LIFE RUNDOWN: I met my good friend and pastor John Lane in Coldwater, MI last Friday. It's always good to hook up with him. The bonus is that the weather was awesome (approaching 70), the rain stayed away until later in the evening and we both happened to have our golf clubs. Yeah, God wanted us to go golfing. And for more divine approval I golfed a very unofficial 91. Which is awesome for my first time out for the season.
Friday was extremely busy making up for Thursday. Saturday we drove over to Ann Arbor. Somehow my wife managed to have Carter's 3rd birthday party at Uncle Dan and Aunt Amanda's house which is genius because then we don't have to clean the house for company, or do too much of the after party clean up. But the theater down the street also shows free kids movies and 10:00 and 12:00 on Saturdays and Sundays. So we took everybody to see Jonah. We've also got the soundtrack for that movie and the Newsboys and Chris Rice both have some pretty sweet songs on there.
Speaking of sweet songs, I've got two that are favorites so far this year. Hopefully the first and last time a country song will make my favorites list, but Mark Wills has a song that's been out for a while now called Nineteen Somethin'. It's a great anthem for all of us who grew up in the 70's and 80's. Trust me, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll say, "yeah, I remember that!" The other song is Audience of One by Big Daddy Weave. Unfortunately they don't have any sheet music out on it, so I had to pick out the chords and make it work on a piano. I need to just learn guitar.
Continuing the update: Sunday morning we celebrated for the sake of celebration. Then we went to Chuck E. Cheese's to continue celebrating Carter's birthday. The pizza was the best I've tasted there, but it would never fly if it didn't have all the other games and stuff there. So I gave the kids 5 tokens each and told them to make them last while I went and blew the other 40 tokens. OK, not reallly, but the thought unfortunately crossed my mind. The rest of my week has been pretty uneventful until today.
This morning I went and played Squash for the first time in my life. My friend James, whose returning to the UK this summer, invited me to go on the premise that it's similar to Racquetball. Similar. The ball is less than half the size and it barely bounces. The racquet is longer and smaller. And like all racquet sports, the less you know about the game, the more running you'll do chasing after the ball. Needless to say, I didn't fair well. But like a good gentlemanly Brit, James managed to make me feel good about myself in the process of politely killing me. I think I'll invite him to play racquetball the next time. But I did get to sit in a jacuzzi for a bit afterwards and still managed to get home by 8:00.
I think I'll go downstairs with the preschoolers after lunch, claim a mat and take a nap. Maybe they'll have graham crackers and milk too! Naps and snacks should be standard in every work place. And when I'm president....
posted by Steve 10:55 AM
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
If you're into the dialogue on the war, Chad Canipe has a good post with a quote from Francis Schaeffer. Read the comments on it as well.
posted by Steve 12:56 PM
I think I've been avoiding the blog recently, not knowing what to talk about. The war's always a huge issue.
Again, I've been on the pacifist side for like a decade now, but I'm still dealing with the Romans 13 issue of the state's God given right to organize and maintain order. A friend reminded me of a quote I had heard a while ago, and kind of referred to a couple of days ago. Here's the paraphrase: "If your enemy has a conscience then follow Ghandi. If not, then follow Bonhoeffer." Dietrich Bonhoeffer being the Christian theologian/pastor who was imprisoned in a concentration camp for being part of a plot to assasinate Hitler. He died days before the war ended and his prison was liberated. I've still got a lot of thinking to do on it. But if I'm not a complete passifist, then I'm definitely pro this war to "preemptively" eliminate the threat of Sadam Hussein, and in fact restrain a man who has committed vast atrocities akin to Stalin, Hitler and Amin. What does it take? Is there a certain number of lives that a person must destroy to a certain heinous degree that would necessitate someone, anyone doing something about it? If nothing else, the current state of pacifism in the US is untenable, in my opinion. Unless your are a pacificist by conviction, and it permeates every area of your life, then your left with the more unsatisfactoy stance of being opposed to this war in particular. And I don't think there are very many good reasons to oppose this war for a person of any moral conviction. Certainly France, Russia and China are all dubiously tied to Iraq and Saddam particularly. But that's just what's rambling through my mind at the moment. It may change tomorrow.
It doesn't seem like anything really trivial is happening in my life right now. And to be honest, that's what I'd like to talk about at the moment. It's supposed to get up into the 60's again tomorrow. Maybe I'll be able to break out the golf clubs soon.
