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Are you a guy finding it difficult to make a decision about marriage? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the weight of this major life choice? One of the things we lack in a culture of unlimited choices is the ability to make good decisions that we can then confidently act on.
All this week I've been in training related to team problem solving with a group called Adizes. Early on, the trainer claimed that the Adizes process for decision making can be used in all kinds of settings -- even for making a decision about marriage. So maybe this can be of help to you. Here's the process:
Defreeze -- This is a word that Dr. Adizes created to describe the important first step of relaxing and slowing down from any left-brain activities you're involved in and shifting to the right-hand side of your brain where you can make a more creative decision. You don't want to try to make a decision about marriage in the same frame of mind that you balance your checkbook. Take a hike or go on a retreat to shift gears.
Accumulate -- Gather all the information related to your decision. In the case of marriage, capture on paper all the thoughts you have about the opportunity in front of you.
Deliberate -- Look at all the thoughts you've captured and try to see what emerges. What patterns do you see? Dr. Mohler has said that a sovereign God puts us in specific places at specific times for a reason. Can you narrow down all your thoughts in order to see the possibility that God has ordained the intersection of your life with your potential spouse?
Incubate -- This is where you take a break from the information you've accumulated and deliberated over. Dr. Adizes describes it as "consulting your pillow." Sleep on it. Take another hike. This incubation period is good for the kind of "middle of the night insights" that lead to breakthroughs.
Illuminate -- The incubation period can help you return to your deliberation with fresh perspectives and the ability to have an "a-ha" about the issues you've been mulling over. Now's the time to see if you can make a good decision from what you've reflected on.
Accommodate -- The next step is where you process your doubts and questions. It's important to hold your insights up against realities. Older versions of the marriage vows talk about approaching matrimony soberly and advisedly -- this is the step where that happens in earnest.
Finalize -- This is one of the most important steps and the one many guys have trouble completing. It's where you actually make a final decision. You bite the bullet. Dr. Adizes says that many beautiful men and women never marry because they have too many choices and they have trouble pushing through and making a good choice. After you've gone through all the steps, it's time to make a decision one way or the other. You either decide that you have enough to go on to take the big step of getting engaged or you recognize this is not who God would have you to marry and you move on.
Reinforce -- The final step is getting confirmation on the decision you've made and finding the support you need to implement it.. While it works best to go through all of these decision making steps with a mentor, a pastor and/or your parents -- this is a crucial time to bring your decision to all those key people in your community and to seek their blessing for the venture ahead of you.
I realize you can always find shortcomings when you try to apply business processes to matters of the heart, but I think there's some value in praying about how you can use formal steps like these to break past the paralysis of analysis that is all too common for guys thinking about marriage -- and to help you confidently move forward instead of languishing in an endless season of trying to decide.
The New York Times' blog post "Single, Childless and 'Downright Terrified'" has the forums humming. Lots of folks are debating the notion that getting old without offspring is a frightening proposition. Jane Gross writes, ... having witnessed the "new old age" from a front-row seat, I'm haunted by the knowledge that there is no one who will care about me in the deepest and most loving sense of the word at the end of my life. No one who will advocate for me, not simply for adequate care but for the small and arguably inessential things that can make life worth living even in compromised health.
Those who are intentionally childless insist they have plenty of insurance and other safeguards in place to make sure someone's there to feed them creamed spinach. Others, who still wish their lives had worked out differently in the realm of family, hope they will. But for all the back and forth about getting old alone, there was an omission I found striking. Nowhere in Gross' original post was there any mention of community, religious or otherwise. Most tragically, no mention of a church -- her church, the church, any church.
Instead, she looked to the prospect of an expanded role for friends. "Friends helping friends through illness or old age" is a possible solution, she says, but unfortunately, such "is a luxury of those who can afford to do it with no help from the government or their employers." Why is that? "The handful of benefits available to family caregivers are not available to friends who have taken on the identical role."
Her recommendation: have a "conversation" about "the 'second class' status of friendship in 'the American hierarchy of relationships' and 'grant it legal status.'" Maybe the answer lies in granting friendships the same or similar rights as biological relatives.
I think Gross has stumbled onto one of the reasons God made families, and by default, one of the unintended consequences of our cultural assault on marriage and children. Unfortunately, her proposed solution -- marriage-like legal rights for friendships -- if embraced, would undoubtedly produce more such unintended consequences.
The reality of an aging, childless population is undeniable. How we care for them, however, is yet to be decided. Where some see tragedy, I see opportunity. The church is uniquely gifted to step in with compassionate care not only for the body in this life, but also for the spirit with a view toward the next.
I ♥ energy.
When I drive to church, it's energy that gets me there.
When I'm stopped at the train tracks, it's energy that keeps the locomotive rattling along.
When I pick up some organic milk at Whole Foods, it's energy that keeps it cold.
When my kids rummage through the used toys at the thrift store, it's energy that keeps the place at a comfortable temperature.
When I cook up some stir-fry at home, it's energy that makes my stove hot.
When I take a sip from the drinking fountain, it's energy that purified the water.
When I walk to pick up the mail, it's energy that helped manufacture my shoes.
When I mow my lawn, it's energy that keeps the blades of my electric mower spinning.
When I fertilize my lawn with corn gluten meal and chicken manure, it's energy that enabled it to be processed and bagged.
When I go to the local farmer's market, it's energy that fueled the tractors that prepared the earth from which the squash and carrots emerged.
And as I type this blog post, it's energy that keeps the pixels on my monitor bright.
I love energy. I'd prefer we take a cue from France and get more of it from cleaner sources such as nuclear, but I'm fine with it coming from oil, gasoline and coal. I marvel that the Creator would make a world with such a variety of energy sources, giving us the ingenuity to extract this energy to assist us in exercising godly dominion over creation.
I thank God for the blessings of energy.
A couple of weeks ago on The Boundless Show we talked about how our culture emasculates men. But somehow we missed Tony Glenville's 2006 Top to Toe: A Comprehensive Guide to the Grooming of the Modern Male, which is the pièce de résistance of emasculation.
Randy Stinson of The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood has some excerpts of the book on his blog. Here's one of my faves, "A special occasion calls for special treatment, and taking the time to visit your hairdresser, go for a massage, and have a facial scrub will all add to your confidence."
The least Glenville could have done was substitute "barber shop" for "hairdresser" and "hot towel" for "facial scrub." Seriously, do men have hairdressers? I mean, I cut my own hair with a grooming kit I bought at Target. But I digress.
Stinson does a good job of arguing the dangers of Glenville's male pampering recommendations. He said that it will lead men to an unhealthy "self-preoccupation" and away from self-sacrifice, which is the very definition of biblical masculinity. Men reading Glenville's book will only be encouraged in their sinful tendency to look out for themselves. If men are focused on such trivial things as dry skin and pampering themselves with long baths, it will be all the more difficult to expect them to lead, provide, and protect.
But will Christian men give way to a preoccupation with skin creams and bubble baths? Stinson continues that if the church continues to follow culture, ... we will have plenty of "Top to Toe" men, able to shop with the best of them at Bath and Body Works, but unwilling and unable to fulfill the Gospel demands that require toughness, self sacrifice, and self-neglect. We do not need prettier boys. We do not need softer men. What we need is a church culture that will call boys and men to lives of self sacrifice as exampled by the picture of Christ in Ephesians 5 who loved the church and gave himself for her to his own neglect and sacrifice. What we need are pastors who will boldly preach about and press for an ethos in their churches that expects this type of behavior from their men. What we need is a church culture that will require boys and men to do hard things, to cultivate toughness, resilience, and courage, top to toe.
Can I get an amen, men?
HT: Tim Challies
I've tweaked my servers and e-mail clients through the years, so I only receive a few spams a day.
But one day last month the trickle turned into a torrent. My inbox showed 1,000 new e-mails. Then another 5,000. Then another 10,000. By the time I shut down my mail server, there were over 22,000 e-mails clogging my account. Here's a screenshot (click it to see it full-size), after I had removed some of the spam:
What happened was that a Chinese spammer, perhaps a member of a spam gang who put me on their naughty list, had used my domain name in his "from" field, making his spam look as though I had sent it. A percentage of those e-mails were undeliverable, and so they were bounced back to the "sender" -- me.
I suspect he sent millions of e-mails, and I was just beginning to see the barrage of those that had bounced back. Good thing I caught it when I did.
So do I win the record for most number of unwelcome e-mails in a 24-hour period?
Americans have a penchant for sticking things on our cars, from Christian fish decals to the Darwin amphibian thingie and every variation thereof.
It's a phenomenon I haven't seen too often in Europe or Africa, this desire to tell anyone and everyone who we are and what we think by putting things on our cars. Maybe it’s because we Americans are such a car-centric culture, we see our cars as an extension of ourselves. (So what is the suburban family that drives a Hummer to the supermarket saying about themselves?)
Anyway, I like looking at what people put on their cars, from the obnoxious to the indecipherable. It's the automotive variant of people-watching. Here are a few bumper stickers I've seen over the years that have stuck with me. (Bad pun not intended.)
Give War a Chance: Seen on a car with a Young Life decal on the same window. Aside from the mixed message, I wonder if this person has been in an actual war. I’m guessing not.
If We're Not Supposed to Eat Animals, Why Are They Made of Meat? Nuff said.
Fight the Dominant Paradigm! Seen in west Texas on a rattletrap pickup truck with a shotgun in the rear-window rack. I'm sure that shotgun, loaded with double-ought buckshot, would put a big ol' hole in the dominant paradigm. (In Texas the law requires that the adjective big always be followed by the intensifier ol' , e.g., "That's a big ol' dog you got there, Sheriff!" In Mississippi, on the other hand, the word is reserved for females and is to be used after the word little, e.g., "You surely don't suspect little ol' me, do you?")
I ♥ Foat Wuth: Seen on the German autobahn outside of Mannheim. A lot of Germans are probably still scratching their heads over that one.
Visualize Whirled Peas: Um, I'd rather not. But a good thumb in the eye to those naive, moony types who believe the only problem with the world is that everyone is just so darn mean to each other.
Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean Everyone's Not Out to Get You: Cue X-Files music.
Help! The Paranoids Are After Me! A variation on the theme.
My Honor Student Can Beat Up Your Honor Student: So there!
I ♠ My Dog: At least he doesn't ♣ the poor thing.
Just Think: 1/7th of Your Life Is Mondays: That explains a lot.
Finally, be careful what you put on your back bumper. Jay Leno tells the story of pulling up behind a car at a traffic light. Seeing the "Honk If You Love Jesus" bumper sticker, he gave his horn a little tap. The guy in front leaned out his window and yelled, "The light's still red, you moron!"
And for the record, my Jeep has a U.S. Marine Corps decal, a Wheaton College decal, a Columbia University decal and now, thanks to my daughter, a Biola University decal. Our family van has a Marine Corps decal and a Biola decal.
I used to know a lot of old people. I don't anymore. I'm not sure why. But I think it has something to do with the church I go to. The "communities" are fairly segmented by life stage. Which makes inter-generational community difficult.
Don't get me wrong though. I'm not saying our "fairly segmented" format is wrong. I've benefited greatly from the close fellowship I've developed with my peers. Still, is it what God intended for his church?
I found this portion of a Q&A with theologian J.I. Packer on Between Two Worlds that may help. Though this particular blurb is about worship styles, I think Dr. Packer's answer applies to other intentionally segmented formats within the church. Shane Rosenthal: What do you think about a niche marketing approach that has by virtue of the different worship styles--teen pop, alternative, and adult boomer--created generational segregation?
