each possessed its own distinct part of bad. All except the booger flavor actually. Man, I had not tasted boogers since I was four, and I had forgotten how delicious they were!

Needless to say, I now have in my possession some great, um, "resources" with which to produce more vomit flavored ones if Jelly Belly feels so inclined. Dear reader, do not buy these. I tried them in your sted. I sat on the grenade. Do not buy the Harry Potter jelly beans. And don't say I never did anything for you.

I tried another experiment at work today. Upon hearing two teenage customers discuss their excitement for July 20, I broke conversation with a nearby co-worker and loudly interjected into our conversation: "I hate Harry Potter!" (remember though that I do not). I pulled a Mrs. Lot just to gage their reactions. In my quick glance, I saw a glare no man should ever see. I turned and sped my way to the sanctuary of the back room. I cannot lie, I smiled.

Speaking of the back room, the books have arrived. Lots of them. I stand under orders not to reveal how many, only say "enough" when customers (and presumably blog readers) ask. In their black, cubed packaging, they remind me of the final destination of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

On a related note, a co-worker of mine walked into the back room on Wednesday, bowed to the box, and proclaimed: "I am not worthy." I would not kid you about this thing.

The level of security around these things is rather impressive. The books are boxed, boxed again, wrapped in some rubbery stuff, tied with plastic string, and who knows what else. We all had to sign a release form saying we would not open the box or sell any of the books before release day under penalty of receiving a pink slip and presumably a mob hit. 'Tis a shame, in my case. Five of those books on the black market at this very moment could support me for my three year commitment in New Hampshire. Heck, it could support InterVarsity's entire ministry in New Hampshire for three years. Alack and alas, integrity.

Come to think of it, I actually did not read the fine print that I signed. Hopefully, it did not say anything about the taboo nature of talking about the shipments. Or describing them in detail.

Apparently, the in-store policy is only the tip of the wand when it comes to the security measures being taken. Our manager tells a story of a buddy of his who drives a truck. His company loaded him up with a shipment of HP books, then ordered him to take them to "New York."

New York is a big place, he said. Where in New York?

Can't say, they responded. Call when you hit the state line, and we'll guide you from there.

I would love to continue on, but I just popped a rotten egg-flavored jelly bean. My stomach turns. Here I thought I had a Potty mouth simply because I spoke on Harry Potter. Given that these candies taste like poo, perhaps one may say I have a potty mouth on a very, very different level.

Maybe washing it out with a soap flavored jelly bean will do the trick.

Headlines

2007-07-11T16:03:00.000-04:00

By mid-morning, I had purposed to blog about our need for a holistic gospel, one that incorpoarted the need for both a personal relationship with Christ and a passion for the things about which God has a passion. I would have titled it "A Holy Holistic."

But then Harry Potter would not leave me alone. Perhaps this is telling, symbolic, and/or microcosmic.

HPot met me everywhere today. He found me in conversations with co-workers about last night's opening of Harry Potter 5. He found me in the arrival of the actual shipment of the final book installment. He even found me above the heading of the Charlotte Observer, smooching some character from the aforementioned movie. I did not know Harry was a mack.

Now my last post may have implied that I hate Harry Potter. I do not. I love things that allow people to get caught up in something bigger than themselves, which is why I love football games, water beds, and Christianity. However, I do find our culture's response to this phenomenon rather curious and oftentimes silly which accounts for much of my jest. Particularly harrowing is the lunacy to which it seems to drive some people. Case in point:

In today's Charlotte Observer, a writer quoted a nine-year old boy waiting in line to see last night's movie opening:

"Harry Potter can beat up a transformer and he's way cooler."

Coolness remains subjective, so I shan't argue my man on that point. But one thing must be made very clear:

There is no way Harry Potter EVER beats up Optimus Prime. Not once. No way. To say so is sheer ludricosity (or ludicrousness, for the less creative of you).

Now admittedly, I remain unfamiliar with the fighting styles of each combattant, having last watched Transformers in 1912 and having never read Harry Potter. So what evidence do I have? you might ask. Well, this is Harry Potter. And this is Optimus Prime.

'Nuff said.

This imagainative battle got me to thinking what the headline in the paper would be the next day if Harry Potter and Optimus Prime battled to the death. I dwelled on this for hours at work. Here is what I got:

"OPTIMUS CRIME: TRANSFORMER MURDERS POTTER"

"WHICH POTTER? HARRY FIGHTS LIKE BEATRICE IN DEFEAT"

"PRIME SMOKES POT IN EPIC BATTLE"

"A HARRY SITUATION: PRIME PUMMELS POTTER"

"PRIME-TIME: OPTIMUS TURNS OUT POTTER'S LIGHTS"

"POTTER PUMPS PRIME, STILL GETS MOWED"

"HOGWASH: POTTER'S TRAINING NO MATCH FOR PRIME'S BRAWN"

"PLANTED: POT UNABLE TO RISE UP AGAINST PRIME"

"POTTER TRIES TO DIVIDE PRIME, CANNOT"

Any other suggestions?

On the Pot

2007-07-09T16:14:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: uncoolness

I almost got fired a couple weeks ag. . . .

What's that you say? Uncoolness isn't that odd at all for me? Ha, good one.

Anyways, I almost got fir. . . .

Wait, you say hanging out at Civil War battlefields isn't cool? No one wears V-neck undershirts anymore? And reading is out now? Man, all the rad dudes loved to read back in my day!

Fine.

(sigh) Usual, Consistent, Expected Encounter of the Week: uncoolness.

I almost got fired from work a couple weeks ago. I did not punch a customer nor did I sneak $25 out of the register to, uh, fundraise. I did worse.

I admitted I had never read a word of any Harry Potter book ever published. Nor had I seen the movies. Nor did I care.

My boss looked at me with part disdain, part disgust, and immediately stormed from my presence.

You can imagine my surprise, dear reader, when my supervisor told me they wanted me to work the night/morning of July 20/21, the night we release Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to a ravenous crowd of all ages that would make Clay Aiken's fan club look like they belong in a convent. Not only would I work that night, he told me, but they wanted me to emcee the Harry Potter Trivia Game from 9:30-11:00 as well. As if this were not bad enough, I also "am responsible for the teenagers." I do not know what this entails, but I imagine I, or anyone for that matter, will fail at this duty.

A little background: Borders intends to throw a large midnight party on July 20/21 to celebrate/worship the release of the final chapter in the Harry Potter epic. They call it the Grand Hallows Ball. I confess I do not know what this title means, but scheduled activities for the evening include:

-revealing your Hogwarts smarts at the Potter Spelling Bee
-silencing foes at the Great Snape Debate
-dressing in ball attire or as your favorite character to enter our costume contest
-More!

I confess again that I do not know what any of this language means.

Except the part about dressing up. One does not miss a scary detail like that. Especially when it applies to one's own life.

Having heard of the need to dress up as my favorite character, I immediately panicked, expressing the fact that I had no favorite character. In fact, I knew no character at all.

After some intense research (read: asking my ex-roomate and Harry Potter afficiando Nate), I discovered that certain characters in the Pot series exist as "muggles." Once again, wtf? Turns out, these people called "muggle" cannot perform magic. In a word, they are normal.

Imagine that, something normal associated with Harry Potter. Who knew?

I had my heart set on dressing as a muggle, that is, dressing like myself and wearing a sign around my neck proclaiming "MUGGLE."

Ha, I win. Nothing weird or silly here. Well played, Muggle Humphries, well played.

That victory lasted until today when a co-worker informed me that the store had rented a tuxedo for me to wear that evening. Plus, a company had agreed to come and spray paint kids's hair because apparently that's what kids like to do these days.

Well, kids and Harry Potter trivia emcee's, that is.

Apparently, the hair spray company will do mine for free. What a deal. The night of the 20th, I will wear a tux to work with some kind of colored hair. I'm guessing brown will not be an option.

The whole night reminds me of the nights when the new Star Wars movies came out. I played uncool those nights too and slept. From what I hear though, people showed up early, days early, all decked out in Star Wars costumes to be the first to see the new old movie. I expect the same the night Harry Potter comes out - crazed fans dressed up like characters from the books bursting with months of excitement finally coming to a head.

For this reason (among many), I approach this night with great dread. Can you imagine the consequences if the mob finds out there is one among them who cares nothing for their idol? Pummeled by 5-year olds with hand-crafted brooms. Exiled as a muggle (assuming this is what the people do to muggles) by intolerant adolescents. Turned into a hogwart (I don't know what this is but it sounds awful) by the hand at the end of a wand.

If I do not post on July 21, you and you alone loved ones, will know what has occured.

From what I gage, the whole world cannot wait for July 21. I guess that means Harry Potter is cool. As one who has no desire for HPot, I stand relegated to the realm of the uncool. It's middle school all over again.

If you hate me, show up at Borders the night of the 20th because I will look uncool. If you like me but like laughing at me, show up at Borders the night of the 20th because I will look uncool. Honestly, how cool can one look wearing a tuxedo with spray painted hair while trying to hide indifference and embarrassment?

About as cool as one looks not caring about Harry Potter in the 21st century.

The Christ-likeness of a Nation

2007-07-04T16:12:00.000-04:00

The 4th of July reminds me of my grandmother's basement. During the mid to late '90's, TNT would annually show the five-hour long movie "Gettysburg" on Independence Day. My family's summer vacations always seemed to take us to Grandma's in early July where my brother and I would play ping-pong in the basement while "Gettysburg" proceeded across the television. To this day, "Gettysburg" stands as my favorite movie of all-time. My second favorite, whatever it might be, stands as far from it as the east from the west.

The battlefield in Pennsylvania from whence the movie draws its name has become my favorite place on this earth. Even before I knew Christ, something spiritual always met me there. I remember traversing the battlefield before dawn when the combination of fog and dark made the scene as eerie a one as I have ever experienced. I know ghosts do not exist because, if they did, I would have seen one that morning. I remember long summer runs, side by side with my brother Brian. I remember sitting on Little Round Top during a Spring Break afternoon, looking down into the adjacent valley where 7000 men and boys lost their lives in an hour and a half in 1863. I remember thinking that on the morrow I would return home to my family. I remember remembering that those 7000 never again went home to their wives, children, and mothers.

This place, these thoughts, never stray far from my mind on our nation's Independence Day.

For the better part of my life, I have felt drawn towards American history, specifically the Civil War. I love reading about the people and events. Even more, I love visiting the grounds where these people acted out the events. I often try to describe my affinity for the time period, but I have never found the word to communicate my emotion.

"There is just something so ____________ about what these men and women did that moves me like nothing else," I say, though in lieu of a blank, I offer frustrated silence in hopes that my verbal constipation might convey the intensity of my feelings.

I have tried many words there. Sacrificial. Tragic. Beautiful. Emotional. Sad. Honorable. They all portray a part, but standing alone, they do not convey the whole.

As I have reflected on today's holiday, a word came to me that may, in fact, explain it all.

Christ-like.

There is just something so Christ-like about what these men and women did that moves me like nothing else.

Run with me for a second, friends. The sacrifice of our nation's ancestors draws out my emotions because they placed their lives on the line (and sometimes lost them) for my sake. Insert whatever cliche you prefer here - "be free," "have the life I have today," "live the American dream," whatever. People sacrificed, bled, and died for my sake. More than anything, this is America's story.

Even today, people exist in the world who would murder me on the spot if given the chance. They did so to people not so different than I six years ago September. What stands in their way from hunting me down and ending my earthly existence? The women and men fighting to prevent that from happening.

In related news, an accuser of the brethren exists in and beyond this world who would drag me down to the depths of Hell on the spot if given the chance. He has done so to people not so different than I. What stands in his way of adding my company to his misery? The god-man Jesus Christ who fought to prevent that from happening. And He is not defeated.

Now please do not think I place our national ancestors and military on par with Jesus Christ. Only one has ever been found worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. He is the Lamb. Though both may stand in my church's sanctuary, I shall never submit to the flag before submitting to the cross.

However, the men and women who have given up so much for my sake point me to my Savior who gave up all for my sake. Through their sacrificial actions, they become Christ-like as the Scriptures implore us to do. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Their stories point me to The Story.

Perhaps this explains the unexplained emotions I feel when I read of Pickett's Charge or think about Wesley Culp dying on the hill that bears his name or stand by Plum Run where men took their last drink before passing into eternity. The sacrifice of the one for the many may just be the story of my life. It may just be the story of the world.

God has blessed America over the centuries with men and women who have made Christ-like sacrifices so that we might live as we do now - freely. What's more, He has blessed America with these same folks whose lives point as fingers to the One who sacrificed all so that we might have all.

May He continue to do so for our own good and for His glory.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

The Take Away

2007-07-02T17:39:00.000-04:00

At the end of most retreats, conferences, and large meals, a discussion always begins about what we will "take away" from the prior event.

"What did you get out of this week?"

"What are you taking back home with you?"

"Would you like a to-go box for your pasta?"

I had to answer this "take away" question in Madison last week as ONS wound down. My initial response: a Santa sack full of information. Ten days worth, to be exact. How one extracts a tangible, relevant "take away" from such an deluge exists beyond my imagination and ability.

Yet, as the information continues to settle in the aftermath, some of it settling in and some of it settling out, I have realized that I somehow managed to wrest Failure as my "take away" from a week of encouragement, victory, and propaganda.

"Humphries, quit being such a Debbie Downer!" you might think - or say if you are of a bolder persuasion.

Oh contraire, loved ones. Let me explain why I could take away nothing better.

During the last week at ONS, I failed. What's worse, I failed at something I am supposed to be good at it. Maybe even gifted in. I must abstain from revealing the details because of the lack of intimacy a blog provides. Suffice it to say I messed up in an area in which I did not think I should have.

This crushed me, as most attacks on my identity will do. The questions begin. Why did you blow that, Ben? Really, if you can't get that one thing done, what good are you?

And as is wont to do in a world spiritually at war, the questions do not stop but spiral. Are you sure this ministry thing is for a clown like you after all?

For the better part of two hours, I wandered around Best Western and Madison oscillating between wanting to dump my mind onto someone and wanting to be utterly alone.

Amidst my oscillation, I ran across 1 John 1:8-9: "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

I had hit the x-axis, and it had stopped me.

I have spent the better part of the past nine months choosing to fight battles I could not lose. I work a job that never requires anything but average effort. I blog on whatever I want and avoid what I do not. I even beat my roomates in tennis when I had no business doing so. Subconsciously, I had begun to think that I would never failed. Sure, I messed up from time to time, but I never did anything that bad. I never SINNED.

That afternoon, the Lord refused to allow this deceit to carry on any longer. He exposed my pride and my cowardice, ugly sins, not the kind we like to stand up and tell our friends about. I had begun to act as if I did not sin, as if I could stand self-reliant. In doing so, I deceived myself. What grace the Father provided in tearing that deceit away from me because I do not want to live in deceit. Though the truth may hurt like hell, I do not want to live in deceit.

Failure drives me to God like nothing else. My friends may show me Jesus. My pastor may exhort me to Him. The Bible may broaden my view of Him. But only failure drives me to the foot of the cross because I have nowhere else to go. This is the place where I MUST die to self because the efforts of my self have died.

Herein lies the explanation: God could have given me no greater take away than failure because it drove me to recognize my weakness and His sufficiency made perfect in that weakness. And there is nothing better than encountering God.

I need to remember this when I head to the campus of UNH next year, when the temptation to work ethic and pride trumps the necessity of prayer and humility, when the opportunity to claim credit for victories floods my psyche, when the desire to make myself look good muddies my responsibility to reflect glory to the Father. I believe this position of prayerful submission to the power of Christ is the best way to complete the duties of ministy.

And lest I need more motivation, I have learned that the Lord does not balk at teaching the same lessons twice.

Southern Fried Reinstatement

2007-06-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

My Madison adventure ended Wednesday when I touched down in Charlotte at 9:10PM, two hours and 20 minutes after my plane should have landed per the initial itinerary. Even cuter, my bags did not return until 4:30PM on THURSDAY. Next time, I'm taking Greyhound. For all its flaws, Greyhound won't lose my bags. Plus, rumor has it I might fall in love there.

My posts became exceedingly lax the second half of my time in Madison which I imagine is rather unfortunate given that we moved on from fundraising training just about that time. Fundraising may be the axis on which the staff world turns and the honey in our tea, but it must remain painfully unexiciting to you, dear reader. For this, I apologize. It simply becomes harder to find time to blog when you like people, and I began to like spending time with the folks I worked with as the week wore on. It appears blog posts and human interaction are inversely proportionate to one another.

This mathematical truth probably speaks volumes about my Charlotte social life.

Nevertheless, I re-entered Southern society with a gastrointestinal vengenance today. Madison has a great diversity of restaurants - Japanese, Italian, Mediterranean, Afghani, Wisconsian - that I enjoyed greatly. But like America in the 1920's, my stomach needed a return to normalcy. Today, that is precisely what it got:

Lunch at Bojangles:
4 Chicken Supremes
mashed potatoes w/ gravy
green beans
biscuit w/ grease
32 oz. sweet tea (refilled twice)

Dinner at The 'Cue Shack:
Hickory Smoked Pork Butt (lest ye think me a prude, this is how it is labeled on the menu)
Mac and Cheese
Fried Okra
Hushpuppies
more sweet tea

Welcome home, Tummy, welcome home.

Tasty Murder

2007-06-25T16:57:00.000-04:00

A favorite spotted t-shirt that made for a good laugh at the breakfast table this morning:

"Meat is murder. . . . tasty, tasty murder."

Work by Faith

2007-06-24T16:15:00.000-04:00

I heard a quote Friday from an InterVarsity donor who used to work at Arthur Anderson before Arthur Anderson disappeared in a day. Right after the company went under, he told the staff worker to whom he donated:

"I wish I had known that I lived off faith just like you have to."

You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. -Deut 8:17-18

A Super Market

2007-06-23T16:19:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: farmer's market

Every Saturday during the summer months, the city of Madison opens up the square around the capital building for the purpose of hosting a farmer's market. The event is rather large, taking one a solid 30 mintues for one to stroll through.

A few odd observations from Madison's market:

-Vendors sold meat from bison and ostrich, in addition to live chickens and turkeys. If you wanted a chicken or turkey, a sign told you to "Inquire."

-Farmer John sold cheese at a booth. John Farmer is my roomate from Richmond, VA. In a touching moment, they met. Chiasmus, bringing people together.

-Vendors advertised cheese as "sqeak-a-licious." We asked why. Apparently, new curds create cheese which squeaks between one's teeth during mastication. We tested various samples of cheese, and lo and behold, they squeaked.

-A woman told me her she once had a dream of growing a beard. To achieve said dream, she rubbed Miracle Gro on her face. Though a beard did not emerge, her face did turn blue.

A Prayer for the Church

2007-06-22T14:43:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned earlier this week, the slightest little spark will ingnite a flame of applause in the conference room where 130 new staff interns assemble for training everyday. Just the mere mention of part of God's character or the visual of a fictionalized character signing over a support check or the announcement of a free book will turn the Best Western Ball Room into the Dean Dome.

So today, in prefacing a discussion on financial church partnership, a speaker began with this:

"The church is great."

He hesitated through his sentence until a brief pause at the end. Three people in the room clapped. Sensing momentum, five or six more joined in. At this point, an explosiion usually occurs.

But it didn't. An awkward pause fell over us as the eight or nine exhausted their applause. And silence dominated.

Because trivialities such as movie clips receive great applause at this event, I do not think it presumptuous to read intention into the silence. Many people do not care much for the church, especially in a room of folks who have chosen to minister in a context outside its "walls."

This silence really saddened me.

The church is not perfect and most certainly has hurt a great many people, but the reality is that Jesus Christ loves his church. He died for her. We claim to love people, justice, and the Word because Jesus Christ loves people, justice, and the Word. We often fail to strive to love the church even though Jesus Christ loves the church.

As recently at six months ago, I too did not care much for the church, so I do not say this from a point of condescention or great knowledge. I simply write in hope that we may pray for a resurgence in people's love for the church, for the sake of Jesus Christ and for the sake of ourselves.

Called

2007-06-21T08:32:00.001-04:00

"I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness." -Isaiah 42:6-7

Most of us think a great deal about why we are here, what our purpose is in life. My generation, self included, articulates (read: whines) about this often, as we jump from job to job, trend to trend, fad to fad, attempting to be happy.

If you seek purpose in life, I imagine you could do a lot worse than Isaiah 42 - no matter where you are, in full-time ministry or no.

Why Fundraising Matters to Me (and You Too!)

2007-06-20T22:37:00.000-04:00

As a staff worker for InterVarsity, I have to raise my own salary through a process of letters, phone calls, and face-to-face appointments with family, friends, and church members. My apologies for using the term "fundraising" in earlier posts without explaining what exactly I meant by it.

The apostle Paul spent a lot of time fundraising for his mission work, and his letters in the New Testament bear this out. Because of these funds, Paul had the means to take the Gospel out of Jerusalem to the surrounding Mediterranean Region and eventually all the way to Rome. Furthermore, this "apostle to the Gentiles" helped bring the news of Jesus to folks of non-Jewish descent.

