Comments Welcome

Dear readers,

I found a setting on my blog that should allow you to comment. I think before the blog was automatically set to be picky about who could post comments.  I just found the default setting and changed it!!  God bless you. Comment away.  

Daniel

My Pleasure

I was watching a reality show on MTV a few weeks ago about an overweight girl trying to lose weight (maybe it was "I Used to Be Fat").  It was surprisingly sensitive and well-done. Anyway, I was amused at one point when the girl was going through a Chick-Fil-A drive through. She whispered to the camera: "I love going to Chick-Fil-A because every time you say 'thank you' they have to say 'My Pleasure,'" and she giggled.  Then she turned to the guy at the window and kept saying thank you for things and he kept saying "My pleasure."

Last night my father-in-law cooked a big dinner for me and Amber, and afterwards I helped wash the dishes.  He made a point to seek me out and thank me for that, which I felt I didn't need to be thanked for.  I mumbled something like, "No problem."  But thinking about it a minute later, I thought that 'My pleasure' would have been a better reply.  It's hard to think of a more excellent response when someone thanks you than assuring them from your heart: "I was happy to...I loved doing it...It's my pleasure!"

What if when we thank God for our bodies, our food, our earth, our lives, and hope, he just grins and says, "It's my pleasure!"
"God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure."                                                                              -Ephesians 1:5 (NLT)

Judgement Day for Bacteria

Living in China for several years, I picked up some little friends. Munchkins in my tummy.  All of us have tons of different bacteria living in our stomach, some good, some bad. But eat enough street food in China and you'll probably get an extra dose of the bad variety.  That's what I've got in there right now. I can tell because these particular bacteria in my stomach get nutrients from my food and emit gas during the night. This bloats my stomach uncomfortably before I wake up, which generally gives me nightmares.  It's been going on for at least a year.  But now that I'm living in America again, I'm hopeful my stomach bacteria will eventually sort itself out.  If not--antibiotics time.  A rush of chemicals wiping out hordes of bacteria in a violent apocalypse.

You know, I got to thinking: what if I was one of those bacteria?  Think how many generations of bacteria have come and gone--maybe thousands of generations.  It's only been a year or two of my life, and I just haven't felt it's the right time yet to go to a doctor.  If I was one of those bacteria, I'd probably be thinking: we've been living like this for generations and generations since we can remember!  There's no judgment coming.  In fact, there's probably not even a Daniel!  Just this stomach universe, that's all there is.

They have another think coming.  I'm real, and I'm unhappy with them if they don't balance back out. In my world little time has passed, and the right time is almost here for the eradication of these selfish and harmful bacteria. If only I had the ability of God to pluck out the good bacteria and save them until the antibiotics have passed through and left a clean new stomach.

Christian Thoughts and Poem about Homosexuality

Several years ago a Christian actor friend of mine was struggling with homosexual desires which he didn't want to have. Now, I think homosexual desires can be perfectly natural, in the same way it is perfectly natural to want multiple sexual partners besides your wife. However, according to almost any ethical system, being natural in and of itself doesn't make an action moral. But at least, if you struggle with homosexual urges, whether occasionally or often, the Bible doesn't condemn you for these natural urges--but it does guide us in how we deal with them. I don't know that I have ever had these urges, though I'm not sure. But it's quite possible Jesus experienced these urges (and many others) during his life, but handled them in accordance with the word and will of his Father.

"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."

                                                                             -Hebrews 4:15

All things presumably means all things. So first of all this a blow against homophobia, because homosexual urges are a naturally occuring phenomenon which Jesus may have even felt at times. But a major point of Christianity is that we cannot simply follow our animal natures, we must follow Jesus, die to ourselves, and live in the power of a new heavenly lifestyle.

I wrote this several years ago for an actor friend of mine who had been surfing homosexual porn and felt ashamed of it.

There Will Be a Day
　
There will be a day,
When the evil Iago who lays snares for you
Will be chained by fierce angels
And tossed none-too-gently in the lake of sulfur fire

There will be a day
When your Director will be revealed in all His masculinity
Yes, the chief Actor will appear for the curtain call
All the audience rising in silence and awe,
Then slowly applauding in a standing ovation for fourteen days.
At last raising his scarred hand to calm the sea of people
He will call his understudy to the front, His special actor, you

And then, yes, there will be a day
When each of your sins will be shouted from the rooftops
All your pride, hetero- and homo-sexual lusts, idolatry, selfishness, yes, all
Will be megaphoned over the vast audience

And there will be a day
When the children of God will drop their fears and pretenses
And in sobs of love, men and women, children and grandfathers
Will kneel around you, hands on you, arms around you
Your eternal family at last accepting you
In your fears and sins with you, not against you,
Each begging God on your behalf.

There will be a day
When the tightened skin and the twisted masks relax
And peace washes over your stretched features like waves washing a sand castle away
Leaving only smooth beach sand for a child's feet

And there will be a day
When you've reached the other side of the river
And all the hundred lies
That coiled over you like fat black pythons
Biting and hanging off you
They'll drop away in the burning river
And you'll come out on the other side
Like smoking gold
Transfigured in a robe of white
A god at last because of His love--
The masculine spirit he made you to be.

On that day
You will stand like an assured old lion
You will roar with a deep rumble that shakes the trees
And you will be enfolded at last in the arms of your Father.

The Legend of the Whale's Back

I looked and I saw the People. They were on the back of a huge whale called Life. And the whale floated on the surface of a deep ocean, breathing. I asked a wise man who stood watching, "Sir, what will happen?" "It does not take a wise man to know," he replied. "After some time the whale takes a breath and dives deep down into the ocean depths." "And the people?" I ask. "They are dragged down and drown," he said.