J. I. Packer: We have separated the ages, very much to the loss of each age. In the New Testament, the Christian church is an all-age community, and in real life the experience of the family to look no further should convince us that the interaction of the ages is enriching. The principle is that generations should be mixed up in the church for the glory of God. That doesn't mean we shouldn't disciple groups of people of the same age or the same sex separately from time to time. That's a good thing to do. But for the most part, the right thing is the mixed community in which everybody is making the effort to understand and empathize with all the other people in the other age groups. Make the effort is the key phrase here. Older people tend not to make the effort to understand younger people, and younger people are actually encouraged not to make the effort to understand older people. That's a loss of a crucial Christian value in my judgment. If worship styles are so fixed that what's being offered fits the expectations, the hopes, even the prejudices, of any one of these groups as opposed to the others, I don't believe the worship style glorifies God, and some change, some reformation, some adjustment, and some enlargement of spiritual vision is really called for.
Dr. Packer says that "make the effort" is the key phrase. So individuals have the responsibility to make inter-generational community happen. What this means is that if I miss old people, it's up to me to "make the effort." But there's no getting around the fact that the way we do church will either help or hinder it.
We're about to run out of petroleum, right? The peak of production is imminent, at which point less oil will become available, a dire condition considering the world's increasing appetite for it. There will be shortages, famine, riots ... unless we immediately pour all our resources into developing alternative energies: solar, wind, hydroelectric (but not nuclear, of course), and curtail others' use of "fossil fuels."
It's TEOTWAWKI, right?
Nah. The truth is that there is indeed plenty of petroleum available. Plenty that we know of, and likely a whole lot more that's yet to be discovered.
Facts: Saudi Arabia has an estimated 260 billion barrels of oil in its reserves, enough to last another 80 years at current extraction rates. Canada has about 180 billion, which will last 180 years at current rates. Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Venezuela and Russia together have about 580 billion barrels in reserve.
Current known global reserves of this stuff are over 1.1 trillion barrels yet to be drilled.
Now here's something you probably haven't heard: There are between 800 billion barrels and 2.6 trillion barrels worth of oil within the oil shale reserves in the United States.
Stunning, hm? And at over $100 per barrel for oil, it's a profitable possibility ... if only U.S. lawmakers would get out of the way and stop hindering the efforts of those who want to provide it to us.
Earlier this month Senator Orrin Hatch, of the shale oil-rich state of Utah, presented some things most of us probably don't know about shale oil:
- Oil shale has a smaller carbon footprint than ethanol.
- Oil shale uses less water than ethanol and no more than gasoline.
- Oil shale uses much less land than either ethanol or gasoline. One acre of corn produces 10 barrels of ethanol. One acre in the oil patch produces about 10,000 barrels of oil. One acre of oil shale produces between 100,000 and 1,000,000+ barrels of shale oil.
- Oil shale has been commercially produced in Brazil for 30 years and in Estonia for 80 years.
- Oil shale failed in 1982 due to the price dropping to $10 a barrel, not because of technology or scarcity of water.
It's worth getting excited about the amount of oil available in ANWR, some 15 billion barrels. But the potential lying beneath the ground in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah is exhilarating.
Yes, let's explore and exploit alternative energy sources, including nuclear (France, FWIW, derives over 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear). But let's not shut the door on the blessings of abundant oil quite yet.
By the time we run out of the stuff in 100 or 200 years, I'm confident that the level-headed investments we're currently making in alternative energy will enable us to replace our dependence on petroleum entirely, without the infringements on liberty, productivity and lifestyle inherent in "peak oil" proponents' route to the future.
For those readers who now think I'm of the mind that looks don't matter (see the comments on Another Reason to Marry Young), you might be surprised to read what I've said in the past about this subject.
Things like: Beauty is not sinful. God made it. Many of the women in the Old Testament were singled out for their physical appearance. Sarah and Rebekah were so beautiful that their husbands feared they might be killed by other powerful, lustful men. Esther's beauty had everything to do with why King Xerxes chose her among all the virgins and Abigail's beauty surely played a role in staying David's murderous hand. ... my government professor from graduate school used to say, "the Old Testament shows how beauty plays a key role in diplomacy."
And, Yes, there are lots of Christian women who struggle with the problem of overemphasis on beauty. But ... others fall into the category of "mismanagement" or neglect. And ... this has a profound effect on [their] growing desire for marriage and family.
More than most women, most men are stimulated, animated and activated by what they see. It's hard for women to fully grasp what this means because it's not our nature to be equally aroused by the images around us. We're more relational.
Of course I didn't leave it at that. There's too much in Scripture about how focusing on outward appearances alone lead to a host of troubles for men and women alike.
Yes, looks matter. But they're not the whole story. Read all about it here: Not Enough Beauty.
There are plenty of things that I just don't know. Plenty of things about which I'm just unable to make any confident conclusions, despite having spent time researching them. Here are a few.
Fossil Fuels
The theory that petroleum is a "fossil fuel" -- i.e., the result of ancient plant and animal life being heated and compressed -- was first suggested in the 1700s. Since then, numerous scientists have found inconsistencies with this "biogenic origin" hypothesis, and have suggested that it is instead "produced by the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in the mantle of the earth."
A team of scientists conducted experiments with a reactor vessel they had built which proved that oil is produced from calcium carbonate and iron oxide, neither of which are biological. Science Magazine published an article that supports this abiogenic hypothesis, concluding, "Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat."
If this theory is true, that petroleum is not a fossil fuel, or at least in some cases it's not a fossil fuel, then that would make oil a renewable resource, continually being generated by natural processes miles below the surface of the earth. Which makes such concerns as the "peak oil hypothesis," for example, invalid. Interestingly, this abiogenic hypothesis would also seem consistent with some young earth theories of creation.
So what do I believe? I don't really know, frankly. Evidence exists in support of both theories, and I can discount neither.
Alien Life
Does life exist on other planets? Hm. Not sure. Scripture doesn't say that the Lord only created life on earth, which leaves room for God to have brought about living beings elsewhere in the universe.
Some people say that the universe is so big, of course there's got to be life out there. That's a pretty silly thing to say, in my opinion, because the Creator could form life on other worlds whether there's just one other planet or billions of other planets. Life comes about because of His word, not because the chances for it happening seem larger because the universe is so large.
Astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell (who happened to be the sixth man to set foot on the moon) recently claimed to have inside knowledge about the existence of extraterrestrial life. Is he making it up? Is he losing his mind? I don't know.
C.S. Lewis took serious this question about life on other planets and concluded that if it exists, it's no threat to the Christian faith. They may have sinned, or not. The Son may have solved their sin problem in a way unique to that species, or perhaps His human incarnation is sufficient for all beings terrestrial and extraterrestrial. Regardless, if life does exist "out there" it's not a threat to Christianity, despite the claims of some.
So what do I think? Is there alien life? Are UFOs demonic? Have humans ever interacted with extraterrestrials? I don't know.
Light
Is it a particle? Is it a wave? Is it a, um, "particle-wave"? Who knows?
Light was created on the very first day, an ancient and elusive thing about which C.S. Lewis rhapsodized, "We cannot see light, though by light we can see things."
Though weightless, or perhaps of very little mass, it is powerful. Darkness cannot overcome it. Scripture says that God Himself is "light." We are called into that light to become children of light. Scripture's high estimation of light tells me that there's something quite special about it.
I understand a bit what light does, and how it's associated with good. But what it is ... I cannot tell.
Unplumbed Mysteries
I'm tempted to explore other enigmas -- heaven, the gospel, Christ, our very faith -- but that would move this blog post beyond its intended scope: mysteries of the physical world.
So how about you? Do you find petroleum, aliens and light as intriguing as I do? What about photosynthesis, aurora borealis, the nature of language, the growth of a seed into an apple tree or a child, the ongoing beating of your heart? What else puzzles you in this wonderful universe our Lord has created?
Don't know how many Boundless readers remember this, but there were several days last fall when the Internet was buzzing with the story of a young New York man named Patrick Moberg who had spotted the "girl of his dreams" on the subway. Unfortunately, by the time Moberg got up the nerve to approach her, she disembarked.
Not one to give up too easily, Moberg created a no-frills Web site called NYGirlOfMyDreams.com, in which he sent out a plea for this mystery girl -- or anyone who recognized her based on his inchoate-yet-remarkably-descriptive artwork -- to please, please contact him.
Well, it turns out that the two did eventually meet, and began to date. They turned up on "Good Morning America" and in the pages of Reader's Digest. They were dubbed "the subway sweethearts." But then ... nothing. Mr. Moberg and his dream girl, Camille Hayton, basically vanished from view.
Until now.
The Melbourne Herald Sun -- Hayton is from Australia -- reported yesterday that the pair are no longer a couple. "We dated for a while, but now we're just friends," Hayton said. They went out for about two months, she revealed, but apparently nothing serious resulted.
When Suzanne first referenced Moberg's unorthodox approach, Boundless readers were split. Some thought his actions were cute and inventive. Others lamented the fact that men today have more excuses than ever to approach potential dates via e-mail, text or Web (Facebook, MySpace) instead of on the phone or in person. Simply put, many guys have concluded that it's easier to stomach rejection when it doesn't happen in real time.
The whole thing reminds me of a high school buddy whose dating philosophy was easier said than implemented. His foolproof plan: Ask out 10 girls on a date, and at least one of them is bound to say yes. It sounded reasonable at the time -- remember, this was high school -- though I never knew anyone, including my buddy, who put it into practice. That's probably because, even if a guy can actually name 10 girls he'd like to date at any given time, how many rejections can one man take before he calls off the plan in despair? Two? Three? Five? How many guys, like Patrick Moberg, have trouble even making it to one simply because the potential for failure is so daunting?
At least Camille Hayton gave Moberg a chance, despite the extremely public nature of their introduction. "The situation was so intense that we bonded in a way that you could mistake for being more romantic than it was," Hayton said. "But I wanted to give it a go, so I wouldn't later wonder, 'What if, what if?'."
True, the "subway sweethearts" didn't pan out. But if Hayton had never said yes, would she have always wondered "What if?" How many women today reject potential suitors, either via e-mail or face to face, without ever asking themselves "What if?"
And how many men have simply stopped asking after one rejection too many?
What if, indeed.
 Several years ago I was waiting to check into a quaint local hotel in a resort town when a man reeking of beer barged into the tiny lobby. He pushed ahead of a customer at the counter and asked the clerk, "Anywhere I can get a beer around here?"
Trying to hide her annoyance, she answered, "There's a brew pub three blocks down."
He took an unsteady step back, aghast, and asked, "Anything closer?"
I couldn't help but think of that incident when I read a recent Wall Street Journal article about the closing of 600 Starbucks coffee shops around the country. A manager at a financial-services company in New York City was devastated to learn that the Starbucks in the lobby of her building was on the death list. "Knowing Starbucks, there's probably [another] one within a few blocks," she said. "But that's probably two blocks too far."
Really, now, are we that addicted to our Starbucks? I like coffee probably a bit more than the average person, and I really like Starbucks' Gold Coast Blend when I need a good kick-in-the-neurons hit of java. But I really don't need Starbucks.
