Jesus High for the Gay Guy

Pour Painting

2012-01-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

I started a new monthly art class for kids, as part of my internship at Fairfax Community Church. Our first class was this past Sunday, and we did a "Pour Painting" or "Tall Painting" art project to kick off the program. You basically take different colors of paint and then pour them on top of a pedestal that's been anchored onto some kind of platform.

I saw this first on YouTube and thought it would be a great first project for the class. Here's the video by artist Holton Rower:

It was really fun and the kids had a blast.

Next month will be "The Art of Storytelling," where we'll incorporate visuals and dance in telling the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert.

Abraham Lincoln's Profile in the Mountains

2012-01-04T14:59:00.000-08:00

If you ever find yourself on the 23 freeway driving down towards the 101, you may notice the profile of a pretty well-known United States president in the mountain range in front of you. I remember many a morning, driving down this freeway on my way to work, seeing the profile, and saying, "Morning, Abe!" It became a favorite ritual of mine, and I would always try to point it out if there were people in the car with me.

I wondered if other people had ever noticed this before, and so I tried to do a Google search, but I came up empty-handed. So, since I think this profile in the mountain thing is pretty cool, I went for a drive today and tried to find a spot where I could take a good picture of it. Now, a picture cannot compare to the real thing, and I don't have the best camera in the world, but I think the pictures came out okay.

For some reason, the pictures came out kind of flat, so it seems like Abe is turning away from you, but I still think it looks like him.

What do you think?

Liturgical Art

2011-12-14T15:32:00.000-08:00

I just finished putting up the liturgical art for the season at Fairfax Community Church, where I'm doing one of my internship. The pastor, Rev. Katharine Harts, wanted some kind of structure that we could hang things off of, sort of like a wooden grid, but not ugly like a grid. As I was perusing the items at Goodwill for inspiration, I had the idea that a large branch would be perfect! But, it had to be the right size and have a pleasing shape. Where to find such a branch?

The next time I ran into Katharine, I told her about my idea, and she told me that a moving van had just hit one of the trees in the parking lot the day before and broken off one of the branches! She took me outside to go look at it, and they were perfect! There was a nice big one that we could hang in the middle of the chancel, and two slightly smaller ones we could hang off to the sides. We figured out when the moving van must have hit the tree, and we realized that it was right when the idea had come to me to use branches! It's one of those weird coincidences that I have a hard time believing is just a coincidence. Sometimes, God has a strange sense of humor.

Anyway, I finished hanging everything up today, and I think it turned out very nice! The pictures don't do that great of a job conveying how the artwork occupies the space, so if you want to see what it really looks like, stop by for a Sunday morning worship service sometime this month!

I'm Looking

2011-12-05T18:52:00.000-08:00

I'm looking for you,

But you're hiding.

It would be one thing if you knew you were doing it,

But you don't,

Because you don't know that I'm looking.

You don't know that I'm looking,

Because I haven't told you,

Because when you were there,

I hadn't realized that I'd found you.

You were there,

And then you weren't.

But, for a moment,

You were there.

And, I wish I had known then,

That I was looking for you,

But I didn't,

Because I hadn't told myself,

That I was looking,

Because that would have been too scary.

Not that I'd know what to say if I found you.

"Hi," maybe,

Or, "So nice to see you again."

"Such nice weather we're having today."

Because, it's important that you don't know,

That I've been looking,

Because I'm afraid that is would change somehow.

It's the coward's way out,

It's why you don't know,

And why you may never,

Ever,

Know,

That I've been looking.

Eat the Crumbs

2011-08-16T01:47:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, I listened to someone tell the story of a church in Seattle called Northshore that was trying to help some of the homeless people in the area. A lot of these homeless people were living in a tent city, and the law required that this tent city be moved every 90 days. The place that the tent city was going to move to next backed out at the last minute, and so the people at Northshore decided that they needed to step in to help, and so they submitted paperwork to the city in order to get a permit. What they didn't know was that about a month prior to that, the city had put a moratorium on these permits and refused to even look at their application.

So the people at Northshore had to make a choice. They could follow the law, and not get into any trouble. Or they could follow their hearts, and offer the people living in the tent city a safe place to stay, so that they wouldn't have to go back out onto the streets. They decided that the only real choice they had was to help. And so, they welcomed the tent city onto their property, even though they didn’t have a permit for it. And, as they feared, the city filed a lawsuit against them. The superior court ruled in favor of the city, and the city was awarded damages which totaled more than the entire operating budget of the church. There is often a price to pay when you openly disregard those in authority.

We learn this at a very young age as we battle with our parents over our bedtimes and the foods they try to make us eat, our allowances and curfews. As children, we have to do as we're told, or else suffer the consequences: being sent to bed without supper, having our allowance taken away or not being allowed to hang out with our friends. As we go through our lives, we have to learn how to deal with teachers and principals, supervisors at our jobs and sometimes the cops. And of course, there is the ultimate authority figure of all.

Our gospel reading today describes one such encounter with that divine authority. A Canaanite woman is asking Jesus to help her because her daughter is being tormented by a demon. His disciples wanted her sent away, she was bothering them and she was after all, a Canaanite, a foreigner. And here is where the text gets tricky. A lot of people don't like this part, and I have to admit that I had and still have difficulty with this part of the text. Jesus says, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. Can you believe that? What kind of answer is that? It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. It's no wonder that many scholars question if this scene is historical at all, if Jesus ever said anything like this. Not only is he refusing to help this woman, he insults her! He calls her a dog!

After hearing Jesus say this shocking and insulting statement, she answers him. I mean, who wouldn't respond to something like that? But, she responds with humility. She says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." She is humble in her reply, and yet she is still pushing back. She doesn't just take what Jesus says sitting down. She's not going to just let him call her a dog! She knows who she is; she is a beloved child of God, just as worthy of God's saving grace as the other men in the room, the Israelites, the Isrealites that are asking Jesus to send her away.

This story reminds me of the story of Abraham and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sin, but for some reason, God decided to tell Abraham about it first. Abraham wonders if completely destroying two entire cities is such a good idea, after all there could be some innocent people living there. And so, he asks God, "Are you going to destroy the cities, even if there are 50 innocent people there?" God tells him that if there are 50 innocent people, the cities will not be destroyed.

Abraham thinks about this for a few seconds, then asks, "What if there are 45 innocent people?"

God says, "If there are 45 innocent people, I will not destroy the cities."

Abraham mulls it over, then asks, "If there are only 40 innocent people, will you destroy the cities?"

In this story, God has taken the form of a man and is actually standing there talking to Abraham, so you can picture God, however it is that you picture God, shaking his head and smiling at Abraham indulgently, like a parent would smile at a child. "No Abraham, if I find only 40 innocent people, the cities will not be destroyed."

"30 people?"

"No."

"20 people?"

"Nope."

"10 people?"

"If I find but 10 innocent people, the cities will not be destroyed."

Apparently, this answer was good enough for Abraham, because he stops bargaining with God after 10. The point of this is that Abraham had a strong enough sense of who he was in relation to God that he could challenge God's decision, give his own opinion on the situation and expect that God would take his opinion into consideration.

I remember one of my professors saying that Abraham's act was the defining moment in Jewish history, when the Jewish people established themselves as Jews, when they established their relationship with God. Abraham had the gumption, the courage, enough sense of himself that he felt he could essentially talk back to God, to have a dialogue with God on a level that no one had ever had before. You could say that this was the moment that he became Jewish.

See, God wants to be in relationship with us. There's a lot going on in these two stories. We could talk about the nature of God or whether or not these events actually took place. We could argue about whether or not God might have known ahead of time how Abraham or the Canaanite woman were going to respond. We even might wonder if these stories are allegories for the way that God tests us. What I do know is that these stories are about relationship.

God does not expect or require blind servitude. God gave us free-will, so that we could make our own decisions, so that we could choose to love God and follow God's laws, or to choose a different path, even if that would mean breaking God's heart. God gives us that choice.

And, God gave us brains to reason with, so that we could think things through, to weigh the merits of one action over another, one choice over another. So that we could out figure what all the possible consequences of our actions might be. So that we can take a rule, or a law or a decree and figure out whether or not it's right or wrong, good or bad, or perhaps, somewhere in between. And, that is usually the case with things that are difficult. There are often no easy answers in the decisions that we make in our lives.

So, how do we choose when there is no clear-cut answer? We have to rely on our relationships, our relationships with God and with each other. We have to make the choices that will make our relationships stronger with each other. Not just with the people that we know, our friends and family, neighbors and colleagues, the people that we go to church with and the people of our race, nation or tongue. We have to make the choices that will strengthen our relationships with all of humanity; the choices that will ultimately strengthen our relationships with God.

See, when the Canaanite woman said that the dogs eat the crumbs that fall off the master's table, she was not trying to interfere with Jesus's relationship with the people of Israel. She just wanted to be a part of it. She was willing to take the smallest of crumbs, because she knew that it would be enough. Don't forget that these are God's crumbs. God's crumbs are more than we could ever need. They are more than enough. And, this woman understood that. She did not want Jesus to spend less time with "the lost sheep of Israel," to do anything that might hinder his relationship with them.

But, she knew that in Jesus, there is more than enough to go around. And, above all, she knew that she was just as worthy as they to receive it. So, she said that she would take the crumbs. And, Jesus immediately answers her with joy! He says, "Woman, great is your faith! Your daughter is healed! By your faith, your daughter is healed."

The people of Northshore made a choice that showed their faith in God. They chose to honor their relationships with God and humanity by helping the homeless people of Seattle. They allowed the tent city to move onto their property, even though they knew that they were going to get into trouble. And, they received a judgment against them that they could never hope to pay. And, for the next three years, as they fought against this judgment, they didn't know whether or not the church was going to survive. They had to come to terms with the fact that Northshore might not be around anymore. But, they went through with it, because they had to do what they felt was right, what God was calling them to do. They had to be good neighbors to their fellow human beings. They had to honor, and foster, and strengthen those relationships. And, they had to create new relationships where there were previously none.

The state supreme court eventually ruled in favor of Northshore, saying that the church had the right to exercise their religious freedom on their own property. And in 2010, new legislation went into effect in an effort to prevent something like this from ever happening again. Local government could no longer prevent a religious organization from getting a permit in this way. The hope was that these new laws would help local governments and religious organizations resolve their conflicts over services provided to the homeless without resorting to litigation. The relationship is changing, and it's changing for the better. And, it can all be traced back to that single act of compassion by the Northshore congregation.

As human beings, we have to question things that we think are wrong. We cannot blindly follow laws because "that's the way that it's always been" or because "whoever's in charge told me so." God gave us reason and free will, and wants to live in relationship with us. God wants to know how we feel about things. I'm not telling you to openly defy God whenever the mood strikes, but if there is something going on that you don't agree with, approach God in prayer, humbly and with the faith and understanding that God loves you. Question God the way that Abraham and the Canaanite woman questioned God, with humility and love in your heart, and listen to what God has to say. God wants to live in relationship with us, because that is the nature of God. God exists as three persons, all living in harmony. God's existence is based in relationship, and God wants to share the wonder and the love and the beauty of that with us. So, love God. Question God. And, live in relationship with God and with each other. Amen.

Ghosts from the Past

2011-07-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

I you're reading this blog, you are probably aware of what happened to me last Fall. Just to rehash, I left the PCUSA because the congregation that was sponsoring me decided that they could no longer back me because of our fundamentally different theological views on homosexuality. Even though the PCUSA is beginning to move away from that direction, I no longer felt comfortable participating in a denomination whose governmental structure allowed so many people to remain in a state of oppression for so long.

I sent an email letting Santa Barbara Presbytery and the congregation that was supporting me know that I was leaving the PCUSA. After a few emails back and forth with both parties, I came to a point where I simply could not allow them to hurt me anymore, and so I left the last email from each of them unread in my inbox for the last 7 months.

I finally read them today, and they were just as insulting and close-minded as I had expected them to be. There are two main problems here, and I don't know if there are any solutions for them. The first is that there are still a great many people in this world that believe homosexuality is a choice. I don't understand why this belief has persisted for so long, perhaps because being gay just opens so many doors for people and ensures your instant celebrity status, but it just isn't true. Given the way so much of the world views homosexuals, what possible advantage could a person possibly gain by choosing to be gay? Is it rebelliousness for rebellion's sake? A repressed belief that my life deserves to suck, or that I'm subconsciously hoping that somebody gay-bashes me or kills me? Please, somebody explain this belief to me so that I can become one of the enlightened.

The other problem, and this one is probably the more difficult one, is the very legalistic take on Christianity that quite a few people in the Christian community have. Without getting into a huge theological debate on this, the part that specifically applies to this situation is that these people don't care whether homosexuality is a choice or not. If it is a choice, it is obviously wrong. If it is not a choice, then is is something akin to a birth defect or mental disorder that needs to be corrected, lest a person fall to homosexual sin and be condemned to the fiery pits of Hell. I think an excerpt from one of the emails that I got could best explain this:

"It is devastating to confront the possibility that the great desire of our heart may in fact be simply a false and misshapened idol. You feel now that this church has not shown grace to you. But what kind grace would let you go unwarned into danger to your soul? You may disagree with the perceived danger. So be it. You may find another avenue for Christian service. God will use you as He pleases. But please do not proceed without understanding that true grace often comes in the form of opposition, and that it is a dangerous thing to follow only the counsels of our own heart.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it? (Jer 17:9)"

My understanding of Christianity is not legalistic. I think Jesus came to us to teach us how to love each other, not how to judge each other. Oh, well. To each their own.