As a pastor, I've got this neat privilege of marrying people. For some reason, I'm legally able to pronounce a couple married. On the one hand, it's great because I get to counsel people and introduce them to God's plan for their marriage. On the other hand, it seems so foreign to what "the Body of Christ" is all about. I get people calling me, sight unseen, to do their weddings for them. And they'll pay for it. In one sense, I receive payment for spiritual/legal services rendered. What does that make me? Back to the Body analogy. It makes sense for people who are part of a faith community to want to celebrate this life long commitment to one another and make it official and declare it publicly in front of people they know and love. And it is logical to have one's spiritual parents or elders or leaders participate even lead such a celebration/ceremony. But if you're from outside that community, why would you even want to have it in some building that you'll never see again, lead by some person that you'll never see again, and pay for their services? It's meaningless! Just have some Justice of the Peace do the legal part, and go straight to the party/reception part with the people that matter to you.
OK, back to the trivial. Wings and Pistons doing awesome! Weather good. Golf very soon. Went to BW3's last night and had some awesome hot wings! Mmmmmm, food. Must lose weight so that I can look like Ned Flanders on the off chance that I need to rip off my shirt ala Groundskeeper Willy.
posted by Steve 11:06 AM
Friday, March 14, 2003
Life is good. Yesterday we (OK, Jessica) had our first ultrasound. IT'S A GIRL!! I had this sneaking suspicion.... Of course, Spencer has said he wants a sister all along. And none of us were aware that Jessica wanted to have a girl that badly until she broke down crying with joy at the announcement. So now we're looking forward to Zoe ? Thompson joining us on the outside at the end of July.
My brother-in-law, Dan and his X Box are staying with us for several days this week. We don't know why... he just showed up on our doorstep with all this luggage. No, just kidding. He's in town for a medical conference being the responsible Podiatrist that he is. And it's always a special time to do male bonding with high tech gaming equipment.
OK, I finished Gandhi, but I'm not done processing the book. I have now started The Politics of Jesus, by John Howard Yoder and The Underground History of Public Education, by Gatto. But there's a bunch of Gandhi quotes that I've still got to get off my chest.
When I asked Jawaharlal Nehru [the first president of the liberated India] what he considered the greatest contribution of Mahatma Gandhi, he replied: "Means and ends must be consistent." Acharya Kripalani named two: "That means must be consistent with ends in view and that the same moral laws which hold good for the individual hold good for the group and the nation." In this the Mahatma cuts across a great deal that goes under the form of Christian civilization, and he goes point-blank against the methods of war and the methods of communism. Both of the latter say that the end justifies the means. War and communism both will use any means that gets them to their respective golas. That is right which gets you to your goal, and that is wrong which hinders or obstructs your getting to your goal.
posted by Steve 2:34 PM
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
OFFICIAL APOLOGY: It has come to my attention (thanks to attentive and alert readers, Mom and Dad Thompson) that I may have included some offensive remarks, idioms, analogies and/or illustrations. To be perfectly honest, before I “went public” with this site, and the only reader I was aware of was Alan Creech, I included some decidedly inappropriate material for the general public. So I went back with a fine tooth comb (actually, it was the one I had in Junior High – it was white with the nice curved handle that would stick out of your back pocket and was a highly necessary accessory for young men if you wanted to look “cool.”), and actually edited out anything that I thought might be unsuitable for a generic reading audience. Evidently some things may or may not have inadvertently slipped through my not so fine-toothed comb. So, from the depths of my heart, I sincerely apologize for anything you may find offensive that leaks out into this so public of forums. Believe it or not, before “going public” I did intentionally sit down to dialogue with myself and one or two others and decided on certain rules of decorum within which I would operate. This is what prompted my going back and editing. But some stuff that I intentionally edited out was somehow readable by my parents and yet not by others. I’m not quite sure what’s taken place.
That being said, these are the things I think about and to some degree exactly how I think about them. I’m just honored that there are now a couple more than two of you who find them engaging enough to read and hopefully react to them. In fact, I don’t think I would keep this up as a practice if it weren’t a doorway into conversation with so many different people. So I invite you to react to whatever you may read, edited or unedited, with whatever thoughts and feelings I may have evoked, offended or otherwise.