I am a Gentile. I also do not live in Jerusalem.

If the people in Macedonia and Corinth and Phillipi do not give Paul the funds for his work, he probably would have starved in a prison cell early in his ministry. Even if he survived, he might have had to gone back to tentmaking, directing time away from and necessarily stagnating the spread of the Gospel.

Without sufficient support, perhaps the news of Jesus Christ does not get out of Jerusalem. Perhaps it does not make its way to Rome. Perhaps it does not make its way further into Europe. Perhaps it does not make its way to America.

Perhaps it does not make its way to me.

I raise my metaphorical glass tonight to the Macedonians, the Corinthians, and the Phillippians, the unsung heroes of the New Testament, who freed themselves from the slavery of money and gave to Paul so that I might know the good news that Christ died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.

A Total Glimpse of the Heart

2007-06-20T08:34:00.001-04:00

We interns, we are a loud bunch. We stand on the brink of a new and exciting job which the Lord has called us to. This is exciting and worthy of outbursts.

Plus, we are stuck in a hotel conference room for hours upon hours. Our only release: yelling, screaming, and clapping whenever the slightest chance presents itself.

We heard all kinds of great stories yesterday. People coming to faith in college. People coming to faith through fundraising. People coming to faith on their deathbeds. Answered prayer. Fundraising blessings. Reconciliation achieved. Anger concurred. God magnified, glorified, and I wish I had another verb that ended in "ified."

These all drew great applause.

But what sparked the loudest hurrah?

A movie clip from a film about a man who needed to raise funds in order to complete his mission of crossing Antartica. We watched in silence until a companion of the protagonist signed over a $24,000 check to him.

"AMEN!"

"PREACH IT!"

"SWEET JESUS!"

A glimpse into the heart of a campus staff intern.

Worthy to Suffer

2007-06-19T22:41:00.001-04:00

At the end of a fundraising training session tonight, the leaders asked everyone to stand whose parents did not support their decision to go on staff with InterVarsity. Slowly, over half of the room of 130 rose to their feet. As we laid on hands and the folks from the front prayed, many people cried. They did not sniffle. They wept.

It was, and still is, heart-breaking.

The scene really humbled me because I believe these people, like Job, have been found worthy to suffer for the sake of the Gospel. Granted, we all have our crosses to bear, but some seem heavier than others.

At some point down the road, I may rue tonight, but I pray that one day I will be found worthy to suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ like my brothers and sisters who stood tonight.

A Sign of Things to Come

2007-06-19T08:09:00.000-04:00

"BEST WESTERN:

WELCOME

INTERVARSITY

AND

UW PSYCHIATRY"

-the sign/board out in front of our hotel

The pairing is unintentional.

I think.

Grounded

2007-06-18T15:46:00.000-04:00

I hate flying. Flying requires one of two things:

1) great science

OR

2) great faith

I remain an English nerd who constantly struggles with unbelief.

So when the captain of our tiny commuter plane said that Madison was currently experiencing 15 MPH winds with gusts up to 25 MPH and storms within a 30 mile radius of the city, I began to sweat. Small plane. Big weather. Despite the floor air conditioner which pummeled my sandaled feet to ice blocks, I began to sweat.

After a 40 minute ride, we hit the ground with only minor turbulence. Though I now smell like I just ran a half marathon, I have returned to land safely. Being grounded never felt this good.

Isaiah writes that "even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary."

Father, I desire to place my hope in you, that you might renew my strength. But if it's all the same to you, I'd prefer to run and not grow weary, thank you very much.

Live From Wisconsin!

2007-06-18T15:35:00.000-04:00

Wisconsin, home of cheese, an aging quarterback, Bucky, and (most relevantly) InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

The city of Madison takes its place as my home for the next ten days, as I navigate through InterVarsity's Orientation for New Student, henceforth known simply as ONS (pronounced "oh en ess" and not like the plural form a common preposition).

I will attempt to blog frequently about my experience in Wisconsin, this being not only my first visit to the state but also my first visit to the Midwest. Given our schedule, my posts will be short and consequently not well thought out.

The former characteristic may be new for my consistent readers. The latter? Well, just business as usual from your old hack here at Redeeming Prufrock.

The Fruits of Name Dropping

2007-06-17T16:09:00.000-04:00

My friend, and more importantly frequent Redeeming Prufrock commenter, Brad (or Bradley, apparently depending on his mood while commenting) Phillis has a fledgling blog which has just recently taken flight. He dedicated a recent post to me, and it is well worth your three minutes.

Plus, I am vain. If you reference my name, I will send some props your way.

The post's dedication is questionable, depending on your opinion of yours truly. His writing, however, is masterful.

A Second Pair of Britches

2007-06-12T15:23:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: a hit

"Did you find everythi. . . "

In the middle of my Microsoft Borders Clerk v. 2.0 register speak, I found myself interupted by my own name.

"Ben," the voice whispered.

I halted my monotone register greeting and looked up, down, all around. I heard it again.

"Ben."

I admit, dear reader, I began to come undone. The voice had disrupted my flow, and though I still continued to check out the books, I stood visibly flustered, stumbling through words and not really paying attention as I tried to find the source of the voice.

I looked around but saw no one I recognized. Where was the voice coming from?

Then over the shoulder of my customer, I saw an older man, mid-60's, looking at me. The voice had come from him. He smiled, big and loose.

I did a double-take, trying to look - but not too hard - to see if I knew this man who seemed to be calling my name.

We made eye contact. This may seem irrelevant, but you must understand what eyes mine had contacted. He had big, bulging, Mr. Potato Head eyes. But unlike Head's orbs which snap firmly and snuggly into place, his eyes seemed unattached to anything in his head, as if they could look any direction on a 360 degree field. It seemed as though he could have rolled them in a complete circle without, well, batting an eye. If he wanted, he could've had one eye looking at me and one eye looking for me.

What's worse though, he appeared to have no control over them. He had "the krazy eye."

My heart skipped a beat. As odd as it sounds, I stood legitimately afraid. Who was this guy and what did he want with me?

While pondering this man's identity, he flashed me a hand sign gesture thingy as if we had some secret communication. A gang symbol or something.

The fear grew. I began to sweat. It was cold.

Still baffled, I heard him speak: "Sooza. . . . Sooza." The hand gesture flashed again.

The name "Keyser Soze" popped into my head. Soze, pronounced close enough to "Sooza" that it triggered the association, is fearsome character from the movie "Usual Suspects." If you have not seen it, do. For the sake of the movie, I cannot say much about Keyser Soze except this:

He kills people.

The scene of the last 15 seconds swirled together, and as ridiculous as it may seem, it terrified me. This man knew my name. He flashed gang symbols. He uttered something eerily familiar to a ruthless movie murderer. And he looked krazy.

Perhaps all the Sopranos talk had gotten to me, but I felt certain this man had come to off me.

Here I thought the horsehead I had found on my pillow the day before was merely a joke by my vanquished tennis opponents. And that black rose which appeared in the mailbox this morning looked like chocolate, simply an early birthday present.

Why the heck did the mob have a hit out on me?!?!? I didn't do anything, I promise! I'm just a kid, I swear! The police made me talk! They made me!

I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Do you have my cd's? The John Phillip Sousa ones I called in for an hour ago. Remember we talked?"

I did not move for a solid four seconds, as the fear adrenaline quickly fled, leaving me to crash back to the reality of my bookstore surroundings.

"Oh, yeah, heh heh, Sousa. John Phillip Sousa. Yeah, I, uh, put them on hold right over there. I'll help you as soon as I finish with this customer."

"Thanks, Ben."

He gave me a thumbs up, flashing his goofy smile again.

I finished checking out my customer and snuck off to the back room for a private moment, to emotionally recover but also to change pants, having had the piss scared out of me by a 65-year old man who apparently loved "Stars and Stripes Forever."

Omaheels!!!! (again)

2007-06-11T16:35:00.001-04:00

In case you watched the series finale of The Sopranos last night (which I imagine many of you did) or watched Game 2 of the NBA Finals (which I cannot imagine many of you did) or did not watch any television at all (which I commend you for), the UNC baseball team defeated the University of Little Carolina 9-4 last night to advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

Redeeming Prufrock is very excited about this.

The Heels made it to Omaha last year and lost in the championship game 3-2 on an 8th inning throwing error. Those of you who followed the team closely know how badly this disappointment hurt, how you loved that team because it was your second semester of senior year and you spent so many afternoons at the stadium and not in class because class had ceased to matter, how you watched in a bar alone on your birthday because you were on assignment in Boston where only the Red Sox matter, how you left despondent and alone with the Northerners not knowing what the big deal was, how you didn't talk the rest of the night - and didn't sleep either, how even months later that pang of "what might have been" still hanunted you, how you ranked that loss as the 3rd most emotionally intense sporting event in your top 10, how you felt those guys deserved better than such a gut-wrenching loss.

You must permit me a moment of lost perspective. Emotion often trumps logic.

A few baby blue demons still haunt Omaha and need exorcism. This return trip provides that opportunity. What sweet relief, even justice, it would be for them to triumph where they fell just short a year ago. Maybe even the second baseman could get the game-winning hit.

But a lot of those demons fled last night. This return trip to the College World Series ensures that the championship game from last year will not be the dominant memory for so many of those players (only four did not return from last year's team). Tar Heel sports addicts will remember them as the first back-to-back College World Series participants in UNC history, not as the team that came so close in '06 but threw the title away.

This makes us excited here at RP because that team deserves to triumph over the final game of last year. They deserve better than that because they play with great heart and, from all reports (and I do mean all), they represent the university as well as any group of atheletes can. They deserve better than what happened to them last year.

They deserve a national championship.

The road begins Friday at 7:00pm.

Wresting Rest

2007-06-09T08:57:00.000-04:00

I feel bad. Not the just-clubbed-a-bunch-of-baby-seals-for-coats bad but the stayed-up-too-late-going-clubbing bad. Now, I did not spend last night downtown, but I just feel that way. I feel icky. My stomach growls, but I do not feel like eating. Stubble has become me.

I shall call it fatigue.

Now, I have not come to Redeeming Prufrock whine. We are all tired. Old and young. Employeed, part-time employeed, or unemployeed. Justified or not. We are all tired. I have become convinced by observation and experience that feeling fatigued unites us. We are always busy and are thus always tired, no matter what we have done or how much sleep we have gotten.

In his song off the "Save the Last Dance" soundtrack (and yes, I own it; who doesn't?), Ice Cube opines, "Life ain't a track meet, it's a marathon." I fear I must disagree with Mr. Cube. When I used to run cross country, we loved our long runs. We'd run ten, 12 miles and think nothing of it. Why? you may ask. Because we ran S. . . . L . . . .O. . . .W. We chatted. We relaxed. We enjoyed the weather. What killed us were track workouts. We'd run a shorter interval, say a half-mile, about as hard as we could, then take two minutes of rest before gearing back up for another speedy half-mile. These workouts were brutal. These workouts made people barf.

In my experience, life is more like the track workout, not a marathon but a "series of sprints" as my friend Alex Kirk puts it. This explains why we feel so tired all the time. This explains why we so often feel the need to emotionally barf.

This reality puts a premium on what we do in the interval between repeats. How do we recover? How do we wrest rest from out busy lives?

I looked up rest in the Humphries Kneejerk Dictionary and found this:

rest (v.) - to not work.

One could do worse than this definition, I suppose. After all, we rest by going to the beach, by reading or watching television, and by napping.

Yet, I have found a great irony in rest. As I get older these activities oftentimes do not make me feel restful. I used to spend Sunday afternoons "resting." I would lay on the futon for seven straight hours after church and watch football. This would seem as Heaven, especially during seasons when the Carolina Panthers found success and Michael Vick found failure. (and honestly, can anyone remember when the latter was not the case?). Come 5:00 though, I began to feel icky, stale, worthless, In short, I felt unrested.

Three Things That Do Not Make Me Feel Rested:
-Sleeping more than 11 hours in a day
-Laying on the couch all afternoon
-Doing nothing

Six Things That Do Make Me Feel Rested:
-Laughing
-Controlled sleeping
-Controlled football watching
-Hanging out with friends
-Writing
-Running

So my kneejerk definition breaks down. Oftentimes, simply avoiding work does not provide rest. How about a second defintion, this one from the Benetian More Thought Out Dictionary:

rest (v.) - to do that which rejuvenates.

What this actually looks like stands beyond me. Sometimes hanging out with people wears me out. All the time running does. With this defintion, rest can take many forms depending on your mood and your personality. It also makes it very difficult to provide "An Answer" to the question "How do we rest?" Perhaps this is where we must leave it. It simply may not be a black and white issue.

The Bible mentions rest a good bit but very rarely details. God rested on the seventh day of creation but the text does not elaborate. The folks of the Old Testament and some in the New took a Sabbeth day which again seems to simply mean a day to abstain from work. Jesus constantly took rests where he retreated from his public life to spend time alone with the Father. This seems the best, most complete picture of rest that the Bible provides.

Perhaps we can do no better than to say a restful day, whatever form it may take, must include spending time with the only One who really knows how to give us the rest that we need.

Cinderella Goes to Taco Bell

2007-05-31T16:28:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: victory

My roomie Nate played tennis all through high school and even into college. We all had our thing in high school - grades, sports, girls, pogs. His was tennis. My other roomie Andrew grew up with Nate and played many a doubles match with him. They have chemistry.

I have never played tennis. I used to hit tennis balls with a baseball bat in the neighborhood. I do not think that counts. My good buddy AJ also never played tennis, though, as a former MLB draft pick, he has an abundance of athletic talent. When it comes to tennis, we are as green as Kris Jenkins at a salad bar.

With this background, it should come as no surprise that Nate recently proclaimed, "You and AJ will NEVER beat me and Andrew. No way."

Ah, one of those extreme words (see Monday's post) that always gets us in trouble. Remember, dear friends, on a true/false question, if you ever see the word "never," always choose false. But I fear I foreshadow too much. . . .

Thus, a wager birthed forth from the arrogance of my two roomies and the manpride of AJ and me. Starting in February, we would play one doubles match per week until Andrew's wedding on June 16 (his last name is Craig; his fiance and he are registered at Bed Bath and Beyond - *wink, wink*). If AJ and I beat them once, just once, during that 10-week span, they would buy dinner. If we pulled a dust and got swept, dinner was on us.

And so the matches began. I wish I could say they displayed great skill and intensity. They did not. As of two weeks ago, my team's record stood at 0-6, all in straight sets. We had not won a set. One time we only lost a set 6-4. Besides that, we failed to ever win more than three games.

Nate and Andrew began to talk junk, or more aptly, they began to talk more junk. They would say things like "So do y'all really want to take a pounding this week or should we just stay home?" or "Hey, Andrew, are you nervous? Nope? Me either." Occassionally, they would display great wit and say, "You suck."

If our matches were a movie, it would have been Rocky III. They'd be Clubber Lang but without the mutton chops, coolness, and A Team heritage. We were Rocky. Again though, I fear I foreshadow too much. . . .

It got bad. Real bad. So bad, in fact, that AJ and I contemplated which would seem more unmanly - to continue taking our beatings or to give up. After a week and a half off, we decided to play again.

We lost. . . again. The score: 4-6, 6-0, 7-6 (7-0). After taking our first set of the entire bet, we lost in a third set tie-breaker. Heartbreak. I felt like UNC had just been bounced from the NCAA tournament all over again. I was emotionally spent and did not sleep that night because I knew we had blown our chance. When I agreed to the wager, I knew there would be one day, just one, where they were a little off and we were a little on. On that day, we would get 'em.

Well, that day came and we still lost.

I recently wrote on Redeeming Prufrock that we must battle for hope, that, unlike George Strait's hit song, it does not just come natural. By this point, we had given up on hope. Our moment had past. We had begun to think of the nastiest places in Charlotte to eat where we could take the victors. We're talking Taco Bell nasty here. And so we slouched towards the court yesterday like it was Yeats' Bethlehem.

We lost the first set - ho hum - and then something crazy happened. Nate and Andrew could not return my serve. You must know, dear reader, that my serve is about as bad as, well, anything from Taco Bell. We jumped out to a 3-0 lead and broke Andrew to win the second set 7-5. We began to believe.

We came out hot in the third set as well, holding my serve (which we called "a break") and breaking Nate's. Eventually, the set arrived at 3-3. The park closed in 20 minutes and rain loomed on the horizon. At that moment, I knew doom awaited us. We would play great, have a shot to win, and then either:

a) it would rain
b) the park would turn off the lights
c) we would blow it

Another night we have them on the ropes. Another night they get let off the hook by park security, Mother Nature, or my skill level.

But it did not rain. The lights remained on, and in ten minutes, I stood serving match point at Deuce-Ad In. I lobbed my serve in because that's all I can do. AJ took a risk and ran from the left side of the court to the right in an attempted overhead smash. All or nothing.

He jumped.

The ball disappeared from my sight as his body smothered it, arms extended, legs spread.

I heard him yell before his slam hit the court.

"COME ON!!!!!!!!"

We had done it! We had slayed Goliath. We had knocked out Clubber and his mutton chops. We had tried on the slipper and it fit.

I had the distinct pleasure of riding home with the vanquished. They offered to pay me $100 in lieu of buying dinner so they could avoid my gloating. I declined. Gleefully. Other than that, they remained rather silent, except for a few words not fit for print since folks under the age of 21 read RP. They had run out of wit, I guess.

If you see them anytime soon, ask about the match. They love talking about it.

I now know the feeling of the '83 NC State Wolfpack, of Bryce Drew and Valparaiso, of George Mason. Sure, AJ and I had ten tries to get it done while they played one mistake away from elimination. But Cinderella had to endure years of low-wage work and sibling insults before the shoe finally fit. Like Cinderella, we had waited and suffered before finally donning our extravagant foot attire.

Which leaves me wonder, "How would Cinderella like Taco Bell?"

Under these circumstances, just fine, thank you very much.

An Overflow of Thanksgiving

2007-05-30T15:58:00.000-04:00

If you have read me long enough, you will have observed that many of my posts seem to take a rather negative tone. Some of this has emerged from various circumstances in my life. Some of this has come from various struggles I have had in entering a new phase of life. Some of this simply comes from living in a hopelessly broken and fallen world (I feel a great need to proclaim this in 21st-century America where we have the ability to pretend that everything is as it should be better than perhaps any other people group that has ever lived - except for perhaps the mid to late 1990's America).

A lot of this negative mood has to do with my blog background being dark. Colors matter.

What's more though, I find it much easier to see and write about life's difficulties and problems. I do not think I stand alone. Enter any workplace in America, and I imagine you would hear some form of complaining within the first eight minutes you stepped in the door.

Fortunately, the story does not end with this darkness. God is good all the time, and all the time God is good. This God in whom I claim to believe consumes all of the ugly realities of life so fully that they no longer have any power. Yet for whatever reason, I have great difficulty expressing the goodness of God. I freely write of sin. I labor to write of glory.

Last week, I wrote of an encounter I had with a woman in Borders who sought to learn more about who God is and if, in fact, he actually is. Here existed a clear and visible moment of God's goodness. I loved the comments that Brad and Jeff posted, both of which expressed part of God's character and responded with worship and praise.

Today I attempt to bring more news of God's goodness, in hope that he may be worshipped again.

I finished up a fundraising phone call last night and had one of those moments where I just become emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed by God. I really cannot describe why or how or even what this looks like. I simply hung up the phone and sat on the floor, marveling at God and not feeling like doing anything else.

In this moment, I reflected on my fundraising efforts so far, and I had to just sit in awe. Check out what has happened in just over two weeks:

-Many people have reorganized their entire budget to make room for me.

-One person agreed to support me even though he/she enters grad school next year and will live off of government loans for years. To put this another way, they are tithing NOT OUT OF THEIR EARNINGS BUT OUT OF THEIR DEBT. Are you kidding me? He/She expressed with a smile his/her desire to see Uncle Sam's money come the way of the kingdom.

-Another person said his/her 10% goes straight to the local church and that I could not touch it. . . . but that they would give above that 10% in order to support me.

-One person seemed genuinely offended that I followed up on my initial letter because it went without saying he/she would help. I wish I could have taped the aggression in his/her voice and bottled the encouragement which it sent my way.

-One family invited me to come on their summer vacation with them.

-Multiple people have bought me meals during a time in which I am hemororhaging money because of gas prices and the necessity of travel for fundraising.

-I received an e-mail from someone last week with whom I had not spoken in three months. They had heard I was raising support for the purpose of spreading the Gospel. Their most striking sentence: "We want to help." I love it when people will listen to me ask. Imagine what it is like to have someone actively pursue giving away their money.

-When I began, my list had 71 "Potential Donors." I have since moved five people to another list entitled "Donors," yet my "Potential Donors" list is now greater than 71. Where have these people come from? I don't know, but I have a hunch. . . .

-Many folks have gone to bat for me to their neighbors and parents, people who do not know me from Adam. I hope that one day, dear reader, you have someone fight for you like this, whether it be in a time of need or in a marriage or just in the day-in day-out routine of life. The feeling is indescribable.

All of this in only two weeks.