So, there it is. I am going to do my best and try to put this business behind me because I just don't have the energy for it anymore. I'll be joining the United Church of Christ (UCC) next month where I will hopefully not run into any people who try to make me feel less that human, that my sin is somehow greater than theirs. This isn't to say that the UCC is perfect, only that I will hopefully have to deal with this particular brand of evil a whole lot less. To all who remain in the PCUSA, I wish you the best of luck, and I sincerely mean that. This was simply not my fight, and I hope you can all understand.

Oh, For a Bowl of Soup

2011-07-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

Here's the sermon I preached last Sunday at the church where I'm doing my internship while the pastor was on vacation. She's not back until Monday, I get to preach again this coming Sunday as well. The sermon went well, but I got a little lost in the bulletin in the middle of service. Oh well, you live, you learn...

Oh, For a Bowl of Soup

For pretty much my entire childhood, I hated school. Part of it was just that I thought it was boring; I hated being trapped in a classroom all day. And, knowing that I had absolutely no control over how I got to spend my days was annoying. And then there was the homework; I hated homework, even though I never actually did it. And, this caused a lot of problems for me as a kid: this not doing my homework thing. I couldn’t answer the teacher’s questions about it and then I would get all embarrassed. A lot of times, I couldn’t go to recess because the teacher would have me sit at the lunch tables doing my homework from the night before, while all the other kids got to run around and play.

I would get in some serious trouble for it, too. My dad was old school, so when the teachers sent home notes about me not doing my work, or my report card came, which would always be C’s and D’s, out came the belt. Now, I do not in any way approve of disciplining children this way, but I have to admit that I probably deserved to get some kind of punishment for my behavior back then.

But, it never worked as motivation for me to actually do my homework. I was more interested in playing outside with my brothers or reading or drawing or any of the thousands of things that kids can do when they just don’t want to do their homework. I remember one time when the report cards came, in order to avoid the punishment that I knew was coming, I convinced my brother and sister that we should burn the report cards in the fireplace, because I had gotten C’s again. My sister, who always got straight A’s and never got into any kind of trouble at all, was not happy about this, but she agreed to go along with it, because she didn’t want me to get into trouble either. To this day, my parents have no idea that we used the living room fireplace to destroy evidence of my academic failure.

About the time I got to junior high, something changed and I actually started to care about the grades that I got. I started getting A’s and B’s, but I still didn’t really like school. It was also about this time that I started getting the feeling that God maybe wanted me to go into ministry. Now, this is kind of a problem for someone who doesn’t like school. In order to become a minister in most of the Reformed traditions, you need to get a bachelors degree and then you have to get a Masters of Divinity. That’s eight years of school! Eight years of school, on top of the already thirteen years of school that are required by law. That’s twenty-one years of school! For someone who doesn’t want to go to school in the first place, that’s asking a lot.

So I had a very frank discussion with God about this, and I said, “No way! No way are you making me go to school for eight more years!” I didn’t want to do it! I did what any self-respecting person in denial would do. I decided to interpret God’s call in a way that would better fit into how I wanted to live my life. God didn’t really want me to become a minister. God just wanted me to be in ministry. I can be involved in ministry in so many different ways! What God really wanted was for me to be active in the church, to spread the message of God’s love, to reach out to people in need. I decided that’s what God was asking me to do. I didn’t need to go to seminary for that!

Because, that’s what we do when we come up against the wisdom of God. It’s so different from what we understand; it’s so alien to us! We negotiate, even though we know, deep down inside, that we are absolutely wrong. We somehow manage to convince ourselves that we know better than God. Because God’s way is not our way.

When Isaac’s wife Rebekah became pregnant with twins, the babies where wrestling around inside of her, rolling around this way and that way, using her insides as a boxing ring. She prayed to God, “Why? Why is this happening to me?” And God said to her, “There are two nations in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”

The older will serve the younger? That’s not right. We all know that it’s the firstborn that has the special status. It’s the firstborn that inherits the largest portion of the estate when the parents are gone. All throughout the world, throughout the history of the human race, with only a few exceptions, it has always been the firstborn son that basically got everything. No matter what a person’s culture, religion or ethnicity was, this was just the way things worked. The oldest would get most of the sheep from the flock or cows from the herd. The oldest would get most, if not all of the land. The family trade would get passed down from firstborn son to firstborn son, generation after generation of bakers, carpenters and tailors. Even kingdoms and empires would get passed down this way.

So, imagine Rebekah’s surprise when God tells her that the older will serve the younger. That just wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. You see, it kind of makes sense that we’ve adopted these traditions of the oldest inheriting everything. The firstborn would start learning the family trade as soon as they were old enough and would help to teach any younger children that came along after. Even while the parents were still alive, the oldest child would have a lot of responsibility.

As an oldest child myself, I happen to know some of things that oldest children have to put up with. A lot of times, I felt like my parents didn’t really know what they were doing when they were trying to raise me, like I was some kind of experiment. They were really strict with me and I had to practically beg to do anything fun. But, by the time my youngest brother came around, they had pretty much figured everything out. By then, they had seen it all, and the crazy things that kids do just didn’t faze them anymore. My youngest brother also had two older brothers and an older sister to look after him. He pretty much got away with whatever he wanted to. He wasn’t taught responsibility!

For three separate individuals, I had some kind of responsibility for them. None of my siblings can say that. In a lot of ways, it’s as true today as it was in the past that the oldest is responsible for taking care of the family. It’s part of our tradition; it’s part of what is expected. And even if we don’t agree with it, we still need to understand it and know that it’s part of our cultural make-up, and that it influences the decisions that we make and the things that we do.

Of course, times are different now, and we don’t always follow the traditions of the oldest getting everything. But, back in the days of Isaac and Rebekah, that was the rule. And when Rebekah’s twin sons were born, it was a very close race. When the older son, Esau, was born, his younger brother, Jacob, was holding onto his foot. They were literally seconds apart. But still, one was the oldest, and the other was not. As they grew, each boy developed different skills. Esau became a great hunter, and Isaac was so proud of him because he would bring home wild game. Jacob, on the other hand, tended to stay at home with his mother and help with the household chores.

One day, Esau came back from hunting, hungry and Jacob was cooking some stew. Esau was so hungry that he sold away his birthright for a single bowl of the stew that Jacob was cooking. All of the rights and privileges that he enjoyed as the firstborn son, gone with the dip of a spoon and a swipe of crusty bread. And here’s the thing that Isaac and Rebekah could never have foreseen when the two boys were born. That Esau could be so reckless with his future.

Of course it’s possible that he was just so hungry that he couldn’t think straight. Or, maybe he thought that his brother was just kidding around, or wouldn’t hold him to his word later, because it was after all, it was just a bowl of soup. Or maybe Esau just wasn’t very bright and he actually thought that it was a fair trade. He does say at one point that his inheritance will do him no good if he starves to death. Either way, what God had told Rebekah when the two boys were still wrestling around inside of her, came to pass. “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” According to biblical tradition, Esau eventually went on to become the ancestor of the Edomites. And, the Edomites were eventually defeated by King David, who was one of Jacob’s descendents, and the Edomites had to live under King David’s rule, and the rule of his son Solomon, after him. The older will serve the younger.

So here we are today, and I think it is quite obvious what happened to me. I spent a lot of time running away from seminary, trying to find other ways to serve God. I did youth group for seven years, thinking that it was a perfectly acceptable ministry. And it is, youth ministry is as much a ministry as any other. But, that’s not what I was destined for. I had a bakery for a while, thinking that if I was successful at that, I would be able to give lots of money to the church. That didn’t pan out. Then, one day, my pastor asked me to go through a lay leader-training program. It was a one-year intensive program, one eight-hour Saturday a month. They were basically trying to condense seminary down into twelve days, with a month’s worth of independent study in between. I jumped at this, because I knew it was my last chance to avoid going to seminary.

By that point, I had been out of school for seven years. And in that time, God had changed me. God had instilled in me a love of learning that was impossible to ignore. I didn’t hate it anymore. And so, as much as I had fought it, I went back to school. I first had to finish two years of undergrad, but I finally made it here, and I just finished my second year of seminary. It’s hard. I have to sit in classrooms all the time, and I have way more homework than is even possible for me to do. But, I’m happy, because God knows me better than I know myself, and God knew that seminary is where I was supposed to be, even if I thought that couldn’t possibly be right. God’s way is not our way. God’s way is the best way. And, learning to trust that can be hard. But, somehow, some way, God will get us there. God will always get us there. Amen.

Small and Mighty

2011-06-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

I preached my first sermon at Christ Lutheran today. It went pretty well, but in retrospect, I kind of wish I had spent more time revising my sermon.

Small and Mighty

The Mainline Protestant denominations are in decline. If you were to look at membership numbers for the last few decades, you would see that there have been significant drops in the size of the Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ, the Methodists, the Lutherans, and yes even the Baptists. Our world is changing, and this has many church leaders worried. They’ve begun asking questions like, What is happening to us? Is there anything we can do about it? Will there be a future for the church?

It used to be that the church was the center of the community. Every neighborhood would have its own little neighborhood church, and this was the place where everyone would gather every Sunday. People would have picnics there, bake sales, cub scout and brownie meetings. Maybe you would go there Wednesday nights for Bible study. More and more, we see churches standing empty during the week. And on Sunday mornings, we sometimes struggle to fill the pews.

There has been a shift in the way people see the church. It used to be expected that people would go to church every Sunday. Nowadays, instead of going to church, men and women will put in extra hours at the office. Parents take their children to soccer games that have been thoughtlessly scheduled during that time when most people used to be in worship, and chores that have been accumulating throughout the week are being taken care of on what was once considered a holy day. For many people in today’s society, this is a completely normal thing to do.

We like to talk about the good old days, and how many people used to take part in church life. I remember one time when I was in youth group, some friends and I were looking through the books in the church library and we came across some photo albums. So, of course, we opened them and started looking at the pictures. We passed them around, and made fun of the clothes that people used to wear. We tried to find people that we might know. There was a funny tension in the church library that day, a kind of heaviness almost. It was hard to look at those pictures, those little windows to the past and see how vibrant and full of life the church used to be.

The pictures were from different events that the church had had over the years, going back to the 70s, maybe even before that. In one of the pictures, the church courtyard was filled with tables and every chair was full. There were streamers and balloons and lots and lots of food. There were young families, and elderly couples. There were even a few babies. There were probably over 400 people at that potluck or barbeque or whatever it was. Everyone looked so happy. They were part of something. They were part of something big.

This problem that we face, of a church in decline, is not new. I can’t even tell you how many meetings that I’ve been in where the discussion eventually came around to this idea that church is dying. But, nobody knows what to do. We talk about it and talk about it, but we don’t know what to do about it. There aren’t any answers out there. You can read studies and reports, and examine the issue until you’re blue in the face, but these studies just don’t show us how to fix it.

It’s hard, this feeling of helplessness. This isn’t what we expect the church to be like. We come to church to worship God, and if church is really what God wants us to do, if that is really where we’re all supposed to be on Sunday mornings, why is church membership declining? Why isn’t God doing something about it?

It’s kind of like the question that Jesus’ followers ask him right before he ascends to heaven. “Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” They didn’t get it. They still didn’t understand what Jesus was doing. See, when they thought of a Messiah, they imagined a warrior king that was gonna take back the kingdom of Israel for the Israelites. They wanted their independence. They were tired of living under somebody else’s laws. They wanted a Messiah that was gonna lead their armies and rain destruction down upon their enemies. They couldn’t imagine the radically different idea of Jesus saving us from our sin through love.

It wasn’t only that the idea was too foreign or too different for them to understand. It was the fact that this idea was something radically new, something that they had never heard of before, something they’d never thought of or imagined. Jesus had to explain it to them over and over again throughout his life, and still, even at the end, right when he is about to leave, they ask him, “Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

So Jesus answers them, saying, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” God was going to restore the kingdom. But, God was not going to restore the kingdom by the sword, the way that the disciples expected. God was going to restore the kingdom, the world, in the way that God intended. God was going to restore the world with love, and God was going to use them to spread that message of love to the ends of the earth.

That message has been going around for a few thousand years now, and that message has already changed the world. It’s still out there, going from person, to person, to person. God is still doing the good work, and God is still using faithful people to bear witness to the message.

So, how do we at Christ Lutheran witness to the people of the world? I am new here, but already I have heard so many beautiful stories about the work that you have done here. I have heard about the money that you collected to help provide disaster relief. I have heard about the food distribution that you did to help feed the less fortunate people in the neighborhood. I have heard about the warming shelter program that you participated in to provide food and shelter for homeless women. I have heard the message of love that is being broadcast from this church. These are mighty works and I know that God is here and that God is using this congregation to restore the kingdom.

This group may be small, but it is mighty. Don’t forget that the Israelites were a small tribe. Just look at what God did through them. They interacted with God in way that God had never interacted with a group of people before, and as time went by, those stories of how God worked through that tiny desert tribe were passed down from generation to generation, as they tried to figure out who God was and what God meant to them. Eventually, those stories were written down, and today, thousands of years later, we have books of the Old Testament.