I remember not too long ago when people actually tried to stop Starbucks from opening in their towns, complaining that the global chain was homogenizing our tastes and crushing mom-and-pop shops in the process. There seemed to be a Starbucks just about everywhere you looked, leading to this great line in the movie Best in Show: "We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks, but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other."
Now we want to save our Starbucks. But why? Starbucks introduced many people to the idea of good coffee, but there were a lot of places making good coffee before they came along. In fact, Starbucks' chief accomplishment has been to homogenize the look of coffee shops.
Too many businesses have mistaken the ambiance for the coffee. Any coffee establishment that wants to compete today must have a lot of comfy chairs scattered about, wireless Internet, and trendy indie rock playing in the background. In fact, as I write this I'm sitting in a non-Starbucks coffee shop. Comfy chairs? Check. Trendy indie rock? The Neville Brothers, actually, but to my mind that's better anyway. Wireless Internet? In theory, but it's intermittent today. But the coffee? Meh. Not bad, but I've had better. But some things remain constant: The barista is talking about "people who are coffee drinkers and people who think they are coffee drinkers but aren't."
Okay, whatever. I suppose the same is true of baristas.
I've been drinking coffee a long time, from really bad C-ration powdered stuff -- in the Marines when we were on the move we just chewed the powder and washed it down with canteen water -- to African chicory blends to sublime Arabic coffee roasted, ground, and brewed before my eyes. I think I know my coffee, and while comfy chairs and whatnot are okay, I'd rather just have a good strong cuppa joe without paying for all the extra ambiance -- and snobbery.
And I'm willing to walk two blocks for it.
I am not a runner.
Or at least I didn't used to be. But since I moved to Colorado 5 years ago, I've run half a dozen  races.
"Why?" you ask. For the competition? Definitely not (10-year-olds outrun me). For the exercise? Well, I need it, but that's not enough to make me pound the pavement. For the challenge? Nope. (I don't need to prove myself to anyone, particularly myself).
I attribute my insanity to ... peer pressure. It's true. There is some kind of weird vibe here that tells you running is just something you do — like eating or breathing. It's true that Colorado Springs boasts some of the most beautiful running trails (I prefer using the treadmill where there's air conditioning). But it goes further than that. People, like myself, who had formally wanted nothing more than to lounge on their couches watching TV reruns come to Colorado and ... run marathons!
For me it began my first year here. My co-worker Annette invited me to run in the St. Patrick's Day 5K. After discovering it was physically possible for a person to run 3.1 miles all at once, I agreed. That's how I got sucked in. But that doesn't mean I liked it. Consider what I wrote about a 10K (6.2 miles) I ran three summers ago: "Hhhaaa-hhhaaa, Hhhaaa-hhhaa." It sounded like Darth Vader was behind me. The owner of the strange breathing technique tailed me for a couple minutes, making me increasingly nervous. Finally I slowed to let her pass. Bad idea. As I slowed, I became more aware of the burn in my legs, the blister forming on my right foot and the uncomfortable feeling in my side. Suddenly each little obstacle discouraged me. A slight hill, the intensity of the sun, running on gravel — every hinderance made me conclude I couldn't keep running.
Between miles 3 and 5, I stopped to walk four times. At first I was miffed by my lack of endurance and determination. As Nike slogans danced through my head, I reworded them: "Just DON'T do it" and "Defeat is ALWAYS an option." I suffered the humiliation of old ladies and 12-year-olds passing me. Then I remembered the saying, "To thine ownself be true." Being true to myself was admitting that I'm not a top-notch runner. Being true to myself was being willing to walk (and enjoying it) when I couldn't run. Being true to myself was feeling satisfaction not for setting a new record but for finishing the race.
Despite my lack of natural ability in running, I have learned things through it. This year I wanted to try again. After all, physical training "is of some value." So I asked a friend to help me train for the Bolder Boulder 10K. I followed my friend's training schedule religiously. And what do you know? I had fun. I even finished six minutes faster than I expected.
Feeling rather accomplished, I allowed a friend to talk me into running a half-marathon with her on August 9. My training schedule was revised, and I've been running an average of 15 miles per week.
I wonder if Paul was an athlete — or just a track fan. He uses the metaphor of a race frequently. Run a good race, finish the race, run to get the prize. My experiences in training and running have made these statements more real to me. When I want to quit near the end of a race, I think of Paul's words in Acts 20:24: "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace."
Finishing isn't always easy, but it is possible. Running teaches you that.
Whenever the summer Olympics begin, I like to think that the only thing that separated me from being an Olympian was that I wasn't born in a communist country. I'm the type of guy who really needed that familial separation to focus on my swimming.
Don't laugh. I have several blue ribbons and trophies from the local country club growing up to prove my potential to make the U.S. swim team.
And if you think I'm delusional, Lisa begins this week's The Boundless Show by claiming all she needs is four years to make the U.S. crew team for the next summer Olympics. No talent necessary for this event. Just being buff and a little sunscreen is all you need. Or so she says.
But I'll tell you what team I could make if they had an event for it: marathon camping for Batman movie tickets. Now that's a sport that'd really raise the American medal count if it existed. And it's something the team talks about to end this week's chat session.
Cool But Meaningless Friendships -- 6:45
Let's face it. We all want to be cool and have cool friends. I have one that I've named a particular style of dressing after. It's called "The Carlton." It's when you wear a long sleeve button down shirt untucked with shorts. It looks good on me. But will my friendship with Carlton weather the tough times? This week Lisa, Candice and Steve talk about moving from entertainment-based friendships to ones that are marked by mutual support.
Why Kevin DeYoung Isn't Emergent -- 22:40
This is one of my favorite Culture segments. Lisa's interview with Kevin DeYoung, author of Why We're Not Emergent, is engaging and informative. I loved this quote from Kevin: "There's not a single college student in our church who comes because I know anything about The Matrix or American Idol or Moby. I don't even know what those things are, I just know about them. No, people come because they want to know about Jesus. That's how we try to be relevant, by giving them the gospel." There's a whole lot more. So don't miss this one.
Never Been Dated -- 39:40
Ooh, do we have a good Inbox this week! It's from a listener who believes she has done all the right things to position herself for marriage but has yet to be asked out on a date. What will Candice say to someone who seems to have taken all her counsel but with no success? Well, Candice has some good advice for this young woman that will take a little humility to put into practice.
 What is up, friends? I'm back to blogging, and Suzanne and I have decided to write a few posts on all of our brilliant ideas for what to do during your summer months. Here goes:
Spend some time doing missions work! I just got back from spending two weeks in Peru with hundreds of teenagers. Sounds like crazy good times, doesn't it? Actually, it really was. It was the highlight of my summer, mainly because the trip exceeded my expectations.
I helped lead a team of 33 guys and girls, and they were amazing. We had a young team, but they were so dedicated to learning the parts in their drama, playing with the Peruvian children and talking to people about their faith. Their enthusiasm was refreshing (and sometimes a bit convicting).
Our trip consisted of normal missions trip-y things. We did work projects, shared the gospel through a drama; we played jump-rope with children and chatted with their mothers. We visited people in poor areas, shocked by their pieced-together shacks. We tried to avoid the gazillions of flea-ridden stray dogs. Many of our teenagers were experiencing this type of poverty for the very first time, and it was interesting to see it through their eyes.
It was great for me to go as an adult leader. I went on a missions trip in high school, but this was an entirely different experience. As an adult, I was there to serve the Peruvians, but also to encourage our teens. I was able to give advice and challenge them to take new steps. I also learned patience as I tried to get 33 teens to stay quiet long enough to do a head count.
I've often thought of missions trips as the thing that high schoolers do -- a week-long trip to Mexico seems to be a staple of American, youth group Christianity. But it was a rewarding experience for me as well. It may be difficult to find the time in your work schedule, but if you can do it, I would encourage you to consider spending part of your summer serving in a way you're not used to. God will use it to bless you and those you minister to.
With the success of quirky Indie film Juno and the recent cover story on teen mom Jamie Lynn Spears in OK! magazine, teenage pregnancy has become "a hot plot device" in Hollywood, according to Newsweek. Unfortunately, it's a woefully one-sided perspective. Many teen moms and the adults who deal with them are glad to see a conversation about teen pregnancy out in the open. But they say that big parts of the story are being glossed over: how that baby bump came to be in the first place, and just how hard it'll be for a teen to raise a child.
"It's the missing three C's: there's little commitment, no mention of contraception and rarely do we see negative consequences," says Jane Brown, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina who runs the Teen Media Project. "What's missing in the media's sexual script is what happens before and after. Why are these kids getting pregnant and what happens afterward?"
Al Mohler points out the danger of such an unrealistic view of teen motherhood: The OK! magazine cover makes teen motherhood look positively glamorous. But, as one young woman responded to the OK! coverage, "I had a baby at 16, it was NOT easy, I did NOT look radiant and beautiful."
Then again, that kind of honesty probably wouldn't sell many magazines. Hollywood and the entertainment industry are selling their version of normal teenage expectation.
And their version is horribly flawed. It sells teens short by telling them that raising a child on their own will be easy and bring them happiness. If they happen to secure a committed relationship (forget about marriage), all the better, but that part is optional. Unfortunately, the glossy, touched-up photo of a smiling Jamie Lynn is not the true picture of a single, teenage mom. The reality is, single moms are more likely to experience poverty and less likely to marry or gain an education than their childless counterparts.
I'm glad that media is looking at the issue of teen pregnancy. And I appreciate the pro-life message of keeping the baby. But ultimately ignoring God's design for sex and the family is setting teens up for failure. Where are the movies about that?
I love top ten lists. And Salvo Magazine has provided two good ones on colleges in their Spring 2008 issue. It's not a best and worst list, it's a decent and deplorable list based on "qualities of a great college." You'll see what I mean.
10 Decent Colleges
Best Elite College -- Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Most Faithful to Religious Heritage -- Biola University, La Mirada, CA
Best Non-traditional Student Work Program -- College of the Ozarks, Point Lookout, MO
Best Value -- Grove City College, Grove City, PA
Best Math/Sciences/Engineering College -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Best Research University -- University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Best Learning Environment -- Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden-Sydney, VA
Best Core Curriculum -- Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Best for Civic Education -- Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, MI
Best Integration of Sports and Academics -- Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL
10 Deplorable Colleges
Worst Speech Code -- Tufts University, Medford, MA
Worst Core [Curriculum] -- Brown University, Providence, RI
Worst Elite College -- Amherst College, Amherst, MA
Least Faithful to Religious Heritage -- College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA
Worst for Civic Education -- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
Most Radicalized Faculty -- Columbia University, New York, NY
Most Sexualized Campus -- Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH
Most Oppressive Student-Life Indoctrination Program -- University of Delaware, Newark, DE
Worst Sports Debacle -- University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO
Worst Learning Environment -- University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Most of these categories are self-explanatory, which makes for a good list. For the full context, you can order the mag here.
With more and more young evangelicals calling for a more holistic approach to politics, saying we shouldn't just focus on abortion, I found this portion of Citizen Link's interview with Star Parker interesting. CitizenLink: What would you like to say to values voters in this country?
Star Parker: We need to put all of our eggs in one basket, and then we need to fight for the helm of that basket. We have to be a force. If we're scattered everywhere, we don't control anything and that's the reason we're facing the type of election environment we're in today.
You keep resolving, you be steadfast, and you keep fighting.
The question is, can you be a force when the political buzzword of this election year is something as malleable and broad as social justice? I don't think so.