I really and truly do not deserve any of this. Just last week, I hit my first burnout moment which comes straight from self-idolatry and a refusal to trust and even believe in God. The need for repentance came quickly in this process. . .

. . . which makes today's need for thanksgiving that much more incredible. One of my go-to verses in this whole process is 2 Cor 9:12 which says that "the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God." I am excited about the responses made by God's people because I want to have shelter next year, and I certainly want to eat food. I really like to eat food.

But even beyond that, I am excited about God's provision in my life because it has forced an overflow of thanksgiving to God. After all, no meal that I eat next year can exceed the moment the Lord provided last night.

"I'm Damned"

2007-05-28T16:35:00.000-04:00

In his sermon two weeks ago, my pastor described a hypothetical situation where God asked him why He should let him into Heaven. My pastor said his response would be Jesus, that he believed God had showed us through His Word that belief in Jesus Christ, and that alone, made us righteous. Nothing real new here except for the increased emotion with which my pastor spoke.

And then he said something that shook me, yeah it shook me, all night long.

"If Jesus isn't who he said he is, if Jesus isn't the correct response, I'm damned."

Wow.

I must admit, beloved readers, this stunned me. Not often do I hear anyone utter those two words, much less the man who instructs me in the Word every Sunday.

Once paralysis passed, I began to recoil and revolt from his statement. Certainly not! It must not be! There could be other ways. I mean, he's not a bad guy. I'm not a bad guy. Certainly there are other. . . .

And yet, the Bible does not allow this. One must work over the biblical text real good to make a case that anything besides Christ offers us a chance at Heaven. My thoughts wreaked of a works-based salvation at worst and a meet-God-halfway salvation at best. Both positions remain biblically untenable, though many throughout history have tried to hold them.

My pastor's statment merely stated what I, and what historic Christianity, believe but in a "what if we're wrong" fashion. I do not often think in this mode which perhaps explains my stunned response. I do not think this a bad thing because if we always lived as it we were wrong, we would never actually live as if we believed. Accordingly, one could wonder if we did, in fact, actually believe.

What's more though, I found myself trying to discover how I could enter Heaven if Jesus turns out to be a liar. Have I done enough good? Should I go give away more money? Maybe I could join the religious pluralism crowd so that whichever God is real, I've got my ass covered.

I often cling to these thoughts subconsciously, not really wanting to place all my marbles in the basket of Christ. Deep inside, and sometimes in more shallow waters, lurks a hideous unbelief.

In the midst of all this stands Peter exhorting us to "fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Next to him, the great hymn proclaims that "my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness." Even our modern-day Christianese, which I despiseth so, speaks of "selling out to God" and "totally surrendering to him."

In our abuse of language, we no longer love words and tend to ignore what they actually mean. In this case, words such as "completely," "nothing," and "totally" lose their literalism and their power. We make them to mean "a lot, but not everything, you know, just in case. . . but still a lot!." We are, after all, taught in early grade school that if you ever see extreme words such as "every" or "all" on a true/false question, the answer is always false.

If we are to believe as Jesus demands that we do, we must totally, completely, desperately believe in him. His words and his actions do not allow for partial belief. We can take all of Jesus or we can take none.

This scares me because it is a risk and a radical one at that. I want to hold on to everything that may justify me, so that I have no risk. I want all my bases covered. I want my eternity secure no matter what. In doing so though, I would reject Christ and the extreme language he uses.

At some point in life, the Lord revealed himself to me, and I decided to follow him. To do so requires a total commitment, that I fix my hope COMPLETELY on the grace of God the Father manifested through the work of Jesus Christ. If I claim this, I must claim it all. I have no other hope than this, and I mean that "no" as literally as Webster's defines it. Not in myself. Not in my works. Not in my pastor or church.

"My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand."

If not, I'm damned. This is what I claim when I say I'm a Christian.

Oh, what a joyous song to sing!

Gankage Update

2007-05-22T16:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, my neighbor reported to me that the police apprehended one of the fellas involved with last month's apartment-wide gankage-spree. This particular neighbor was the one who had his entire car boosted, whereas the rest of us merely lost a stereo, a window, and/or an air conditioning unit. Criminals love cool air.

I expressed my excitement for him that he would receive his car back. I have a soft spot in my heart for '93 Honda Accords, having owned one myself in a previous life. He said little of the car was left; the hood and the trunk, among other parts, no longer remained. Still, insurance would replace most of the car, and he would have it back in no time.

This made sense. The fellas stole his car, stripped it for parts which provided more value and less risk than selling the actual car, and dumped the remains in the river, if Charlotte had a river. Without a natural body of water, they probably left it in a field or on the side of the highway or at a Charlotte Bobcats game. No one would ever find it there.

I confess my surprise to you, dear reader, at these unravelings. Once robbers remain loose for a day or two following the boostings, the police usually have a hard time making an arrest. The bad guys return to their gangsta's paradise and live to steal another day. The case, on the other hand, goes into the molding "Open but Inactive" pile at the police station which basically means "Little Hope of an Arrest But We Can't Tell the Victims We're Giving Up so We'll Call It 'Open but Inactive'."

Curious, I asked my neighbor, "So how did they find your car after a month?"

His eyes grew a tad bigger and an incredulous smile spread over his face. He laughed, then started talking.

Apparently, one of the gankstas did not dump my neighbor's car on the side of the road, in a field, or in the river. Instead, the thief performed normal vehicular maneuvers with it. You know, like drive it around town, fill it up with gas, wreck somebody else. Normal car stuff.

Well, this last action caused our hero some trouble, given that the car had been reported stolen.

Now, dear reader, time for a little role play. If you were a grand thief auto and you wrecked a car you had stolen, would you:

a) drive away
b) run
c) linger

Our friend chose c). He hung around the scene until the cops showed up. Bad move #1.

Back to the role play. If you were a ganksta and the police had just shown up at an accident scene involving you and a stolen car, would you:

a) offer one of your undoubtedly plenteous fake id's
b) keep running, since you smartly left the scene at initial contact
c) give the police your driver's license

Once again, our friend chose c). He must really like that letter, even though in this two question quiz, he grades out at an F.

I kid you not, loved ones. This fella stole a car from a Ballantyne apartment complex one month ago, sold some of its parts, drove it around, wrecked it, waited for the police to show up, watched as they ran a car report on the vehicle, and then gave them accurate identification of himself. That's right, after showing them the stolen car, he gave them his driver's license. Bad move #2.

Now, I do not share this with you to ridicule this young man because he is a bad criminal ("Ha Ha, you suck at crime!"). Being good at crime does not make you cool so being bad at crime, in some sense, makes you at least cooler since it aids in the maintenance of society. Thanks for being bad at crime, my good friend.

I share this with you so that we can laugh at stupidity because, let's face it, stupidity is funny. In our age of tolerance, I will not call this fella stupid. That would cast judgment on his lifestyle and restrict the criminal diversity which he desired to bring into our law-abiding melting pot. His actions, however, were colossally stupid and worthy of a hearty chuckle.

The police arrested our friend on the spot and took him to jail. Bad move #3. In fact, for our hero, the worst move of all.

Ganksta's paradise lost.

The Wrong Call

2007-05-21T16:49:00.000-04:00

I'm still trying to figure out why my co-worker picked up the phone. She had no business doing that. It was my call.

I helped one customer last Thursday. This was unique, as hundreds and maybe thousands of customers frequent Borders on any given Thursday. Even when I shelve books all day, a point comes where a co-worker needs assistance at the Info Desk or at the Registers. Every day, customers are unavoidable.

1:00pm approached on Thursday, and I stood in the back room unboxing books. I like this task because watching a pile of book boxes dwindle feels productive. If work cannot feel fun, let it at least seem productive. Headset and nametag strewn beside me, I focused on the shrinking task and growing accomplishment which stood before me.

The phone rang on line 2. It rang three times, at which point everyone in the store, regardless of current task, stood obligated to answer it per Borders Field Manual 5Bii (and no, I cannot provide a link to this book; it's top secret). I waited until ring five, futilely hoping someone else would get it. Alack and alas, every day, customers are unavoidable. At ring six, I grabbed the phone, did my happy voice intro, and waited for the demand. Customers no longer ask these days. They demand.

Turned out, 'twas not a customer at all but a personal call for a co-worker. I put the caller on hold and went to find said employee. Upon learning she had not returned from lunch, I went to the Info desk to finish the call when I discovered another co-worker of mine had picked up line 2 - MY line 2.

What was she doing?!?!?! That's my call. We NEVER pick up calls for each other, not out of inconsideration but to avoid confusion. That was my call!

In the midst of my agitation, I noticed a customer standing by the info desk. Her arms labored under three Lee Strobel books. She asked for help, not with the books but with finding another book. Apparently, her forearms had not had enough.

She wanted a book called "The Journey," a Bible edition published to help guide people who have little experience with Christianity but want to learn more.

Cool, I thought. I never knew anyone actually bought those. She must have a friend who needs a gift.

As we strolled to the Bibles section, I mentioned that my co-worker, Ken aka. The Anvil, graduated from seminary last week and that Mr. Strobel had attended the graduation. The Anvil had literally run into him, as the both rounded the same corner from different angles. The Anvil won the collision, obviously.

My new friend told me that she likes Strobel; he answers her questions in a way she can understand. She asked me if I knew anything else Strobelesque.

Jackpot! Christian book recommendation! I love these. To help me offer some suggestions, I asked her if these were for a friend and what that friend was particularly interested in.

She replied that the books were, in fact, for her. This interested me, so I asked some more questions. My new friend here had "grown up Christian, but not going to church" and had decided she needed to learn more, to find out what she believed. Denominations confused her; she grew up in one but feels better in another. She wanted to know where dinosaurs fit into the Bible.

Good, honest questions really excite me, so I was rather excited at this point. I directed her to Geisler's "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist" and pointed her to some C.S. Lewis. I asked her if she had anyone to talk these questions through with, anyone who had come alongside her. She replied she did not. We traded e-mail addresses and hopefully will get together this week.

As she left the section and I returned to the unboxing room, she said, "I don't think it was an accident God had you here. . . " and trailed off. Or more aptly, I cut her off, repeating I hoped we could soon get together for coffee. Remember, I am excitable.

No other calls for assistance came that day. I left at 3:30 having assisted one customer.

An old saying proclaims, "Shit happens." Occassionally, krazy shit happens. It's so crazy it has to be misspelled. God really is nuts. I go to work these days with no hope. I'm as disinterested and unproductive as I've been in my eight months there and have really moped my way into a rut while also rutting my way into a mope. My new friend probably entered Borders with no hope too. She'd been to tons of retail stores before, many with burdensome questions. Why would this time be any different? Yet, we will hopefully hang out soon. Maybe this will be part of a tremendous movement in her life and in mine. At the very least, it's hopeful.

But I'm still trying to figure out why my co-worker picked up the phone. She had no business doing that. It was my call.

The Tooth Scary

2007-05-16T09:51:00.000-04:00

I do not like visiting the dentist office, and I do not stand alone. My friend Nicole recently displayed her disdain for trips to the dentist on a Google Chat Away Message (GOOCHAWM, pronounced "goo 'chaw mmm"). Chris Pappa told me a couple weeks ago he fears for the salvation of dentists.

I have no such soteriological thoughts on the matter. I just do not like going because I get yelled at. I do a decent job in keeping my teeth clean, but dental hygiene is like righteousness. No matter how good you are, you can always be better. The dentist's job is to tell you how to get better.

My trip this morning stood as particularly daunting for four reasons:

1) I was three months overdue, meaning three extra months of filth.
2) Since my last trip, I had begun a love affair with coffee and a lustful relationship with Coca Cola Zero, both of which stain my teeth like Sherwin-Williams on a deck.
3) I smoked a cigar last night and still tasted it this morning. This cannot help.
4) I do not floss.

So it was with great fear and trembling that I approached the throne of hygiene this morning.

After some misdirecting small talk, I take my seat in the chair and opened up. I love this moment. I really love it. The first look into my mouth.

Now when I observe my mouth in the mirror, I see nothing noteworthy. Straight teeth, a tad yellowed but no rotting, no bleeding. But I am an ignorant. When a dental hygienist pears into my mouth, he/she sees vile uncleanliness. It must seem like a scene from The Exorcist for him/her, the one where the girl projectile vomits something mean and green a very impressive distance. At the very least, it must look like one of those obscene still photos from the Ren and Stimpy show.

And so I open up. There is a pause, a hesitation, a revolt from the hygienist. You can hear her unspoken, "Damn!" But she is a professional and recovers quickly. Off we go.

Trips to the dentist remain difficult enough as is, but today I suffer from allergies. As soon as she begins cleaning, I can feel the slow, lava trickle of, uh, nasal waste trudging down the back of my throat. I hate this feeling. It makes me fear strep throat, the Venom to my Spiderman. I constantly cough, sniffle, and snort to try to halt the retreat down my throat, moving not violently but enough to disrupt teeth cleaning. I feel bad for being inconvenient and for not being able to control my bodily functions. Awkward.

She tells me I have "recession" around my upper left molar. I confess to you all I do not know what this means. I suspect it has something to do with my high incisor unemployment rate and the fact that my Dental Dow Jones Index dropped below 10,000 this past month. Regardless, I blame George W. Bush.

The cleaning goes well. She scrapes the Sherwin-Williams off my teeth, assaults my enamel with baking soda spray, and pokes my gums. I spend most of my time will-powering my gums to not bleed. I know my mouth is dirty and my teeth are not in great shape, but I can pretend that nothing is disasterous. Just a little dirt, that's all. Unless my gums bleed. This would be confession, and this cannot be. If my gums bleed, the game is up. All is lost.

"Hang in there, babies, hang in there. Daddy's got an iced coffee and six months of no flossing for you if you just hang in there."

And they do. No blood. We win.

As the cleaning begins to wrap up, my dental hygienist finally drops the bomb that we both knew would eventually come: "So, how's flossing been going?" Ugh. Why the heck do they ask this question? They have been staring into my mouth for 30 minutes now. They see the situation. Does this look like a mouth that has been flossed?

I am trapped. I receive chastisement if I confess, but I cannot get away with a lie given the overwhelming evidence against me. Darned if I don't, danged if I do. So I follow in the footsteps of great orators such as Master P. I say, "Uhhhh. . . ." She lets me off the hook by interjecting the utility of flossing so that I do not have to answer the question fully. A wordless embarrassment is better than a loud but futile attempt at saving face.

All in all, I survived. I lived to tell, or blog, about it. I walk out of the dental office with my mouth feeling clean. It's a really unnatural feeling though. After months of stain, plaque, and that wonderfully stale film which covers one's teeth, I feel naked, like a beloved part of me is gone.

So here I am, dear reader, sitting at Dunkin' Donuts. I drink an iced coffee, large, dark, double-sugary, with blueberry syrup. Like Harding in the 1920 presidential election, I promised my teeth and gums a return to normalcy. And they shall have it.

Good News

2007-05-15T21:28:00.000-04:00

My faithful readers know of my current celebrity crush, Addison from "Grey's Anatomy." Addy's three predecessors, in chronological order, were Michelle Branch, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Sara Evans.

Jeff informed me tonight that The Wreckers (a band featuring Ms. Branch) and Sara Evans will both perform next week at Charlotte's pre-NASCAR street festival called "Speed Street." The concerts are free.

This is very good news.

*

2007-05-14T14:53:00.000-04:00

I received a good bit of positive feedback from last Thursday's post, so I want to take this space today to elaborate and/or qualify a little bit to avoid confusion. Today exists as Thursday's footnote.

Thursday's post stated that we must actively choose to hope and oftentimes battle to do so because it does not come naturally. In fact, much wordly evidence argues for the foolishness of hope. Christianity, however, offers us good reason to hope, both for tomorrow and for eternity. This all begs the question how one should fight for hope.

The obvious answer is willpower. We simply do it. We choose to hope and stubbornly refuse to not do so. Like a marathoner hanging on to dear stride amidst the pain, the elements, and the miles, we just keep going. Yet, an inherent problem lies in this response, one of which I remain all too familiar.

Last summer, a friend and I met a woman on an airplane. After hours of conversation, we disembarked and parted ways, my friend and me heading one way and she heading another. Minutes later, I told my friend that we should commit to praying for our new friend every day throughout the summer. He replied that he did not want to do this; in his experience every time he committed to pray for people, he always ended up failing. He would strive to pray for her over the summer but would not commit to anything.

Internally, I scoffed at this. How could he NOT commit to prayer when so much stood on the line? I assented to his convictions, but inside, I knew, just knew, that I would pray all summer.

By mid-June, my newly acquired friend was nowhere to be seen in my prayer life.

You see, I have this problem trying to do that which I want to do. I do not believe I remain alone in this quality. As Exhibit A, I offer you the crowd discrepancy at your local gym on January 2 and March 2. New Year's Resolutions do not last long. Furthermore, I submit to you that even when we succeed in our commitments, the primary motivator is often sinful (Hello, Pride!). Thus, even when we succeed, we fail.

These same tendancies creep into my desire to hope. The Lord constantly reminds me of the goodness of and reason for hope, yet I so often succomb to the desparing rationale of the world. I fall short on my choice to hope. Ergo, His constant need to remind me.

When it comes to hope, I do believe we must orient ourselves in preparation for perseverance and endurance. We must be ready to stand. But in our own will power, this alone will fail.

We must pray.

And yes, please forgive my Sunday School answer and potentially obvious solution to the problem. But I could not let Thursday's post go without mentioning prayer because I believe it is that vital, so vital that I will shread my longstanding desire to avoid cliche. We must pray for hope.

Ephesians 5 describes the Christian as a warrior putting on the armor of God. After verses of description, three of the next four verb commands are: "pray," "always keep on praying," and "Pray also." We fight, we battle, we war by praying.

We have seen that we fail to uphold our commitments with simple will-power. We fail "in our own strength," if you will permit me a little Christianese. We can only maintain hope like we can possess any other gift, by God's grace, the undeserving work He accomplishes in our lives. Whereas choosing hope orients our flesh to persevere, praying for hope submits our inadequate nature to God's power. What's more, I believe that prayer also calls down that power from Heaven and actually gives us the ability to hope (Rev 8:3-5).

Over the last couple days, I have thought a lot about hope and about my post on it. I have found myself not hoping, despite saying that we must choose to hope. I kept choosing to hope over and over and yet finding myself not hoping over and over. I tried to hope in my own stregnth by simply choosing to do it, and I failed. It had the appearance of godliness without its power. I write today to amend Thursday's post so that others may not experience this. I exhort you all who wish to hope, who battle for hope, to pray to the Father for hope and to receive the gift when He pours it out over us as He so longs to do.

A Season of Hope

2007-05-10T17:22:00.000-04:00

My church denoted 2007 as a year of hope. One can find the four letter word somewhere on the cover of every Sunday bulletin, often accompanied by a quotation making some statement about it.

I have learned a lot about hope these last eight months. As recently as March, the word hope conjured up images of flowers, fields, and feeling. I envisioned the word on a Hallmark card with a banal but appropriate feel-good message. The card contained a flood of pastel colors which would put even Russell Simmons' recent wardrobe to shame. Hope was happy.

I even did not give hope a very prominent role in the Scriptures, despite its inclusion in the Big 3 - that being faith, hope, and love. Paul follows the Big 3 by saying that the greatest one is love. Pile on that the fact that we are saved by grace through faith, and hope seems like an training wheel. Faith and love are doing the work while the appendage hope hangs on for dear but unecessary life.

Then Jason Ray died. Two weeks later, two Charlotte policemen were assassinated at close range. Then Virginia Tech. Suddenly hope became a key talking point in our cultural, and my internal, conversations but usually only in question for. Where is hope? Is there any hope? Why hope? And above them all, what is hope?

These times taught me that hope is intense, hope is fierce. One must battle for hope. One must even choose hope. Pastels won't get it done. Hope is hard.

These are the times that try men's hope precisely because they are times when the world has no reason to hope. Our environment tells us no hope exists. Our friends tell us no hope exists. Our natural reaction tells us no hope exists. This is why we must battle, why we must choose, because in our given state, hope does not seem natural. Life is all we see, and thus no hope exists in death. Death has the last word. It is, "Ha!"

But we know better. The longing and pain in our spirit knows better. The Holy Spirit tells us better. We know that God has never defaulted on a promise in the past, and he is not about to start now. Like faith, like love, he offers us hope though it might not come naturally.

I sat across from a woman today who recently lost her father to cancer. She tells me the pain is tangible, that she can feel it. She speaks of the hurt she feels when leaving the grave, as if she abandons her loved one. She tells me that she must fight this feeling, she must battle it, because she knows that her father is not there in the ground. He remains in her heart and with her Savior. This is the good news. This is the hope, and that hope endures.

My friends, here is where my training wheel view of hope falls hopelessly short. Hope stands not as a training wheel but as a necessary third leg of a stool. We cannot live a moment without hope. Life would overcome us, and tragically, it has overcome many.