And then, when it came time for the big reveal of God’s plan, once again, God went to the Israelites, who were still a small desert tribe, and through them, came into the world as flesh and bone. Jesus was born as a human being, whose life, and death and resurrection led to even more stories, and more writings that irreversibly changed the hearts and minds of a few Jewish people giving rise to the faith tradition that we call Christianity today. The Jewish people have always been a small tribe, but it didn’t matter, because they were a people of faith, and God decided to work through them.

People are always longing to be part of something. We get all wrapped up in the excitement of participating in something we know that a lot of people are gonna be part of. We want to be part of something that people are going to remember, we want to be part of something that people are gonna talk about at the water cooler, we want to be part of something that could change the world. Well, I have news for you. We are part of something. We are part of something big. We are part of something huge! It’s the biggest thing that has ever happened in the history of the planet.

So, while the talk continues over how the Mainline Protestant denominations are shrinking, I want you to take a look at what you’ve done. God is active in this church. God is living in this community and radiating outwards into the streets of Fairfax. God’s love is pouring out from these pews and meeting those people in the streets that need God’s love the most. You are all the messengers of God’s love. You are small, and you are mighty, and you belong to God.

Amen.

Let Us Rejoice (2nd 15 Minute Sermon)

2011-05-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

We, as a nation, set our sights on killing a man. On Sunday night, we accomplished that goal. Osama bin Laden is dead, and with his death comes a sense of relief, a sense of peace, a sense that justice has been done. For some, there is a sense of joy, a sense of celebration, a sense of accomplishment. We killed a man. This is the week that we killed Osama bin Laden, let us rejoice, and be glad in it.

I don’t want you to misunderstand my words or my tone; I understand the deep need that we felt as a nation to dispose of this human being. Yes, Osama bin Laden was a human being, but he was a human being that had gone so far off the rails of what it meant to be a human being that he just wasn’t safe to keep around anymore.

And so, with the hard work of countless individuals, years of planning, gathering intelligence, risking lives upon lives upon lives, we finally found out where he was, and we killed him. Let us rejoice.

There are people rejoicing. All around the world, people are raising their hands to the sky, screaming Halleluiah! Praise God because we finally did it! We finally got the man responsible for all of the deaths of September 11^th. One woman who was the mother of one of the firefighters that died at the World Trade Center said that she knew that her son was cheering in heaven when Osama bin Laden was killed. Cheering in heaven over a person’s death. That’s what she believes. Now, I’m not claiming to have all of the answers, but I have a hard time believing that anyone in heaven would be cheering anytime another person dies. Death is a tragedy; death is always a tragedy.

But, even though I might not agree with rejoicing over another person’s death, I am forced to acknowledge the horror that was September 11th. The thousands of people that died at the World Trade Center. Those people that died at the Pentagon. The brave souls of United Flight 93, who crashed their plane into a field in Pennsylvania before the men who hijacked it could crash it into our nation’s capital. I was just so senseless! The complete disregard for human life. The utterly warped beliefs of the men who hijacked the planes. I will never understand it. I just can’t get over the level of hatred these men must have felt to do these horrific deeds. What could drive them to hate us so much that they would willingly, joyfully, enthusiastically sacrifice their own lives to rob us of ours?

It’s one of the oldest sins in the world. It’s a sin that blinds us. It blinds us to the truth. That blinds us to common sense. It blinds us to our conscience, to compassion, to the whisperings of our soul that keep us close to God. That keep us human. It’s the worship of the tribe, the belief that only those who look like you and talk like you, and perhaps most importantly believe what you believe, are the only people that you can trust. The only people that you can be around. The only people that you can allow to live. Worship of the tribe. What it boils down to is worship of the self. It’s pride; it’s the deadliest sin in disguise.

Osama bin Laden and the men that hijacked those planes were worshipping their tribe instead of God. They held God’s love at a distance, and in doing so warped their view of the world. They could no longer see us as people, as brothers and sisters, as parents and children and friends.

We became demons to them. They couldn’t accept us and how different we were, and so they took it upon themselves to destroy us. And so, we set out to destroy them. An eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth, just like the Bible says. Or does it?

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, chapter 3, verses 9-13, he writes, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator, where there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as Christ has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.”

Paul is urging the Colossians to put the old ways behind them, the old legalistic ways of keeping the tribe separate from everybody else. Paul explains that there is a new way. He tells them that Christ is all and in all. He tells them that all people are God’s people.

It’s a message that’s told over and over again in the Bible. But, it’s a message that needs to be told over and over again, because our natural tendency as human beings is to separate ourselves into tribes, into groups of us and groups of them. We have no problem pitting tribe against tribe, Protestant against Catholic, North against South, Christian against Muslim.

This conflict isn’t about Christians and Muslims. It’s about a nation defending itself against an extremist terrorist group. This extremist group has killed Muslims as well, but people keep forgetting that. Because it’s so much easier to blame this huge group of people for the actions of a few. It’s not because we’re lazy. It’s because we will latch onto any reason that will give us an excuse to hurt another tribe. It’s in our nature; it’s written on our sinful DNA. Protect the tribe! The tribe must survive! Kill all outsiders!

And so, we set out to kill Osama bin Laden. To protect the tribe. A lot of people say that we should have brought bin Laden in alive so that we could try him in court, make him face his crimes.

I think agree with that, only I don’t know how realistic that is. I have to believe that Osama wasn’t a person that was going to just come along quietly. I wouldn’t be surprised if the only outcome of any attempt to bring him to justice would end up with him being dead. I just wish that wasn’t the way it had to be. Because I really do understand, that’s just the way that it is.

Only it’s not supposed to be this way. The world isn’t supposed to be this way. This isn’t supposed to be an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth world. Paul tried to give us a hint of what the world is supposed to be. What the world could be, if only we could trust God and let the world be the way it’s supposed to be.

The world the way it’s supposed to be is a world were we can talk about our problems. There are no terrorists in this world. There is no need to protect the tribe, because we can all trust that God will protect us and provide for us, not to mention that there is only going to be one tribe, which will be comprised of everyone.

But, I want to let you in on a little secret. We already are all one family under God now. These labels that we use to divide ourselves, these boxes that we put ourselves in, they are not real. Anything that keeps us separated from each other, keeps us separated from God and is not of God. We need to let God tear down these walls so that we can see each other for who we really are. So that we don’t go flying planes into buildings. So that we don’t rejoice when another human being dies.

Death is a tragedy. Death, even when it seems like it might be necessary, is always a tragedy. It’s lost possibility, the removal of any chance for that person to ever do good, and the removal of any chance that someone might do good to that person and perhaps change the world. And so, I do not rejoice over the death of Osama bin Laden. He was a terrible man. He did terrible things. And now that he is dead, I know there are millions of people who will sleep better at night, knowing that he is not around anymore to plot some crazy scheme that ends up with thousands of people dead. As for me, I too have to admit that the world does feel a little bit safer without him in it. And so I am relieved to not have to worry about him anymore. But I will grieve for the world that made him into the man that he was, and I will grieve for the world that had to kill him. This isn’t the way the world is supposed to be.

Ordinary People (15 Minute Sermon)

2011-04-23T01:17:00.000-07:00

I preached this sermon yesterday in class. It's the same one that I preached for the preaching contest. The theme is that although none of us is perfect, God can still use us to do miraculous things. God must have realized that although I wrote the sermon, I had yet to learn the lesson, and so proceeded to make two of the pages stick together in the middle of my sermon delivery, prompting several seconds of awkwardly frustrating silence. This, however, was not as bad as the fact that the final page was missing.

Afterwards, the substitute professor asked about my strange interpretation of the text, which, to be fair, is a legitimate question. I told her that I had not been able to find any information on the particular verse I was working with, and she told us that if we are going to go with an unusual interpretation, we should first find 3 sources that agree with the way we are interpreting it. In some ways, I appreciate this Presbyterian "gate-keeper" mentality, as it prevents preachers from going off the wall by delivering sermons about men "pissing on the wall," but after careful consideration, I would have to disagree with her assessment. What she basically said is that the Bible has nothing new to tell us. I'm sure that isn't what she meant to say, but if you must find three sources to back up your interpretation of the Bible, that means everything we can learn from the Bible has already been discovered, and I don't think you could be further from the truth. I personally think that the Holy Spirit is working in us every single time we read the Bible, and especially so when we are preparing sermons.

Anyway, here it is, its full-length glory. I had to start winging it after "David wasn't perfect, but David loved God." Everyone said they would never have known the last page was missing if I hadn't told them, but I know the sermon suffered pretty significantly because of its absence. Oh well. As God seems keen to point out to me, I'm not perfect. But, that's okay.

Ordinary People

When I first started to work on this sermon, I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed in myself. To help you understand why I was so disappointed in myself, I have to take you back to the beginning of this process and highlight some of the things that happened along the way to bring us here today.

The first thing I had to do was find a text, and I found myself being drawn to Psalm 23. Now, I was hesitant at first, because my last sermon was on a Psalm and I didn't want to fall into some kind of pattern, but the more I thought about it, the more it felt like the right text, so I got to work. I got out my tools, my Hebrew Bible, my Hebrew Dictionary, my Hebrew grammar book, all excited 'cause I was gonna do this right!

Now, a lot of people don't really see the value in preparing for a sermon in this way, anymore. After all, we have dozens of English translations available to us now, many available on the Internet. There's Bible programs and websites that basically translate the passages for you; all you have to do is click a button, and it's done. The translations come with definitions for different Greek and Hebrew words, there's parsing for the verbs, sometimes the nouns. There's even references to other biblical texts related to the ones you're looking at, and commentaries to explain to you what other scholars have pulled form the texts in the past. Why not rely on all of this when there's just so much available?

But, there's something about the original language that still intrigues me. If there's one thing I remember from my language classes, it's that when you translate something from one language to another, there's always something that gets lost. There's always those subtle nuances and culturally specific connotations that just can't be translated. And on top of that, I don't like feeling like I have to rely on another person's work to figure out what the Bible says. I mean, that's a big part of why I came to seminary, so that I could rely on myself, to figure out on my own what the Bible says. I don't wanna use someone else's work and just hop that I'm not being lead astray by someone who might have some kind of agenda, or who might have a radically different theology than me, or maybe even worse, someone that just got it wrong.

So when I started to work on this sermon, I opened my Hebrew Bible, and I started flipping through the pages to find the Psalms. And, I'm flipping through the pages, and flipping through the pages, and flipping through the pages, and I'm not finding it, and I finally get to the end, and the heading at the top says, "Genesis?" And, I blink a few times and shake my head because isn't Genesis supposed to be at the front?

And then, I remember. Hebrew doesn't read left to right, it reads from right to left! I had just flipped through the entire book, not to the end, but to the beginning! This did not bode well for me. See, it's been almost a year since I've done any real work with the Hebrew, and over a year since the actual language classes themselves. I remember, on the last day of class, my professor begging us to keep on top of it by translating just one verse a day. just one verse a day! I think she said it knowing it just wasn't gonna happen, but you know, it's kind of her job to try to get us to be the best biblical scholars we can be, so she had to say it. It probably won't come as much of a surprise to any of you, but most of us didn't listen to her advice. And, I'm paying for it now.

I really struggled to translate the Hebrew text into English, and I was even using one of the free websites that do most of the work for yo. It just wasn't coming to me! What you need to understand is that I was really good at Hebrew. I mean really good! I helped other people study. I go t A's on all the exams. I loved Hebrew! There's just something so magical about the Hebrew language! I felt like an explorer discovering new things whenever I dove into the Hebrew text. I just loved it!

So, as I started preparing for this sermon, I could feel this sense of dread settling over me, this feeling of helplessness, hopelessness as I struggled with the language that I had loved so much. Did I really go through an entire year of Hebrew, only to lose it all? I mean, if that's what happens, that what's the point? Why even bother taking the classes at all if just a year later, I won't be able to remember anything that could actually help me? I was so disappointed in myself, all I could do was shake my head in disbelief as I continued to struggle with the passage.

It got so bad, that I just kind of gave up at one point and decided that I would just try to translate one verse, the one verse that I thought had the most potential for a sermon. It was verse 5, which says, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows."

Psalm 23 is a beautiful Psalm that, over the centuries has somehow seeped into our cultural consciousness. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul." I have to apologize for the King James, but I tried to write this in NRSV and the Psalm is just so familiar in its King James version, it just didn't sound right any other way.

It continues on, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

These are classic Biblical texts that many people go to for comfort, for proof of David's piety and artistry, sometimes even as an example of how beautiful scripture can be.

But, if you just continue on to the next verse, he says, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." What? Provide for me, comfort me, protect me, and spread out a lavish dinner table for me in front of my enemies so I can thumb my nose at them while they watch me eat? What is this? Was David six when he wrote this?

The whole Psalm is this beautiful poem, except for this one weird, and jarring, and really out of place line. But, David really isn't know for being level-headed and rational, is he? I mean, this is the guy, who, when he was a child, slew a giant with a slingshot and a stone. I mean, we're talking about a guy that dances naked in the street. This is the man who was spying on the naked woman who was bathing on her rooftop. Then he seduced her, got her pregnant, and sent her husband off to war, hoping that he would get killed so that he wouldn't find out about it!