I looked again at the People. Some were spreading blankets to picnic on the back of the whale. Others were gathering driftwood from the ocean and building houses on the back of the huge whale. Soon I saw that some became richer and more powerful, and they oppressed the poor. While some grew thin with hunger and fainted in the sun, others lay in their shelters, bored and fat. When they wanted to go from one part of the wide whale back to another, they demanded the poor to carry them on their backs. But still, they viewed themselves as decent and helpful people.

One day I walked on the whale's back myself. I met people arguing, preening, pursuing success. "Don't you know what will happen one day?" I asked. "What?" they replied. "The whale will dive down deep into the water and you will drown. Don't you know?" They looked angry. "It is quite rude of you to mention it," they replied. "There is nothing we can do about it so we might as well enjoy our lives." "Do you call your life enjoyable?" I asked. They looked at their over-busy, hurried lives of labor and boredom and said nothing. "If there were some hope or reason for our life, perhaps we would act differently," one thoughtful woman said. "Do you search for some hope or reason for your life?" I asked. She paused and considered.

"We have been told we are alive by chance and accident," she said. "Our wise men have told us we must each find our own meaning for our lives." "So you must pretend there is a meaning for your life and try to believe it?" I asked. She was silent but then nodded a little sadly. "And if your wise men are wrong?" I asked. "What if there is a purpose for your existence? It seems improbable that such a beautiful and complicated being as yourself is merely a series of accidents." She smiled at the compliment, then grew sad. "Don't tease us with false hope," she said a little bitterly. "It is worse than no hope at all."

She went back to counting strips of seaweed to buy a larger hat for her son.

Tin Man and Straw Man

I am spending the week in a Christian commune in Boston.  Not really a commune--just a house that several Christians all live in, sharing some measure of life together. 

These people and those like them put their money where their mouth is. They live simple lives--they donate much of their money to those in need--they care deeply about God's kingdom and will being done here on earth as it is in heaven.  You will feel welcomed by them--no ten-foot barbed wire fence to climb, no hidden landmines which make you walk on eggshells.  In fact I think these people are very close to reliving the life of the early church.

I picked up a magazine here in their house called Sojourners.  It's a thoughtful, passionate magazine that loves God and engages the world around us. It's also more of a liberal than a conservative rag.  I notice they are more likely to criticize Republicans than Democrats, though they submit both to the litmus of God's word and way. 
It may be very hard for a conservative such as myself to swallow that someone can be a good Christian and be easier on Democrats than Republicans.  They have one article I read which analyzed the Libertarian party by Christian standards (doing an excellent and thought-provoking job from the Scripture), but in the end over-stepping and suggesting Libertarian political dogma is farthest from God's way. 

It's very easy for me to step up and pull out my fully loaded conservative shotgun and start blasting away at some of these arguments. But I'm not going to. In fact, though I don't agree with everything they're saying (and strongly disagree with some points), I have been blessed and sharpened by reading this magazine.  I suggest if you are a conservative evangelical Christian you go out and read at least one of these as graciously as you can.  On the other hand, if you are a bleeding heart liberal Christian, I suggest you go out and grit your teeth and read a few issues of World magazine or Christianity Today and listen to some other points of view. 

God, I think, has given His children different insights into Himself. The problem is when we grasp our insight (abortion is wrong, or God cares about the poor) and make it our standard to judge our brothers.  Is it really so crazy to hope that the Tin Man and the Straw Man can learn to walk on the yellow brick road together, until God gives one of them a heart and one of them a brain?

Some Christians are enough to cure you of Christianity

Some Christians are enough to cure anyone of Christianity.

Perhaps we can compare Christianity to a delicious piece of fried chicken. Imagine that you are just sinking your teeth deep into the savory meat and crispy breading, when suddenly you see something terrible. The person just across from you at the table is biting into a similarly savory drumstick, but their teeth are yellow and their breath is horrible. They slobber saliva all over the drumstick, licking it and taking wild bites like a crazed beast. And, let me point out, most terribly, they chew with their mouth wide open, allowing you to see every glob of food as it is mashed in their mouth. Of course afterwards they throw up all over the table.

Now, let me ask you: Do YOU want to go on eating that piece of savory chicken? Or do you perhaps set it down politely and go screaming out of the restaurant? It is a hard job indeed to go on focusing on that chicken leg and slowly munching it while all this craziness is going on around you. It takes a sort of determination that some would call crazy. But that is basically the situation in many churches. We have to go on munching the delicious Bible and Gospel while all around us people are puking their guts out on the pews and making horrible slobbering noises. It is a challenge, let me tell you.

And as if that weren't hard enough, we're called to clean up after them and be patient with them, and even, to love them. It's enough to make anyone who wasn't crazy go screaming from the room.

The one saving grace in all of this is Christ Himself. He enters the sanctuary quietly through the back door and bandages arms scratched bloody by fingernails, then cleans up puke with his shirt. He teases someone chewing with their mouth open and rebukes another firmly who is trying to steal someone else's drumstick. He grow furious and whips a few right out of the church with fierce lashes. Do you see him?

He is glimpsed most easily in a few of those Saints, those glorious ones who for a few minutes are getting it Right, who are riding the bicycle gracefully without wobbling. Look at those beautiful ones, eyes bright even in tears, hearts humble, hands reached out to those around them. They are the fingertips of Jesus. What type of Christian are you?

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.