I live with hope today because a friend of mine recently made the decision to believe in Jesus; she has found a new hope in her life that has rejuvenated hope in my life. I live with hope today because of my friends who have come along beside her and befriended her though they have never seen her. I live with hope today because the Lord has given my friends and me a reason to hope through answered prayer. I live with hope today because I stand on the cusp of a new adventure in life, one which promises to reveal the person of Jesus Christ regardless of anything. I live with hope because Christ the Lord is risen today and this is my only hope.

I must have hope or I am undone. Fortunately, like love and like faith, the Father lavishly pours out hope over me, more than enough for all my needs. Often it feels like a struggle, like a battle, but it is always there in sufficient supply.

So today I celebrate hope, not with a pastel smile but with a fierce intensity and rigor. Hope brings joy and sustains life through every trial. It must or 'tis not hope. And it endures.

The Pleb and The Genius

2007-05-07T21:50:00.000-04:00

RP frequentor Chris Pappa and I google-chatted about our thoughts on natural disasters last week. Not wanting to misrepresent him or his thoughts, I deemed it best to copy our conversation rather than attempt to re-word it into my own prose. I have edited the conversation for the sake of length, clarity, and, of course, our personal reputations.

chris.pappa: so you go first...what do we do with natural disasters? how do we explain natural disasters as theists. good God....havoc-wreaking hurricane that God doesn't stop. what gives?
me: sin gives
chris.pappa: i suppose
but what's the connection between sin and nature?
me: the problem with natural disasters isn't the disaster in and of itself
it's the death which it wreaks
chris.pappa: could hurricanes NOT kill people?
me: i do not know
chris.pappa: hmm
interesting
me: what would've happened if a hurricane hit eden?
but. . . .
i also think nature was affected by the fall
chris.pappa: a two-fold approach...
me: what do you mean by two-fold just to clarify?
chris.pappa: 1. nature was affected by the fall
2. what we call "disasters" may not have hurt or killed un-fallen dudes and dudettes
me: yes
nature would have to be different somehow because if we couldn't die, then nature couldn't kill us
so something had to be different
chris.pappa: certainly
me: so if we are back at the fall, then natural disasters come as a result of sin
chris.pappa: ok
so we blame Adam for murderous tornadoes?
me: no, i blame myself
but by extension, yes, adam
anytime death strikes, it reminds me that my sin caused death
so on a grander level, natural disasters are no different than car accidents
or cancer
we die because of sin
chris.pappa: it just seems more devastating because it is a big number
me: yes, but old age gets a lot more than natural disasters
gets a lot more = kills more people
chris.pappa: understood
just not at once
me: true
so for me personally, i treat natural disasters as death
chris.pappa: not tragic?
rather, not MORE tragic?
me: that is a hard question for me
chris.pappa: for me also
me: because yes, va tech really hits me hard
so i cant deny that big events are definitely MORE something
chris.pappa: true
me: but the simple fact that death awaits us all is really brutal
and unavoidable
and tragic
again though, i hurt more when the tsunami happens than when i hear an 80 year friend of a friend dies
so. . . .
i respond like it's more tragic
but intellectually, i dont know
chris.pappa: a noble response
me: your turn
chris.pappa: ah
well
you have done most of my work for me--for which i commend you
me: haha
genius minds think alike. . . .
chris.pappa: well
sometimes plebs like you may stumble upon genius
think nothing of it
anyway
me: :)
chris.pappa: it's actually easier for me to reconcile september 11th than a tornado or an earthquake
i know quite certainly that God has given us the freedom to choose...so a sinful act that affects a lot of people, well, that's the freedom in action
me: yes
chris.pappa: but
tornado?
who did that? nature did that
me: there is no scapegoat
is nature the sinner who chooses evil?
chris.pappa: interesting phrase
i doubt it, though
the bible depicts nature as God's work
there isn't an OT expression for "it rained"
just "God sent rain"
me: hmm
chris.pappa: so here i am thinking, "does God CAUSE natural disasters??"
i don't like the sound of that...
what you said about the fall affecting creation, that's true; and that takes a little of the edge off. We are implicated--somehow
me: you must explain the "somehow"
chris.pappa: ok
me: because it implies there's something else at work besides us
chris.pappa: ah
us and God
I really think that's it
God made the rules...we sinned and He was forced to alter them
So he made the lion but we made the lion frightening
me: ok
chris.pappa: in the end, you say, "this is the world we have made for ourselves"
"we die because we sin"
Sometimes God can (and does) intervene...but we've got to come to the grim conclusion that if 80000 people suddenly die in a tsunami, they deserved to die
not as a scourge direct from God, but because our sin contaminates the world we live in
me: right
so it all comes back to death
chris.pappa: hmnm
me: the unique thing here is that there is no real "cause"
ie, cho at va tech and the fellas on 9/11
chris.pappa: right
but here's the catch
it APPEARS that a hurricane is more like God than a human being
but we know better
the pinnacle of creation is us
me: hmm
that's good stuff
chris.pappa: this is why people are more floored by a human murderer than a "natural" one
me: what do you mean more floored?
chris.pappa: if one person methodically kills 30 people
me: it seems we ask this question more during natty disasters than manmade ones
chris.pappa: hmm
maybe
me: back to your earlier point, we can explain the choice
on some level
we have nothing to say when we can't place the blame somewhere
not that this means we are more or less "floored" but this question seems to come up at the tsunami
chris.pappa: true
me: va tech: "where is your god?"
us: "cho's free will"
tsunami: "where is your god?"
me: "_________"
chris.pappa: right
it's harder
it's more ambiguous
or metaphysical
me: right
which explains why it's harder given our post-enlightenment existence
chris.pappa: also why original sin is a toughy
if we don't see the connection between adam's sin and ours, we aren't likely to see the connection between adam's sin and natural disasters
me: hmm, i like that
cause that also explains why it's hard
chris.pappa: right
me: because our overwhelming humanist society doesnt deal well with original sin
chris.pappa: no it does not
i just wrote a pape on original sin
i don't think i'll be back on this issue via my blog
so you have my permission to 43 any of this material
or to rodeo it, if you desire
me: as if there was a difference between 43ing and rodeoing
5:44 PM chris.pappa: ha! as if

Consider it rodeoed.

Top 10 Favorite Rap Songs, Part 2

2007-05-03T17:47:00.000-04:00

5. "Yeah," Usher, featuring Ludacris: The music to this song could carry it alone. In fact, it did for the campground I worked for where we played the song sans lyrics for the sake of the kids. Even without words, it still incited more crowd energy than any other song we played.

The featured stanza by Ludacris might be the best of its genre. Let's face it, most features are either a lame stanza with the sole purpose being to get a famous guy into the song or irrelevant noises in the background like "uhhh na nah na nah" or the reptition of the rapper's name (Mike Jones, we're looking at you). Ludacris nails his feature though, even masterfully stating how great he is in terms of pinky value. His is over three hundred thousand, dollars presumably. According to Borders, my fifth digit is closer to $0.0067.

My old roomate (I will not mention his name to protect his identity but we shall call him N. Shaw, no, scratch that, Nate S., yeah, Nate S.) once paraphrased this song as an AOL away message:

"Wanted: Lady on street, freak in bed."

His girlfriend was not amused. He is no longer her boyfriend.

All that to say, take this song, rewind it back, and stick it at #5.

4. "Get Your Roll On," Big Tymers: I once thought this song referred to the marijuana industry, or Big Weed, as I like to call it. The ridiculous nature of this made me laugh at their wit. Imagine my dismay when I found out the song referred to cars and not, in fact, joints.

I also once totaled my car while listening to this song at a high decibal level. Having invested a Charcoal Gray '93 Honda Accord in the song, I figure I should invest a Top 10 spot in it as well.

The Big Tymers get their roll on, their mf'ing roll on, all the way to #4.

3. "California Love," 2Pac, featuring Dr. Dre: Good enough to sit in the parking lot and listen to on the radio. Even when you have a plane to catch.

Plus, everyone knows the best thing that can happen to your work (be it musical or literary or presidential) is to die young. 2Pac's song is no exception.

This song is out on bail, fresh out of jail, California dreamin', and sitting pretty at #3.

2. "Let's Get Married," Jagged Edge: "Then I think about, all the years we put in this relationship / Who knew we'd make it this far?"

"Said I done it all, but frankly girl I'm tired of this emptiness / I wanna come home to you and only you."

"I'm ready to commit to you."

Nope, I'm not on my Barry Manilow kick again. This is straight out of a rap song from Jagged Edge. And don't worry, I didn't believe it either when I first heard it.

A rap song encouraging marriage - truly a pioneering effort in the world of Snoop (see #8) and songs such as "I Need a Girl to Ride." Jagged even gets all 17th century Marvellian on us by dropping the line, "We ain't gettin' no younger so we might as well do it," though I believe Marvell's intentions to be a bit more insidious than Jagged's, if you can believe that.

I have consistently said that when I find a woman who fits one of these two criteria, I will buy a ring:

A) Willing to go to Gettysburg, PA, for our honeymoon.
B) Willing to have this song as our first dance.

Perhaps I should make plans for option C) Celibacy.

In the meantime, Jagged edges up to #2.

1. "Wu-Tang Clain Ain't Nothing to F*** With," Wu Tang Clan: The first thing you must know about this song is that it references "Family Feud." Yes, the "Family Feud" of weekday afternoon game show fame. This is genius.

Secondly, they rhyme the word "ruckus" with the phrase "f*** with." Poetic license, if I've ever seen it, but it works. I couldn't pull this off. You couldn't pull this off. Most rap artists couldn't pull this off. The Wu-Tang Clan just barely can, and it works beautifully. This is genius.

Thirdly, the line: "I slam tracks like quarterback sacks for LT." This is genius.

Mix Family Feud, an ex-Tar Heel football great, and Chinese martial arts all together under the masterful guise of the Wu, and you get my favorite rap song of all time.

The best part of the song is that you can divide it up into five parts to be sung in layers. The baseline, the percussive line, the "melody," the foreground vocalist, and the background vocalist. This makes for a great group sing, especially when you have five people, say, like a high school cross country team or something. My high school cross country team sang this song on a lot of warm-up and training runs the year we won the state title, which still stands as one of the happiest days of my life.

For a couple months, we sang "Wu Tang Clan ain't nothing to **** with." Deep down, we also knew that Sun Valley Cross Country '99 wasn't nothing to **** with, either.

A combination of a great song plus a great corresponding life experience makes the Wu untouchable. Like SVCC in '99, it stands alone at the top.

Top 10 Favorite Rap Songs, Part 1

2007-05-03T14:48:00.000-04:00

Don't ask me from whence this post came. I would have to respond like Mace in one of his songs when another rapper poses the question, "Why does Mace rap so slow?" He responds, "Don't ask me cuz I don't know." Mace gets me.

Perhaps this post emerges subconsciously from all the news talk concerning rap music after Don Imus inadvertantly brought it into the limelight. Perhaps it comes from seeing rap mogul (and here I thought this was a skiing term) Russell Simmons and his impressive arsenal of pastel sweaters promoting his new Oprah-approved book all over cable news this past week. Perhaps the free "Notorious B.I.G.'s Greatest Hits" cd I pulled from the Borders employee promotion box has brought the rap world into my conscious.

I have no definitive answer why these thoughts came to me at work yesterday. So don't ask me cuz I don't know.

Without further ado, Redeeming Prufrock presents Ben's Top 10 Favorite Rap Songs (Ed.'s note: song titles have been edited for the sake of human decency):

10. "Changes," Tupac: In actuality, I do not care much for this song. But everyone else does. I have never heard a person say they do not like it and many roll their eyes into the back of their heads when describing its awesomeness. Given that I love country music and my current favorite song is titled "Hey Hey, You You," I have to put this song on the list to earn any semblance of credibility.

My Top 10 must start here.

9. "No Diggity," Blackstreet featuring Dr. Dre: Any song that can instill a new word into the English language without anyone actually knowing what it means (what is "diggity"?), or, more aptly, what having none of it means, makes the list. Especially if that word becomes a staple on "Sportscenter." Stuart Scott loves the way homerun hitters work it. No diggity.

This Top 10 needs a lack of this crazy little thing called "diggity." I think. So Blackstreet checks in at #9.

8. "Ain't No Fun," Snoop Dogg: Potentially the filthiest song ever written. I remember listening to this with my friend right after he got his driver's license. We were cool, let me tell you, driving to Beta Club service projects at the hospital listening to Snoop.

The song really is disgusting, but back then, disgusting was hilarious. Actually, it still is today but in a much more refined sense, of course. The fact that one needs to express this kind of thing artistically confounds me to no end and makes me chuckle. How can a self-respecting person produce stuff like this?

A lot of that is fluff though. Basically, I'm still immature enough to giggle at it.

Regardless, a Top 10 ain't no fun if the homies can't have some. . . old school Snoop.

7. "Ride Wit Me," Nelly: Not much to say about this one; the song is just cool. It somehow comes across as smooth while providing a beat to bounce to.

A classic still occassionally heard on the radio today, Nelly rides with me at #7.

6. "Baby, I Got Yo' Money," Ol' Dirty Bastard: A well thought, theological song that proclaims the eternal Truth: "God made dirt and dirt bust yo' ass."

As an icebreaker, someone once asked my friend Jeff who he would want to greet him at the pearly gates and what would that person say. His response:

"Ol' Dirty Bastard, saying something utterly incomprehensible."

That sounds about right. If he's good enough for Jeff's pearly gates, he's good enough for my Top 10.

The song peaks when ODB goes falsetto to claim, "If Dirty wants his money, I think y'all better give him his money." A spot at #6 will have to suffice.

Walking with Legends

2007-05-02T14:41:00.000-04:00

The PGA Tour is in Charlotte this weekend for the Wachovia Championship featuring 28 of the world's top 30 players. At 7:30 this morning, the pro-am teed off. The first group consisted of Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan along with Charlotte car dealer Skipper Beck.

Yes, that's right, THE Skipper Beck. Thousands turned out to see him.

My friend Lauren Deason, who incidentally has provided me a ticket for Saturday;s round, works for pgatour.com and was given the assignment to cover this morning's group. She walked 18 holes, INSIDE THE ROPES, with perhaps the two most successful and popular sports figures in the history of the world (a nod here to Muhammad Ali as well). Tough job, right? I shelved books all day today.

Advantage: Lauren.

Here's the link to the blog she kept for pgatour.com during the round, as she walked in places that few people have and will ever walk.

Side by side with Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.

Holy Homeruns, Batman, The Bat Cage!

2007-05-01T16:01:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: The Bat Cage

I played little league baseball in the years of my uber-youth. For most of those years, I stunk. You cannot say this to an elementary school kid, so the fact remained lost on me for many years. In hindsight though, I played outfield and batted lower than 9th in the order, which means, in real baseball, I would not have batted at all. Barry Bonds never batted in the 11 hole in little league. I even doubt that any of you, dear readers, ever batted lower than 9th.

I remember one specific at-bat where I struck out on three pitches yet strode proudly back to the dug-out, head held high. Why? you might ask. Because I had foul-tipped the second strike. Darn it, I had made contact!

I stunk like a sweaty middle-schooler who has yet to discover the utility of deodorant. The year I stopped playing provided a great release for me, and I have kept the times I have swung a non-wiffle-ball bat to a minimum ever since. This history makes what happened Sunday quite odd indeed.

The Sunday weather sparkled here in Charlotte, and Jeff wanted to go do something outside. He mentioned tennis. He mentioned basketball. He mentioned the batting cages. A little fatigued by the former two options, I assented to go to the cage and take some pitches. Jeff plays for his company softball team, the Blue Tigers, where he has earned the nickname The Truth. The Truth wanted to practice. I just wanted to hit stuff. Or at least foul-tip it.

So we headed off to Celebration Station to take some batting practice. If one wants to take BP in Charlotte, one has two options: Grand Slam USA or Celebration Station. Grand Slam is for serious swingers. They put the speed of the pitches on the outside of each cage so that a player can practice on an appropriate level. Celebration Station exists for ringers like me. Oh, and for little kids of course. But only the ones who play right field and bat 12th. Like Grand Slam, C Station provides different levels at which to practice but uses the less scientific labels "Medium Baseball Pitch," "Fast Baseball Pitch," and the vaunted "Superfast Baseball Pitch." I began at medium.

Sunday afternoon was a lot of fun. For whatever reason, I just really like to hit stuff. I remember a conversation two years ago in Mississippi while doing Katrina relief work:

Foreman: We need to destroy this house, so that it can be rebuilt. Tear it to pieces. Sledgehammers and crowbars are over there. (points to the far wall)

Me: So wait, you want us to tear this stuff up?

Foreman: Yep.

Me: And we don't have to clean it up and we won't get in trouble?

Foreman: Right.

Me: Sweet.

Taking batting practice was kind of like this, beating the heck out of the ball and not having to go pick it up.

Jeff and I enjoyed ourselves, hitting pitches from a machine that looked like the bad, uh, guy in Will Smith's classic flop "Wild Wild West." I hit the ball better than I remembered. Apparently, like good wine, I too get better with age.

One of the great things about BP, or any recreational sport for that matter, is that it provides you the opportunity to dream. And so I did. Slugging the "Medium Baseball Pitch" made me feel like, well, a slugger. For a moment, I caught myself thinking that if UNC had had me in the lineup last June, IF ONLY they would've had me, I would've gotten that runner in from second base and we would've won the National Championship.

A violent swing and a miss at the Medium Stinky Cheese quickly dashed these thoughts.

The Bat Cage at C Stations stands unique in that it comes complete with its very own superhero. For our purposes here we will refer to him as Batman. This guy basically fixed any problem that came up. He remained quite busy given the pitching machine looked like it might, in fact, actually be a remnant of the Wild West era.

The guy was amazing though. When he needed to address a problem with the machine, he simply walked out to it. This may seem like a small feat of feet but, mind you, he strode to the centered machine while other batters continued to hit. Bullets, er, baseballs flew all around him and yet he calmly and cooly went about his job, unscathed and unscared. It was like watching the bad guys consistently shooting the two-inch wide guardrail which provided the only protection for a running James Bond. Or the bad guys in "Tombstone" firing at an oncoming, unprotected, river-imersed Kurt Russell but somehow missing every time. Only superheros have this kind of karma. Batman had it.

After a couple rounds on "Slow Softball" (how can one go to the batting cage and not tee off on at least one set of "Slow Softball" pitches?) followed by a couple swings at "Superfast Baseball Pitch" to reestablish masculinity, we took off for home. On the way back, Jeff said we need to come up with an event where people can just beat the heck out of something because it really is so much fun. We'd make millions, he said. Maybe trillions. I agreed and told him I'd get the phone number to the patent office for when we came up with our ingenius idea.

After some intense thought however, I have realized this dream will never clear the fences because our idea already exists. It's called the Bat Cage.

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

2007-04-30T14:43:00.000-04:00

Two of my co-workers who do not regularly attend church came with me to Christ Covenant last night. These times always excite me as a) having company is usually more fun than flying solo and b) church is a great place to encounter God which I think is a good thing for me, my friends, and everybody.

At some point during these times however, dread consumes me. In my brief life experience, this happens without fail.

You see, I hate awkwardness. I had hoped to grow out of this as I got older, but it still has not gone anywhere. Aside from bad dates (not that I know anything about this), nothing creates more awkwardness than talking about Jesus around people who usually do not talk about Jesus - which, incidentally, is precisely what happens at church. If you watched the first Democratic debate last week, could you feel the awkardness when John Edwards talked about "his Lord"? Just imagine if he had talked about "Jesus." Yikes!

This fear attack hit me during the opening song and came upon me in wave upon wave of questions. What if my friends are bored? What if my pastor says something culturally unpopular? What do I do if one of them gets up and leaves? Should we have gone to a more contemporary church? Did I join the right church? Why did I invite them to come in the first place? What if my friends get offended? What if they tell everyone at work and they all begin to hate me?

My thoughts even drifted so far as to wish it were I who spoke from the pulpit that night so that I could ensure my friends remained comfortable. Nevermind the 30 years ministry experience and the numerous postgraduate degrees which differentiated me from the guy at the front.

I know the Bible says that as Christians we live as foreigners in a strange land, but when the rubber hits the road, I usually would prefer to be a native, thank you very much.

Fortunately, last night's service provided some intentional personal time for God to bring our sins to the front and for us to repent of them. Given the situation, it did not take me long to know exactly what I needed to confess to the Giver of Grace. As repentance is wont to do, it brought a peace over me and reminded me that my friends' encounter with the Lord does not rest on me. God is in control. Be free.

As it turned out, my friends had a wonderful experience. They seemed visibly engaged and moved during the service, and we had good discussion during the car ride home concerning our response to what we had heard. I believe they encountered Christ last night.

But I do not write here to bring out party hats and confetti because God made everything ok.

Yesterday I talked with my buddy Jeff, a frequent commentor on Redeeming Prufrock, about how we can find something in any bit of Scripture we read by asking the simple question, "What do I learn about God's character from this?". The same principle applies here. My joy in last night does not lie in the fact that we all left happy. If you live long enough, you know that this usually is not the case with life, so joy must be rooted in something besides circumstance. What's more, leaving happy is oftentimes not what is best for us. My joy last night was in God's revelation of his character:

God loves my friends more than I ever will. God knows exactly what's best for my friends. God is always working for what is best for them.