I mean, come on, this isn't someone that we should be modeling our lives after! He's brash, he's arrogant, he's impulsive to a fault and he wants things that are bad for him. Is David really supposed to be an example for us?

I mean, we all want things that are bad for us. It's just kind of how we are. There's this horrible TV show that I was kind of forced to watch one time called "Hoarders." It's about people who have a kind of compulsive disorder that prevents them form throwing things away. They save everything, and I really mean everything. There was this one woman who refused to throw away food. So she just had these mountains of food all over her house. She had a fridge in her basement that wasn't working anymore and it was full of rotting, moldy food! I mean, this stuff was getting ready to crawl out of the refrigerator by itself.

The premise of the show is that people come in a clean all this stuff out. There's a therapist there to make sure the person is handling everything okay and to make sure they actually go through with the plan to clean up their house, and really clean up their lives. I mean, these people are in all kinds of trouble, beyond the fact that they're living with mice and rats and cockroaches, and that their houses have turned into fire hazards and that many of them are becoming physically ill because of their living environments. One woman was a compulsive shopper whose debt was spiraling out of control. There was a family on the verge of being evicted form their home. There was a couple that was about to lose their children to child protective services.

Now obviously, these are really extreme examples of people wanting things that are bad for them. But, we all want things that are bad for us. I eat things I shouldn't eat. I don't study as much as I should because I want to watch movies or hang out with my friends. I buy things I don't need. I'm not trying to come down on myself or tell you that I have this huge sense of guilt over who I am or the things I do, only that I recognize the very obvious fact that I am not perfect.

But, David wasn't perfect. Adam and Even weren't perfect. Abraham and Sarah, and Moses and Miriam, and Samuel and Saul weren't perfect. Esther wasn't perfect. Mary and Joseph, and Peter and Paul weren't perfect. There's only one person in the Bible, in the whole history of humanity that was perfect, and that was Jesus. So, we're in good company. The Bible is full of stories of imperfect people. God loves imperfect people. God can use imperfect people.

David wasn't perfect, but David loved God. Now, I'm not saying that this excuses any of his bad behavior, just like loving God doesn't excuse our bad behavior, but David really loved God! And God was able to use David to do some truly miraculous things, just like God uses all of those people on that list of imperfect people to do miraculous things.

Looking back on it now, I can see how the whole time that I was struggling with the Hebrew text for this passage that God was leading me. God used my frustration to help me interpret the psalm, to lead me to this message. I was so disappointed in myself because I wasn't perfect, because I had forgotten how to translate the Hebrew texts. I'd been holding myself up to this ideal, that I would have these Bible languages down, that I would always be able to go back to the Hebrew, to go back to the Greek, to translate the scripture for myself, and that this would always be the starting point for every sermon that I would ever write. I'm not giving up on that dream, but I am admitting that I am not there right now, and that I may never get there. But, that's okay. God doesn't expect us to be perfect. We don't have to be perfect. We couldn't be perfect, even if we tried. And, that's okay. So, no matter what we might think is wrong with us, God will always love us and can use us, even in our imperfections, to do miraculous things. Amen.

Pictures from the Vagina Monologues

2011-03-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

The SFTS production of the Vagina Monologues were a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't had a chance to put up the picture yet, so here they are!

Setting up the bake sale before the show

Waiting for the show to start

Our directors!

Seniors

Middlers

Trinity House Represent!

Lucas stage managing

The women did a cool processional while singing and holding candles

Stills from the show

The show was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen! The acting was so powerful, provocative, and inspiring! The purpose of the monologues is to bring to light various women's issues, including violence against women. The idea is that these things continue to happen because no one is speaking up about it. The monologues is a very loud and even celebratory way for women to speak out and claim their power.

I've been playing with the idea of coming at this issue from the male perspective. Yes, women need to speak out, but maybe we also need to look at why men perpetrate tis violence in the first place. A friend of mine thought we should call it The Penis Papers. I'm not sure when we'd have the time to write it, but I think it would be a great complimentary show to go with the Vagina Monologues, with the money going to similar causes.

May the Earth Tremble

2011-03-15T22:08:00.001-07:00

I just submitted my sermon for the preaching contest. I hope they like it cuz I really need the money!

May the Earth Tremble

It’s hard sometimes to listen to the idea that God’s hand is in the trembling of the earth and the smoking of mountains. When natural disaster strikes, some people will say it’s the hand of God, rendering quick judgment against our sins. But for most of us, I would guess that our thinking wouldn’t really go down that path, but if we’re going to be honest, we might have to admit that sometimes, even if we don’t mean to, we wonder.

Japan was just hit by the fifth largest earthquake to ever be recorded in human history. It was soon followed by devastating tsunamis. Thousands of people are dead. To drive home the point of just how devastating this earthquake was, I need to remind you that this is not a third world country with few resources. Japan has one of the largest economies in the world and they know earthquakes. Just like children in California, Japanese children practice earthquake drills on a regular basis and have earthquake emergency kits always close at hand. Japanese buildings are designed to withstand all but the strongest of quakes and they have enough experience to know that earthquakes can trigger tsunamis. Between their coastal cities and the ocean are high walls designed to keep tsunamis at bay. Walls to hold back the ocean. From what I understand, most of the time, these walls work. But, this was a magnitude 8.9 earthquake, and the tsunamis it triggered flew over those walls, like an ocean wave crashing over the moat of a child’s sandcastle at the beach. These tsunamis carried with them the full force of earth and water, Mother Nature’s fury unleashed on our tiny human attempts to contain her.

In our reading today of Psalm 104:24-34, there is only one tiny mention of humanity. Not only is there but a single mention, but the mention itself is indirect. In between the great and wide sea, and the Leviathan, there are ships. That’s all. That’s all we get. Ships.

The thing that you really have to remember here is that the Psalms are poetry, and in poetry, the choice and placement of each word is extremely important. Words in poetry are always in relation to each other. So when the text says, “living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan,” you know that Leviathan is great, and that the ships are small.

There was this amazing image of the aftermath of the earthquake. It was a ship caught in a gigantic whirlpool that the earthquake or tsunami had somehow triggered. I’m not sure exactly how big this whirlpool was, but it looked like it might have been the size of a city block. And there was this ship, this tiny white speck, about to be sucked into a funnel that was pulling everything towards the ocean floor. The news reporter didn’t know if anyone was onboard.

This is what we’re up against. The Japanese were not unprepared. There was no preparing for this.

It’s no wonder that ancient peoples equated these natural forces with acts of God, for who else but God could command such power. Psalm 104:31-32 says, “May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works – who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.” The hand of God, in the trembling of the earth and the smoking of the mountain.

As the death toll from the earthquake rises, we have to ask ourselves, “Was this really the hand of God? Did God do this?” See, times are different now. Unlike the antique writer of the psalm, we know the scientific explanations for why these things happen. We know about tectonic plates, and friction, and the convection currents of magma under the Earth’s crust. And, since we have all of this knowledge, it’s not just the non-believers that have stopped pointing their fingers at God every time there’s a lightning storm, a volcanic eruption, or an earthquake. But, if we’re going to believe in an all-powerful Creator, even if we’re not going to blame God directly for doing it, we have to ask ourselves, “Didn’t God have the power to stop it?” If we aren’t going to blame God for causing this disaster, do we also let God off the hook for letting it happen?

This psalm talks about the many ways in which God is a wonderful creator. God made all the creatures, the raging sea, everything. God set everything into motion at the beginning of time, and as the psalm says, did so in wisdom. So, what does that mean anyway, did so in wisdom?

I like to think of God as an artist, and creation is God’s continuing masterpiece. Now, you can take this metaphor in two different ways. One way to think of artistic expression is to think of fine porcelain or hyper-realistic painting, you know, those paintings that look like photographs. When creating art in one of these forms, the artist has to exert almost absolute control over the medium in order to create the desired effect. The amount of talent and skill that’s required to produce one of these works of art is incredible, not to mention the patience and the time involved. These are perfect works, flawless, unchanging. Like marble sculptures. Perfect, flawless, frozen. Can you imagine a perfect world? A world were everything is perfect and beautiful? A world where nothing ever changes. A world that is stark and hard. Frozen. Some people would say a world like this would be the opposite of good. I might venture to say that a being who created such a thing might actually be evil. The God that we know and love could never create a world like this.

But, there are different kinds of art. If porcelain is at one end of the ceramics spectrum, raku is way over on the opposite side. Porcelain requires the finest clay, and sometimes even powdered bone, the highest quality glazes, extremely hot, non-fluctuating firing temperatures, and a slow, controlled cooling process.

With raku, the type of clay that you use isn’t as important, and the glazes are sometimes thick and clumpy on purpose to provide texture. So you take what might start out looking like a lumpy mess and throw it onto what basically amounts to a campfire, and you toss some random things on there, whatever you happen to have on hand, pine cones, seaweed, whatever, and you cover it with a garbage can. The firing temperature is low and uneven. There is no cooling process. You cannot plan with any kind of precision what the end result will be, because the materials you use have almost as much say in how the piece will turn out as the artist does. But, the results can be amazing! I once created a bowl, and I have no idea how it happened, that had an almost glowing metallic fuchsia circle on the inside wall, surrounded by metallic blues and golds and greens. It was stunning! You really just never know what you’re going to get.

That’s the kind of artist that I imagine God to be; an artist that works in cooperation with us, instead of simply bending us to some cosmic purpose. We talk a lot about our free will and how we exercise it. Free will is a gift from God. But, we are the component parts that God works with in the formation of this world. And make no mistake, God is in control, and knows what the world is supposed to look like. But, God will never override our freedom. God doesn’t force us to do anything. Only with the utmost love, encouragement and desire for what is best for us does God graciously appeal to our better selves that we might participate in this grand symphony of life.

But, the gift of God’s freedom does not stop there. What good would our freedom be, if our world was not free? There would be nothing for us to do, nothing for us to participate in or interact with. Nothing for us to help create. God grants freedom to all of creation. Dogs are free to be dogs, cats can be cats. A car is free to be a car, a city is free to be a city, and a mountain or forest or island is free to be that thing that God created it to be. A tectonic plate is free to be a tectonic plate. A large body of water is free to be a large body of water.

See, I believe that God was there in the earthquake. And, I believe that God was there in that wave. Does that mean that God wanted these things to happen? I don’t think so. I think God anguished over it. I think God suffered with all of the people that were caught up in the crush of the rushing waters. And so I wonder, maybe if God wasn’t in the earthquake, if God wasn’t in the tsunami, maybe the human tragedy would have been that much worse. How much more devastating might they have been, if God wasn’t there?

See, God doesn’t act in singular moments, isolated from other moments. Think about how God was working through history, moving the Japanese people to build those sea walls. How much more devastating might the damage have been if those walls were not in place? And, think about God working through people to make buildings capable of withstanding the force of an earthquake this large. Think about how much higher the death toll would have been if all of those buildings had collapsed. And then, God was in the making of earthquake emergency kits. Victims of the earthquake and tsunamis are suffering right now from the lack of food and water and other resources. How much greater would their suffering be if not for the supplies in those kits.

The psalm tells us that God gives all living things food in due season. God made sure that those emergency kits were ready for when this would happen and is acting even now, moving in the hearts of people around the world who are donating food, money, their skills and labor, to help the victims of this disaster. And, God is right now with all of those people who are suffering, all of those people who have lost their loved ones, all of those people who may not know where their loved ones are, or whether they’re living or dead. God is there, suffering with them, loving them, being present for them, offering them hope and the truth that death does not have the final word.

As much as I love the art metaphor, it’s an imperfect metaphor because no matter how free you allow the materials to be, there always tends to be a final frozen form. There comes a point at which the freedom of the materials comes to an end, and no matter how beautiful it is, in some ways the materials have died, to remain forever frozen as a vase, or an abstract painting, or a candid photograph. The world’s not like that. As human beings, as tiny, tiny human beings, we are working with God and with the rest of creation to bring the realm of God into fruition, where everything that has died will live again. How this happens is a mystery. We are human and we have free will, but God is always with us. God is always with us. And like the mystery of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, our actions will always be both fully human, and fully divine. We are the medium. God is the artist. But, we are also the artists. And creation never stops. Amen.

Vagina Monologues

2011-03-12T14:04:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I'm basically blogging to put off doing what I should be doing right now, namely studying for Gospels. I don't know what's wrong with me. As of 2 weeks ago, I finally recommitted to being a student and finally started trying to do the readings for class again. (I know shocker!) Unfortunately, the semester is almost halfway over, which means I'm really behind. It's probably just burnout, but I'm having a hard time drumming up the energy to actually care about the Gospels class, or most of my classes for that matter. I really like my preaching class, and being a worship assistant is fun, but other than that...

Extracurricular activities are always fun, of course. Like today, SFTS is putting on a production of the Vagina Monologues. All proceeds will go to Freedom House, an organization that supports the victims of human trafficking. I'm in charge of the bake sale that we will be having during the reception. I was told I needed to make cupcakes decorated as vaginas, so I made these today...