Maybe we can "put all our eggs in one basket" by applying Dave Ramsey's debt snowball plan to political issues where you take all your extra cash to attack one debt while paying the minimum on the others. For example, we expend all of the time and money we've reserved for being responsible citizens and focus primarily on one issue like abortion until it's eradicated. You know, like the smallest debt. Only in politics, you go after the biggest threat to innocent human life.
Politically it could mean every Christian becoming a single issue voter or practicing civil disobedience. Practically it could mean adopting, volunteer/donate to crisis pregnancy centers, providing homes for women facing a crisis pregnancy, sidewalk counseling, etc.
I mean, if we just keep "paying the minimum" on a legal "procedure" that takes 3,500 human lives a day, giving it no more weight than "social justice," then we'll never pay off that debt, right? And it's not like we'd ignore other important issues. We'd just pay the minimum on those until abortion becomes illegal (at least on a federal level). Then we can attack the next greatest threat to innocent human life, (fill in the blank).
Far fetched, I know. But interesting to think about.
I'll admit it right up front: When it comes to Internet communities, Boundless is not always my first love. And I'm sure I'm not alone.
Over the past three or four years, I've posted my ideas, suggestions, arguments and advice literally hundreds of times online -- almost always directed at people I've never met, nor will ever meet. I've discussed and debated faith, journalism, sports, literature, energy policy, graphic design -- even where to find a good suit -- on a number of blogs and forums.
Though I occasionally started my own threads in the past, it wasn't until I started contributing to the Boundless Line that I was genuinely held accountable for my thoughts, my comments, my worldview. Motte and/or Ted get to see everything I write before it goes live -- which also applies to any and all readers who opt to join the discussion -- and so far I haven't had any posts rejected. But things are a bit rougher outside these virtual walls. Unless I'm horribly profane (which I never am), basically anything goes on most forums these days. Moderators typically only step in when the expletives fly, or when someone threatens imminent physical retribution, though I'm beginning to suspect that some forums don't know the meaning of moderation.
So, where else -- besides Boundless -- do you make your online presence felt? Do you sometimes post comments online that you might not repeat in a public setting? Would your friends and family be surprised to read what you've overshared under cover of a carefully chosen screen name?
We talk a lot on Boundless about how men take on all the risk when pursuing marriage. But we never thought it would include the risk of getting sued.
Yesterday, a jury in Georgia ordered a former groom to pay $150,000 to his ex-fiance for breaking off their engagement. Here's the story: [RoseMary] Shell argued her fiance's promise of marital bliss amounted to a binding contract. She said she left a high-paying job in Florida to be with [Wayne] Gibbs and she said she has suffered financial losses since their break-up. She also said she has suffered emotionally.
Gibbs testified that he had taken Shell on trips and paid $30,000 of her debt while they were engaged. He said when he found out she had even more debt, he canceled the wedding by leaving Shell a note in their bathroom.
Closing arguments were heard Wednesday morning and the jury awarded Shell $150,000 by Wednesday afternoon.
"People shouldn't be allowed to do that and hopefully he'll think twice before he does it to someone else," said Shell.
I disagree. People should be allowed to do that. Anyone should have the legal right to break off an engagement without fear of being sued. After all, she didn't have to quit her "high-paying" job and move to Georgia. It appears she made a series of poor decisions, beginning with saying yes.
I don't know. Somehow I doubt the jury would have been as sympathetic if the roles were reversed.
HT: WorldMagBlog
You've heard me talk about the benefits of early marriage: more good potential spouses to choose from, more time to start a family, less chance you're set in your ways, and more. But here's a reason I never thought of: fewer wrinkles. It's true. Older brides have way more beauty issues to consider before walking down the aisle. As do their bridal attendants.
Consider bride-to-be Kacey Knauer, 35. She'll be married in December. But instead of giving her nine (nine!) attendants matching shoes or handbags, she's springing for something "more meaningful." Her gift to her bridesmaids? "Cosmetic interventions!" So reports the New York Times in an article about a growing trend among bridal parties. According to "It's Botox for You, Dear Bridesmaids," by Abby Ellin, ... cosmetic interventions for [Knauer] and her entourage are as vital as the centerpieces or food. "If I were 25 or 26 and getting married, a bracelet, necklace or matching earrings would be fine," Knauer said. But at 35? "Giving them a bracelet isn't as special as spending an evening together. Plus, as you get older, everyone is more conscientious about their skin and appearance," she said. "Giving them something for themselves — as opposed to something that they'll never wear again — is more meaningful."
But what about the cost? Sure, it's expensive. But that's what budget compromises are for. (And you're worth it!) Ellin reports, These days, Robyn Bomar, an event planner in Destin, Fla., overhears brides doing cost-benefit analyses. "They will never choose Botox over a great dress, but they will say 'Maybe I'll have a buffet over a sit-down at the rehearsal dinner,' " she said. Or: "I'll spend the money on Botox rather than lunch.'"
So far so good. But what about that friend with the pesky aversion to cosmetic procedures? Ellin reports, ... for every accommodating pal, there's another who feels going under the knife is beyond the duty of bridesmaid. Becky Lee, 39, a Manhattan photographer, declined when a friend asked her — and five other attendants — to have their breasts enhanced. "We're all Asian and didn't have a whole lot of cleavage, and she found a doctor in L.A. who was willing to do four for the price of two," said Ms. Lee, who wore a push-up bra instead.
Maybe permanent invasive body alterations are too much to ask of your friends who thought the worst-case scenario of saying yes to being in your wedding was a hideous one-time-wear-only dress. Never fear. There are lots of options to choose from: Botox injections, eyelash extensions, airbrush tanning, laser treatments, teeth whitening, and more. Take your pick.
And if your friends seem reluctant, don't worry. There's plenty of time to warm up to the idea and even do trial runs. That's what the experts encourage, anyway. "You wouldn't get a cut and color the week before," said Dr. Jessica Wu, a dermatologist in Beverly Hills who advises coming in three to six months before the big day. "We do a trial run of Botox about four months ahead of time. Then, two weeks before the wedding, we do that last treatment."
Understandable. You wouldn't want one of your closest friend-bridesmaids to break out in rash, develop bruises, experience muscle weakness or worse just days before the wedding. Ew. That would ruin your photo shoot!
Never mind the friendships. And what could be a better relationship builder with your future mother-in-law than suggesting she get Botox before the wedding?
Solomon knew what he was talking about after all. "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised" (Proverbs 31:30).
A USA Today article is spotlighting the issue of men in church (or more precisely the lack of men in church). "Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination," writes Cathy Lynn Grossman, "and they are 20% to 25% more likely to attend worship at least weekly."
This, of course, is not news to those who are in church regularly nor is it news to those who keep up with articles about church demographics. What I found newsworthy, howerver, was first that USA Today featured some of the creative ways churches are trying to engage men: Although every soul matters, many pastors say they need to power up on reaching men if the next generation of believers, the children, will find the way to faith. So hundreds of churches are going for a "guy church" vibe, programming for a stereotypical man's man. ...
One church, 121 Community Church in Grapevine, Texas, outside Dallas, was even designed with dudes in mind, from the worship center's stone floor, hunter-green and amber decor and rustic-beam ceilings to woodsy scenes on the church website.
No pastels. No flowers. No sweet music. No sit-with-your-hands-folded mood. Women are welcome, but the tone is intentionally "guy church" for a reason, says Ross Sawyers, founder and pastor of 121.
And second, I found it interesting that the article quoted Sawyers on why men are important: "I have read that if a child comes to Christ, 12% of the time the whole family will follow," Sawyers says.
"If the mom comes, there's a 15% chance the family will. But if the man comes to church, 90% of the time the family will come along behind.
"That's the reality, and that's why we do this."
I'm curious to see if dude decor will make the difference, but I do appreciate Pastor Sawyers's willingness to move beyond conventional egalitarian church concepts in order to more intentionally engage with men as the spiritual leaders of homes.
Has the economy hurt you personally enough to encourage you to make any long-term changes? Temporary economic downturns can have short-term effects on spending decisions, but it often takes serious economic pain to motivate people to dramatically rethink their relationship with money.
In a commentary for the New York Times, David Brooks wonders if the current financial pain in the U.S. markets will hurt enough to cause consumers to rethink some of the cultural attitudes about money that have driven the past couple of decades. He writes: America once had a culture of thrift. But over the past decades, that unspoken code has been silently eroded.
Some of the toxins were economic. Rising house prices gave people the impression that they could take on more risk. Some were cultural. We entered a period of mass luxury, in which people down the income scale expect to own designer goods. Some were moral. Schools and other institutions used to talk the language of sin and temptation to alert people to the seductions that could ruin their lives. They no longer do.
Various moves by the U.S. government and private banks show that the big institutions are making changes, "But the important shifts will be private," Brooks writes, "as people and communities learn and adopt different social standards." He continues: After the Depression, a savings mentality set in. After the dot-com bubble, a bit of sobriety hit Silicon Valley. Now it's the borrowers' and lenders' turn. As the saying goes: People don’t change when they see the light. They change when they feel the heat.
Have you felt the heat?
When you see your extended family only once a year, it's sort of like moving forward in a time machine. The experiences of the last time you saw them are still fresh enough to remember well, while enough time has passed for significant changes in appearance, status or behavior. And these changes can be pretty stark.
This made me wonder if there's an opportunity here. I mean, since we're all inhibited by gradualness, why not humble yourself to ask a mature believer in your family what they've observed in you since you last saw them, particularly in your responses to trying circumstances.
And whenever you're with extended family for more than a day, there are probably many to choose from.
I just got back from a 10-day visit with family in South Carolina. On the return flight home, I likened my trip to a round of golf: I had some good shots, some bad ... and sometimes the ball just bounced the wrong way.
First, the good: Lots of quality time with the wife and kids, forsaking work, catching up with extended family, Prime Outlets, the weather, the beach, marsh views, eating out, and fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Second, and a little out of order, the ball bouncing the wrong way: A $77 speeding ticket, a 72-hour stomach flu, a rash, pinched by a crab, our jon boat breaking down the first day, sleeping in the laundry room, and tropical storm winds.
Finally, the bad: My graceless responses to family members. That's it.
It's funny how things like the stomach flu, which caused me to miss about three days of ocean fun, seem to matter very little upon reflection. I'm not grieving those few days; I'm grieving the missed opportunities for practicing grace.
So my advice to those of you on the verge of spending extensive time with extended family: Focus on responding well. It's the only missed opportunity you will regret.
I received an e-mail yesterday from a young man preparing to go to college, concerned that he wasn't equipped to defend his faith. Here's an excerpt: I'm currently very worried about starting university in the autumn. I've only been a Christian since the beginning of February, though I can see how the Spirit worked within me long before that.
I've done a lot of reading and the like for advice on how to effectively defend Jesus, but I'm very worried I won't be able to do Him justice when confronted with some well thought out atheist arguments. I don't know if I have enough knowledge to properly defend Him, and if I let the atheist get away with thinking he's won the argument a) I'll be upset that I've left someone to his own sinful devices, and b) that I won't have defended Jesus like I should have done.
What advice do you have for those worrying about whether they'll do Jesus justice, and who want to very much, but don't know if they're well equipped to?
It seems like a lose-lose situation.
A couple of thoughts come to mind. First, I'd recommend he read the article "How Not to Lose Your Faith in College." That brief article provides six specific ways to continue growing as a Christian during your college years.
