3rd Floor Balcony

The neat thing about church is that it's supposed to rock your world. Don't get me wrong, we're not talking the Moses on the mountain getting evocate'd by some burning bush. Nor are we talking about the hell, fire and brimstone, change your life or rot in hell coming at you like lightning from the pulpit.

No, I'm talking about the strength to go on, and a faithful understanding of who you are. The Christian belief is one of sinner-ship first, righteousness second. The only way to know how righteous I am, is to know how sinful I am.

The person who walks into a sanctuary with full awareness of their sins, is transformed by the grace of God who says, "come unto me all who are weak, and I will give you rest." This is a holy respite, and whatever the emotions, thinkings and meta-physical awareness happens during service, it culminates in the benediction or equivalent, "Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, be all glory, majesty, power and authority." The final injuction is "Go", and the service ends, and we are sent out to this world.

I suppose service is far less transcendental, when you go thinking you've been pretty good this week, or when you're axiously thinking about the youth programs you've got to meet about after service. Or when you stop reading your Bible at home, and thus are never reminded of your sinner-ship. I like the Catholics in this regard so much more. The whole concept of the confessional is designed to remind you that yes, you are a sinner.

Unfortunately, todays church is often a reminder of our status, and by that I mean social status, not as a sinner. My church congregates with people who are pretty good, fairly educated, with proper jobs (except for me - but I married a doctor, so I qualify) and don't rock too much. The thing we value most, must be that we'll safely get to know you, and like the workplace, we are generally careful with what we say when we approach. And particularly, who could start a conversation with that subtle sin of pride, or having made it on our own, of our quiet sexual depravity, or bitterness toward serving...

And to not have an idea of confession today? Well, it's anathema to our life as Christians.

If this world had no faults, or if even a handful, tiny percentage were without sin, we would have cleaned up city hall, kicked AIDs out of Africa, and actually made our technologies conveniences something more convenient. But we haven't, and we hide every Sunday behind our very real struggles, and smile politely.

I know this because I'm a pretty good guy. But I'm neither good at what I do, nor do I care enough to change it well. I fail, fail often and miserably. But be sure, it's not because I have tried too hard. Of one thing we ought to be sure:

We're either sinners, or a sinning liars.

And today, my world will be rocked.

Any regrets about doing it your way?
"I have tons of regrets, but I think that's one of the reasons that push people to create things. Out of their angst, their regret, comes the best from artists, painters and writers." -Sly Stallone, Interview - Parade Magazine

Another admission: I don't know what it is about Rocky or Rambo, or hey, even Arnold's Predator and Terminator. There is something to be said (not all of it good!) about old guys going to the wall. That, football movies, and Shakira are my guilty pleasures... Please, no comments...

There's something irrepressible about Stallone and I love this quote. It's genuine, it's courageous, and it's humble. I live a pretty good life, like many of my friends, and the worst thing we do is settle for the good that we have. We deny our hurt feelings, we beg off on the things we didn't achieve priding ourselves that we didn't want them anyway. Stallone has none of that. He's the epitome of the Rocky character who says I'm going to go, it don't matter what you think.

I'm reminded of a T-shirt I wore when I was in high school, quoting Picasso, "The chief enemy of creativity is good taste." One of the best aspects of the post-modern world is that we can have it both ways. Understanding multiple world-views, being able to live with questions and tensions, means that we can have our regrets, our pains, our muses to dig deep and try for a transcendental life, even as our lives seem so good, so clean and sterile. We just have to, like Stallone, honour our regrets.

But can you believe it? I just used Sylvester Stallone as a talking point... Ah, what the hell, if the shoe fits... "Yo, Adrian!!!!"

I must admit a fair bit of addiction to Scrabulous, the Facebook rip-off of Scrabble.

Currently, Hasbro and Mattel have their lawyers demanding Facebook shut down this site according to a tech blogger on Fortune's website. Quittner has some smart comments about it - why doesn't Hasbro negotiate? Swoop in on the profits after someone else has done the work! The post has already spawned a petitioning Facebook group with over 12,000 members (as of Jan 16), which I've joined.

If Scrabulous goes down for any significant length of time, if Hasbro doesn't take advantage of this situation, and ends up screwing it for everyone, I'm quitting Scrabulous. I just can't take any more anachonistic institutions giving me grief. The one I've got is enough for me.

So I found an alternative. Meet WildWords, a Scrabble variant with a rather intelligent counter-premise to the 2 and 3-letter word memorization that goes on in all my present scrabble games: Reward large vocabularies by giving long words a chance.