Now doing laundry, and as I said, avoiding homework O_o

6 Minute Sermon

2011-03-03T23:00:00.000-08:00

Here's today's sermon. I was kind of nervous about it, you'll see why once you start reading it, but it went over really well. The only thing I don't really like about it is that it feels like it may be too easy of a theme to always go back to if I don't agree with a text. I guess I'll just have to see how often that actually happens in real life.

1 Corinthians 11: 3 says, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.” Verses 7-9: “For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man.”

I’m not gonna lie, I had a lot of trouble with this text. I think it would be safe to say that most of the people in this room would have trouble with this text.

Before I started writing this, I decided to check some commentaries on the subject. Those were pretty much not helpful. To sum them up, they basically stated that yes, men and women are equal, but that men have authority over women. Equal, but under authority.

So, I went online to try to find some examples of sermons or Bible studies that had been done using this passage. It was exactly the same as the commentaries. The one Bible study I found that was kind of helpful, was still basically saying the same thing, just with a slightly more nuanced argument. The writer said that men should worship with their heads uncovered, because they are the glory of God. Women should worship with their heads covered, because they are the glory of man, which should not distract from the glory of God. I was kind of surprised he didn’t come right out and say that women should wear burkas.

All of these treatments on the passage were really not helping me figure out how to write this sermon, because I know, I know to the core of my being that these writers are wrong. How do I know this? Someone once told me that it’s not just the truth of your theology that’s important; it’s how people live it out.

We know what happens when this line of thinking, that women are under the authority of men, is drawn out to its logical conclusion. The ability to vote and own property is not a right that women have always enjoyed in this country, but at least here, most women were never forced to wear burkas, like so many women are forced to in many Middle Eastern countries. But what does happen in this country, and all over the world, is human trafficking. Young women and girls kidnapped and forced into a life prostitution. On average, these women and girls last only four years before succumbing to disease, drugs and despair.

In India and China, millions of baby girls are killed, simply for being the wrong gender. And in some places, young women are murdered at the hands of their male relatives in order to cleanse their families of shame, because they were the victims of rape. These actions are not of God, but the actions of people who think that women are under the authority of men.

So, why? Why did God allow this to be part the Bible? That’s a difficult question. See, the Bible was a collaborative effort between God and humanity; God chose to work through people to send us the divine message.

And, perhaps that is the true meaning of this text, that God didn’t write this alone. Perhaps what God is trying to tell us here is that God lives in community with us, that God is in us and around us, and didn’t write the Bible alone. So, what does this mean if God is not the sole author of the Bible? Does that make it any less true? Do I believe that the Bible is authoritative and instructive for our lives? Yes. Do I believe that the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit? Yes. But we need to stop thinking of the Bible as a collection of books and letters. In terms of how it should govern our lives, it is a single text.

God gave us The Bible, not just 1 Corinthians 11: 1-13. We need to take the Bible as a whole, because when we start pulling bits of it out, whether it’s a couple of verses, or a whole book, and we use just part of the Bible to justify the things we do, that’s when we start getting into trouble. When we do that, we take the chance that the human voice behind the text is going to be louder than the divine one. Every part of the Bible needs to be seen in light of every other part.

It’s only when we take the Bible as a whole, and we listen to all of those countless voices across the millennia, speaking to their individual experiences of God, that the glory of God is revealed to us. Because God could never be confined to a single voice, even a voice as loud as Paul’s. So I ask that we stop oppressing each other, and ourselves, based on a few select passages of the Bible. Because when you read the whole thing, the Bible is freeing. It’s liberating. And, that's how God intended it to be. Amen.

4 Minute Sermon

2011-03-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to post this last week, but I got lazy O_o. With each sermon, the time allotment goes up. The first one was 3 minutes, this one is 4, tomorrow's is 5-7. So, here is my 4 minute sermon based on Romans 14.

About fifteen years ago, my dad decided to stop eating red meat. He did this because his cholesterol was too high. Now, this did not stop the rest of my family from eating red meat. But, my poor mother was now forced to cook something special for my dad whenever she made something that contained beef or pork.

After a while, this led to my family consuming more and more ground turkey, as my mother became increasingly tired of having to pull double duty in the kitchen. I’m not a fan of ground turkey. It doesn’t brown right, it has a weird spongy texture and more often than not comes out tasting kind of like liver. Honestly, I would rather eat almost anything else.

About four years ago, I found out that I too needed to stop eating pork. I discovered, painfully, that I was now allergic to it. It causes my joints to swell. I had gotten to the point where I was actually having a hard time walking, when I remembered a comment my mother had made. She said one time, that pork made her shoulder hurt. Now, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the correlation could be between pork and shoulder pain, but there I was, hobbling around and I suddenly saw the connection. It was only a theory at the time, but I needed to try something, anything to be able to walk normally again. So I gave up pork, which is really, really hard for someone who is half Chinese and half Filipino. But, about a month later, the pain was gone.

It’s no wonder to me now, that this dirty, smelly, albeit delicious, animal is considered to be unclean by the Jews. To this day, there are Jews and Muslims all over the world that will not eat pork in accordance with their religious traditions. They believe pork is unclean, and who are we to tell them different?

It’s the same problem that the early Christians had to face. See, the Jews were still Jews, accepting Jesus as the Messiah didn’t take that away from them. For them, eating pork was wrong. And, the Gentiles kinda liked bacon. But, as people from each group came to follow Christ, their different cultures began to clash. Both groups were Christian. But, these two groups had different ideas about what that meant. In his letter to the Roman church, Paul tries to explain to them that what they eat isn’t as important as their faith in God. What’s important is that they honor each other and try to help each other grow in faith, to trust each other and to trust in God.

My dad never tried to get us to stop eating red meat just because he did. In fact one time, he grilled up some steaks and presented the sizzling slabs of red meat to us with a huge grin on his face. And, I remember thinking how much I loved this man that was so happy to cook food for us that he himself could not eat. This is the essence of community. This is the essence of family. Family is not about the rules that we impose upon each other. It’s how we show our love for each other, and how we care for each other. I might not like ground turkey, but I eat it because I love my dad. Amen

Olive Branch Menu

2011-03-01T19:05:00.000-08:00

I don't know why I haven't done this yet, but I all of a sudden had an urge to come up with the menu for the cafe church I'm going to open after I graduate. The goal is mostly simple and delicious comfort food, most of which can be served in a bowl. This what I have so far for the basic menu, and I imagine rotating specials depending on what's in season, and an extensive rotating dessert menu, not to mention coffee and tea drinks and maybe gelatto? Let me know what you think!

Breakfast

Steel-Cut Oats

Lemon Porridge – Steel cut oats with hints of vanilla, honey and lemon

Banana Bran Muffins

Fairytale Pumpkin Muffins

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Jian Bings – Chinese style crepe with eggs, green onion & a sweet & spicy sauce

Pasta

Pancit – Filipino rice noodles with vegetables and chicken

Linguini Alfredo – classic or creamy

Linguini Arrabiatta – a spicy tomato based sauce with pine nuts and sultanas

Spaghetti Marinara

Spaghetti & Meatballs

Cavatappi with Pesto

Mac & Cheese with or without mushrooms

Chicken & Rice Bowls

Mole Naranja – a rich sauce of citrus & cinnamon

Adobo – a Filipino classic with soy sauce, lemon, bay leaf and garlic

Tomato Dill Sauce – a Filipino twist on sweet & sour

Apple Curry – the house blend of curry spices, slow simmered in caramelized onions, apples and coconut milk

Creamy Mushroom

Soup

Chicken Noodle

Chuck’s Killer Chili

Salads

Roasted Root Vegetable – seasonal root vegetables served on a bed of crisp greens

Chinese Chicken

Brown Rice – a deliciously nutty combination of brown rice, parsley, mint and tomatoes

Sandwiches

Tuna Salad

Egg Salad

Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Snickerdoodles

First Section Done!

2011-02-23T15:23:00.000-08:00

I haven't been updating on the mosaic because it hasn't really been all that exciting. But, a few weeks ago, I finally finished the first section, the baptism of Christ.

Basically, all I've been doing is grouting. This was not nearly as fun a it was putting up the tiles, but it was a necessary part of the process.

A section without grout.

A section with grout.

Here is a section were part of it is grouted and part of it is not. The grout essentially holds the whole thing together, not only physically, but artistically as well. It creates a uniform matrix for the tiles to sit in so that you're not looking at the ugly orange wall, black Sharpe sketches and white tile glue peeking out from between the tiles. It also makes it safer as the sharp edges aren't nearly as dangerous once the grout is in place.

After grouting, you have to clean it up as best you can, and then let it dry for at least four hours before you can clean it up for real

Not cleaned yet

Clean!

Here's the whole section before I started grouting...

And here it is after! The lighting is better in the "before" picture, so I guess these two pictures don't really illustrate how grouting makes it look better, LOL.

TA DA!

Here's what I've done so far on the next section, which will be the sermon on the mount and the last supper.

The campus PR person is putting something together to let more people know about this project, as well as the Spirituality Program in general, here at SFTS. Keep your eyes open for it!

3 Minute Sermon

2011-02-11T08:34:00.000-08:00

We gave our first sermons of the semester yesterday for our Intro to Preaching class. The assignment was to do a 3 minute sermon. In typical fashion, God made me preach something weird.

3 Minute Sermon

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word pithy. It’s kind of a strange word. My immediate reaction is to think of it as derogatory, even though I know all it really means is to be “to the point,” which in this world of information overload and hours and hours of reading assignments here at school, really isn’t all that bad.

So, to figure where all of my conflicting feelings about this word were coming from, I consulted the Internet. One online dictionary offers the following definition for pithy: brief, forceful, and meaningful in expression, full of vigor and substance.

By definition alone, pithy’s great!

But, for whatever reason, and according to the Internet, I’m not the only one, the word pithy carries with it a connotation of being condescending or flippant. I’m not saying that it’s supposed to have that connotation, but for some people, it does.

Perhaps it has to do with one of the other definitions of pith: which is that bitter white part of a citrus peel. It’s full of nutrients, but most people don’t eat it. It just doesn’t taste good. We want things with more substance, like that juicy orange segment you’ve just uncovered by removing the pith.

The reason that I started thinking about this word “pithy” is because I came across Romans chapter twelve while trying to find a scripture to use for this sermon. Verses nine and ten start off a short section that is basically line after line of pith.

Love must be sincere.

Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Be devoted to one another in brotherly and sisterly love.

Honor one another above yourselves.

See, what I think happened is that we’ve grown wary of pith. Advertisers use it to sell us stuff. Newspapers and cable news channels use it to get our attention. Politicians use it to persuade us to their cause. Half the time, we don’t know if we can trust it.

But, here’s the thing. God is pithy. Jesus is pithy. The parables are pithy. We don’t need pages and pages of instruction telling us how to love each other. We know, deep down in our hearts how to love and respect each other. I’m not saying that studies and papers and books are bad, because we all know that they’re not; we are in seminary, after all. But, we have to remember that not all pith is bad. Some of it actually tastes pretty good.

Love must be sincere.

Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Be devoted to one another in brotherly and sisterly love.

Honor one another above yourselves.

Amen.

Consideration

2011-01-31T22:56:00.000-08:00

I just had my first UCC (United Church of Christ) polity class today, and all I can say so far is that it was interesting. It didn't really feel like a class, more like a meeting of some kind. Although, we did get our first assignment, which is to interview a pastor and then do a one-page write up about how they got involved in ministry. This is due in a week, which I think is an unreasonably tight deadline.

Part of what we are supposed to do for class is keep a journal about our insights on the UCC denomination. I figured this would be a good way to revive my blog. Ever since I decided this wasn't going to be a daily ritual, I've been kind of lax about keeping up with it, which I'm sure you've all noticed.

So, what do I "know" about the UCC thus far? It seems to me that the UCC is a safety net for a lot of Christians that have left their denominations. I went to a UCC Christmas party last year and spoke to people who used to be Episcopalian, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, Presbyterian (obviously), and even a Unitarian Universalist! That's an eclectic bunch of people! It made me very grateful for the UCC, because if not for the UCC, where would all of these people ended up? Also, the fact that it attracts such a diverse range of people is intriguing to me. It makes me think something very special is going on over there.

I will keep you all updated as I continue to explore the UCC as a possible new denominational home. I feel pulled in that direction, even though lately I've been having theological issues with the existence of denominations at all. Much of this has lessoned as I've talked to people, but there is still a residual hesitation. I figure, if I don't make a decision by the end of the semester, I'm not going to make a decision at all.

$5,400 an hour

2011-01-25T23:19:00.000-08:00

I have to go to the eye doctor tomorrow because I've been using the same pair of contact lenses for WAY TOO LONG. Just some helpful advice: This is not good for your eyes.

While I was making the appointment, the woman I was talking to asked if I had my old prescription. I told her that my previous eye doctor was in southern california and I would not be able to bring it. She explained that I needed to get it if I could because it would have the fitting for my contacts, which shouldn't change, even if my prescription does. She went on to say that they could do the fitting here if I couldn't get the old prescription, but that it would cost $90. Needless to say, I got their fax number and had my old doctor fax it over.