Releasing my friends from the figment of my hand reminds me that they sit in hands far more loving, far more powerful, far more adequate than I can ever imagine. This must drive me to praise, worship, and hope because it is always a good and hopeful thing when I must become less and He must become more. I have to learn to let go because freedom exists in the person of Jesus Christ. Herein lies the joy of last night and the joy that will be for all eternity.

Front Page Material

2007-04-27T16:08:00.000-04:00

The fundraising training last weekend split into two segments. Friday night we looked at the Biblical basis for raising support while Saturday we discovered practical ways to go about the process. For the sake of efficiency and focus, we cleanly divided the two parts although, in reality, one without the other does the whole process an injustice. Unfortunately, the set-up of last weekend is indicative of how I often go about my life.

I naturally bend towards work and not love. I do not think I stand alone in this propensity which gives rise to famous songs like "Cats in the Cradle." Accordingly, I find a lot of purpose in having "official" (sorry for the vague adjective) ministry work to do. A past post of mine spoke of how I have struggled spiritually in the absence of these tasks this year.

So here I was last night plowing along through some work on my fundraising stuff when I realized I had not prayed before I began. Thinking back, I realized I had not talked to God before sitting down to work the night before either. I had gotten so excited and so wrapped up in the pursuit of completion that I had completely neglected the Lord. A form of idolatry exists in here somewhere. I said something not nice to myself, realizing I had defaulted on a commitment to not lose sight of God amidst this newfound work. An old ugly had risen its head once again.

One of the reasons Paul amazes me is that he did so much. He worked so tirelessly, yet his Biblical writings evidence that he rarely lost personal touch with his God.

Galatians 2:20 says, "The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Very few verses protrude like this one.

Galatains exists as a rather theological book. Paul writes it to address a theological problem in the church, to define again what the Gospel means. It is very heady. Yet in the midst of all the headiness, the last eight words of this verse reveal Paul's heart.

Paul worked. He traveled, he spoke, he prayed, he attended meetings, he ran churches. He did all kinds of things. I imagine him a busy man, like most of us today (or at least like most of us like to think we are). Yet Gal 2:20 shows that the good work God put before him to do never superceded Paul's relationship with the triune God. In all things, he remembered God loved him.

I need to remember that God loves me, that I am servant but also son. Last night, I slapped this verse on the front of the pamphlet I was creating to give to potential donors. It might move them to support me or it might be completely irrelevant to my goals or it might simply be an overlooked detail. Regardless, it will serve it's purpose because I will have to look at it every time I go to work.

Jesus loves me.

Jesus gave himself for me.

These truths have always been more important than the work. In fact, only from their foundations can any work come. Here's to remembering this front-page material.

"We love because he first loved us." -1 John 4:19

Waxing Politique

2007-04-26T16:31:00.000-04:00

We have Commies at Borders. You know, Reds, Soviets, Bolshevists. Commies.

I have written in past about The Sextion, the area in Borders that (Pent)houses books on sex. Some customers like to read these books without other people noticing them, so they snitch them from The Sextion and take them to far reaching corners of the store where no one will find them. A couple times a week, I'll be shelving in, say, Computers and come across a sex book left there by a purposefully unidentifed customer. I have come to call these books "Commies," as they attempt to redistribute the literarily sexual wealth throughout the store.

Thus, when I call out to my fellow invetory worker, "Hey Squeaks, I've found another commie bastard in the cooking section!", it has nothing to do with a witch-hunt. Unless it's one of those REALLY kinky erotica books.

In the midst of this sexual McCarthyism yesterday, Squeaky Bellows and I somehow stumbled into a serious conversation about capitalism and socialism. He began by saying he feels Marx got a raw deal. For a moment, however brief, it felt like Chapel Hill all over again. Good times.

Now I rarely wax politique here at Redeeming Prufrock. This is partly because I feel that no truth exists in politics - and I'm not talking Clinton/Lewinsky or Bush/Iraq type truth. I feel that many different ways exist to achieve our common goals. Conversely, I also believe that many different ways exist to send the country to pot. This makes the supreme arrogance and unwavering self-confidence that dominate the political scene seem foolish to me. This frustrates me to no end. More than that though, when it comes to politics, I know jack divided by squat. It would be foolishness for me to write on it all the time. Yesterday, however, an interesting irony emerged from our conversation that I thought merits sharing with y'all (thanks for the edit, mwk).

Capitalism works because of the sinful nature. The genius of Adam Smith's invisible hand (and I know we do not operate under a perfectly invisible hand system but work with me) lies in the fact that when all parties work for their own self interest, the community wins. Capitalism works because it accomodates our selfishness, our disregard for others, our sin.

Socialism, on the other hand, may have held water in theory but failed precisely because of the sinful nature. When people saw no personal reward for their hard work, they ceased to work hard. The well-being of others and of the community (ie, generosity) could not sufficiently motivate.

Hooray for oversimplification.

I believe the early church leaned socialist. In the early chapters of Acts, the Bible tells us they held everything in common. This was not pure socialism as we have come to know it, but the common underlying threads are there. It seemed to work rather well. We do not hear tell of rampant poverty and starvation among the early believers. Socialism seemed to work well in conjuction with prayer and sanctification by the Holy Spirit. Ironic, then, that communist governments have almost uniformly striven to eliminate religion from the culture.

What really fascinated me in our discussion was the modern church's defense of capitalism. My church experience is limited, but the white, American, suburban church I know defends capitalism to the last. We fly the American flag in many sanctuaries for goodness sakes. Often, if you listen to the television and maybe even many pulpits, you will hear capitalism defended more vigorously than the Gospel. What a pity. Ironic, then, that the church, which begins its current worldview with the basic statement that sin ruined everything, ascribes so strongly to an economic system that bases its success on that very sin.

What to do with all of this I do not know. The irony of it all and my blindness to it just struck me as supremely fascinating. One thing I do know: whatever adjective you want to put on it, I hope some of those early church leanings are still around as I begin to ask God's people for provision in my life next year.

Top 10 Reasons I Want to Move to New Hampshire

2007-04-24T16:14:00.000-04:00

10. Moving to New Hampshire gives me an opportunity to make a Top 10 list, a favorite pasttime of my friend Chris Pappa. I hope this list appeases him and thus pays my way out of the purgatory known as Wieniedom (see last post's comments). I want out of Wieniedom.

9. According to license plates, New Hampshire's state motto is "Live free or die." This manifests itself in many forms:

-no required motorcycle helmets
-no required seatbelts
(Perhaps the state's motto should more aptly be "Live free and die.")
-no income tax
-no sales tax

I do not want to pay sales tax nor do I want to pay income tax.

8. Dunkin' Donuts. In New Hampshire, they give directions by Dunkin' Donuts's. I want more Dunkin' Donuts in my life.

7. I love nicknames. At Borders recently, I nicknamed myself "The Crowbar" and proceded to nickname my inventory colleagues "The Anvil," "Squeaky Bellows," and "Smitty." Together we are "The Smithery." We were real bored. However, the nicknames have stuck and provided more smiles than we had pre-nickname. Moving to this new location, "New Hampshire," allows me to refer to my old habitat as simply "Hampshire." This sounds cool. I like nicknames. I want to call my southeast Charlotte home "Hampshire."

6. A peer of mine told me a story at fundraising training about an unidentified staff worker raising half his/her required funds through online gambling (Ed.'s note: Online gambling only became illegal within the past year). We have not confirmed this rumor, but it made for a good story. I want to be a part of a ministry that, uh, thinks creatively.

5. I saw a moose in New Hampshire. I said, "Hey, look! A llama!"

I want to learn the difference bewteen a moose and a llama.

4. In New Hampshire, many people do not lock their doors. Last month, my car got broken in to and my stereo got 25'ed even with the doors locked. I remain uncertain that any place exists where one does not need to lock the door. However, I want to live in a place where some people think you do not have to.

3. The local grocery store is the "Durham Market Place" or "The Dump" for short. I want to buy my food at The Dump.

2. Two of my all-time favorite movies are "Gettysburg" and "Tombstone." What do these two films have in common (besides Sam Elliot)? That's right, great moustaches. See here and here and here. If there is one thing I learned this weekend it was this: New Hampshire has great moustahces. I, too, want a great moustache.

1. Cedar Waters Nudist Park. 'Nuff said.

Whimpering

2007-04-19T15:21:00.000-04:00

I do apologize for this weak week of blogging here at Redeeming Prufrock. I offer no excuses, only apologies. Unfortunately, this week will end with a whimper and not with a bang because I must make haste to catch a flight to New Hampshire for the weekend - although not so much haste that I did not sit in my parking lot and listen to Tupac's (I think) "California Knows How to Party" on the radio after work. I remain indifferent towards California having never visited, but, man, that song is just fantastic.

I'm in New Hampshire this weekend to learn how to ask people for money for my new job. If you ask my parents, they'd say this weekend will be completely redundant and unnecessary. Nevertheless, I look forward to it for the knowledge and friendships I will gain.

Anyways, hope you all have a great weekend. Party like your in California since it knows how. I'll see ya'll Tuesday when I return south.

Soli Deo Gloria

2007-04-17T21:22:00.001-04:00

A few folks have posted comments to ThinkChristian.net's link to my article concerning Zach Johnson's victory last Sunday at Augusta. I think they merit a response, and I want to use this space today to do that.

To begin, evangelism is perhaps the greatest area of guilt and failure that I observe in my relationship with Christ. This makes it a difficult subject on which to write. A failure to "practice what I preach" or a charge of hypocrisy may not be too far from the truth. Perhaps, ironically, this stands as the staunchest reason I SHOULD write on it. What's more, if all we ever spoke on were topics about which we had perfected, then, like Romeo to Mercutio, we would simply repeat to each other, "Peace, peace. Thou talk'st of nothing."

The Lord has called us to share the Gospel with the nations. His final command to his followers was to go and make disciples (Matt 28:19). Paul later explicitly uses the word "evangelist" (2 Tim 4:5). His life, and the lives of many of his contemporaries, purposed to spread this news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to others.

The kingdom of God is forcefully advancing. As my friend Alex Kirk says, Christianity is a movement not a monument. If life indeed consists of humanity futilely pushing a Sisyphussian ball up a rocky incline as people from the ancient Greeks to Camus have articulated, then the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a snowball rolling downhill with unstoppable force, collecting all those in its path and depositing them in a salvation of repentance and rest (Isa 30:15).

We cannot avoid these truths nor should we try. Participating in the advancement of the kingdom and watching the Lord of the universe move, is a privelege.

Paul writes in 1 Cor 9:22 that he has "become all things to all men so that by all possible means [he] might save some." In stiving to share the Gospel, we must attempt to meet people where they are at, to enter into their world and earn the credibility to be heard. I think some of the commenters imply this in their words of acting in love to the world. I love the heart they evidence for this, continuing in the work John Milton articulated when he said he strove to "justify the ways of God to men."

At some point though, we must speak of Christ. We must move from the silent Peter of Good Friday to the vocal Peter in early Acts who boldly confronts a crowd of people with the Gospel.

In my post last week, I wrote, "[L]iving this life of relationship with Christ meant that Zach could not help but share the Gospel with the watching world. . . . he evangelized." One commentor disagreed with this assertion, saying, "I don’t believe that was Zach Johnson’s purpose because it did seem to be a natural response and not contrived to be a 'witness.'"

I think this viewpoint misunderstands the concept of evagelism and witnessing. It is not something to be "contrived." Contrived is fake, insincere, and frankly, unbiblical. When we live a life grafted into the vine of Jesus Christ, a life in truth, our witness takes care of itself.

And a vital part of this is giving credit where credit is due.

When we do good but fail to give credit to Jesus Christ, we feed the culture of humanism that stands at odds with the Christian worldview. Without speaking the name of Jesus, the glory for our good works lands on us. This, loved ones, cannot be. Herein lies the beauty of Johnson's words. Perhaps more than any other sphere of American life, the sports world exalts the humanistic individual accomplishment. The chest thump, the contract hold-out, the "Show me the money," all emerge from sports's womb. And in his moment to say, "Look what I did!", Johnson instead chose to say, "Look what Jesus did."

He DID NOT say Jesus won this tournament for him and did not win it for everyone else. He DID NOT say that Jesus was not with every other golfer every step of the way (in fact, just the opposite is true). He simply gave the credit where the credit was due - naturally, tactfully, and humbly. And yes, evangelism can take those adverbs.

In doing so, he revealed God's goodness to a watching world that wanted to bestow the glory upon him. It was not contrived or fake or manipulative. It was real, honest, humble, and true.

Some people may find this intolerant or oppressive, despite Johnson's tact. This should not surprise us, however. Nothing yet has been done that Jesus did not forsee, and this is no exception: "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).

The cited Campolo study in the comments does have great lessons for Christians in humility, love, and Christ-likeness. We should take heed. However, we should make assumptions from the study with great care. Perhaps the reason many people respond positively to Jesus is because they know the "Buddy Jesus" so widely talked about but not the fiercely loving, speaker of hard words which the Bible also portrays. Furthermore, the above words of Jesus in John 15 call into question the desirability of a totally positive response from the world towards us.

If the world loves us, we ought to question whose we are.

I do not find myself in a place to criticize someone for proclaiming the work Christ has done in his or her life. Cowardice too often creeps into this realm of my life and silences me when I should cry out. I need the lesson and example people like Zach Johnson set for me. Perhaps others do not carry this burden and find themselves able, in good conscience, to hold another opinion. I cannot. That is why I thank God for Zach Johnson.

Virginia Tech Shooting

2007-04-16T15:41:00.000-04:00

I was going to post today but have just heard about the shootings at Virginia Tech. I'm really floored by this. Life just keeps coming.

Please pray for those folks today before you leave this page.

Semi-Successful Submission

2007-04-13T17:31:00.000-04:00

That title sounds hard, like something from UFC. I like it.

I sent a recent post entitled "From The Masters to The Master" in to Relevant, the online magazine which published an article I wrote in March about the NCAA Tournament. Here was the response I received this afternoon:

"Thanks so much for writing.
We’ll be contacting you if your article runs at Relevantmagazine.com

Thanks!
Jesse"

This feels like a crush saying she has too much homework to do to hang out tonight. . . . for the sixth night in a row. . . . in the summer. A truly nice way of saying "Thanks, but no thanks" if I ever saw one.

But take heart, dear reader! Fear not! We remain undeterred and shall make another attempt at publication when time and subject matter present themselves.

Redeeming Prufrock did receive some exposure on a website called "Think Christian" where "we talk about Christ, culture, and the ways that faith plays out in everyday life." Mine is the second post from the top, entitled "Witness on the Golf Course." The concept is unfamiliar to me, and I do not think this counts as an official "publication" as the site seems to exist as one huge blog. I will list the link under "Publications" down the right side of RP nonetheless. Ah, vanity.

I am excited the site thought enough of the post to link to it (the pre-editted one, no less!). A big thank you to whoever sent my writing to them. Please send me an e-mail at bhumps@gmail.com so I can know who you are and thank you personally.

Stiff-Necked No More!

2007-04-12T14:36:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: starch

I do not clean up well. It's not that I can't. It's just that I don't particularly care to most of the time. In ten minutes, I can look serviceable for nearly any formal situation, and that is about all the time I usually give to the process.

Early last month, I attended a wedding for which I had to dress up. I wore slacks, a sport coat, and a tie. Nothing special, but it got the job done. Two weeks later, I went to a funeral, and to mazimize efficiency, I wore the same outfit. The pants were black, and the coat was gray; once again, it got the job done.

Until. . .

The one couple who had attended both events spotted me in the parking lot. "Ben! [hand covers mouth in gesture of horror and mockery] That's the same thing you were wearing the last time we saw you two weeks ago!" The crowd of eight friends within hearing range smiled at me. One giggled. Another pointed. I blushed. Ugh. I had been outted. As communism has proven, sometimes efficiency is not the ultimate value on which to base our decision-making processes.

I guess it could have been worse. For instance, if she had known I hadn't had the clothes cleaned since the wedding.

Motivated by what could have been, I steeled my will against the filth in my life and decided to clean my dress clothes. Given that neither I nor my roomies own an iron, this would require a trip to the dry cleaners, a place I had never gone solo before.

So on Tuesday, I walked into Alpine Cleaners off a recommendation from the entire morning shift at Wachovia. They were all women, so I figured asking would make me look sophisticated, helpless, and cute which, in turn, might score me a date. This turned out to be about as good of an idea as giving Don Imus a microphone.

Anyways, a cute elderly lady came to greet me upon my arrival at the cleaners. She looked so sweet that I immediately felt soothed, though deep inside I was terrified. I had no way to defend myself in this place. If they wanted to charge an arm (sleeve) and a (pant) leg to dry clean my clothes, how would I know that was not standard fare?

I handed her the clothes. She said they would be ready Thursday after 5:30. Hey, this wasn't too bad! I felt more and more comfortable at every passing second.

Then everyone went to pot. "Do you want starch on your shirt?"

Uh oh.

I had no clue how to respond. My default in this situation is to ask "What would Jesus do?" but I could think of no biblical precedent for this situation. I moved down the list to "What would Dad do?", but I did not know the answer to that question either. So I blurted out, "Yes!" which was not so much an answer to her question as a panicked facade to try to show that I was not an inadequate idiot.

I soon recovered and realized that my "Yes" could bring about disasterous consequences. The only time I had ever encoutered starch was when labeling my favorite food group, the one that includes tater tots, french fries, and mashed potatoes. If anything of this sort came on my shirt, I would no longer be able to clean up well. Plus, it would defeat the purpose of having my clothes cleaned. So I humbled myself and meekly asked:

"Wait, what's starch again?"

As if at one point I had known what starch was.

Before I got to the question mark, the woman's sweetness turned sour. Bitter even. She gave me a look that bellowed, "You don't know what starch is?!?! GET OUT!!!!" Fortunately, her mouth only explained what it was which was of no help. I still had no idea what I wanted, or more precisely, what I was supposed to want. She had said no starch would make my collar looser and less stiff. "Stiff" has always equaled "uncool" in my cultural thesaurus, so I chose no starch, grabbed my pink reminder ticket, and moved quickly for the door.

The fresh air felt better than I had remembered. It's funny how catastrophe makes you appreciate the simpler things in life. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued on my errands.

I guess one could say I was stiff-necked in not dropping my manpride and asking for help when the dry cleaner initially asked the question. My subsequent humbling will ensure that I will never be stiff-necked again when walking into new situations.

So will the lack of starch on my shirt.

False Alarm, Again

2007-04-11T21:37:00.000-04:00

My fickleness must be dizzying to you all. I had a change in heart and decided to send in my article on The Masters for publication after some fantastic editing help from Redeeming Prufrock celebrity Jenn Pappa. The edited version is posted below.

The article is now at the whim of the higher-ups at Relevant as to whether it finds their favor or not. I'll keep you all posted as to what happens. In the meantime, my farewell remains constant as a lighthouse amidst the fickle waves of change:

See ya'll tomorrow.

From The Masters to The Master

2007-04-11T21:35:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, Zach Johnson won The Masters, arguably the most prestigious golf event of the year. He was an unsuspected upstart, having won only one previous tournament in his PGA career. His best finish in a major before Sunday was 17th place.

Now major golf tournaments have often brought me to tears. The wet laundry list includes Payne Stewart defeating father-to-be Phil Mickelson at Pinehurst in 1999; steely-eyed victor Jim Furyk walking up the final fairway weeping at the 2003 U.S. Open with his father shadowing him stride for stride; Ben Curtis trying, and failing, to keep it together in order to thank his girlfriend for her support after his surprise win at the 2003 British Open; and Phil Mickelson calling out a legion of monkeys from his back by winning his first major on Augusta's 18th green in 2004.

The accomplishment of victory and the achievement of a dream moves me. Golf exists as particularly striking in this respect because it is an individual sport. These golfers spend lives working on their games, practicing and practicing in the pursuit of perfection. Avid golf fans know the famous story of Vijay Singh hitting range balls on Christmas day. What's more than this though, these golfers dream. They desire something great regardless of the outcome's probability. They risk failure for their dream. This, dear reader, is rare.

So here we have Zach Johnson, whose golf career has been defined by "not's". Not the best golfer on his high school team. Not the best golfer on his college team. Not good enough for the PGA Tour. Not good enough to win a major. And on Sunday, his hard work paid off. He was number one. He was the best.

His response in his first interview to CBS behind the 18th green:

"I was not alone out there. Jesus was with me every step of the way."

His voice broke, and he cried as he moved seamlessly from The Masters to The Master.

What's most amazing about Johnson’s comment is that it was in no way coerced. The CBS reporter did not ask him, "So Zach, what divine being do you give credit to for your victory today?" or "Would you like to give mad props to Jesus Christ on live television right now?" In fact, Johnson avoided the safe route in committing cultural blasphemy and dropping the J-Bomb, as evidenced by the discussion his comments created on the inside of Tuesday's "USA Today" sports section.

It seemed that Johnson diverted the glory for his victory towards Jesus because it never crossed his mind not to. In the midst of great personal accomplishment, of work ethic’s satisfying fruit, of the achieved American dream, Johnson refused to feed his pride because he knew of his own inadequacy. What's more, he knew of the perfect sufficiency of the one he called Lord.