OK, THAT being said, here’s another insight into me: I’m a people pleaser. My wife is routinely annoyed with my disclaimers and my constant attempts to make myself completely understood so as not to be misunderstood. I have this sorry need to be liked by everyone. In fact, I probably spend more time and energy than I care to think about in the endeavor to have everyone like me. As a matter of fact, I’m writing this whole apology with disclaimer and explanation because of several of you who are my “generalized other” that I in no way, shape or form wish to offend, and would be crushed to learn that you might “think less of me.” I don’t think it’s so much that my self worth is defined by what I think you think of me. It’s that I very much crave your approval of me.
Someone once wrote, “when you’re in your twenties, you live to please other people. When you’re in your thirties, you get tired of trying to please others, so you get miffed with them for making you worry about it. When you’re in your forties, you realize nobody was thinking about you anyway.”
I’ve finished my Gandhi book. But it’s a borrowed book so I haven’t been able to do my usual underlining and marking up a book. So I can’t find anything very easily. But here’s another good wake up call…at least for me.
The context is how to resolve the dilemma of the Gandhian way of life as it relates to the now “in power” government of India. The temptation is to employ the model of the previous ruling imperialists. But what would the spirit of non-violent civil disobedient say as it was now in control of the country and responsible for everything inherent in governing. I’ll start with Jones’s third observation.
“The Mahatma will be honored, but not followed. One of the followers of Mahatma Gandhi said as we stood in his room: ‘People will do to this room what the Christians have done to the cross. They will bedeck it with bejeweled spinning wheels and hang gold and silver about as a tribute to the man of simplicity. Just as you wear gold crosses instead of embodying the cross and making it your working force, we will do the same. We will honor the Mahatma and leave it at that.’”
And that’s pretty much what has happened in both cases.
I juxtapose that with something I read from The Spirit of the Disciplines a month ago, or so.
“We simply seem not to see what was in fact done by Jesus himself, as well as those who at his invitation rose up to seize and enter into the Kingdom of God…. This peculiar blindness causes us to reject from our lives what Jesus and Paul actually did, what they chose to live through or experience. ‘Reject’ is not too strong a term, but it is not quite accurate. To reject something, one must first consider or analyze it. But the details of Jesus’ and Paul’s daily lives, as opposed to their commands or instructions, we don’t even seem to consider, so we don’t feel called upon to accept or reject them. Such details somehow are irrelevant to any actual choices we have to make. So we say, ‘What does this long period of fasting and solitude that Jesus entered after his baptism have to do with us? We aren’t Jesus are we? And Paul’s forceful subjugation of his body may have been necessary for his work, but I am doing quite will without it, you see.’ What happens, then, is that all talk of following Jesus – or of Paul’s example of following him – is emptied of practical meaning. It does not express an actual strategy of living our day-to-day existence but at most concerns only certain special moments or articles of faith. This in turn makes it impossible for us to share experiences and consistently carry through with behavior like theirs. That behavior rested, after all, upon their experiences. And the experiences in turn resulted from how they arranged their lives. Since we do not share their behaviors, we are left with much talk about them and an occasional application of some of their language to our experience. The only way to overcome this alienation from their sort of life is by entering into the actual practices of Jesus and Paul as something essential to our life in Christ.”
I don’t have anything to add to that. It just leaves me struggling with the practical question of how to order my life.
I've been bailing a good friend out the past couple of days. Hopefully he's being admitted into a rehab right now.
Not to admit the ovbious, but God's sovereignty is a mystery. I have friends who have been freed from ALL kinds of addiction instantaneously, never to slip back into it. And then there's the vast majority. They -- or more appropriately, we -- we try and try and try, we pray and pray and pray, but end up doing the very thing we vowed we'd never do again. We pick ourselves up with all the conviction and good intentions in the world and make another go at it only to see it last a year...a couple months...a couple weeks, and the hopeless cycle repeats itself. Is there a difference between the two people? Does God act differently toward one person over against another? Is there something in the intention and will that we are unable to see or evaluate that allows for the miracle? Where's the variable?
posted by Steve 3:53 PM
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
WOO HOO! We got 8 inches of snow. I just thought I'd blog real quick before I took Spencer and Carter out sledding.
This thing is KILLING ME! First of all, I've blogged a couple of times over the weekend, and they just showed up finally this morning. Secondly, I just tried to publish a fairly lengthy post, and my connection timed out!! I've got to start writing these in Word first and then pasting them in here. Well, for the second time...