I'd also suggest he consider picking up the books The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict and How To Stay Christian In College. Ravi Zacharias's book The End of Reason: A Response to the New Atheists is also an excellent, and pleasantly short, book.
I'd also question his concerns about adequately "defending Jesus." I personally don't think Jesus needs defending; He's been capably defending Himself for millennia.
As far as Christian apologetics goes, I've recently begun to see it primarily as something to encourage Christians, to help us grow in the assurance that our faith in Christ is true. While it is of some use when dialoging with non-Christians, I think our interactions with the unsaved could sometimes be less cerebral and characterized more by spiritual grace and boldness. Clever arguments may be of some worth but being prepared to speak words of life is of eternal worth.
It may be more loving and more effective, for example, to simply share your testimony that Jesus died for your sins, reconciling you to your Creator, than to argue the minutia of evolution or ethics or epistemology (though that can be enjoyable, and there may be a time for that). The Lord converts people, draws them to Himself by His merciful kindness; we ultimately don't draw anyone through our clever words.
I'm not arguing against being informed, being intelligent. Indeed, I think we should study as much as we can to learn the truth about our Lord and the world that was created through Him. I am saying, though, that reasonable arguments are not sufficient, and that an atheist may reject Christ even based on the perfect argument. And if they do, you have not failed Christ.
A lot of you are either in the university, or have recently graduated. What advice would you give to this young man who's recently come to a saving faith in the Lord?
You've probably seen some of the reports about younger evangelicals' abandoning the Republican Party during this election cycle, disillusioned as they supposedly are with the GOP's governance during the past eight years. (Some aren't so sure of this trend to start with, but that's a subject for another day.)
While some of these young evangelicals say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate this year, others aren't sure what they're going to do, seeing problems with both major parties. I'm not going to talk about the merits of voting one way or the other. Rather, I'm bothered by a recurring idea expressed in these and similar reports: "social justice."
"We're helping churches to build the capacity to couple social justice with the things they're already doing well," says one person. "It's changed our perspective," says another young evangelical. "Each generation chooses their cause, and ours is AIDs in Africa, or poverty or social justice."
Now, I'm not against the idea of "social justice," as such. It sounds nice, but what in the world does it mean? It's one of those empty, formless political buzz phrases that mean everything and nothing, depending on what meaning the reader brings to it, not the speaker. Oftentimes, I suspect, even the speaker is not precisely sure what he means. It's one of those buzz words that trip so easily from the tongue, easy to say without having to think too hard about it. (And shame on lazy journalists who mindlessly allow such phrases to be spoken or repeat them themselves without bothering to clarify.)
Another example of this is "working families." You’ll hear this empty phrase most often spoken by politicians on the leftward side of the spectrum. Think about it: everyone from the highest paid Wall Street broker to the lowest paid ditch digger belongs to a "working family." But that's not what the politicians mean. Rather, they're often referring to those in the lower salary rungs, usually blue- or pink-collar workers. But fearing that saying so explicitly will come across as condescending or perhaps call attention to the obvious, politicians resort to this empty, meaningless phrase to avoid having to say what they really mean. It's politics by nudge and wink.
So back to the point: What do you mean by "social justice"? Helping the poor? Everyone's in favor of that. The chief disagreement is on means, not ends. Is just handing out money "helping the poor"? Giving them job training? Working in a soup kitchen? Creating economic conditions that encourage job growth, thus boosting the employment rate? Again, I'm not going to argue specifics; my point is that there are many ways, some better than others, to do "social justice." But remember: if that's what you mean by "social justice," even political conservatives are for it.
More important, would these same people consider protecting the life of the preborn in the womb doing "social justice"? After all, one of the bedrock foundations of justice is the protection of innocent life. We hear much less about this from these same young evangelicals.
Which leads me to believe that, in the end, "social justice" really means "not a conservative, pro-life, pro-marriage conservative who is easily caricatured in the popular culture."
The least they can do is say so.
My siblings and I stumbled into financial independence at varying rates. Almost immediately after college, my brother and I were able to support ourselves. My sister, however, took advantage of some artistic (i.e. low-paying) opportunities following graduation. As a result, she occasionally had to depend on my parents to make ends meet.
In "Subsidized in the City," 25-year-old Melody Serafino explores the issue of twenty-somethings living off Mom and Dad. She talks about what she has observed among her mid-twenties acquaintances in New York City. Some of these individuals receive rent money and even an allowance from their parents. The issue, Serafino says, is Generation Y's unwillingness to compromise lifestyle for independence. And she believes parents are partially to blame: By continuing to provide for their twenty-something kids, parents hinder their children's ability to be financially responsible. If you don't learn to budget early on, what will inspire you to do so when your finances become your own prerogative?
This kind of lingering financial dependence is also driven by the high cost of living in many cities: It's not just Manhattan where I've noticed this phenomenon. A Chicago acquaintance was promised an apartment as a graduation gift; a Boston friend receives a hefty monthly stipend. The stakes are higher in a city, which is why many young people feel the need to compete with each other. But when parental handouts are not only offered but expected, what is Generation Y learning about living on its own?
Serafino concludes that it is not only possible for twenty-somethings to achieve financial independence, but it is beneficial: There is something to be said for writing that rent check each month and knowing you've managed to live comfortably on your own terms. Racking up $500 shopping sprees on Mommy and Daddy's credit card may have its momentary allure, but the adult part of me believes that working for what you have is much more rewarding than being handed it on a silver platter. And I have my own mom and dad to thank for that.
I fly out tonight to Minnesota to visit the fam. Now that airline tickets are three billion dollars each (and this doesn’t include the newly imposed luggage charges), I’m finding ways to maintain a positive attitude in the midst of the madness. My coworker did her part by making me a travel care package with snacks and a Gaither mix CD. Bless her heart.
Generally, I’m pretty low-key when flying. A friend offered to take me to the airport, and when I told him I need to be there by 6 p.m., he said he’d pick me up at 4 p.m. "What?!," I exclaimed. "I’m flying from Colorado Springs, not Nairobi." He then gave me a lecture on how much time it should take to get from home to airline gate successfully. I’m not sure where he came up with those figures, because I could kill, gut and mount a deer, go to clown school and translate the New Testament into the languages of several unreached people groups in that time. Anyway, it prompted me to take an inventory of my airport experiences, as they tend to happen. Here’s the general breakdown of what I’ll expect tonight:
Leave at 5:30 p.m. Twenty min to the airport. Twenty min through check-in, provided bag is within weight limit (no guarantees, folks). Five min in restroom. One min mailing any last-minute correspondence. Ten min buying gossip mags and gum. Twenty min through security (30 min if wearing multiple layers, chided for forgetting to put mascara in "liquids" bag, or detained in conversation with cute, single TSA employee.) Five min buying decaf coffee (no time to add cream at this point). One min asking person next to me if that was my name announced over the paging system. Three min running to gate. One min flattering gate agent so as to get on flight. Done.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
This week’s show starts with a roundup of the team’s physical maladies, which in turn reminds us of the healthful juices from Bolthouse Farms. BF is in the news for taking a stand for marriage in California, so we talk about that a bit.
How Do You Spell Success? – 6:44
It seems that most of us are expected to climb the proverbial ladder, though many of us aren't sure where it leads. What makes a person successful, and should success look different for Christians? Are you angling for the corner office, a monstrous house in the 'burbs and the overpriced and unsightly furniture with which to fill it? Or maybe you just "need" a 3,482-inch TV, as Ted does. (But kudos to him for putting it off in favor of welcoming another human life into his home. Go, Ted!) The team tackles our expectations of wealth and happiness and weighs them against our ultimate calling as believers.
Doing Small Things Well – 23:29
We all want to do big things for the Kingdom. But sometimes God asks us to do the small things, and do them well. Glenn Packiam, worship leader at New Life Church in Colorado Springs and author of Butterfly in Brazil, talks candidly about how change happens when average Christians live out their faith in everyday life. OK, he's a supercool recording artist who travels around, wears enigmatic T-shirts and has written a book, but he at least tries to convince me he's just an average guy who's serving the Lord where he is. I'll raise my grande-soy-no-foam-chai latte to that.
"Old Maid": It's Not Just a Card Game – 38:19
We continue the "Mentor Series" discussion with Danielle Crittenden by asking about women and "The Delay." I won't say anything else about that here. I will eat a cookie instead. And practice writing my name with Jason Bateman's.
BFF vs. BF– 46:50
She likes him, but does he like her? Or does he like her friend? What if he likes her friend instead of her? What if her friend likes him back? Is it possible to survive the dark cloud of jealousy when it comes to relationships without its turning into a subplot from High School Musical 2? Candice gives us the scoop by answering a listener's question on the topic.
This week marks the halfway point for year one of The Boundless Show. Can you believe it? Six months has earned me a vacation to Minnesota. If we make it a year with the show, maybe I'll go big and travel farther east. Wisconsin, here I come!
I felt like one of the last holdouts when I finally purchased a cell phone in January 2004. I was one of the last among my friends to do so. According to Newsweek, one in seven Americans still lives without a cell. But despite me and these other holdouts, the cellular phone is king of technologies.
According to the latest data, the U.S. "adoption rate" for mobile phones stands at 85 percent. That's higher than the percentage of Americans who have DVD players (84 percent), home PCs (80 percent), digital cameras (69 percent) or MP3 players (40 percent), according to the Nielsen Co.
Not surprisingly, companies are looking for ways to cash in on the cell-phoneless market.
A handful of start-ups are aggressively pursing wireless holdouts. The bulk of the un-mobile fall into three groups, says senior analyst Chris Collins of Yankee Group: children, the elderly and the credit-challenged. (There's actually a fourth group, prison inmates, but companies haven't yet found a way to target that elusive niche.)
To lure children, companies are providing parents with inexpensive family plans and child-safe phones that can be turned off and on remotely. Simple phones with large keypads are being marketed to seniors.
In her article, "Against the Cell," Lauren Winner considers the downside of a cell-obsessed society. She writes:
When I look around campus and see all the cell phones, I am struck by the sad thought that we are no longer ever alone. We have eroded all the space we once had for solitude. I've had some of my best conversations with myself, and with God, strolling across campus. Now, when we stroll, we are talking into tiny bits of plastic — and most of what we're saying is pretty lame. ("Well, I'm about 10 seconds from the library ... yep, now I'm walking up the library steps ... no, okay, well here I am entering the library, I'll see you in three seconds.") Is solitude so scary that we have made it impossible? Solitude is scary, but scarier still is the prospect of a society in which no one has time to be quiet, to be reflective.
I'm guilty of pulling out my phone and texting to avoid quiet moments of reflection. And Motte has considered his own cell phone dependency. Even Winner acknowledges her love-hate relationship with her phone.
I have a vexed relationship with my own cell phone. The flip side of convenience is invasiveness, and though I appreciate my phone's convenience, I hate the idea that people can get hold of me any time of day or night. I hate the thought that while I'm sleeping, messages that need responding to are piling up. My reaction is far from commendable — I basically ignore the messages, and keep my cell phone off most of the time, and so the messages do pile up, and somewhere out there are people who think I'm ignoring them, when really I'm just ignoring my phone.
How about you? Are you suffering from cell phone dependence? Has solitude been replaced by phone addiction? I've come a long way in four years. As I type, my phone sits a cozy distance from me on my desk. Wouldn't want to miss a call.
It's obviously high wedding season, because everywhere I turn I'm seeing $99 wedding dress sale ads and "What's Hot in Weddings This Year" cable news pieces.