What a lesson in humility for me. I shelve books for a living. Upon completion of a cart, I often suppress the desire to thump my chest, give a fiercely intense look to the nearest customer, and release a primordial scream followed by the question that is a proclamation, "Who's the man!" I suppress this urge not out of humility, mind you, but because I do not want to look silly.

How can I claim prideful accomplish in the face of overwhelming grace? May God forgive me and forbid it.

What's more, living this life of relationship with Christ meant that Zach could not help but share the Gospel with the watching world. On Sunday, he told the truth, that the strength for his victory came from the presence of his Jesus. Certainly this ruffled some feathers, as Jesus told us it would when he said to the disciples in John 15:19, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.” CBS refused to ask a follow-up question concerning Zach's faith, and many of the aforementioned "USA Today" readers responded negatively. For Zach, no other way seemed possible. He answered the question honestly, and in doing so, tactfully told the world about the goodness of God in his life. To use a word that is tantamount to cursing these days, he evangelized.

How I often try to hide Christ's glory when I refuse to articulate his work in my life. How I often say that I am "lucky" when God's grace, and certainly not luck, sustains me. How I often hinder people from seeing how great God is when I balk at giving the deserving credit to him.

I thanked God Sunday for the example of humility and faith that Zach set for me. Here's to moving from The Masters to The Master as fluidly as Zach Johnson did. In reality, no movement is required because the two are inseparable.

False Alarm

2007-04-11T14:39:00.000-04:00

I thought about yesterday's post most of the day at work and came up with a new entry for the Humphries Imaginary Literary Catechism:

"Q. What is accomplished when you mash three small pieces of crap together?

A. Despite the illogical and mostly subconscious thought and hope that, if you combine enough waste together in a centralized location, diamonds or other items of value will emerge, you will, in reality, accomplish only the compilation of a pile of crap."

This is how I felt about yesterday's article all day, the three logs being shampoo, golf, and some still undefined human lesson. Per the HILC, I felt like I never moved towards anything of value.

This is what I wanted to say yesterday:

-I love Zach Johnson.

-He won The Masters and gave the glory to Jesus.

-I want to give glory to Jesus in my life too.

-Johnson and Johnson is a corrupt corporation that lies and makes little boys cry.

Instead, I spent 1200 words muddling up these points. Like my homebody J. Alfred Prufrock, I found it "impossible to say just I mean."

As I re-read it this afternoon, I still do not like it. It feels forced, so much so that I found myself uncomfortable a third of the way through it and have yet to finish re-reading. The humor, the style, the content all seemed forced. You can see moments where the organic flow of the writing wants to push through, but the weeds of forced effort continuously stifle it.

In light of this, I will abstain from today's promised edit. The post has its moments but would take a lot of re-working and even re-writing. This is hard to do when looking at the text throws me into discomfort. So I shall leave it be and flush this feeling out of my system the best way I know how: with a rainy-day, up at 5:00am nap.

See ya'll tomorrow.

More Editing on the Way

2007-04-10T22:06:00.000-04:00

Dear reader, I must subject you to more editing in the coming day. I wrote tonight's post as a first draft for something I wish to submit for publication. Hopefully, we can fool "Relevant" into thinking that I am cool or "rad," as I hear the kids are saying these days, once more.

I am currently unsatisfied with this post. For one, it is too long according to Relevant's standards and according to those of any reader who wishes to maintain sanity. Secondly, I'm not exactly sure what I'm saying. This, above all else, is a problem.

So tomorrow I edit! It should be an adventure. You are welcome to come along with me. Suggestions are always welcomed, as comments or as e-mails: bhumps@gmail.com

I do hope you come along for the ride, as verbose and confusing as it may be. And in case you do, you now cannot say you haven't been warned.

From The Masters to The Master

2007-04-10T20:41:00.000-04:00

I remember moments. Certain indelible events take place during the course of my life that sear themselves into my brain and do not leave. I cannot remember what came before the event, what came after the event, or even precisely when the event occurred. I simply remember the moment.

I remember the first shower I ever took. More precisely, I remember the moment I first washed my hair in the shower. I used Dad's Johnson and Johnson shampoo, the kind that looked like the amber which held the dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park. The disasterous fate which awaited me that morning superceded even that met by Jeff Goldblum and company.

The Johnson and Johnson brand of shampoo proclaimed the unique characteristic that it was "No Tears," meaning one could get the goo in one's eyes without the violent pain that often brought about tears in young people. That morning, I put Johnson and Johnson to the test, as the shampoo ran into my eyes when this first-time showerer stuck his head, backwards, under the nozzle so that the water ran past my face and not away from it. The pain burned. Tears came.

I did not brave this thing called "shower" for months after that.

This past Sunday, my eyes took in some more Johnson. As in the day of yore, the tears came.

I like golf. Especially the majors. This past weekend, Zach Johnson won The Masters, arguably the most prestigious golf event of the year. He was an unsuspected upstart, having won only one previous tournament in his PGA career. His best finish in a major before Sunday was 17th place.

Now major golf tournaments have often brought me to tears. Payne Stewart defeating father-to-be Phil Mickelson at Pinehurst. Steely-eyed Jim Furyk walking up the final fairway weeping at the U.S. Open with his father shadowing him stride for stride. Ben Curtis trying, and failing, to keep it together in order to thank his girlfriend for her support after his surprise win at the Brittish Open. Phil Mickelson calling out a legion of monkeys from his back by winning his first major on the Augusta's 18th green.

The accomplishment of victory and the achievement of a dream is what moves me. These golfers spend lives working on their games, practicing and practicing in the pursuit of perfection. Avid golf fans know the famous story of Vijay Singh hitting range balls on Christmas day. What's more than this though, they dream. They desire something great regardless of the outcome's probability. They risk failure for their dream. This, dear reader, is rare.

Golf exists as particularly striking in this respect because it is an individual sport. Victory is an individual accomplishment. When I received a technical foul for cussing with 45 seconds to go in the championship game of the church league basketball playoffs, my teammate picked me up and hit the game-winner, letting my ass (don't give me a technical) off the hook for one of the dumbest plays in the history of church league basketball. When Geoff Ogilvy plopped consecutive shots in the drink at 15 on Sunday, he had no one to pick him up and return him his dream.

So here we have Zach Johnson, whose golf career has been defined by "not's". Not the best golfer on his high school team. Not the best golfer on his college team. Not good enough for the PGA Tour. Not good enough to win a major. And on Sunday, is hard work paid off. He was number one. He was the best.

His response in his first interview to CBS:

"I was not alone out there. Jesus was with me every step of the way."

His voice broke, and he cried.

In his book "Blue Like Jazz," Donald Miller writes of a friend, Alan, who once asked a pastor named Bill Bright "what Jesus meant to him. Alan said Dr. Bright could not answer the question. He said Dr. Bright just started to cry. He sat there in his big chair behind his big desk and wept."

When speaking of Jesus, Zach Johnson cried too.

How seamlessly the champ moved from The Masters to The Master. CBS renaissance man Jim Nantz must be getting tired of hearing about this Jesus guy, what with Tony Dungy and Zach Johnson earning all these interviews after colossal sports victories.

What's most amazing about Johnson comment is that it was in no way coerced. The CBS reporter did not ask him, "So Zach, what divine being do you give credit to for your victory today?" or "Would you like to give mad props to Jesus Christ on live television right now?" In fact, Johnson avoided the safe route in committing cultural blasphemy and dropping the J-Bomb, as evidenced by the discussion his comments created on the inside of Tuesday's "USA Today" sports section.

It seemed that Johnson diverted the glory for his victory towards Jesus because it never crossed his mind not to. In the midst of great personal accomplishment, of years of work ethic paying off, of the achievement of the American dream, Johnson refused to feed his pride because he knew of his own inadequacy. But what's more, he also know of the perfect sufficiency of the one he called Lord.

What a lesson in humility for me. I work in a bookstore shelving books. Upon completion of a cart, I often suppress the desire to thump my chest, give a fiercely intense look to the nearest customer, and let out a primordial scream followed by the question that is a proclamation, "Who's the man!" I suppress this urge not out of humility, mind you, but because I do not want to look silly. How can I claim prideful accomplish in the face of overwhelming grace? May God forgive me and forbid it.

What's more, living this life of relationship with Christ meant that Zach could not help but share the Gospel with the watching world. On Sunday, he told the truth, that the stregnth for his victory came from the presence of his Jesus. Certainly this ruffled some feathers. CBS refused to ask a follow-up question concerning Zach's faith, and many of the aforementioned "USA Today" readers responded negatively. Yet for Zach, no other way seemed possible. He answered the question honestly, and in doing so, tactfully told the world about the goodness of God in his life. If you will permit me another dirty word often deserving of a technical foul, he evangelized.

How I often try to hide Christ's glory when I refuse to articulate his work in my life. How I often say that I am "lucky" when God's grace, and certainly not luck, sustains me. How I often hinder people from seeing how great God is when I balk at giving the deserving credit to him.

Here's to moving from The Masters to The Master of my life as seamlessly as Zach Johnson did. In reality, no movement is required because the two are inseparable. I thanked God Sunday for the example of humility and faith that Zach set for me.

Like my first encouter with shampoo, a tearful moment I shall always remember.

40 Days After Easter

2007-04-09T16:01:00.000-04:00

Easter and the Masters dominated my weekend. I feel obliged to write about them both today. Each remains fresh in mind, but the Masters stands as an easier subject on which to write since trivialities always require less time and energy. Plus, Easter involves the word "resurrection" and its double consonent, my old arch nemesis. Misspellings would run roughshod over RP. Still, can one put golf in front of the resurrection of Jesus Christ without consequence? Redeeming Prufrock does not want to find out.

This Easter Sunday, I picked up a bulletin entering church and quickly glanced at the sermon title:

"The Ascended Christ"

Sweet, same old Easter sermon, I thought to myself. I'm on comofortable, familiar ground. Talking about the resurrected Christ and the empt. . . .

Wait a minute, Pastor! That adjective says "ascended," not "resurrected"! What are you trying to pull? This is Easter, for goodness sake! Certainly this must be a typo.

Then, lo and behold, thirty minutes into the service, my pastor starts firing away on the importance and meaning, not of Christ's resurrection, but of his ascension into Heaven 40 days after the resurrection.

Now, I must admit, this subject was as new to me as a green jacket was to Zach Johnson. I have never given the ascension much thought. Of course Christ ascended after rising from the dead. What else was he supposed to do? It could not have happened any differently.

But things could have always happened differently. When I fail to grasp this, I miss the purpose that God has in doing things exactly how they were done. Jesus could have done any number of things after rising from the dead. He could have wandered the earth for 2000+ years, playing a huge game of "Where's Waldo?" with mankind. He could have vaporized and simply disappeared to only God knows where. He could have re-entered the grave after proving his mastery of it. Yet, he did not. The biblical text explicitly says he bodily ascended into Heaven in front of his disciples to take his seat at the right hand of the Father. He did so with great consequence for us.

When Jesus took his place at the Father's side, he gained ultimate authority on Heaven and on earth, as the Lord handed my Lord the scepter with which to rule. Jesus Christ has ultimate power. He can go anywhere he wants and do anything he wants. This is a great comfort to the believer.

When Jesus took his place at the Father's side, he began his eternal priesthood, cleansing us from sin and continuously praying for us. Jesus prays for you and me, and he always desires what is best for us.

When Jesus took his place at the Father's side, he became our advocate, our lawyer in a trial we all must one day stand. At our deaths, when the accuser of the brethren, Satan, brings forth a case against us complete with Exhibits A through infinity of all our sins along with the witnesses of his demons to corroborate, it is Jesus Christ, the son of God, who will step in when we can say nothing on our own behalf and simply say, "The prosecution has no case. It says right here there is no condemnation in Jesus Christ." And we will win.

I believe the world has Christ wrong when they implicitly and explicitly portray him as a Mr. Rogers, nicest-guy-in-the-world type figure. For one thing, I doubt Jesus ever wore a cardigan, and if one object defined Mr. Rogers, it must be the zip-up/button-up sweater. But more than apparel, this characterization misses a great deal of Christ's character. Jesus is powerful; Jesus is fierce; Jesus is victorious.

We hear this quite loudly on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. We see it at the ascension as well if we stop to look. And with Jesus, the Lord of Lord and King of Kings, reigning from Heaven for all eternity, we will know and experience this forever more.

2007-04-06T15:26:00.000-04:00

He fell asleep quickly that night, exhausted from two consecutive early mornings sandwiching an undisciplined evening. Sleep came very easily.

Time moves awkwardly while we sleep. It does not move slowly or quickly. The morning sun does not arrive the instant sleep overtakes us, and yet sleep never lasts as long as we wish. Sleep is not long, but it is not short either, a walking contradiction like his new co-worker at the bookstore, Squeaky Bellows.

Sometime soon, but not too soon, he found himself high. It was dark, and night stretched out into 360 degrees of horizon. He saw it all from the air, as if he were floating. High.

He remembered he hated heights. He was afraid of heights. His photographs from a recent trip to Paris had proven as much. Every picture from the Eiffel Tower showed the guardrail in the foreground, always in view because he never approached the edge to snap over it. A rush of weight dropped in his stomach, that feeling one gets when terror seizes.

Panicked, his mind rushed to find the reason for his elevated status, taking an inventory of his surroundings. He discovered he clung to the top of a solid metal pole. He felt his feet for the first time, standing on a platform, a small platform maybe a yard in diameter. The pole stood as part of a suspension bridge, spanning not water but a neighborhood of a large city below. Looking down, his stomach dropped again. How? It seemed it had hit bottom the first time. And yet it would continue to drop and drop and drop. . .

There he stood, hundreds of feet above the ground, hugging the pole and shivering. It was cold, but what's more, he was afraid.

He composed himself and glanced around. A city surrounded him, the lights offering the appearance of life in the darkness of night. But there was no life, no people, no sound. He looked at this grand city where America had taken her first bold step into freedom as if the scene were on television, muted and paused. The lights stretched as far as he could see. Except on one side where the lights abruptly ended. Darkness, the Atlantic Ocean, stretched on for eternity. The watery trail seemed so empty now, the one that once grounded the first footstrikes of the early colonists eager to brave the unknown.

Dark waves buoyed up and down, up and down, up and down. He could feel the tumult of the waves in his gut, that intangible place that rules the rest of the self. The platform on which he stood seemed to sway in the breeze. He jerked, moving with the pole, but also with fear.

Sometime later, before his awakening, a ladder appeared. Hope! Though it would require risk. He could not see the bottom of the ladder, the place to where it led. It was sturdy though, three feet wide with closely spaced rungs of solid wood. But, lo, the ladder's beginning was suspended in the air four feet from the platform. He could reach, but he would have to let go.

Anything was better than his current situation. He hated heights. The weight in his stomach dropped again. Fear. He had to move.

Slowly sliding one foot off the platform, he moved it towards the ladder but still clung tightly to the pole, both arms wrapped around it. He shivered. The platform swayed. His foot could not reach. He tried and tried to make it reach but it would not, not with two arms locked around the pole.

Slowly pulling one arm away, he reached his foot again. The feeling of a fall, a fall that seemed to be coming and a fall that seemed to have already happened, fell through his mind. What would it feel like? It would feel like his stomach, once again bottoming out at the reemergence of fear. He stretched his foot a little farther.

Contact! His foot pressured the top rung. It held! The first step proved the ladder, or at least the top rung, sturdy. His faith stregnthed. For now.

There he stood, one foot on the suspended platform, one foot on the top rung four feet away. One arm remained hooked on the pole. His legs formed an inverted V, like the stretch from high school track practice that prevented what was, for high boys, the unthinkable, unimaginable pain: the groin pull. An injury no man could take.

One foot, one arm on safe ground. Ground that led to nowhere, but safe ground nonetheless.

One foot, one arm reaching for a ladder. A ladder that led to God knows where, but somewhere nonetheless.

Stretched between the two realms, he felt the wind kick up, exposing the facade of stability his platform had created. He looked around at the lights of Boston which stretched below him, far, far below him. The instability of the wind and the height of his perch paralyzed him. He became aware of his fear once again. And his stomach dropped.

And he awoke. The alarm beeped, hinting that 5:10am was upon him. He rolled out of bed, grabbed the day's clothes and headed to the shower to begin another day.

Ganked!

2007-04-04T14:51:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: gankage

My friend at work likes to tell me I live "in the 'hood." He does so jokingly, as I live in the Southeast part of Charlotte known for its "young professionals," to put it euphemismingly. If these people knew someone had called their area such a derrogatory name, they would undoubtedly run one over in their SUV's or pour a scalding latte over one's head or pummel one with soccer balls. As a tangent, these people as a whole also form a primary reason why I'm fleeing to New Hampshire next year. But I digress. . . .

Anyways, my friend likes to pretend he lives in the 'hood, but he really does not either, despite the fact that he lives off of Charlotte's (Dirty) South Blvd. On Friday, I got to finally prove to him that I do, in fact, live in the 'hood. Ha!

I left my apartment at 7:15am that morning to go to work. Approaching my Nissan Sentra, I noticed the driver-side door was slightly open, as if a three-year old had attempted to shut it but lacked sufficient strength to make it flush. "Hmm, I need to hit the gym," I thought. As I opened the back door to toss my peanut butter sandwich in, I noticed that the passenger side window sat shattered in the passenger side seat as if a 25-year old bouncer had shut it but with too much force to keep the glass in one piece. "Man, I must be one buff stud," I thought.

Lost in thoughts of muscles, I looked forward and discovered a gaping hole in my dashboard where my stereo had formerly been. Apparently, the door and the window had nothing to do with my brute strength - or lack thereof.

My stereo had been stolen, or lifted, or ganked, depending on how old you are and which coolness caste you belong to (or pretend to belong to). Now if you, beloved reader, decided to rob someone, I would stand as the last person you would choose as a victim. I buy my clothes at Kohl's. I grocery shop at Bi-Lo. I work at Borders. Needless to say, I do not own many nice things, surely not enough to risk incarceration. The stereo these folks ganked (note the coolness caste which I claim) cost $100. . . . three years ago when I bought it. I doubt the pawn shop that now has my stereo gave the perp enough money to feed his/her family even one meal, which undoubtedly he/she did with the booty.

After calling the police and my insurance company, I returned to my car to drive to work. I was going to put a trashbag up for a window. I had always wanted to do this. Entering the parking lot, I encountered my neighbor who was looking for her car. That's right, looking for it. Apparently, the male of the household had returned from bowling around midnight the previous night, potentially in some sort of stupor. He thought he had left the car two spaces from mine but was not sure. During our search, we stumbled upon other neighbors, turns out to be ten others, who had had their cars broken into as well. Stereos and electronics stolen.

As the police sergeant said later, it seemed the perps had used the bowler's car to haul all the stuff away. Honda Accords are easy to steal and easy to sell, he said.

I met a lot of my neighbors that morning. Given the circumstances, everyone seemed in good spirits. I know I was; I got to go into work two hours late! It was like missing class without the make-up work except it cost me a couple hundred bucks. Maybe this is a commentary on my job. Regardless, the news came out and interviewed a couple of us. We thought we were hot stuff. Famous! Nevermind the reason was because we got our stuff ganked. It is still a more legitimate reason to be famous than being on a reality television show, which is widely viewed as socially acceptable.

Jesus once told us to love our enemies. I really do not have many enemies, besides the obvious like Osama Bin Laden who I believe would murder me right now without hesitation if given the chance. These folks who ganked my stereo qualify, I guess. So thanks to them for giving me enemies for whom to pray.

And thanks also to them for giving me quiet, music-less car rides during which to do it.

The F Word

2007-04-03T21:14:00.000-04:00

Almost by defintion, blogs exist as very self-centered entities. When one has a chance to express oneself daily, one tends to speak about oneself quite often. Indeed, the pronoun "I" has popped up on "Redeeming Prufrock" more often than your author would like. "RP" orbits as a very Benocentric universe.

A book sits on the shelves at Borders (placed there by yours truly) entitled "No One Wants to Know What You Had for Lunch." This work details how to create and maintain a successful blog, beginning with this first command. I have not read said book, but I have tried to avoid writing on my lunch menu, both literal and metaphorical. It is quite boring actually. Usually either Chef Boyardee's Beefaroni or a peanut butter sandwich with pretzels. The key determinant: whether or not I have time to make a sandwich and bag the pretzels before work in the morning. This may seem trivial, but when trying to squeeze even sleep's pulp out of evening's orange, sometimes seconds matter. So it's usually peanut butter or Beefaroni, unless I have leftovers, in which case. . . .

And I have just spent an entire paragraph talking about what I have for lunch, partly as a joke but also partly to show you what could be.

Only on rare occasions do I aim to spend an entire post talking about my personal life. Say, for example, my first publication. Today though, "Redeeming Prufrock" is all about me. And what's worse, it's about me in relation to that horrible "F" word.