Now, if only someone would port this to a Facebook application. (Take note, Hasbro!)

We sat there eating our lunch, scenes replaying in our minds. Liz would see an occasional grimace, I would see her eyes water just enough to be noticed.

I read the news really late into the night, and could barely believe it. The healers responded as quick as possible. As supporters, we anticipated and hustled around the facilities and vehicles. Calls were made, people informed and the medical system went to work. Precision, like clockwork. Prayers were made by those for whom it is an option. For the rest, good hope and well-thinking.

But the good work didn't pay off. Our prayers were not answered positively. Good hope dashed.

It makes me think of all the things that I've given thanks for recently this past holiday season. And the credit I've given God for it. A God-shaped horseshoe, according to some. But it seems to me in this moment, all the thanks we accord to God are rightly flipped when it all goes to the crapper. How many people have turned to God because of a good outcome? How many have fled faith disappointed in God's failure to act? Even the church eggs us on with testimonies of God's provision, with the Biblical promise of his blessing. Shouldn't God carry as much blame now, just as he has for all the thanks given just last week?

Yes.

I believe in a God that wants to hear your complaint. The classic answers posit the Psalmist against God, crying out to God, barraging God, and for the most part, coming to comfort and solace in the arms of this same God who listened and endured the complaints, cries and barrages.

But I also believe we put our faith too much in our blessings, and miss the only one that matters. We are thankful for our things, for our comforts, for our health. So it is no wonder when any one of those things are taken away, we are thrown for a loop. I sometimes forget that the thing I love most about Jesus Christ is that he came, and set in motion for me a way of seeing the world. It's a world that starts in a perfect garden, then descends into a kind of madness, and is saved by God who calls people by name, and changes the way we see the world.

God doesn't stop death, because death is part of life. And life is not always fair, not always just and doesn't always make sense. God's blessing is more than material. It is a way of seeing, coping, and living. It is the bringing together of teammates, a kind of comfort and solace.

Especially when the world doesn't make sense. Rest in peace, Kat.

A couple months ago, a friend sent me this link thinking as a well-informed Christian, I would have a well formed opinion. In essence I chided, "live and let live".

Check it out: Though Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game

After my dismissive reply, she let me have it. What kind of higher-educated religious nut are you? Were your studies for nothing? And then proceeded to list a litany of push-backs some valid, some not. One was regarding culture and how rather than lead culture, we pant after it like some silly dog. And the other was a lament on the lack of creativity in engaging youth. On these two counts, I had this to say:

1/ Panting after culture like a silly dog: I'm not sure you are in the right context. How about incarnating Christ into culture? What about starting from culture, and moving to Christ from there? It seems we'd rather avoid culture in this case, rather than find Christ already there. In other games, like World of Warcraft, there are Christian guilds, which aspire to using Christian principles in their guild management. Rather than strive to be strong, their strong strive to bring along the weak, and teach the new.

I am not saying kow-tow to the dominant culture, though I am saying the ascetic was always a minority, and for Christians to stand apart on things like Halo, is well, it's a little pathetic. You give power to Halo 3 that it never had, and you make antagonistic those that use it, harmlessly, to the detriment of those that use it, to their own demise. It makes you a very loud dog, with a very small bite - that's a silly dog.

2/ Creative Ministry: If you really want to allow creativity, than really, we OUGHT to be letting the churches decide, whatever the outcomes. I have so many youth who ask, can we do this? Will we get in trouble? If you want to promote creativity, you need more acceptance for things you disagree with. In fact, if churches agreed a little bit more, or just agreed to let their differences by, we'd have a more united, believable church. Let alone bridge the way for churches to work with non-church groups sharing what is kingdom-bridging, rather than pooh-poohing in our seminary-al ivory towers.

Let me take a moment to say I only very recently started playing Halo. It's kind of fun. It's really mindless fun, the way my friends and I play the game. And while there's strategy certainly, there's not much depth to it, and even less to discuss after the hours are spent. To be fair, it's a bunch of friends from church who play but it will never be disguised as something so marketable as an evangelistic outreach.

That said, why do we care so much about these things? Why do we care about the cost of souls do to the Da Vinci Code? Or that the Golden Compass is a moral compass without God? People argue about the truth of these things, but it's largely meaningless. The church has tried to corner truth but truth in itself is no gospel, because truth must lead to freedom -that is what sacred scripture hopes. But we are still in bondage to the rules, to what we think is palatable (whether on the side of Halo or not), and we are not free to live incarnate. The church is still oppressive, we still think we know what is right, and still focus on all the wrong things.