According to one Web site, one of this year's must-haves is white T-shirts with either "Bride" across the front in sparkly rhinestones or, for the rest of us, "Bridesmaid." Now, if any of you budding brides out there have actually purchased these I apologize in advance. But if there's anything that seems harder to me than finding an occasion to wear my bridesmaid's dresses again, it would be walking out of the house with "Bridesmaid" emblazoned across my shirt. Oh, yeah, everybody. That's right. I'm a bridesmaid and proud of it.
Still, rather than closing our eyes and praying that our engaged friends don't go to that particular Web site, I was thinking that we could pool some wisdom. If you're married, you've probably done a wedding. If you're not married, there's a really good chance that you'll be the bride (or groom) someday. (And don't must of us gals think about our future weddings--even just a little bit?)
The average wedding, according to CNN Money, hit $26,327 in 2005. Yipes! If that's on credit cards, make that yipes to the 10th power. Even if all that has been paid for with cash (which I doubt), wouldn't it be nicer to start married life with a little more cash in hand?
So, do you have any ideas on how to keep weddings less expensive? How can we celebrate the joining of a man and woman without breaking the bank? (All anti-wedding grumps, please feel free to keep your kvetching to yourself.)
Here's a few from my own experience:
- Keep the numbers down. I thought that I needed to invite every college friend and parental business acquaintance to my wedding. My sister had around 75 at hers. Hers was incredibly beautiful and intimate, and I think she still talks to a much higher percentage of her wedding guests than I do.
- My own wedding cake: traditional and costly. My sister's: a yummy chocolate-covered strawberry creation of deliciousness and not as much. Lesson: White tiers are pricey. Go for the alternatives. We didn't even mention the word "wedding" when ordering at the bakery. Saved us some serious dough (te, he).
And, remember, you can do a lot more for your wedding if you forgo the sparkly tees. As to those dresses ... hmmm ... maybe I need to take a cruise.
The passing of Tony Snow (journalist and White House Press Secretary) over the weekend was sad but not entirely tragic. Death is a horrible thing, and cancer can be especially ugly, but Tony Snow reminded us how God can be glorified even in ugly and horrible things. This morning the Wall Street Journal reprinted a portion of a piece Tony wrote for The Jewish World Report in 2005: The art of being sick is not the same as the art of getting well. Some cancer patients recover; some don't. But the ordeal of facing your mortality and feeling your frailty sharpens your perspective about life. You appreciate little things more ferociously. You grasp the mystical power of love. You feel the gravitational pull of faith. And you realize you have received a unique gift a field of vision others don't have about the power of hope and the limits of fear; a firm set of convictions about what really matters and what does not. You also feel obliged to share these insights the most important of which is this: There are things far worse than illness, for instance, soullessness.
Too often we believe God is only active when He heals our diseases, but we must remember that even all the people whom Jesus healed in the New Testament (including Lazarus) eventually died. I watched a couple of close family members struggle with cancer and discouragement because so many people around them focused only on healing--and felt it would show a lack of faith to accept that maybe God could be glorified even if they weren't healed. The example of Snow's final years offer encouragement that God is good when people recover from cancer and even when they don't.
I don't like to wait for things. I would guess that many modern individuals find waiting difficult in an instant-gratification world. In "Work the Wait," Stephanie Voiland gives some very personal insight into the frustration of biding your time:
When will I get my turn to hang a white dress in my closet?" I mumbled as I hung up my fourth bridesmaid dress last summer. A single 29-year-old, I'd watched friend after friend join the ranks of "Mrs."; I couldn't help but wonder, How much longer, God?
As I contemplated my life's many delays, I realized I don't like waiting—and I'm not very good at it. But I wanted to grow during my waiting seasons rather than become bitter or lose faith. So I asked God to show me how he's working through these divine delays.
But God isn't obligated to reveal to us why we're in a holding pattern. In fact, some waits seem like they have no purpose. And perhaps, "the delay is simply the product of a sin-ravaged world." Other times, God is using the wait to accomplish something greater. Voiland uses the example of Lazarus (John 11):
Jesus was good friends with Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary. Christ even crashed at their place occasionally. So surely when he heard Lazarus was ill, he'd rush to his side and heal him! Instead, we read this haunting sentence: "Although Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days" (verses 5–6). My knee-jerk reaction is to cry, "Hello! Why were you waiting? That's not love!" Martha and Mary were slightly more diplomatic, but they expressed the same sentiment: "Lord, if only you had been here" (verses 21 and 32).
With our limited vision, Mary, Martha, and I couldn't see God sometimes doesn't give us what we request so he can give us something better. Jesus said the death of Lazarus "happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory for this" (verse 4). Granted, a healing would have been amazing. But Jesus had a bigger plan that couldn't occur without Lazarus's time in the grave.
Even when the wait was purposeful, Jesus engaged in the pain it caused. He wept. Voiland ends with some solid, hope-filled advice for those who wait:
I 'd still like a white dress to hang in my closet someday—preferably someday soon. But now as I wait, I'm careful not merely to mark time, so preoccupied with what's next that I miss out on what's now. I'm striving to wait well. And part of waiting well, I've learned, is being open to God's lessons about redemption, trust, compassion, and his higher purposes along the way.
This week is the six month anniversary of The Boundless Show. Over that time we've featured a lot of different music. What's been your favorite? Let us know and we'll feature the most popular on this week's show!
Ted and Ashleigh Slater are the proud parents of their third daughter, Savannah Eloise Slater.
Savannah arrived weighing 7 lbs. 11 oz. and is 19-1/4 inches long.
Mother and baby are doing very well.
Dad's walking in dazed circles.
Before you dismiss this post as yet another negative review of The Shack, let me state up front that I've never even seen William Young's book. What I want to look at is a common theme I've noticed in the ensuing discussion; that for every carefully crafted critique of the book, there are those who continue to defend the The Shack as "touching," "moving," "stirring" and "thought-provoking."
What is particularly interesting, however, is how many justify the book's theological failings with the phrase "God used it." And if "God can use it," the thinking goes -- to reach a non-believer, or to encourage a wayward Christian in their faith -- well, then it must be worthwhile. Right? After all, God can use anything He wants to, and who are we to criticize God? Thus with one simple turn of phrase, an attack on The Shack becomes an attack on God Himself.
This logical leap extends far beyond The Shack. It's the same type of thinking many believers use when referencing the story of Balaam's donkey. "If God can use a donkey," they say, "then He can certainly use [insert just about anything here]."
Trouble is, we can see that God's use of a donkey to influence Balaam didn't happen by accident. It was obviously a deliberate act, one that is never replicated anywhere else in Scripture. He made the animal talk, for Pete's sake! Yet some Christians use this passage to suggest that whenever someone changes their attitude or behavior for the better after reading an unbiblical book, watching an unbiblical movie or listening to an unbiblical song, then we better not criticize the media in question, because God obviously "used it."
I've heard many times how God used classic rock songs like "Stairway to Heaven" or "Carry On Wayward Son," or movies like "Star Wars" or "The Matrix" to accomplish some sort of higher purpose in an individual's life. Forget the fact that the spirituality depicted in these songs and films is a veritable mishmash of various religious and mythological teachings; if God used it in their life, then it must OK. Based on that logic, why don't churches distribute Led Zeppelin albums instead of Bibles, since listening to "Stairway to Heaven" is way cooler than reading about the Ten Commandments?
Of course I'm getting carried away now, but the gist of this thinking is that God is so desperate to reach people that He is willing to tolerate all manner of New Age ramblings if just one person can look past the heresy and somehow stumble onto the true nature of the Christian faith. Never mind that for every individual who is drawn closer to God through a book like Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays with Morrie," there are countless others who come away thinking that the true meaning of life has more to do with the sentimental sayings of a dying old man and little or nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
But what about Paul's proclamation that he became "all things to all men so that by all possible means" he might save some? Well, did Paul become a sorcerer so that he might save the sorcerers of his day? Did he become a Pharisee so that he might win over the Pharisaical community? No, Paul was actually explaining that he gave up his own rights and freedoms for the sake of those he was trying to save. He conformed to others' laws and practices so that he might reach them with the Gospel.
Does that mean Christians shouldn't use books, movies or music to help evangelize the lost? Not at all. The important distinction is to properly assess the value of these cultural tools. Paul's letter to the Philippians gives us some pretty good guidelines: "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable ... think about such things."
Fans of The Shack are surely right in one thing: God can use anything He wants to reach anyone He wants. (Tom Neven -- not a fan of the book -- acknowledged as much in an earlier post.) Indeed, in Luke 19, Jesus tells the Pharisees that if his disciples keep quiet, "the stones will cry out." The implication here is that if Christ's followers are silenced, then Creation itself will testify to His existence. But when was the last time you heard a stone cry out? For that matter, when was the last time you heard a talking animal? Sure, God "can use" whatever methods He pleases, but as long as His Word is readily available and His followers are willing and able to proclaim the Good News, then I'm confident He can do without Luke Skywalker's help.
So, do you think I'm way off the mark here? Do you think God is willing to put up with misguided theology as long as something good sometimes results? Let the commenting begin.
I'm glad Motte has given me the podcast posts for the next two weeks. Folks, there's no telling what I may say ...
First, it is crazy warm here in Colorado, and I am wearing a dark suit. Totally lame. I went to the mall today at lunch, and let's just say I was almost incinerated in my car (black with black interior, yo). Mall confession: I returned a tank top that I had purchased for $40. Seriously. A tank top. Can anyone say "bad stewardship"? But it has been returned, so I'm back in the Lord's favor. I should probably give the $40 to the local rescue mission to fully assuage the guilt.
Anyway, I then went back to my car and discovered a nectarine on the floor. It was next to the empty cereal bowl and spoon from my mid-commute breakfast a few days ago. Good thing I saw it at midday, or there would've been nastiness after work. Does anyone else have difficulty keeping his or her life together? Please say yes.
Speaking of fruit, we kick off this week's show by discussing farmers markets. Ted goes to buy tomatoes (the red ones, as he is quick to clarify), while I get overly ambitious with roasted green chilies. I then lament the amount of produce I waste as a single person, but Candice says she wastes it, too, so I feel better immediately.
Emasculated Men – 7:19
While we're on the subject of making people feel bad, this week's roundtable addresses our culture's emasculation of men. Is it a reality? Is it also true in the Church? Who is more responsible, men or women? We refer to a video clip that most of the panel believes illustrates this. I disagree, so let the debate begin.
I Kissed a Girl – 26:34
You know you've heard the song, so don't deny it. Plugged In's Bob Waliszewski joins me for a frank discussion of how this song made it to the top of the charts and why it's in everyone's head. (Don't even think of buying cherry ChapStick.) Top 40 radio has unofficially legitimized sexual experimentation. Katy Perry first recorded as the Christian artist Katy Hudson -- her real name -- but needless to say her lyrics were nothing like this. Does this concern anyone?
Men As Providers – 34:19
In lieu of "The Hungry Years," this week we’re featuring something called "The Mentor Series," a chance to listen in as Boundless staffers talk to some of the coolest minds around. This week the team chats with Danielle Crittenden, author of What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman. She weighs in on the roles of men and women when it comes to bringin’ home the bacon (or fat-free tofu sausage, whichever you prefer).
Emotionally Married – 43:06
Candice answers a question from a listener who is "emotionally married" to a guy but isn't any closer to the altar. Is marriage or a breakup in this girl's future? Candice outlines some practical steps while trying to keep me from passing out in the studio from sheer discouragement.