Now, I've had contact fittings done before, and if memory serves, the doctor basically sits you in front of a machine and push a button. The machine does all of the work in about a minute and the doctor just kind of sits there and watches. So, I started thinking about this. $90 for 1 minute of work? That's $5,400 an hour! Holy $#!&!!! That's a little extravagant, don't you think?

And I don't want to get into a whole healthcare debate, but I think that is a really good illustration of what is wrong with our healthcare system. Some of the most basic routine things we need to have done literally cost a fortune! If you ever get the chance, look at how much you get charged for an Aspirin or Band-Aid at an emergency room. Of course, most people don't end up paying these outrageous amounts; these bills get sent to our insurance carriers. But, guess who gets to pay the premiums?

And, that's if you even have vision coverage (which I don't). So, the whole thing will be coming out of my pockets, which are pretty damn shallow. It's a good thing I got my student loan check today.

Life in Marin (Title Stolen from Mike)

2011-01-06T21:34:00.000-08:00

I finally decided to go out mushroom hunting again. Since this is only my second year trying this, I'm not sure what's normal, but it doesn't seem like there's as many mushrooms in general this year as there were last year. Still, I took some pictures of my walk so all you folks out there can get a feel of what it's like here if you've never visited.

I can always count on these Black Elfin Saddle mushrooms to grow around campus.

Here's some Chanterelles of the FALSE variety. It's so disappointing when you find these cuz when you first spot them, you get excited thinking you've found a bunch of huge yellow Chanterelles. Unfortunately, these False Chanterelles are poisonous. I checked my usual spot for the real ones, but there weren't any there. I wonder if someone else knows about that spot...

SFTS is beautiful. 'Nuff said.

Marin is kind of a quirky place. Take, for example, this UFO parked in front of this person's house.

This is a picture from inside their courtyard. I'm assuming the person that lives here is some kind of artist.

Witch's Butter. Pretty gross looking, isn't it?

I almost walked right by this cup type mushroom. It blended right in with the dead leaves.

A bunch of cool-looking red mushrooms growing around the graduation field.

And, of course, the Stinkhorn Lattices are back.

My loot for the day. Pretty sad, but at least it was something.

Fable III

2011-01-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

Over the break, I was playing Fable III. It normally doesn't take very much for me to get into a video game, especially a fantasy role playing game like Fable or Final Fantasy, but I was especially excited to play Fable III because you can play as a male character and get married to another male character. Of course, you can also have a heterosexual or lesbian marriage.

I know this is nothing new; when the first Fable came out, no pun intended, the kids in my youth group were playing it and told me about the possibility of having a gay marriage. For the first Fable, however, you could only play as a male character, and if you had a heterosexual marriage, there was an elaborate ceremony, whereas if you decided to marry a man, there was no bonus animation to watch. You and your intended would just jump up and down with excitement when he accepted your proposal.

I never played the first Fable; I think it came out during a time in my life when I was trying to limit my exposure to video games. I know how addicted I can get to them. Also, there's always the money issue. I haven't bought a console since the Sega Dreamcast, and that was a really long time ago. Side note: I've started playing my old Sega Dreamcast games again, LOL.

Anyway, I haven't finished Fable III yet because I can only play it when I go home for vacation. It's my friend's game and I play it when I go visit her. Luckily, I did manage to find a husband, one of the cooks that worked in the castle. I'm a king in the game now, but for some reason, my husband still works in the castle kitchen while I roam the world fighting monsters. I guess its good that we each have our own "things."

There's an orphanage in the game where we can adopt children. That will be my next in-game goal. In the meantime, I get to enjoy randomly visiting the castle, finding my husband and kissing him as the mood strikes. If only things were so easy in real life O_o.

I'm really glad games have come this far. I honestly have to say that when I was younger, I never imagined I would ever get to play a gay character in a video game. Truthfully though, it wasn't something I spent a lot of time thinking about, since video games so rarely deal with their character's sexuality. Most of the time, you're trying to figure out some kind of puzzle or kill the giant monster. It wouldn't be as interesting of a game without those things, but I'm am really grateful that game developers have added this new layer of gaming complexity.

Unintended Consequences

2010-12-28T23:32:00.001-08:00

Vacation time is slowly coming to a close, and so I'm trying to squeeze in as much family and friend time as possible. Tonight, my sister and I went to my brother James' house to play Settlers of Catan with him and his two kids, Kai and Raj. At first, my sister Dianne didn't want to play, but the game caught her attention as she watched us play and she finally jumped in. Needless to say, we all had a really great time.

While we were playing, we somehow got onto the topic of church. I noticed this happens quite frequently around me, go figure. My brother mentioned that he's been getting further and further away from the church, and now that this thing happened to me, it only justifies his belief that the church is full of bigots. I tried to explain to him that everyone has flaws and that it's human nature to be divisive, but he had a point. I didn't have a lot of firm ground to stand on, especially in light of what did in fact happen to me because of the church.

I love God and have pretty much always loved God. For most of my life, I have equated this love with loving and caring for and being a part of the church. Is this incorrect? Obviously, I still want to be part of the church: I haven't dropped out of school and fully intend to graduate and become the senior pastor at a cafe church someday, but it is becoming increasingly hard to tell people that attending church is a good thing. A lot of the people there just aren't giving me very much to work with.

So, how do you explain to people that church is a good thing? Do you in fact believe that going to church is a good thing?

I think church is good for us, because as human beings, we are designed to worship God. It's kind of like how cars are designed to run on gas. This "argument" works for me, but I can see how it might not work when looked at from the other side.

How do you tell someone to hang out with a bunch of hypocritical bigots who have relegated someone you love to a level of second class citizenship?

You've got mail

2010-12-24T04:38:00.000-08:00

One of the problems that I tend to have when I'm on vacation is that I have a hard time going to bed at a "normal" hour. So, since I've been meaning to blog for a while and I can't sleep, even though it's almost 5 in the morning, I decided to go ahead and write about what's been on my mind for the past few weeks.

This post is about the last blog that I wrote, which was basically a copying and pasting of two letters. The first was a response that someone wrote to me regarding the letter that I wrote to my church and my presbytery to explain to them how I felt about the decisions that they made and to let them know that I was leaving the PCUSA. The second was my response back to that person.

Well, that person wrote back to me pretty quick. That was about 2 weeks ago now. The reply has been sitting in my email this whole time and I've been too afraid to look at it. So many people have hurt me in the last few months, people that were supposed to care about me, that I did not want to risk any more emotional damage, especially at the end of the semester and certainly not right before the holidays. I've been dealing with a lot of crap lately, and I for the time being, I felt that I could push off reading the letter until after the holidays, or at least until after Christmas.

In the meantime, I also got a reply from the presbytery. Since I wasn't going to read the first email, I decided to hold off on reading that one as well.

So, they've been sitting in my inbox this whole time, and I can't stop thinking about them. I probably shouldn't let a couple of emails have this kind of power over me, especially since I haven't even read them yet, but I have read a lot of really hurtful and hateful things in the past couple of weeks, and I feel like I need to limit my exposure. I guess it's kind of like how you should only eat a certain about of tuna per week 'cuz of the mercury? Yes, evil words really are like poison, and the poison doesn't even taste good.

I'll let you all know when I read the letters. I'm not sure exactly when I'm gonna read them, but I'm assuming it won't be too long from now.

In the meantime, happy holidays and I hope you are all surrounded by grace, joy and love. In spite of what's been going on, my friends and family have been really great and I love being around them. It's too bad school starts again in a week. Oh well. Merry Christmas!

Theology, Pharisees and Sex Rights

2010-12-07T02:11:00.000-08:00

One of the responses to my letter and my reply:

Hello Charles,

First of all, I'm very sorry that you have experienced pain as a result of our church and presbytery rejecting your theology. We too experience vilification for our sincerely held beliefs and are labeled as "non Christian", "bigots", & "pharisees" by those we love and it is hard to keep in mind that is our theology that is being rejected and not us.

Second this advice or recommendation is coming from me as a friend and not from our church or presbytery. I suggest that you do not leave the PC USA as it will most likely approve the ordination of practicing homosexuals this year or at least in the next 2-4 years. I think all of the mainline denominations will eventually go that route as well. This is unfortunate because all of the fastest growing Christian churches and movements (i.e. Foursquare, Calvary Chapel, Mars Hill, etc) are conservative and take a stand on the Historic Apostolic Christian faith.

My prayer is that the Spirit visits our country so that "sex" will no longer be god and that we will return to the Biblical theology that teaches that sex is a privilege/gift and not a right.

Sincerely,

******

You have no idea how I feel because you are in fact rejecting who I am, not my theology. What I believe and do is inextricably linked to who I am as a gay man. How would you feel if someone thought that you loving your husband or wife was sinful and disgusting?

Charles

Leaving PCUSA

2010-12-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

This blog has been silent for a while and I feel that I need to give everyone some kind of explanation for that. I have know for some time that I needed to give some kind of response to my church and the presbytery for what they did to me. I knew that anything I wrote here would be inauthentic because I was not ready to address that issue. Well, yesterday, I finally wrote the letter, and I literally sent it minutes ago. I have no idea how they will react to it.

It was not an easy letter to write, and it was harder to share, but for better or worse, here it is:

Dear Word of Life Church of Oxnard and the Santa Barbara Presbytery,

While this communication may not be able to convey to you the incredible sense of betrayal and injustice that has been inflicted upon me, I will nevertheless attempt to help you to understand. I was baptized at First Presbyterian Church of Oxnard shortly after my birth in 1979. This summer, I celebrated my 31^st birthday. For that entire span of time, I have been a member of the Presbyterian Church USA. Never did it cross my mind that I would ever be anything other than Presbyterian for the remainder of my days.

As you know, I am currently in seminary working towards a Masters in Divinity. My intention was to attempt to go through the ordination process in the Santa Barbara Presbytery. I was told almost from the very beginning that this was probably not a wise course of action, but I believed that the denomination I grew up in would have grace enough to see me through the process. Even if the end result was not ordination, as I feared from the beginning it would not be, I had hoped that there would have been some loving, compassionate and Spirit-led discussions along the way.

But, for reasons that I am only beginning to understand, and perhaps never will, this was not meant to be. The support of the congregation I have come to know and love so well was revoked, and the presbytery that I have belonged to all of my life demoted me to second-class citizenship, incapable of ever rising to the office of Presbyterian minister. The reason that all of this happened is because I am gay.

My first inclination was to fight to be allowed to go through the ordination process. This is my church and I believed in what this church professes to stand for. The church that I have thought for so long stood as a wonderful example of a Christian community on Earth suddenly shone a little less bright. I will not demand equality from the PCUSA, when equality is not for the denomination to grant. I came to you, with a vulnerable and open heart and was put to the side, and so I am forced to kick the dust from my feet.

It is God, the maker of heaven and Earth that gives me my identity, purpose and meaning, not the PCUSA. As a child of God and a member of the priesthood of all believers, I cannot ignore God’s call to do kingdom work here on Earth. I refuse to participate in the demonic paradigm that pits neighbor against neighbor, promoting hatred and injustice. Instead, I will strive to be an active participant in the Kingdom of God on Earth, here and now. I will not ask for your permission to do God’s work, because it is not your permission to give. I only pray that someday, you will cease your pharisaic judgments against your neighbors and join me in a new community based on love, respect and equality, led by Christ, fed by the Holy Spirit, and in communion with God the Father.

Please accept this as formal notification of my withdrawal from the PCUSA. If you have any questions or concerns about what I have communicated, please feel free to contact me via email. I hope that someday, we can put our differences aside and come together as a family again. Until that day comes, I will keep you in my prayers and I will never stop loving you.

Sincerely,

Charles Furio Wei

Montgomery Chapel

2010-11-16T21:55:00.000-08:00

I kept meaning to take pictures of the beautiful stain glass windows in Montgomery Chapel, but I kept forgetting my camera. Well, today I finally remembered it! For anyone that's visited me and was unable to see the windows because the chapel was locked, this is for you:

A picture of the nice details on the ceiling.

I really like when the light comes through this window right and the glass disperses the light on the wall like a bunch of sparks. XD

Colorado: Good for Families

2010-10-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

Here's another story I wrote for my contemplative listening class. I didn't realize how emotional this story was going to make me while I was going through the contemplative listening process with my small group. I share this at the risk of my dad seeing it. If you are reading this, Dad, please read it all the way to the end and know that I love you very much. The past is the past, and no one's childhood is perfect. I love you for who you are now and that is what is important.

For everyone else, here is a peek into my psyche:

I don’t have a lot of fond memories of my dad from when I was little. He was an impatient, angry man, short-tempered and extremely stubborn. I was afraid of him, as were my two brothers, and my sister. My brother James and I bore the brunt of it: me because I was the oldest, and James because he was the troublemaker. I like to tell people that I was the guinea pig for my parents, that they made all of their mistakes on me.

I tell you this because there is one particular memory of my father that will surface from time to time, not necessarily prompted by anything specific, just a memory that I find myself going back to. It’s probably the earliest memory I have of actually enjoying time with my dad.

When I was little, I was really bad about doing my homework. My teachers would always be sending notes home with me to let my parents know that I had yet again not done the homework for the class. This would typically result in my dad belting me. But, one time, and I’m not sure why this time was different, instead of getting mad, he decided to help me.