I'm consuming this book Gandhi -- Portrayal of a Friend. I'd recommend this book to anyone, if you can find it. If I included all the quotes that have been nailing me I'd be breaking copyright laws. But here's one such section from chapter 5. The setting is E. Stanley Jones's first meeting with Gandhi, and he's asked him a pointed question about what it would take for Christianity to become "naturalized" in India playing a significant part in its life and fabric, and no longer viewed as a foreign religion.
He responded with great clarity and directness: "First, I would suggest that all of you Christians, missionaries and all, must begin to live more like Jesus Christ. Second, practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down. Third, emphasize love and make it your working force, for love is central in Christianity. Fourth, study the non-Christian religions more sympathetically to find the good that is within them, in order to have a more sympathetic approach to the people."
A few days later I quote these four things to a British High Court judge, and he remarked: "That's genius. To pick out four things like that is genius." It was. for he put his finger unerringly on the four weak spots in our individual and collective lives. First of all, we were worshiping the Christ more than following him. Jesus said, "If any man serve me, let him follow me." It is possible to serve Christ and not follow him -- not follow him in Christlike living. The Mahatma need not have said anything more. The first item was quite enough! But he said a more remarkable thing in teh second: "Practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down." we don't reject it; we reduce it -- reduce it to a creed to be believed , or an emotion to be felt, or an institution to which we are to belong, or to a ceremoney or rite to be undergone -- anything but a life ot be lived! "We have inoculated the world with a mild form of Christianity so that it is now proof against the real thing."
OUCH! That hits home. And yet it's still encouraging. The core of our faith need not change and Gandhi says as much. Of course, because he said it does not make it true. But that a man who pursued and practiced truth consistently in his life, it's a pretty huge thing to say that there is no wrong or weakness in the center of our faith -- Jesus. It's in our practice.
Again, I've been convicted by this book too many times to count. But I'm struggling with the application to my life. What and how do I need to change as I've encountered truth. That's always the hardest part. We can encounter a million incredible insights or truths but if they don't fundamentally change how we live our day to day lives than they're useless. We might be able to impress our friends at Trivial Pursuit, but that's about it.
posted by Steve 4:27 PM
This is just a point of interest, I guess.
posted by Steve 8:29 PM
I just started reading Gandhi - Portrayal of a Friend by E. Stanley Jones. This book has absolutely grabbed my heart. I'm two chapters in. By virtue of this description, I don't know of another human being who has ever come this close to being like Jesus. Jesus, no matter what your background or belief system, is the most incredible person to have walked the earth -- if for no other reason than the impact he left on all of humanity. Jones describes the antitheses held perfectly in tension by Gandhi. He embodied both East and West, coming from urban elite and identifying with the rural poor, a mystical ascetic and yet a practical servant, and the list goes on.
I'd like to quote from one more of those observations on page 23.
Again, we find in Mahatma Gandhi a coming together of the passive and the militant. The man who is only passive is weak, and the man who is only militant is weak; the strong man is both. He is passively militant and militantly passive. The Mahatma was both. He was always resisting something, and yet he did it passively; hence he called it passive resistance. But only if we understand the word "passive" in its original root form, "to suffer quietly, patiently." It was resisting, not by inflicting suffering, but by taking suffering on himself. It was really not a passive resistance; it was an active resistance from a higher level. The opponent strikes you on your cheek, and you strike him on the heart by your amazing spiritual audacity in turning the other cheek. You wrest the offensive from him by refusing to take his weapons, by keeping your own and by striking him in his conscience from a higher level. He hits you physically, and you hit him spiritually.
Of course, when talking about conflict we're already thinking about the Iraq situation. And the only question that I'm dealing with at the moment is if there's a difference in the kind of oppressor that one faces. In the case of India, they worked for freedom from the tyranny of an empire with a conscience and there was a most amazing and unprecedented result. Would the same work in the face of an oppressor with no conscience?
But putting that issue aside, I'm already challenged by this man's life. I don't know how anyone can feel anything but shame in the face of such character, dignity, integrity, purpose and insight. This kind of person begs the introspective question, "what about me and my life?"
(I wrote this last Friday night, and today [Tuesday, 3/4] it still hasn't show up!!!)