Thankfully, this week's music from Nathan Clark George lifts my spirits. Often singing straight from Scripture, NCG blends his acoustic style with no-nonsense truth that convicts and encourages, sometimes simultaneously. Plus, he tools around the U.S. with his family in an RV, which is just downright cool.
Check it all out and let us know what you think. And if you’ve spent more than $15 on a tank top, feel free to confess that as well.
Were the men on the Titanic heroes or sexists?
Some thought (and think) them heroes. In fact, a memorial still stands in Washington, D.C., reading, "To the brave men who perished in the wreck of the Titanic, April 15, 1912. They gave their lives that women and children might be saved. Erected by the women of America."
Some thought (and think) them sexists. The very idea that women needed protection was a symptom of patriarchy run amok. In an article titled, "The Titanic Riddle," one author wonders:
You're on the Titanic II. It has just hit an iceberg and is sinking. And, as last time, there are not enough lifeboats. The captain shouts, "Women and children first!" But this time, another voice is heard: "Why women?" Why, indeed?
"Boats or Votes?" asked one prominent newspaper at the time, seeming to indicate that women needed to choose between equality (the right to vote) and protection (the boats).
That dichotomy--either choose protection or choose equality--is a difficult one. On one hand, I want it to be known and acknowledged that I am not inferior, that I am absolutely of equal worth as a man. On the other, I know deep down that I am more vulnerable to harm in this life, and I long for safety and security.
Thankfully, it's a choice that Christianity does not demand I make. Certainly, the world will tell me that accepting protection from godly men is the same as affirming my inferiority to them. But the Word tells me different. It acknowledges both truths--my worth and my vulnerability--without making me choose between them.
God tells me that I am an equal heir to His kingdom. But He also commands that my Christian brothers, my husband in particular, act to me as Christ acted toward the church. That he be willing to give himself up for me.
As I write in today's Boundless article, "Nurturing Protection," "the world's masculinity either demands to be served or refuses to be bothered." But biblical masculinity acknowledges both my worth and its mandate to serve sacrificially by laying down his life for mine.
To me, those Titanic men were unquestionable heroes. They didn't demean a woman's worth by protecting her; they esteemed it.
Boats or Votes? Equal Worth or Protection? I'm very thankful God gives me both.
The driver in front of me clearly didn’t know what he was doing. He wandered across one lane, hesitated as if to turn and then continued straight across the intersection and toddled along about 15 mph below the speed limit.
I was trapped behind him, unable to pass in the busy traffic. Finally I pounded my hand on the steering wheel in frustration and said through gritted teeth, “Don’t drive any particular speed!”
The small voice of my son, Joshua, came from the back seat of the Jeep. “Is he an idiot, Dad?”
The dagger in my heart was ice cold. There’s only one place he learned that.
The late George Carlin once asked, “Have you ever noticed how everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?” Yeah, I’ve noticed. I’m usually a pretty easygoing guy -- until I get behind the wheel of a car. Then I become like The Incredible Hulk. (Okay, my muscles aren’t that big, and I don’t turn green, but you get the picture.) You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.
The problem is, it doesn’t take much to make me angry when I’m driving. Don’t use your turn signal? “Hey, I’m not a mind-reader, you know!” Pull out in front of me? “What, am I invisible or something!?” Don’t floor it the micro-second the light turns green? "Hey, it's the only shade of green they've got!"
I am genuinely perplexed at my behavior -- honest. I try self-discipline, but then some idi -- sorry -- fellow motorist cuts in front of me, and out comes the monster.
The apostle Paul commands us in Romans 12:16-18: “Live in harmony with one another. . . . Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” I clearly don’t follow that command when I blow past a guy at Warp 9 --after giving him a dirty look for daring to drive the speed limit.
I’m not as bad as I used to be, although I take no credit for self-discipline. One can’t help but become mellower with age. (Actually, it's not mellowness. The truth is that it takes too much energy to get mad.) And I’ve never forgotten a bumper sticker I once saw in Los Angeles: “Keep Honking. I’m Reloading.” On today’s highways, there may be consequences more dire than an obscene gesture.
Aggressive driving is by far not my only weakness, but it is the most public, and there are times I’ve mouthed off in front of family or friends and then stewed for hours afterwards at my loss of self-control, compounding the original flash of anger.
How about you? Any idiot drivers out there? Maniacs? Or simply humans?
Anne of Green Gables has long been one of my favorite books. After reading the entire series in high school, I desperately wanted to visit Prince Edward Island. So much so that I considered signing up for a missions trip going there. I was too young at the time.
It has been 100 years since L.M. Montgomery's story about an imaginative red-headed orphan named Anne Shirley became an almost instant success, selling 19,000 copies in five months. And now, it seems, Anne is getting her due. Slate's culture critic Meghan O'Rourke writes:
Today, Anne of Green Gables and its seven sequels are the basis for a small industry. More than 50 million editions of the first volume are in print around the world. The books have spun off movies, musicals, miniseries, and an assortment of bric-a-brac, from tea sets to light switches. But perhaps the greatest tribute to Anne's enduring vitality is the decision by the solemn eminences who edit the Modern Library to issue and heavily promote a centennial edition of the first volume in the series. Tolstoy and Anna Karenina, meet L.M. Montgomery and Anne Shirley.
This acclaim is a bit surprising, according to O'Rourke. Why? Because Anne becomes a wife and mother.
To some, this canonical promotion of a writer who would probably now be classified as a Y.A. (young adult) author might seem preposterous. To certain left-leaning cultural theorists who won't embrace a heroine with a less-than-revolutionary CV — Anne, once the Island's best young scholar, chooses to become a devoted wife and mother of six — the Modern Library's decision may appear to be a reactionary cave-in to nostalgic sentimentality.
The writer goes on to explain that the book's appeal lies in Anne's imagination. This overwhelming characteristic affects everything in Anne's life, from school to friendships to marriage.
It's unusual for a book about a girl to champion fantasy over the facts of life, such as they were ordinarily defined. This doesn't make Anne an ethereal sprite herself, though. Later in the series, she does grow up. She goes to college, develops her writing, marries Gilbert (but only after he almost dies, and out of abiding friendship, not fear of loneliness), and becomes the mother of six children.
The outlines of Anne's life may not resemble the models of feminine success as it's conceived of nowadays. By the series' end, she has put aside her dreams of writing. And she channels into family life a large part of the energy that might have fueled her as an artist.
Wow. And this is a novel girls and women have cherished for 100 years. Congratulations, L.M. Montgomery, for writing a beautiful story that teaches us that imagination finds a home in both academic and professional pursuits, and marriage and motherhood.
When pondering the cross of Christ, we are treading holy ground. When pausing at the "crucifixion within the crucifixion," the moment in which Christ screamed the scream of the damned -- "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"-- we've arrived at the Holy of Holies.
This cry has mystified theologians for centuries. Martin Luther, for example,
... was said to have sat at his desk in his study for hours on end contemplating this cry. Those who observed him said that he appeared to be as a corpse. Finally, he rose from his chair and was overheard saying, "God forsaking God! No man can understand that." And indeed we cannot, not fully, not finally. Here is a depth we will never plumb, a mystery we will never finally unravel.
And yet, this cry -- the consequence of Jesus' miraculously "becoming sin for us" -- signifies what Spurgeon considered to be "the heart of the gospel." And so it's right to pause and ponder it.
Some people argue that Jesus didn't become "sin," but merely a "sin-offering." Spurgeon explains how this would be a mistranslation of 2 Corinthians 5:21:
"He hath made him to be sin for us." I must now beg you to notice how very explicit the term is. Some of our expositors will have it that the word here used must mean "sin-offering." "He made him to be a sin-offering for us." I thought it well to look to my Greek Testament to see whether it could be so. Of course we all know that the word here translated "sin," is very often translated "sin-offering," but it is always useful, when you have a disputed passage, to look it through, and see whether in this case the word would bear such a meaning. These commentators say it means a sin-offering, -- well, I will read it: "He hath made him to be a sin-offering for us who knew no sin-offering." Does not that strike you as being ridiculous? But they are precisely the same words; and if it be fair to translate it "sin-offering" in one place, it must, in all reason, be fair to translate it so in the other. The fact it, while in some passages it may be rendered "sin-offering," in this passage it cannot be so, because it would be to run counter to all honesty to translate the same word in the same sentence two different ways. No; we must take hem as they stand. "He hath made him to be sin for us," not merely an offering, but sin for us.
Now, what could it mean that Jesus, the very Son of God, was made "to be sin for us"? Once again, I defer to Spurgeon:
Jesus Christ was made by his Father sin for us, that is, he was treated as if he had himself been sin. He was not sin; he was not sinful; he was not guilty; but, he was treated by his Father, as if he had not only been sinful, but as if he had been sin itself. That is a strong expression used here. Not only hath he made him to be the substitute for sin, but to be sin. God looked on Christ as if Christ had been sin; not as if he had taken up the sins of his people, or as if they were laid on him, though that were true, but as if he himself had positively been that noxious -- that God-hating -- that soul-damning thing, called sin.
When the Judge of all the earth said, "Where is Sin?" Christ presented himself. He stood before his Father as if he had been the accumulation of all human guilt; as if he himself were that thing which God cannot endure, but which he must drive from his presence for ever.
Could it be that Jesus, in His very nature God, might be driven from the presence of the Father, who is in very nature God? How is that possible, that the community of the Godhead might be broken ... for our sakes?
The righteous Lord looked on Christ as being sin, and therefore Christ must be taken without the camp. Sin cannot be borne in God's Zion, cannot be allowed to dwell in God's Jerusalem; it must be taken without the camp, it is a leprous thing, put it away. Cast out from fellowship, from love, from pity, sin must ever be....
But not only is the One who became sin to be expelled. He -- that is, sin -- must be punished.
And now, God looks on him as being sin, and sin must bear punishment. Christ is punished. The most fearful of deaths is exacted at his hand, and God has no pity for him. How should he have pity on sin? God hates it. No tongue can tell, no soul can divine the terrible hatred of God to that which is evil, and he treats Christ as if he were sin.
And the prayers of this embodiment of sin are met with silence:
He prays, but heaven shuts out his prayer; he cries for water, but heaven and earth refuse to wet his lips except with vinegar. He turns his eye to heaven, he sees nothing there. How should he? God cannot look on sin, and sin can have no claim on God: "My God, my God," he cries, "why hast thou forsaken me?"
O solemn necessity, how could God do anything with sin but forsake it? How could iniquity have fellowship with God? Shall divine smiles rest on sin? Nay, nay, it must not be. Therefore is it that he who is made sin must bemoan desertion and terror. God cannot touch him, cannot dwell with him, cannot come near him. He is abhorred, cast away; it hath pleased the Father to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.
At last he dies. God will not keep him in life -- how should he? Is it not the meetest thing in the world that sin should be buried? "Bury it out of my sight, hide this corruption," and lo! Jesus, as if he were sin, is put away out of the sight of God and man as a thing obnoxious.
So what of this? Well, if all my sins have been laid upon Christ, if He became sin for me, if that sin died and was buried from sight, then I am gloriously free from those sins. His death has been substituted for what should have been mine. And that's good news. Again, Spurgeon:
Though still defiled by sin, yet who can lay anything to the charge of the man whose guilt is gone, lifted bodily from off him, and put upon Christ? How can any punishment fall on that man who ceases to possess sins, because his sin has eighteen hundred years ago been cast upon Christ, and Christ has suffered in his place and stead?