For a 22-year old taking a year off after college, I consistently get questions about my "Future" (cue dark, intimindating music). I have grown to despise this word. If one called me a mutha-futurerer or a goat futurerer or if one told me to go "Future off!" or "Future myself!", they could say nothing worse. 'Tis really a dreadful word. Yet today, I address it because it has dominated my thoughts these past 24 hours.

Yesterday, I accepted a position as a campus staff worker with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship at the University of New Hampshire in (gasp!) Durham, New Hampshire. If the Lord provides the funds for me, this previous sentence answers the constant question: What are you going to be doing next year?

The journey to this decision goes back a year and a half. You would find it as boring as what I had for lunch today, except it would take a lot longer. In particular though, this past week, the time between when IV made the offer and when I accepted it, has been crazy and worthy of note (and consequently, of post). Since they called me with the offer, a friend of mine has died in a freak pedestrian accident, I have continuously flirted with sickness, I have entered the realm of division in the academic Christian body for the first time, and, get this, I was robbed (more on this to come tomorrow; stay tuned!).

Now my universe is not so Bencentric that I believe all of these events happened because of me. This would be arrogant foolishness. However, I would fail to grasp the magnitude and importance of God's kingdom and his desires for my role in it if I chose to say these things did not constitute some sort of attack. I have always believed in spiritual warfare, and every major decision I have made since accepting Jesus as my Lord has entailed some sort of difficult circumstance, resistance if you will. But man, what a week.

A pastor once told me that Satan will leave you alone if you do not pose a threat to him. I have experienced this myself and heard about this from others. When entering into ministry or some other endeavor which strives to advance the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, resistance arises. Satan's ground stands as threatened, and he will fight with all of his God-allowed power to defend it.

Fortunately, our Lord is a warrior. Satan flees at the mere mention of his name. Through these situations and apart from these situations, the Lord has provided me clarity, even to the point that as I prayed over this Sunday night, all valid reasons for not going fell away. Only fear remained. When only fear remains, we must act. In an attempt to redeem the life of J. Alfred Prufrock and rage against passivity, I said yes.

So there you have it, my dear readers. The question of the dreaded "F" word settled, at least for now. Alas, off to bed I head. The time draws late, and I must arise early for a 6:00am shift tomorrow morning.

Beefaroni, here I come!

The Call of the Saturday Speakers

2007-04-01T18:00:00.000-04:00

The weekend's events remembering the late Jason Ray went about as well as they could have gone. The Friday night visitation that purposed to last from 6-9pm ended up continuing on for six hours with some visitors waiting in line for three hours. The funeral the next day drew 1000 people; Jason's youth pastor joked that Jason would have loved to know that he "drew a crowd."

In particular, the speakers at Saturday's service performed admirably. They joked without triteness. They grieved without despair. They shared the Gospel without shame.

Though it has embraced Jason and his story, the world does not love this Gospel presentation that has so often emerged from his death and did again with the Saturday speakers. The newspapers will quote much, but they will not quote the pastor's proclamation that they best way for anyone to honor Jason in his death is to investigate who the person of Jesus Christ really is.

I must confess that I, too, became uncomfortable when I felt this Gospel presentation coming on. Possessing a strong past and an all too occassional present knack for people-pleasing, I find myself in tune with how people will respond to what I observe. "Why make people uncomfortable during a time when we all so desperately just want to feel good again?" my flesh quickly asked before the indwelling Holy Spirit politely told it to shut the hell up.

Because the Gospel of Jesus Christ may be the most important information anyone can know, that's why. Peter exhorts us to "[a]lways be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." Always. Even at funerals. Especially at funerals.

In our melting pot, we have the opportunity to reject Jesus without ever actually feeling like we reject him. We live in a vast Sam's Club where we can have any purpose in life we want, at low cost and high volume. Sports. Politics. Career. Education. Oprah. Family. Partying. Capitalism. You want it? America's got it. Jesus simply sits on the shelf like everything else. We can choose to ignore him, to walk right past him, without ever actually looking to see what he offers. Without ever actually having to say "No" to him.

The speakers said that Jesus stands as our only hope in times like these, and do not be fooled, times like these await us all. Our coming calamity, as John Piper puts it. If you have lived long enough, you have experienced this. Many of us did for the first time this past week. 21-year olds die in freak accidents. Two Charlotte police officers in their mid-30's with families are shot on a routine weekend call. Elizabeth Edwards and Kay Yow encounter the devastation of cancer. Death comes to us all.

We must acknowledge these facts. No secret or positive thinking can circumvent them. The way we deal with them will, to a large extent, define our lives.

This is why what the speakers did at Jason's funeral was so vital. They told anyone who would listen that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. They told anyone who would listen that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, among whom we are the foremost. They told anyone who would listen that Jesus said the only way to the Father was through him. They told anyone who would listen that Jesus offers us a way to engage all of life, to find purpose in it, to find hope in it.

We in the audience could choose to continue shopping without encountering Jesus. But they sure made it harder for us to do so.

In the spirit of the Saturday speakers and in the spirit of the life that Jason Ray led, I encourage all of you out there to encounter Jesus. Take him off the shelf and look at the packaging. Maybe even open it up. Have an opinion or decide to go form one. At the very least, give Jesus the respect of telling him he's out of his mind.

My e-mail address is on my profile if you have questions. Most of my frequent commentors would love to chat too if you think me to be a prude, a moron, or a jackass (and do not worry, I have been called worse).

Ignoring Jesus is saying "No" to Jesus. Putting the decision off until tomorrow is saying "No" to Jesus today. Waiting until you do not have the pleasures of youth to enjoy before encountering Jesus is saying "No" to Jesus, even if you plan to check him out later.

I thank God today that JRay did not take any of these routes.

Ben vs. Prison, Round 2

2007-03-29T14:36:00.000-04:00

Odd Encounter of the Week: an increasingly less odd encounter

I wore my Tar Heel t-shirt to work Monday morning. The really obnoxious one that's all blue with the huge interlocking NC on the front. When put over a large light source, I imagine this shirt would work similarly to the Bat Signal. We could have used this Sunday night. We sure needed a superhero those last 12 minutes.

I had worn this same attire after the Heels had beaten Duke and after their victorious sprint through the ACC Tournament. Many customers ribbed me, "You wouldn't be wearing that shirt if they had lost!" Well, they lost Sunday night, so I wore the shirt, not to support my school, mind you, but to prove all those customers wrong. Ha!

So after work, I go to the grocery to get my domestic on as I'm wont to do this days. As I push my burdened cart full of cereal, Coca-Cola Zero, and frozen chicken to my car, a voice stops me.

"Way to rock the shirt, man. Loyal to your team."

The mid-20's male driver of a nice black car (don't know what type; I'm not a car guy) has stopped in the middle of the parking lot to encourage me. He is in a lot of people's ways but sits indifferently nonetheless. How precious. Turns out he is an Ohio St. fan from Michigan who went to Notre Dame, so his team is still alive (and how could it not be with three choices!). He repeats that he finds it impressive I am "loyal to [my] team." After a little small talk about basketball and jobs, I am ready to disengage and go home. Adam will not allow this though. He has not fulfilled his purpose.

"I work for this marketing firm. Well, not exactly. I work for myself. If you're looking for something. . . ."

I must look gullible. Either that or ambitious. I seem to attract these fellas who have found easy, though potentially illegal, ways to make lots of money and drive nice cars. For those of you new to "Redeeming Prufrock," I met a similarly-minded gentleman in Target my first week in Charlotte way back in September. I was looking for a can-opener. He was looking for a hand-held ice crusher. It seemed like destiny that we should be together. Until I told him I was not interested in his marketing "pyramid," and we went our separate ways, me afraid, him disappointed.

Adam talks fast so I did not have a chance to let him know I had been through this before. He hands me his business card, which, like the one I received in September, has a website and a password. I do not know why a marketing website needs a password. Unless something exists on it which you desire some people not to see. Maybe one day "Redeeming Prufrock" will be dangerous enough to merit a password. But I hope not.

Adam e-mails me later that night trying to set up a time and a place to meet. I reply that I have experienced this process before and discovered that money does not motivate me enough to take a job that I do not want and could potentially land me in the slammer (though I did not tell him this last part). He implicitly calls me a liar: "If money doesn't motivate you then why do you chase a pay check around every week? Actually you just stated the complete opposite."

Free advice of the week: When trying to convince someone to do something you want them to do, refrain from calling them a liar. It does not go over well.

Thus ended our interaction.

In hindsight, it all makes some sense. Perhaps I do not appear greedy, ambitious, or gullible. Perhaps Adam was simply drawn to my loyalty to my team. You know, the kind of loyalty it takes to refrain from ratting out teammates in an illegal pyramid marketing scam when being questioned by the authorities.

So the pyramiders came after me again, this time utilizing the powers of sports and flattery. They are beginning to know me all too well. Yet, once again I succeeded in fighting off them and their promises of Duck Talesian financial gain. Once again, I dodged the slammer.

For all you keeping score at home, that would be:

Ben: 2 Prison: 0

Ben There, Donne That

2007-03-28T14:34:00.000-04:00

X

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

-John Donne, "Holy Sonnet X," 1633

Jason's Cross

2007-03-27T16:03:00.000-04:00

If you knew him, it's not hard to envision Jason Ray in Heaven. Nearly without exception, he was overly-excited about life, which is to say he was closer to being properly excited than the rest of us. Sometimes when he was around, you had to remind yourself that this was still the fallen, painful world. He exuded that kind of joy.

Since the accident Friday afternoon, a lot of internet, newspaper, and television space has broadcast how many lives Jason touched. Leadership for Bible studies. Love for friends and family. Birthday parties for strangers. At one point, Jesus describes us as branches which produce fruit when grafted into the vine, the vine being himself. Jason's branch bore good fruit.

I have thought about the cross a lot in the last 24 hours. The story of the crucifixion made me interested in Jesus. I was, and still am, a huge Civil War nut, drawn to the tragedy of men dying for others which moves me like little else. Into my life strode this man Jesus who claimed to have died on the cross for all humanity. No other man or god had claimed to do such a thing. The cross soon became very dear to me.

In the past 12 months, I have heard many simplify and demean the cross, even if unintentionally. Merely a consequent-less symbol of God's love for us, one said. Jesus reaching out to the oppressed by becoming one of them, another told me. The result of corrupt politics, someone mentioned. Not a real event but an allegory, I heard.

The past five days, this cannot be true. Forever, this cannot be true.

When the life of a friend, someone with plans and potential, ends what seems all too early, hope does not come easy. When I got off the phone after hearing the news from my brother, I cried. I was angry with God that I risked having hope and that he failed me. I was angry that so many people about whom I cared so much were and would hurt. Jason had died. After days of hope in the face of worldly reality, I had none left.

Until I was reminded of the cross. There is no hope save in the cross of Christ, and I mean that today more literally than words can express. Where is the hope when the parents of a 21-year old, soon-to-be college graduate have to make the decision to take him off life support? Oprah has no answer for this. The "heal yourself in 30 days" books at Borders have no answer for this. As my friend, Alex Kirk put it on his blog yesterday, "Either [Jesus] is alive, and so is Jason, or all is fruitless, empty, just a random SUV hitting a random person on the side of the road." Furthermore from the Heidelberg Cathecism, "Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?. . . . A. Because I belong to Him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life. . ."

The god-man Jesus Christ walked this Earth and gave up his life (mind you, it was not taken from him) on the cross in a fiercely loving moment of physical and spiritual pain I will never fathom. He stared death, even the tragically painful death of a 21-year old, in the face and took it all head on. He bled and died because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins, no justice. Without the forgiveness of sins there is no Heaven. Without Heaven there is no hope.

On that cross, unspeakable power pried open the doors of eternal life, the doors of hope.

Jason's life bore much fruit. More than he knew and probably more than we even know. My hope today is not found in these stories though. My hope today is not that Jason was a "good guy." My hope today stands staunchly in the fact that Jason accepted this cross. He did the work of the believer, that is to believe in Jesus, the one who God sent. Jason claimed the cross as his.

I still have some tears left in me. I can feel them. Plus, I stay well-hydrated (an old cross country habit). But the tears will not be the tears of hopelessness like they were yesterday. The tears will be for his family who misses their son and brother. They will be for my brother and those at UNC who have an empty chair at the lunch table. They will be for my sophomore year Bible study who have experienced the first loss of a BOFFO orange and green shirt.

I will not weep for Jason or because of hopelessness. The cross, real and powerful, will not allow it. It moves me to hope. No, it DEMANDS that I hope. It has taken Jason to a place where he is finally fully completed and fully satisfied in God, the only anything that can fully satisfy.

It has taken Jason to a place where friends don't die.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

A Ray of Hope

2007-03-26T14:29:00.000-04:00

(Ed.'s note: My brother sent this to me last night and said I could post it if I wanted to. I want to.)

I’m proud to say that Jason Ray knows me. That’s about the best way to sum up how I feel about him. My freshman year, he was the cool, funny guy leading my small group. My sophomore year, he was the mature, experienced co-leader who taught me how to lead. Both years he was one of the few guys I could go to with any problem. And he is always the friend with the coolest introduction tag-line.

To most of the world (and to new acquaintances whom I want to impress), Jason is Ramses. In the past few days, I have almost wished that he weren’t. At one point during this three-day roller coaster of ups-and-downs, of tears, anger, smiles, and hope, I vented to my brother that Jason was so much more than a costume. The world would see the headlines about the tragedy of the Carolina mascot; but they wouldn’t see the Jason whose openness in small group led me to address issues that ultimately saved my relationship with the girl I love, the Jason whose vibrant demeanor could only be outdone by his quiet humility when receiving praise and compliments, the Jason whose love for his friends and family came second only to his love for his Lord and Savior.

“Yeah, that’s my friend Jason. He’s Ramses,” I would tell people.

But I only learned the deeper truth of this statement yesterday. Scrolling through some insidecarolina.com message boards looking for some kind of update (even a rumor) on his condition, I came across story after story about Jason as Ramses. Moms with pictures of Ramses holding their sons. Dads with pictures of Ramses from their daughters’ birthday parties. A married couple with a story of Ramses introducing them at their wedding reception. Ramses bringing joy. That’s when it hit me. Jason IS Ramses. He IS a larger-than-life guy who brings happiness and light to all he encounters. He IS the sort of person to clamber up an inflatable slide in a sweatbox of an outfit just to bring a smile to a child’s face. He IS a man working to get people excited about something bigger than himself.

Jason’s body has been hanging onto life for two more days than it probably should have. Fighting a battle that the doctors now want to say his brain cannot win. So I guess in that sense, Jason Ray is not home yet. Not medically at least.

But somehow I’d like to believe that Jason’s been outside of his body from that first moment. Not because I’ve given up hope that he’ll come back to us. It’s just that I would like to think that Jason knows we’re all here for him. I would like to think that Jesus took him in his arms after that tragic second and said, “You are my son, with whom I am well pleased.” I would like to think that He then showed Jason the outpouring of love, faith, and prayer of the past few days. The bedside vigil. The tears. The renewed faith. And I would like to think that Jason now realizes just how much he meant to so many, including his former co-leader who never had the courage to tell him. And I would like to think that his life inspires all those he has touched to tap into the source of Jason’s strength and purpose, to see the power of Christ working in Jason and take the first step towards understanding how it should guide our own steps. And I would like to think that Jesus still has plans for Jason on this earth.

So as of now, at the end of my own private prayer vigil, I’m all out of sad tears. My brother and my pastor have continued to inspire me to keep hoping for recovery. “Don’t insult God by asking for a little bit. Ask him for a lot,” J.D. said. So I encourage us all to keep hoping period, not to talk about our brother in the past tense…not now…not ever. However this ends, it will do so with the power of the Lord of the Universe on our side, on Jason’s side. Either way, because of his relationship with Christ and because of our love for him, Jason will always “be”. And either way, either by his loved ones or by his Lord, Jason will be welcomed home. And that is a truly hopeful thought.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
And young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the Lord
Will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
They will run and not grow weary,
They will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:30-31

Prayer Request

2007-03-24T15:11:00.000-04:00

The young man who plays the Tar Heels's mascot, Jason Ray, was struck by a vehicle yesterday and is currently in critical condition. What little information that has trickled out about his condition is not encouraging, yet as of 2:00pm, News 14 reported that he was still in critical condition.

This guy is a good friend of my brother. I have spent substantial time with him in Intervarsity and the business school as well. I believe that God can heal him, and I think he will. I refuse to give up hope.

Accordingly, I'm asking anyone who reads this to pray for him. In Philippians, Paul writes that his friend Epaphroditus "was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow." Jason has a lot of love for Lord and to die would be his gain. Yet, like Paul, I pray for healing for him, that he may have mercy on him and on us.

Please join with me.

The Other Side of Dungy

2007-03-23T16:56:00.000-04:00

Tony Dungy, head coach the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, recently spoke at a meeting of the conservative Indiana Family Insitute, a group which endorses a constitutional ammendment banning gay marriage. In his comments, Dungy spoke in favor of the group's endorsement. "I appreciate the stance they're taking, and I embrace that stance," Dungy said. "We're not trying to downgrade anyone else. But we're trying to promote the family - family values the Lord's way."

His comments reminded me of his words immediately following his team's victory in January's Super Bowl. He spoke of how the credit for the victory should go to God and that he was proud to show that people could win doing things the Lord's way.

No doubt his comments in January took courage. Jim Nantz and others certainly did not ask him such questions as "Tony, what divine being, if any, should receive the glory for the Colts victory?" It took an act of intention to mention God in the postgame interview. It always takes intention to mention God's name these days, as the easier, safer, and completely acceptable path is to avoid all mention of the divine.

However, Dungy's post-Super Bowl remarks met with great laud from the media. Using tone and diction only reserved for the death of someone linked to football, Chris Berman and Tom Jackson spoke of how happy they were to see a man of integrity finally win the big one. Everyone was happy for Dungy and spoke well of him. Regardless of their religious affiliation, they respected his faith - or at least the socially acceptable way of doing things to which he subscribed.

The things of Christ do often find favor in the eye of a secular world. Very few have a beef with the goals of the Christ-motivated organization World Vision which labors to alleviate child poverty in numerous countries all over the world. When the joy that Christ gives to his followers spills over into moments of laughter with those around them, the world is eager to share, even if they do not recognize the work behind the joy. Our society founds itself on submission to judicial law (except in the instance of bookstore shoplifting where vigilante justice is necessary), and the Christian worldview encourages following these laws.

Thus, Dungy found praise from the masses after the Super Bowl for doing things the Lord's way (or "the right way," as the pundits said). This was right and good. Praise God.

Fastforward to this week where Dungy's comments showed the other reality of the Christian life. Regardless of our opinions on the proposed amendment, we must agree that one finds very little favor when speaking out against it. Dungy is a smart man. He knew, and knows, this. The easy way out would have been to avoid the situation or, at the very least, give lipservice to the safe opinion, the one that would land him in the least amount of trouble with the people with microphones.

But this is not the reality of the Christian life.

The point here is not the opinion Christians "should" have on this issue. I have my opinion, but minds much greater than mine disagree. The point here is that Dungy's conviction moved him to say something unpopular, and he refused to rationalize that away. I have not had the privelege (ha!) of watching hours of ESPN this week, so I do not know how this is currently playing out in the media. Given the respect Dungy commands and the humility with which he speaks, I do not know if people are castigating him. I imagine no one is supporting his comments though (see the Colt's organzational comments, complete with impotence, within the above article). Except for maybe Tim Hardaway. But when has that ever helped someone's image?

While the message of Christ is beautiful and attractive, it also separates us from the world. The Bible is full of identities for the followers of Christ - aliens, strangers, foreigners - which we have daily opportunities to experience. Eating lunch with someone who is alone, losing the validation, acceptance, and "friendship" of mean girls. Speaking a worldview of sin into an educational system founded upon the shifting sands of humanism. Proclaiming the Gospel to those who find it the scent of death.

I do not know Tony Dungy, but from what I see, I love the man. I said as much in my blog post after the Super Bowl. I loved him then because he spoke in a manner that represented my religion in a positive light to the world, communicating many of the things for which my Savior stood and died. I love him even more today, not because of the debatable political position he took, but because his example reminded me to stand firm for our God.

Even when he knew there would be no applause.

Explanation

2007-03-21T19:28:00.000-04:00

I must seem like an arrogant jackass for leaving my "Published!" post up for a long time. And this identity may be closer to the truth than I wish to admit. Nevertheless, as Jeff said in the 12th comment, I am currently out of town, in the American Northeast, going through a series of job interviews. Accordingly, I have been unable to post. More on this to come Friday when I return to Dixieland.

Hope you all have had a wicked pissah of a week.

Published!

2007-03-15T16:00:00.000-04:00

As my friend Jeff revealed in the yesterday's comments, the online version of Relevant Magazine published an article of mine yesterday. Those of you who consistently follow my blog will recognize most of it from Monday/Tuesday. Please check it out if you like. They added pictures and cool font to the title!

I have never had any of my writing published before. I tried once, sending an article about the racial division in high school track and field to a running magazine. They declined. I still have the rejection letter, a read badge of courage, if you will. My English teacher at the time said that we should be proud of rejection letters, as that's how all writers start out. I was expecting to be proud of another after my submission to Relevant. But sometimes, for whatever reason, God gives us moments we don't deserve.