I was supposed to write a five page state report, and I had chosen Colorado because I wanted to do a report about the Grand Canyon. Of course, I eventually found that the Grand Canyon is not in Colorado. The report was already a few days late. The memories are vague, but I remember my dad looking at the encyclopedia entry for Colorado, trying to find random facts for me to add to the report while I flipped through magazines for pictures to cut out. I think I actually ended up drawing most of them because I couldn’t find pictures for the Colorado state bird, tree or flower.

The thing I remember most is sitting with my dad, and actually enjoying his company, wondering why he was being so nice. It almost wasn’t real and I remember wondering why our relationship couldn’t be more like that moment instead of what it was usually like, like when I would hug him and pretend I was happy when he came back from his business trips. That’s the only memory I have like that of my dad, and maybe that’s why I always come back to it. I have a great relationship with my dad now. I just sometimes wish I had more good memories to go along with it.

Growing Up Gay Just North of L.A.

2010-10-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

This is National Coming Out Week. In celebration of this week, we had special chapel services and I was supposed to give a testimony for today's service. I decided to write a poem that kind of sums up everything I've been going through the past few months. This is my journey:

Growing Up Gay Just North of L.A.

Welcome to my life.

A life of half-truth and darkness,

Where the light dares not shine,

For shame.

Because I have been taught to be ashamed of myself,

Because my parents have learned to despise me.

Because the people cry out,

“Abomination!”

“Those who sin in the eyes of God,

They shall surly burn in the fires of Hell for all eternity!”

Why wait?

I can feel the fire now,

Growing inside of me,

Red hot with indignation,

Crying out for vengeance,

Raging against the injustice!

A creature of hatred and shame,

I have become the monster they so want for me to be,

A crooked mirror that can’t help but do what it was designed to do,

To reflect back a broken image,

A relationship broken,

A people divided,

Because we are all God’s children,

United in our belief that we are better than the other,

Because my light is better than yours,

And we will let our righteousness burn the fuel of our existence,

Until all that is left are the charred remains of a once promising future.

But, I have seen a different kind of light,

The light of open doors and stained glass windows,

Burning with a flame that moves us to embrace each other,

And squeeze so hard it almost hurts.

A fire that keeps us going,

A fire for the living,

For life,

For love.

So, I choose to burn with the love of Christ,

I will shine with the love of God’s good creation,

And I will light a new kind of fire,

And draw everyone around me with a beacon of hope!

I welcome you in!

Welcome to my life!

The Baptism of Christ

2010-10-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

The mosaic is progressing a lot faster than I thought it was going to. Here are some pictures of the work so far.

Now, I have to admit that I have not been as diligent with my homework as I should have been, and this has largely contributed to the speed at which the mosaic has gone up. But, working on the mosaic has been cathartic, and I need really need some kind of creative expression that I can lose myself in right now. Life has been... unexpectedly difficult of late. I've found it really hard to focus on classwork lately, and I've even had to drop one class because of this. I'll be able to focus more on myself this semester, which is important for me to do at this point in my life. I don't know yet where my life is going, but that's okay.

I talked to a counselor for the first time in my life. I don't have anything against counseling, but I've never felt that I've needed it. It was good though, because I realized I was trying to rush through this period of mourning and reflection. So, I will not try to cram my schedule full of things that help me to avoid periods of quiet thought. Instead, the work on the mosaic will continue.

The tile glue has to cure for a day or so, and then I can grout it! I'll put up a before and after picture once the grout is on!

Truck Stop Cafe

2010-09-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

I had to write a story for my contemplative listening class, about something that happened to me over the summer. This is what I came up with. I hope none of you think less of me...

This summer, my mom and I went on a road trip across the country. One day, we found ourselves in the tiny town of White Sulfur Springs, MT. We asked the gas station attendant, my first experience with full-service gas by the way, where we could grab a bite to eat. He directed us to the Truck Stop Café, the only place open because it was after 6.

It was a half-block away and there were only two other cars in the parking lot. We went inside where the waitress/hostess greeted us with her dead eyes. The only other people in the café were the cook, who was leaning on the counter, watching us as we walked by, and three men in the back, all wearing slightly grungy looking clothes and talking about farming. I could tell they were regulars by their demeanor. They give us a cursory glance before returning to their food and conversation. My mom and I were the only non-Caucasians there, and I wondered when the last time an Asian person crossed the threshold of the restaurant. I began to wonder if we are the only non-Caucasians in town.

We followed the tall waitress with curly blonde hair to a booth. She looked like she was in her early twenties, doing her best to keep up with pop culture with her black T-shirt with day-glo logo and pierced bottom lip. After handing us our menus, she asked in a monotone, “Can I get you folks anything to drink?” We were “folks.” That was good, right?

We both ordered waters and then bent our heads over the menu when she left to get them. I pointed out the polish sausage soup to my mom and we both laughed.

My mom’s phone rang. She answered. Not only was I thinking about how rude it was to talk on your phone in a restaurant, I knew she was about to go full bore Filipino with her rapid-fire Tagolog. I became acutely aware my “Asianess” and the men in the back of the restaurant. I knew they could hear my mom talking, and if I had to guess, were each in their own minds trying to figure out, and failing, what language she was speaking. I wanted to tell her to get off the phone, but I figured she would have the common decency to end the conversation on her own. She proceeded to talk for a good five minutes or so, ending the conversation shortly before the waitress came back to take our order. I, in the meantime, was actively trying to suppress my fight or flight response.

We tried to make small talk while we waited for our food, and a few minutes later, a family of five came in. I could tell by their dress and their accent that they were from out of town. And, I relaxed.

Letter from the New Zealanders

2010-09-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry to be such a downer today, but I just got an email from the church in New Zealand that I was hoping to intern at. They are no longer interested in having me as an intern because they do not believe homosexuals should be in leadership. Here is the email:

Hi Charles,

I have been concerned for some time as to why we did not seem to be getting a very clear picture of who you were either from you or your referee and we were considering setting up a skype interview. I guess this explains something and I am glad you have told me about this. Unfortunately it does make a difference. Our church’s stand here is that homosexuals are not able to be in leadership. As far as we are concerned it would make things very difficult and we have so much going on for us in terms of our ministry already that this is just not a consideration for next year. I am also now planning on taking study lave from June to August so chances are coming here would not have worked out very well for you.

I am sorry this is unfortunate. We do have a couple of young men in our congregation who believe they are gay and this is ok with us so don’t think we are hardened towards you it’s just it just wouldn’t work out.

We will have to leave it there.

Helen

I guess it's all for the better because I need to find a new church to sponsor me for ordination, and it would probably be difficult for me to develop a relationship with a new church from the other side of the planet. I guess I'm just the world's punching bag today.

Letter from the Santa Barbarians

2010-09-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

And now, since you have all been waiting so anxiously, the response from the Santa Barbara Presbytery as to whether or not they will let me attempt ordination through them:

Dear Charles,

I am writing in response to your email of September 19, in which you informed me of the decision of your session to withdraw their support of your coming under care of the presbytery, and in which you asked for my opinion on whether the presbytery would entertain taking you under care if you came to us with support from another church. I informed you that I would take the matter up with the Committee on Preparation for Ministry (CPM) for an answer,

The committee met on September 23 and discussed your question at some length. In addition to your email, we had information which I obtained from a personal meeting with the Word of Life Session, and with Pastor Ron Urzua. I believe I/we received the same basic information from all three sources. Specifically, the session is unwilling to endorse you for possible ordination to the ministry of Word and Sacrament because you consider an active gay lifestyle to be an acceptable expression of righteous behavior according to the teachings of scripture and our confessions. The session disagrees with your theological position on this matter, and considers it important enough to constitute a disqualification for ordained office in the PCUSA. We understand that this decision has been disappointing and hurtful.

I have gone into the above detail because I wanted to be sure we all agree on the basis for your session’s decision, as you are asking, in effect, if the presbytery would come to the same decision. The committee’s answer is based upon the assumption that we all agree on these facts. If that is not the case, our answer may not adequately address your question.

Based upon the above, it is the opinion of the current CPM of this presbytery that we would consider your theological position on this matter to be outside the bounds of Reformed theology as we understand it in light of Scripture and our confessions. We would refer you specifically to sections 4.087 and 9.47 of our Book of Confessions, and Chapter G-6-0106b of our Book of Order. There are a multitude of scripture passages in support of these references.

Having said that, we must express our reluctance to make such a statement to a brother in Christ with whom we are not in close relationship. Our entire life as believers is to be lived within a particular expression of the body of Christ. It is within that context that we come to know Christ, ourselves and each other. Word of Life is that body for you, and we encourage you to hold close to it and not abandon that relationship. Scripture tells us that “Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, and deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.” (Pr 27:5-6) We pray that you will devote sufficient time and energy to discern whether your church – those closest to you in Christ – may be your best friend in this matter.

In Christ, and for the committee.

Robert Farrow

Clerk of the Committee on Preparation for Ministry

Presbytery of Santa Barbara

Basically, they do not want me to seek ordination, lest I profess my heretic, and more importantly disgusting, theological stance with people that might consider me to be some kind of authority on the subject in the future should I in fact become ordained. The email doesn't exactly answer my question though, does it? Very tricky...

Spirituality Concentration

2010-09-24T23:12:00.000-07:00

My presbytery met on Thursday, and one of the things that they were supposed to discuss was whether or not I would be able to attempt to go through the ordination process there or if I would need to find a new presbytery. I haven't received word yet.

In the meantime, I have gotten permission to make a mosaic at Holy Grounds. I am doing a spirituality concentration as part of my degree, and we have to do a semester of spirituality practice and reflection and I got permission to do this art project for it. Here are some of the sketches.

Christina took some pictures while I was working.

Here's what it looks like so far. I'll keep you updated on the progress, and also if I ever hear back from my presbytery.

Blog Fog

2010-09-18T22:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, I keep messing up with this thing. I guess the one day a week thing isn't working. Earlier this week, I wanted to blog, but I told myself I needed to wait for Saturday. Now, it's Saturday but I was too busy today to blog. I guess I need to get rid of the idea that this is going to follow any kind of regular format now that I no longer blog every day. I guess I'll just blog as I feel led to, but it will probably still be at least once a week, just not on a specific day. I also realized that I've been forgetting to import my blogs to facebook. Oops.

Here's an update for those that don't know. The session of my church, after meeting with the representative from the Committee on the Preparation for Ministry in my presbytery of Santa Barbara (I just accidentally wrote Satan instead of Santa. Freudian slip?), has decided that they can no longer sponsor me during the ordination process. Please note that I am not saying that the CPM representative instructed the session to do this, I am only indicating the timeline of events. The session feels that because I am an unrepentant homosexual and that I do no believe it is wrong to be a homosexual, that our theologies are diametrically opposed and that they could not in good faith support by bid to become a Presbyterian minister. In order to go though the ordination process, you need to be sponsored by the church you are a member of. So, although they are not technically kicking me out of the church, I am forced to leave if I wish to pursue ordination. I'm pretty sure that if the PCUSA denomination at large were to decide that being gay was okay in the eyes of God, then the congregation might leave. This is the group that was holding the confessions of the denomination over my head as one of the reasons that I should not be gay. I don't want to get into the logic of it all, but it seems very hypocritical to me.

I'll write more about this when I can get all of my thoughts in order. At the moment, I'm waiting for a response from my presbytery about whether or not I should waste my time trying to get ordained in the Santa Barbara Presbytery. I sent the email days ago but have yet to get a response. Life has just gotten very interesting, and I am currently trying to recover emotionally from what happened. Please keep me, Word of Life Presbyterian Church of Oxnard, Santa Barbara Presbytery and the PCUSA in your prayers. We need it.

Oops I did it again

2010-09-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the Britney reference, but I totally forgot to blog yesterday! And, last week, for anyone that was paying attention, I was freaking out because I thought I blogged 3 hours late, because I was so exhausted I thought it was Sunday morning. Of course, it was actually Saturday morning and not late at all. *sigh* I don't know if I'm ever gonna get used to this new format that I've given myself.

Now: Learning the Greek alphabet. Not so bad. Thems memory cells seem to be in fine working order after a summer of being on the go. We'll see how the grammar goes. Grammar is basically my Kryptonite.

First week of school is over. Usually when I'm starting a new year of school, I'm good at doing my assignments right away. Not so much this time. I'm barely getting to my homework now. Why oh why did God make me a procrastinator?

MAGIC!!!!!!!

2010-09-04T02:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, I totally forgot about my blog today. There was a lot of stuff going on and I'm not used to this blogging on Saturdays thing. There was a welcome week party at Trinity house this evening, the intentional Christian community house, our school's version of a frat house, where there was food and wine and singing and much connect four playing. We had a grand old time.

As I was playing connect four, and losing, with one of the new first years, named Daniel, we discovered our mutual love of the Magic: The Gathering, that wonderful collectible card game that I've mentioned once or twice on this blog. Daniel just happened to bring a ton of Magic decks with him to school, so we made a quick escape to Holy Grounds and dueled it out until 3 in the morning. The last game, which lasted probably about an hour, was one of those truly epic games that only a Magic player can understand, so I won't bore you with the details here.

Thus far, the new students seem like a really really great bunch and I can't wait to see what they have to bring to our school community. All I can say is that I need to get ready for another awesome year at SFTS!