I am still uncertain just how big a deal this is. I do not read Relevant except for a short 750-word article they send me every week. Perhaps this is the biggest irony of all of this. Relevant is way too cool for me. They write about bands I've never even heard of, much less listen to. For example, two articles to the right of mine is an interview with "Reliant K." Imagine my surprise when I found out they are not a breakfast cereal, as I initially thought, but are actually a band.

If Relevant knew me, they would have never accepted my article. They must not find out my true identity. This, my dear reader, will be our little secret.

Regardless of importance, I was really really excited that they accepted my writing. Beats the heck out of a rejection letter, regardless of what my senior English teacher says. Some writers do not care for validation; they simply write as they wish, indifferent to mass opinion. A couple writers even rage against this acceptance, thinking they have "sold out" if too many people like their stuff.

For better or worse, I am currently neither of these people. Getting published makes me excited.

So here we have it, my first publication. I just wanted to throw it out there in case any of you were interested. No blog post tomorrow. I get off work at 3:30 and won't get off my tail until after midnight, due to the tourny. See you all next week!

Handicapping the Field

2007-03-14T17:02:00.000-04:00

(I write today with my deepest apologies to my readers who rage against the sports machine and the addictions which accompany it. In my defense though, it is March.)

Yesterday Big Mike Golic, one of the Mike's on ESPN Radio's "Mike and Mike" morning show, said that he had filled out 26 different NCAA March Madness brackets for various pools he had joined. From what little I've heard of the show, Mike is great on the radio. From the much more I've heard from various people, Mike is great on the radio. But this multiple bracket thing is bush league. Not the actual entrance into numerous leagues, mind you. We all do that. It's the different brackets for each pool that irks me so.

How can you claim any pride in winning a pool when you have picked so many combinations that you must win at least one by default? If you pick every horse in the Kentucky Derby on a different bet, you are guaranteed to win. What's the fun in that? Moreover, it does not make financial sense. Winning one or two brackets will probably not recoup your sunk entry costs unless you win the bracket with the high rollers - which I guess could conceivably happen for an ESPN celebrity.

An old life philosophy states, "Go big or go home." Make one set of picks. Put all your money on your best effort. Go big.

Of course, most of us lose big. But at least we went.

Last night, I filled out my bracket (I have entered two pools with the same bracket). In years past, I have abstained to avoid this March and early April addiction. With fantasy basketball and Dunkin' Donuts blueberry iced coffee in my life, I do not need another one. However, this year I caved - though I am committed to attending my sister's awards ceremony DURING THE GAMES Thursday night and not text messaging for scores to demonstrate my victory over said addiction.

This year, the bracket became more difficult to fill out as I progressed but not because of the bounty of good teams out there as ESPN would have one believe. It's that most of the high seeded teams have a fatal flaw which made it increasingly difficult to pick the winner. When I can see why so many will lose, I find it difficult to choose one that will win.

I believe this year's tournament (if won by a 1 or 2 seed) will be won by the team which most adeptly overcomes it's fatal flaw. I understand this may be a fancy way of articulating the obvious, that "The team that plays the best/makes the fewest mistakes will win." But run with me here, people.

The top seeds with their fatal flaws as I see them:

#1 Florida: I don't see them losing anytime soon. It's just REALLY REALLY hard (and thus unlikely) to repeat.

#1 Kansas: Can anyone remember the last time a Kansas team got out of the first round? I can - 3 years ago in 2004. Since then, they have lost as a 3 seed to Bradley and Bucknell. Once is a mistake, twice may be a pattern. . . . Their hope (besides the fact that this team is better than either of the previous 3): no team in their region begins with the letter "B."

#1 UNC: They have consistently been inconsistent all season, losing to teams they shoud have beaten, losing in places they should have won (read: the Dean Dome), and keeping bad teams in games for longer than they should have. The odds of them putting together six consecutive winning efforts against good teams are not good. Plus, if the seeds hold, their path is trecherous. Marquette and their Virginia Tech-esque guards scare me.

#1 Ohio St.: They haven't lost in a loooooonnnnnnggggg time. Law of averages says they lose soon.

#2 UCLA: Cold at the wrong time; they haven't won since March 1. Plus, they play in the Pac-10 which, as my friend Brad recently told me, is only a notch above a Mid-Major conference with Reggie Bush now departed.

#2 Wisconsin: You must score to win. Plus, a blow-out loss to Ohio St. is cause for concern heading into a tournament of good teams. Beware of Georgia Tech in Round 2, one of the few teams in the country who can bang with this Big 10 team.

#2 Memphis: Name two of their starters.

#2 Georgetown: Currently, a favorite among the masses. Unfortunately for them, no one ever gets these brackets right.

So who survives their weaknesses and advances to the Final Four in Hotlanta in my humble and historically incorrect opinion?

Florida is too good to justify a loss and advances to play last year's runner-up, UCLA, who has both talent and experience. With no noticeable flaw, Georgetown emerges to face Texas A&M who gets hot at the right time. Like last year, Flordia beats UCLA; A&M ends Georgetown's run and destroys the final remaining intact brackets. Florida then repeats.

When a team wins it all and returns everyone, I find it difficult and illogical to pick against them.

Let the games begin!

A Love of My Life

2007-03-13T16:57:00.000-04:00

The frustrating thing about blogging is that I am unable to participate in my favorite part of the writing process - editting. My senior English professor always said that no one writes a good essay the first time around. An ancient Greek who I cannot remember entreated us to write, let the work sit around for seven years, and then return to it. If it was still worthwhile, then you might have something with which to work.

Today, I editted. In reflecting on yesterday's post, I realized my great need to apologize to you all for the embarrassing mixture of metaphors in yesterday's post (this stylistic sin ranks as the third most egregious behind the passive voice and comma splices). Unfortunately, I fear mixed metaphors and verbosity are a result of my lack of blog editting. Today, I remedied at least the former concern.

I also came across an opportunity to submit something to a publication that was looking for contributive articles. This sounds like fun, so I figured I'd give it a shot by sending yesterday's post. One cannot do such a thing and save any face with mixed metaphors.

More than all of this though, it feels good to have something clean, something tweaked, something a little more final than the brain vomit which is most of my posts.

So today's post is an edition. If the redundancy and legnth bore you, my apologies. I will return to normal tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.

Bracketology Faith

2007-03-13T16:27:00.000-04:00

I cannot remember a world without Bracketology. The word first emerged in college basketball circles some years ago to describe the annual, addiction-inducing process of selecting the 65 teams for the final championship tournament. Everything before that time in my life exists as darkness and chaos.

In the early days, I used to read this word as tongue-in-cheek, a cute exageration of one of life's trivialities. But Bracketology is no longer a flippant matter.

The word is everywhere. Once solely the possession of ESPN, other networks have seized upon it because us viewers cannot grasp the magnitude of March without it. If ESPN analyst Joe Lunardi has a business card, the title under his name would be "Bracketologist," and it would not be a joke. A new book has even hit the shelves entitled "The Enlightened Bracketologist" which utilizes brackets to determine what we really love and hate in various categories ranging from Fruit to Inventions to Tell Me Again Why They're Famous.

(As an aside, Peach edged Apple for the Fruit Championship, Sliced Break won easily over Paper in the Invention competition, and favorite Nicole Ritchie beat out cinderella Jeffrey Dahmer for the Tell Me Again Why They're Famous title.)

This book describes the science known as "Bracketology" in its introduction:

"What is enlightment?

Better question: What is Bracketology?

Bracketology is a way of seeing the world so that we can become more enlightened - about what we like, favor, prefer, abhor, or abjure. (Bracketology can even help us determine if we prefer the word 'abhor' to 'abjure'.) It is a system that helps us make clearer and cleaner decisions about what is good, better, best in our world. . . .

Bracketology - the practice of parsing people, places, and things into discrete one-on-one matchups to determine which of the two is superior or preferable - works because it is simple. What could be simpler than breaking down a choice into either/or, black or white, this one or that one?"

The book is incorrect about the simplicity of Bracketology when one speaks of field selection for basketball's NCAA tournament. Bracketology has become standard linguistic fare these days because choosing the 65-team field has become a science. A group of people, known simply as The Committee, compiles mounds of evidence about every team and uses these heaps to whittle the 300+ college basketball teams down to 65. The statistics are mind-boggling - conference record, RPI rating (which, like the NFL's quarterback rating, no one understands), strength of schedule, balance of the conference schedule, record against tournament teams, conference tournament performance, "good" wins, "bad" losses, total team height, average shoe size, grade point average, number of pizzas eaten during the year. . . . the list goes on. The Committee supposedly uses all these statistics to determine the best 65 teams. Then, onward we march.

ESPN analyist Jay Bilas, a Spartan commentator amidst mere Persians (by "300"'s historical interpretation at least), commented during one segment of ESPN's daily 25-hour coverage that he just wished the chairman of The Committee had defended the selections, not with bracketological stats, but with the simple statement that they thought these were the best 65 teams in the country. Bilas's point: with all of this "bracketology" science, one tends to miss the forest for the trees.

As usual, Bilas's point was as solid as a Greg Oden blocked shot. Statistical arguments about the worthiness of teams are futile. With such an array of data available, anyone can make a case for any team. Except, of course, for the Clemson Tigers.

Bilas's comment convicted me of the "bracketology faith" to which I often subscribe. I spend so much time trying to understand theological RPI ratings, attempting to figure out God by looking at a variety of details. How does God want me to feel about the death penalty? Is the Calvanistic worldview more correct than the Arminian one or can there exist a dizzying combination of the two? Should I go volunteer at the church nursery or spend that time in Sunday school?

Now do not get me wrong, I believe these are valid and important questions. After all, the average margin of victory does provide information about a team just as coming to grips with certain questions helps to better understand God's character. However, a tendancy exists in my life to lean legalistic, often times placing too much emphasis and too much stress on these questions at the expense of something greater. This is why the book of Galatians and its is so easy for me to read yet so hard for me to live.

God is not a science. He is not bracketology (though I bet he understands the RPI rating). When I focus soley on logical and empirical evidence, when I use him to try to make the right 65 decisions, when I refuse to pull my eyes away from one tertiary detail, I miss the majesty and beauty of the Almighty Sovereign.

God is big.

Jesus died on a cross for me and rose from the dead so that I do not have to die.

The Holy Spirit lives in me.

To use a phrase from UNC basketball coach Roy Williams, Team Trinity is pretty doggone good.

Theology has great utility; divine questions deserve much attention; the search for God's desires demands real sacrifice. But these things will never satisfy. The person of Jesus is the living water for which I thirst, not any logic or any ministry or any political opinion. These will never be enough.

Here's to resting in the reality of the living God, to being still and knowing God, to adhering to Bilas's encouragement to say that God is best and refusing to stress over the static reasons why I know this to be true.

Bracketology Faith

2007-03-12T14:37:00.000-04:00

I cannot remember a world without Bracketology. The word first emerged some years ago; everything before that time exists as darkness and chaos. In the early days, I used to read this word as tongue in cheek, a cute exageration of one of life's trivialities.

But Bracketology is no longer a flippant matter. It is serious business.

The word is everywhere. Once solely the possession of ESPN, other networks have grabbed onto it because us viewers cannot grasp the magnitude of March without it. If Joe Lunardi has a business card, the title under his name would be "Bracketologist" (at least that's what remains under his name on the ESPN graphic). A book has even come out entitled "The Enlightened Bracketologist" which utilizes brackets to determine what we really love and hate in various categories ranging from Fruit to Inventions to Tell Me Again Why They're Famous.

The book acutely describes this science known as "Bracketology" in its introduction:

"What is enlightment?

Better question: What is Bracketology?

Bracketology is a way of seeing the world so that we can become more enlightened - about what we like, favor, prefer, abhor, or abjure. (Bracketology cna even help us determine if we prefer the word abhor to abjure.) It is a system that helps us make clearer and cleaner decisions about what is good, better, best in our world. . . .

Bracketology - the practice of parsing people, places, and things into discrete one-on-one matchups to determine which of the two is superior or preferable - works because it is simple. What could be simpler than breaking down a choice into either/or, black or white, this one or that one?"

The book is incorrect about the simplicity of Bracketology when we speak about selecting the field for the NCAA tournament. Bracketology has become standard linguistic fare these days because choosing the 65-team field has become a science. The committee piles as much evidence together about every team and uses this to whittle the 300+ NCAA basketball teams down to 65. The mountains of evidence are mind-boggling - conference record, RPI, strengthen of schedule, the balance of the conference schedule, record against tournament teams, conference tournament performance, "good" wins, "bad" losses, total team height, average shoe size, grade point average, number of pizzas eaten during the year. . . . the list goes on. The committee supposedly uses all these statistics to determine the best 65 teams and onward we march.

ESPN analyist Jay Bilas, a Spartan analyst amidst mere Persians, commented last night during one segment of the 25-hour per day coverage that he just wished the chairman of the committee had defended the selections, not with bracketological stats, but by simply saying that they thought these were the best 65 teams in the country. Bilas's point: with all of this "bracketology" science, we tend to miss the forest for the trees. As usual, Bilas is on point. Statistical arguments about the worthiness of teams are futile. With such an array of statistics available, anyone can make a case for any team. Except, of course, for the Clemson Tigers.

Bilas's comment reminded me of the "bracketology faith" to which I often subscribe. I spend so much time peering at tree bark, trying to figure out God by looking at a variety of details. How does God want me to feel about the death penalty? Is the Calvanistic worldview more correct than the Arminian one or is it a dizzying combination of the two? Should I go volunteer at the church nursery or spend that time in a Sunday school class?

Now do not get me wrong, I believe this are all valid and important questions. After all, a knowledge of bark and leaves does provide us with information about the forest just as coming to grips with these questions helps us to better understand God's character. But those of you who know me or have read me for a while know that I lean legalistic, often times placing too much emphasis and too much stress on these questions at the expense of something greater. This is why Jenn's book of Galatians (see Thursday's comments) and the freedom which it confers on the believer can enter into my mind but find resistance moving south towards the heart.

God is not a science. He is not bracketology. When I focus soley on logical and empirical evidence, when I use him to try to make the right 65 decisions, when I peer endlessly at one piece of bark, I miss the majesty and beauty of the forest.

God is big.

God is love.

Jesus died on a cross for me.

Jesus rose from the dead so that I do not have to die.

God knows my name.

The forest is breath-taking.

Theology is good; wrestling with questions of the divine deserves great merit; and asking what God wants me to do is always a good thing. But these things will never satisfy. The person of Jesus is the living water for which I thirst, not any logic or any ministry or any political opinion. They will never be enough.

Here's to resting in the reality of the living God, to being still and knowing God, to adhering to Bilas's encouragement to say God is best and not stressing over the static reasons why I know this to be true.

(P.S. Peach edged Apple for the Fruit Championship, Sliced Break won easily over Paper in the Invention competition, and favorite Nicole Ritchie beat out cinderella Jeffrey Dahmer for the Tell Me Again Why They're Famous title.)

A Little About A Lot

2007-03-09T14:37:00.000-05:00

Because I do not want to put forth the effort to string together continuous coherent thought on a Friday:

-When I turned on my car leaving work for the weekend, Mariah Carey's "Sweet Sweet Fantasy" had just begun on the radio. What ecstasy. Unfortunately, it was not the remix which features the late ODB. Yet, when one is given a mile, 'tis unrestrained greed to demand a mile and an inch.

-A few years ago, UNC coach Roy Williams dismissed the ACC Tournament as a "cocktail party." His comments were aggressively frowned upon, not because they were definitively false but because they insulted and discouraged corporate sponsorship (in my opinion). Speaking poorly of rich (who else attends cocktail parties?) corporate sponsors is tantamount to blasphemy or bigotry in 21st century America. We were reminded yesterday, though, of what the ACC Tournament will always be good for (besides making loads of money): giving Clemson one final opportunity to show the selection committee why it does not belong in the NCAA tournament.

-I'm still reeling from the sub-par three week series of "Grey's A." Redemption requires a new episode. Word on the street is that our wait ends next week.

-If Grey had died a couple weeks ago and Addison had become the show's new namesake as I requested on "RP," they could have called that episode "Addison by Subtraction."

-Borders Quote of the Week #1: Two construction workers helping to convert our cafe to the strict Kremlin's, er, Seattle's Best requirements came into the back room Wednesday morning talking about all the "freaky places" they had "done it," "it" presumably being sexual intercourse. I felt like I was the middle of a Ludacris song - except I don't think these fellas had ever been in a library. The conversation was raunchy. I had been exceedingly tired all day until I overheard them. I laughed on the inside during the conversation, not wanting to appear unmanly, and was in a good mood the rest of the day. Go figure.

-Borders Quote of the Week #2: "I gave up going to the gym in favor of doing sit-ups, push-ups, and Dance Dance Revolution. I lost 20 pounds!" -my inventory co-worker. Who knew?

-Check this out. The best part: Move your mouse over each turtle for a link to their own myspace pages. Raphael has 4507 friends including Donatello, Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Tom. The best message left is from Malus, The Horseman of War, who writes: "You sir, kick so much ass! If there was a Hall of Fame for Kick-Assery, you would be King Master Champion!" Couldn't have said it better myself.

-A co-worker of mine came into work unhappy and late today. She said she realized this morning that this (this being working two jobs at Borders and Duke Energy) was going to be the rest of her life. I think we've all had this Sisyphusian feeling at some point. In our affluent 21st century American society, how we respond to this realization shapes our lives. I'm excited for her because she did not run from the reality of felt hopelessness in her life. She is encountering it, even though it is difficult and despairing. She wants to go to Africa someday and "do some good." I hope today was her first step.

-We "spring forward" for Daylight Savings on Saturday night. Though this sounds happy and energetic, it will make me grumpy and tired when (read: if) I get up for church Sunday morning sans one hour of sleep. Yet, Sunday begins a really great time of year when the sun stays out hours past the drive home from work. This, my friends, puts a spring in my forward step.

A Yes God

2007-03-08T14:55:00.000-05:00

I would venture to guess that one of the primary reasons people want nothing to do with religion, and to a larger extent God, is the set of rules that seems to come along with it or him.

Perhaps the most famous passage in the Bible lists ten "Thou shalt not"'s, the so-called Ten Commandments. At one time, schools posted these on walls, and courtrooms displayed them in lobbies. At a time before that, Hollywood made a movie about them. These babies get a lot of press time and thus become a primary association with religion or God. Extrapolating the divine character solely from this famous Scripture passage, we discover God to be a Catholic school teacher, an angry parent, or the police. He tells us what we cannot do and whoops our tails when we do just that.

Not surprisingly, this idea of the "No" God drives people from him, especially in our society of individualism and tolerance. We hate nothing more these days than for someone to tell us what we can and cannot do. We have no need for some fella (who we cannot even prove exists) dropping a list of No-No's on us.

What a shame that we have allowed a Charlton Heston movie to dominate our view of God.

A friend of mine likes to say that God is a "Yes God," and I think Scripture bears this out. God deals in things like joy and hope. He promises to hold back no good thing from his children, that he always says "Yes" to what is good for them. He very actively works for the best interests of his people. He says "Yes" to the promised land, "Yes" to the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scripture, "Yes" to our reconciliation with him and with each other.

But then we come these "Thou shalt not"'s, which are present not only in the Ten Commandments but throughout the Bible. A faithful reading of the text cannot deny that the Bible sets forth life standards for us, including many restrictions and prohiibtions. Rules, as we like to call them. These big No's, supposed to be divinely inspired, stand contrary to a Yes God.

Yet, these "No's" are not "No's" at all, except for the rebellious interpretation we impose on them. The "No's" which we see and complain about are actually powerful examples of the "Yes" which he offers to us. For example, Jesus commands me not to lust. When I lust, I am looking for the intimacy that it promises me. But what do I get? Not intimacy. Guilt, broken relationship, slavery, unfulfillment. But not intimacy. And what do we call something when it does not come through on it's promise? Folks, we call that a lie. 'Tis no wonder Scripture calls the enemy the great deceiver.

When God says "No" to lust, he is actually saying "Yes" to intimacy. In fact, I believe he never said "No" in the first place but that he always wanted me to find the latter gift. 'Tis my rebellious heart projected on the situation that makes me say, "Well, God didn't let me lust" when in actuality God said, "Ben, love and know intimacy."

Even in the garden when, one could argue, God gave the most resounding "No" of all time, he told us to avoid the tree because "in the day that you eat from [the tree] you will surely die." God's words were a "Yes" to life, a "Yes" to the paradise he had already blessed us with.

I believe this is always the case with the Bible's so-called rules. A "No" to murder is a "Yes" to companionship and self-control. A "No" to selfishness is a "Yes" to companionship for others and freedom from unsatisfying stuff. A "No" to pride is a "Yes" to truth.

We have always been meant to live for good things, not from bad ones.

God is not a pain-loving disciplinarian, an angry parent, or the po-po. He wants that which is best for us. He always has. What a shame we have imposed "No" onto his character. May he give us the grace to always, always hear his "Yes."