To write or not to write

2010-08-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

OMG! I almost forgot to blog today! This new schedule is going to take some getting used to.

I've basically had no schedule this week, especially since I decided to no longer do a daily blog. The first three nights this week, I had to actually remind myself to not blog. I thought this would help me get other things done, like my book perhaps. Not so much.

I like to write, really I do, but lately it's just been so hard to sit down and work on it. The frustrating part is that I am SO close to finishing! I probably only have about 70 pages to go! I even managed to bang out 2 chapters during the road trip! I totally thought I'd be able to get at least another chapter done this week. I've only managed to write a paltry 4 pages. I sometimes wonder if I should set a specific schedule for myself, like I'm gonna work on my book from this time to this time every day, but I don't want it to become a chore. Plus, I highly doubt I'd be able to stick to a schedule like that.

Hopefully, when school starts and I get back on some kind of schedule, I'll actually start writing again. It's kind of ironic, but I think that's how it's gonna work. I'm starting to wonder if the book is God's plan for getting me out of debt. Wouldn't that be cool!

Day 372 (The Day After)

2010-08-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

So, it's the day after the road trip. We went far! I'm not sure exactly how many miles I put on poor Hammie, but it was over 10,000 miles. Here is the basic route we took, courtesy of my friend Carly:

It was weird being home after over 2 months on the road. I hardly knew what to do with myself. I finally watched the Joan of Arcadia DVD that I've been waiting to watch for all this time and I had some good catching up time with some friends. I have a week left here before I need to head back to school and I'm hoping to make some good headway on my book before then. In that vein, since I've been doing this blog once a day, every day, I think it's time to change the format. While I've enjoyed doing the blog, it's kind of morphed into something I didn't expect it too. It's kind of been taking over my life in that everything I do, I'm always analyzing it in terms of, "Does this need to go into the blog? Would people think this is interesting? I need to get some good pictures for the blog." It's like I'm always kind of removed from the situation because I'm behaving more as an observer than a participant.

So, I've decided that from now on, until it changes, this will be a weekly blog. I will make it part of my Saturday Sabbath, more of introspective on the week rather than a report on things that have been going on. We'll see how it works. Bye for now, see you on Saturday!

Day 371 (Gem Mining)

2010-08-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

Last day of the road trip, which also happens to be my birthday! My family and I went to a tourmaline mine in Pala, CA to try to find some precious gems.

Here's my loot! The people there told me that the big pink one in the upper right is worth $40.00 to $50.00!

PICTURE OF tHE DAY: My dad found a really nice one, too! His is on the left. Raw like this, we were told it's worth about $100.00. If he gets it cut right, it could be worth over $700.00!!! Holy Moly!!!

Day 370 (San Diego Zoo)

2010-08-21T21:23:00.000-07:00

It was so great hanging out with my family today; I always have so much fun with them. As planned, we went to the San Diego Zoo today. What was unplanned was the long walk to get there. My mom and I had explored the area around the zoo yesterday, and we assumed that it was somewhere nearby, so we just drove to the same parking lot that we went to yesterday. It wasn't all that far, but the zoo was at the opposite end of the complex, almost a mile away, with its own parking lot. We didn't figure this out until we were at the halfway point, so we ended up walking there. We also ended up eating way too much food today, so it was probably a good thing we had to walk so much. Here are the pictures I took on our way there.

From left to right: my dad, my nephew Raj, my brother James, my nephew Kai and my brother Brian.

And of course, pictures of the animals:

From left to right: my dad, my mom, my brother James, my sister Dianne, my newphew Kai.

PICTURE OF THE DAY: This is a happy hippo.

Day 369 (San Diego)

2010-08-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today, my mom and I did a little bit of exploring around downtown San Diego. Good times, but seeing as how it's the end of the road trip, we were exhausted and decided to call it a day after having lunch at a little Filipino restaurant.

My family showed up a while later; it was good to see them all again after being away for so long. Zoo tomorrow! WOO HOO!!!!

PICTURE OF THE DAY: I can't believe I had to come all the way back to California to see something like this. I totally laughed out loud when I read what this person had written on the back of their trailer. I had another laugh when I noticed the two yellow round things hanging below the spare tire in the middle. For those that don't know, those be truck nuts.

Day 368 (The Return)

2010-08-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

Whew! After 2 months on the road, I am finally back in California! Thank God for some bearable weather, huh? The road trip isn't completely over yet, still have a few days in San Diego before I head back to Ventura County. Gonna check out the zoo down here, I hear it's a pretty good one, and then we're gonna do some gemstone mining at Pala. My mom's been wanting to do something like that for a long time, so we had to work it into the road trip.

Anyway, there was no way I could leave the state of Arizona without taking some pictures of saguaro cacti. I hope you all appreciate these cuz I had to walk around in the 102 degree heat and crawl under a barb wire fence to get them. Enjoy!

PICTURE OF THE DAY:

Day 367 (The Thing?)

2010-08-18T21:55:00.001-07:00

Today was another driving day, although we didn't go all that far, just from Las Cruces, NM to Casa Grande, AZ, about 5 hours or so. This was good because the southwest sun was unmerciful, and even though we were driving in lovely air-conditioned Hammie, the places where the sun was hitting us were gettin' pretty toasty!

We did manage to do one touristy thing that I'd been wanting to do since I was a little kid. This wasn't my first time driving through Arizona. The first time was on one of the many road trips my family went on when I was younger. While on the I-10 driving through New Mexico and Arizona, you see a lot of these:

Since I was in charge of the driving, I had every intention of pulling over when we got to exit 322. After paying the $1.00 admission fee, my mom and I got to see "The Thing." But, you don't get to see it right away; you have to go through a little museum of sorts filled with all kinds of weird and kooky "things," including a lot of these weird sculptures someone made out of tree roots.

PICTURE OF THE DAY: Is this the infamous "The Thing?" What is it? Where did it come from? Is it real? See it for yourself in Dragoon, AZ and decide for yourself!

Day 366 (Goodbye Gerry!)

2010-08-17T22:37:00.001-07:00

Today is the one year anniversary of my blog, and what a great coincidence it is that I finally did today something that I had been planning on doing for YEARS!!!!! If you follow this blog, then you might know that there's this movie I absolutely despise called Gerry. It stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as two friends who get lost in a desert. That is the entire plot of the film. It's long and it's boring and it SUCKS!!! So, my friend Carly and I used to always joke that the only fitting end for this movie was to be left in the middle of a salt flat somewhere, much like the characters in the movie. That was one of my primary objectives on this trip, and by golly if I didn't do it today!

Here's Hammie at the salt flat.

Here's the salt flat.

I didn't get all GPS scientific about this, but to find the spot where I put the DVD, go to Salt Flat, TX, and as you could have probably guessed, walk out onto the salt flat. When you are at the point where you can stand with your hands sticking straight out to the sides and have each hand pointing at these: (One hand should be pointing to the tip of that mountain in the middle of the first picture. Your other hand should be pointing to the tip of that mountain that you can barely make out in the distance in the middle of the second picture.)

And then, you can turn 90 degrees, stick your arms to the sides and have your hands pointing at these: (One hand should be pointing at this rise toward the end of the salt flat in the first picture. The other hand should be pointing to the tip of this mountain in the middle of the second picture.)

Then you are at the right spot. Look how far Hammie is! (The small dark spot in the middle of the picture.)

Goodbye Gerry!

After that, we went to Roswell, NM, home of the infamous Area 51 alien crash landing conspiracy! We started our alien adventure at the UFO museum and research library. (Note the street lamp in front of the museum sign. All of the street lamps on this block have alien faces on them.)

It was funny to see all of these posters that I had once owned as part of the museum's exhibits.

And, continued the fun at the Area 51 kid zone a few store fronts away.

Roswell was fun, and while there were alien references everywhere, the local bank had an alien spaceship as part of it's logo and there was a giant green alien statue in front of the KFC, I just expected there to be more alien craziness.

To finish up our day, I set the GPS to Tucson, AZ. I didn't expect us to actually get that far; I just figured we'd stop somewhere once we got tired and pick up where we left off tomorrow. The route took us right past White Sands National Monument, and while it wasn't on the schedule, I was not going to pass up the opportunity!

Unlike most other sandy places, the sand in White Sands is made of gypsum crystals, which gives it its striking white color. We ended up going on a ranger led sunset walk where my mom and I ended up taking off our shoes so we could walk around barefoot in the powdery gypsum sand. It was so much fun doing a nature walk barefoot; I felt like a kid again.

My mom doing some yoga poses in front of the sunset.

PICTURE OF THE DAY:

Day 365 (Adventures in Texas)

2010-08-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, now is the official one year mark for my blog, and again, there is not much to report on today. Oh yeah, except for this...

One of these we found in the hotel room already dead last night, the other, my mom killed. By stepping on it, after it ran up her leg, inside her pants, and she was jumping around swatting herself to get it out. These suckers move fast! Afterwards, we both laughed about it, but it really drove home the fact that we were sleeping in a roach motel and that we needed to take measures to protect ourselves.

I tucked all the bed sheets in so that none of it was touching the floor, then I sprayed around the beds and headboards with insect repellant. And, we slept with the lights on, because cockroaches don't like light.

I decided to sleep with my contacts in because if we were gonna sleep there, I wanted to be able to see, and the place was obviously dirty and I didn't want to touch my eyes. We were treating it like a camping situation.

Around 3 in the morning, I noticed a large brown lump on the ceiling. The ceiling was made of ceiling tiles that had seen better days. I decided that the lump merited further investigation, and of course it was a gigantic cockroach. I sprayed it with insect repellant and it disappeared back into the ceiling tiles with a disconcerting patter of little feet.

We didn't sleep well that night.

Happy one year mark, blog!

Day 364 (Eat Pray Love)

2010-08-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I started out today in New Orleans and am ending the day in Columbus, TX, pop. 3,900. My mom and I managed to find a cheap hotel, $30.00 for the night, but the floor is dirty, including a giant dead cockroach, and I'm not sure if the air conditioner is going to be able to keep the room cool. Oh well, it's just for one night.

Not much to show for today; it was mostly driving as we try to make it back to California to meet the rest of the family in San Diego. We did stop for a movie break when I got tired of driving. I wanted to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, but we would've had to wait for an hour so we decided to watch Eat Pray Love which was starting right away.

It was a movie that I did want to see, but I wanted to read the book first, and I really wanted to see Scott Pilgrim, but I figure I'll see it eventually. Eat Pray Love was cute, and had several very sentimental moments. Julia Roberts is perfect for the role of the soul-searching writer, but she is kind of starting to look a little strange. Has she had work done? I'm not gonna take the time to find out.

Day 363 (Red Dress Race)

2010-08-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

As my mom and I walked through the hotel lobby this morning, a guy wearing a red dress walked past us. This was only slightly shocking, we were in New Orleans after all, and he was being followed by two of his female friends, telling him not to make a spectacle of himself. Then we started noticing red dress everywhere.

We soon found out that today just happened to be the day of the Red Dress Run, an annual event that raises money for various charities. Every year, over 4,000 people show up in the city wearing red dresses to participate in the event, and we just happened to be there to see it all. We weren't exactly sure where to go, but all we had to do was follow the people in the red dresses.

Since we were in New Orelans, we had to get beignets, essentially fried dough covered in powdered sugar. This was the line we would have had to wait in at the Cafe du Monde:

Fortunately, when we showed up, a helpful waiter asked if we wanted an order to go, and we said yes. He walked into the kitchen and brought us an order of beignets and two cups of creamed coffee, sugars and stirring sticks. I gave him a really nice tip.

As we explored the town, we kept seeing these mule-drawn carriages. There was a huge line of them waiting for customers across the street from the cafe in front of this building that reminded me, as many things do, of Disneyland.

We had a great time in the French Quarter, which is wonderful place for drinking...(My mom drinking a virgin mango ice cream daiquiri. I had a banana one with rum! XD

eating... (here we have gumbo, jumbalaya, and alligator nuggets)

music...(the jazz band that played while we ate)

and shopping.

After that, we went on a tour of the Bayou, which was kind of similar to the Everglades, but definitely had its own character.

During the tour, other tour groups kept roaring by in air boats. I'm gonna have to go on one of these some day.

Just like the Everglades, there were alligators, which the tour guide actually called out to in some kind of French/Cajun language, enticing them with marshmallows, or as he called them, "gator crack." The big one in these pictures is a 13 footer!

Unlike the Everglades, we got to hold a gator, albeit a very small one.

PICTURE OF THE DAY:

Day 362 (New Orleans)

2010-08-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

It took lots of driving, but we finally made it to the Big Easy.

I had a bowl of crawfish etouffee along the banks of the Mississippi River for dinner.

After a little bit of walking we discovered Bourbon Street.

This place is completely nuts! Las Vegas has NOTHING on New Orleans! If you wanna party, this is totally the place to be. People are milling about everywhere, lots of them drunk, even more of them walking around with drinks in their hands, and the beads are flying. It's not even Mardis Gras! I can't even imagine what this place looks like at that time of year, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to be around for it. Drunk people kind of freak me out. Still, my mom and I had a good time people watching and looking at the unique architecture and ambiance of the city. Also, the art here is incredible!

PICTURE OF THE DAY: Just like Vegas.