Oh, glorious triumph of faith to be able to say, whenever I feel the guilt of sin, whenever conscience pricks me, "Yes, it is true, but my Lord is answerable for it all, for he has taken it all upon himself, and suffered in my room, and place, and stead." How precious when I see my debts, to be able to say, "Yes, but the blood of Christ, God's dear Son, hath cleansed me from all sin!"
How precious indeed. How mystifying, how marvelous, that a sinner like Ted Slater has been cleansed from all sin because my Savior died. And that thought will captivate me for a lifetime. It's a song I'll continue singing for millennia.
Over at the girltalk blog, Carolyn Mahaney offers up a big, heaping plate of wisdom for women--no matter our life stage.
Mrs. Mahaney talks about a question she received at a recent conference: "What do you do for personal fulfillment?" Our ministries and families are fine, the questioner seemed to say, but what do you do for yourself?
Mahaney didn't give the answer she wanted at the time, but instead wrote it on the blog. Here's what she said: If I had it to do over again, I’d tell her about Dorothy.
Dorothy was a woman who knew the secret of true “personal fulfillment.” A single mom whose husband left her with a son to raise, Dorothy didn’t spend time worrying about herself. Instead, she was always serving and caring for others. I knew her because she was my Sunday School teacher. And Dorothy was one of the most joyful women I knew.
At my bridal shower everyone wrote down a piece of advice on a slip of paper. I only remember one, and it was Dorothy’s. Her secret to a fulfilled life? “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).
Our culture is constantly telling us to find our life; that we’re the center of our world, and as such, we need to take care of “me” first. We need to find what fulfills us and not let anyone or anything (especially a husband or children) get in the way.
But when I’m the center of my world, my world becomes very small—because I’m the only person in it. When I try to find fulfillment in anything besides loving Christ and serving Him, I will only end up more frustrated and completely unfulfilled.
Now, don’t misunderstand. I think we as women should express our creativity, and even more importantly get sufficient rest. But the purpose of creativity should be to glorify God with our gifts, not to find “personal fulfillment,” and the goal of rest should be to strengthen us for service, not to carve out “time for ourselves.”
If we want “personal fulfillment" as women, we must not follow our culture’s prescription of selfishness. Rather, we must lose our life for Christ's sake. Then, amazingly, we'll find that our world expands. We'll know the thrill of seeing the fruit of our sacrificial service in the lives of those around us. So for true "personal fulfillment," let’s follow Dorothy’s example as she followed Christ.
Wow. Good stuff.
Reminds me of Phillipians 2: "Do nothing [yep, that did say "nothing"] out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."
I'm challenged: Am I finding my life (and my own personal fulfillment) today or am I losing my life for Christ's sake?
 Today is the first day of my annual family vacation.
Every year we visit my side of the family in South Carolina and rent a house on the coast. We sun on the beach, swim in the ocean, fish and crab in the inlet, play Canasta, and generally eat way too much.
The dates I schedule each year for my family vacation are what Voddie Baucham calls "non-negotiable dates." In his book Family Driven Faith, Voddie explains that taking time off work to spend with family establishes a hierarchy of sorts. You will be amazed by how much excitement this will bring to your children. It will let them know how important they are, how important your marriage is, and how precious you consider your time with them. It will also send a clear message that they will remember when the culture tries to pry them away. It is much easier to tell Junior that he has to miss a band practice here and there if he knows there are certain events in the family that relegate even Dad's job to the backseat.
And to ensure that this message doesn't get muddled, I've arranged for a guest Boundless Line moderator starting today. Yes, certain family events relegate even this blog to the backseat.
See you in two weeks.
Where we see the fearsome love of God most clearly is on the cross of Christ.
And the moment during the crucifixion that leaves us most dumbstruck is when Christ screamed the scream of the damned: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
The full consequence of sin, the full furious wrath of the Father, was emptied upon Jesus the Son, and He experienced utter damnation. The hopelessness of eternal, abysmal separation from the Father. With no reprieve, no further appeals, no second chances. Jesus became sin, and was indeed forsaken.
At that most precious moment in all of human history, Jesus screamed the scream of the damned ... for us.
And yet, puzzlingly, The Shack dismisses this sacred moment. In his review of this book, Tim Challies quotes Papa (who represents the Father) as saying, "Regardless of what [Jesus] felt at that moment, I never left him." Tim unpacks what such a heretical statement conveys: He is not a God who could have poured out upon His Son His just wrath for sin. In fact, God does not need to punish sin at all, says Papa. "I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it."
Well, no. While the Lord does offer forgiveness and healing, the full truth is that God indeed actively punishes sin: When the unsaved are judged, for example, they will not wander into hell. No, God will forcefully and intentionally "throw" them there.
By dismissing Christ's cry of the damned, by saying that He wasn't really forsaken by the Father, we are denying the real and colossal significance of our sins, and therefore denying the costly sacrifice necessary to save us from them. By dismissing Jesus' most precious moment on the cross, we fail to realize that we've been forgiven much. And we consequently don't love God much.
I am so grateful that I will never scream the terrible scream of the damned. I am grateful that the Sinless One took that upon Himself so that I needn't.
I hope all you Americans had a good Fourth of July. I watched fireworks with friends and thanked God for the freedoms I enjoy in this country. While you were celebrating, you may have missed a little jewel of an article Friday. I did.
In "Looking for Love like a Peasant," and excerpt of A.J. Kiesling's book Where Have All the Good Men Gone?, she considers the need for neediness: Jewish rabbi and relationship expert Shmuley Boteach, known as the "Love Prophet," believes he knows why singles today find it so hard to discover their soul mate. His theory is so sound and makes such sense in our confused world that I wish I had invented it. When it comes to love, Boteach writes, we've become a generation of "aristocrats" in search of the perfect match, when the real secret to lasting love — the attitude of a "peasant" — is available to us all along.
To explain what she means, Kiesling quotes Boteach from his book Dating Secrets of the Ten Commandments: I often ask people, "Aren't you going to get married?" At that point I hear a strange response: "When I meet the right person." Sure, the idea is reasonable, but the sentiments are rarely so. Usually what I am hearing is a person telling me that they are waiting for a person to come along and impress them with their eligibility. This is the thinking of aristocrats, and leads nowhere. In dating, you should always be a peasant.
Ouch. That hits pretty close to home. Sounds a little like what I refer to as "identity baggage." Here's how Kiesling describes the difference: The "needy, beautiful peasant" approaches the possibility of romance from the starting point of "What do I lack?" and looks for someone who can fill that need. Their main asset on the Potential Soul Mate test is their vulnerability.
Need, the rabbi asserts, is the dirty little secret of dating that no one wants to admit. But when you're looking to fall in love — when you're looking for the happiness that comes from giving yourself fully to another — it's all about "opening yourself up, exposing your vulnerabilities, and creating a space where you and a lover can grow together." In short, Boteach says, it's about realizing that need is good.
If you've been single for any length of time, you've probably been coached that it's best to not appear needy — ever. But Boteach's theory seems to contradict that. What do you think? Is need a missing ingredient in finding love?
When you hear that term, what comes to mind?
A couple of days ago I was flipping through some old copies of my grad school alumni magazine. They featured current and former students who'd done well, who had gone on to write books, make waves in government, take on pastorates, receive teaching awards, produce prize-winning films, head up inner city missions, and so on.
And that was just the women.
The message is that "successful women," those whom we should honor for their leadership skills, are those who influence people on a large scale. The more people affected by the alumna, the more successful.
But what about those women who went on to influence a small group of people, and more deeply? What about those women who, with master's degrees in hand, chose to forgo acclaim and take on the humble responsibility of being mere mothers? Who exchanged the inch-deep significance of a sterile board room for the eternal significance of the family room?
It's enough that my alumni magazine promotes women pastors, a vocation with no biblical precedence. But by remaining silent about the influential role of full-time mother, they imply that such women may not be counted among the "successful."
I know it's a cliche, but perhaps it is so because it's so true: In their last moments, women will likely not regret having spent so few hours working for The Man. They'll regret not having spent as much time as they could with the ones they love. In the case of married women, that's likely to include their children.
It's fine to recognize the success of women outside the home. Let's also recognize the too-overlooked success of those who, as the saying goes, rock the cradle.
Um, did I mention that we're expecting our third daughter to be born this Friday? Not sure that's relevant.... ;-)
Over the weekend, I read the eulogy of former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms in the Wall Street Journal. Among all the newsworthy items the story could cover, it included the following: He developed an unlikely friendship with the rock star Bono, who convinced Helms to back AIDS funding and alleviate poverty in Africa by channeling more foreign aid through private sources.
I noticed that Bono popped up in a few other articles about Helms. I realize I'm biased as a U2 fan, but I started thinking about how often Bono is mentioned in news stories about high-profile deaths. Consider these stories tied to the deaths of:
Pope John Paul II
Johnny Cash
Frank Sinatra
Luciano Pavarotti
Joey Ramone
Michael Hutchence (INXS)
Roy Orbison
Is Bono the Forrest Gump of celebrity deaths? Who else from the music world ends up associated with so many significant people and then has a newsworthy connection to them when their eulogies are written?
I was recently reading an advice column in a Christian magazine where a young woman, who was at that point in life that she needed to decide on a career, was having second thoughts about her preferred path. She loved to cook and had dreams of being a world-class chef. For that reason she was studying culinary arts and restaurant management.
Her problem? She was wondering how she could serve God in this career. The advice columnist told the young woman that she could still serve God as a cook. "Who knows? God may use you to treat traveling missionaries when they pass through your church, or He may use your cooking as a way to open the door to sharing your faith with someone in a restaurant who's blown away by what you've prepared."
And while that advice is certainly correct, it's also incomplete. Why must her passion have only a utilitarian value, good only insofar as it helps advance something else? Why can't she pursue cooking simply for the love of cooking?
Both the young woman and the advice columnist are operating under the false premise that we serve God only by being evangelists or, perhaps, by serving those who evangelize. It's the myth of the so-called full-time Christian worker. This myth creates second-class citizens of all those who love the Lord but, apparently, don't serve Him through their workaday lives. I wonder how many people are miserable in their careers as "full-time Christian workers" because they've fallen for the same fiction.
When I first became a Christian 27 years ago, I was eager to serve God, but I faced a similar "dilemma" as this young lady. As far back as I could remember, I'd wanted to be a writer. But I thought the only way I could serve God was as a minister or maybe as a missionary to Africa. (I'd already lived in Africa for several years at that point, so I had no romantic illusions about the continent.) I was genuinely torn between my desire to serve God and my desire to tell stories.
A wise woman at my church showed me the work of Dorothy Sayers, Flannery O'Connor and George MacDonald and told me all were great writers and devout Christians. It was a revelation. She told me that my passion to write stories was put there by God, and while I could use my love of writing to serve God directly through teaching, I could also write stories for the sheer pleasure of it -- and for His pleasure.
Unfortunately, there are some who, despite great talent, believe that the only way to serve God is directly through evangelism. Again, it's not wrong -- just incomplete. In his book Eyes Wide Open, William Romanowski writes of several Christian musicians: The late Keith Green reportedly said, "As for me, I repent of ever having made a record or ever having sung a song unless it's provoked people to follow Jesus, to lay down their whole life before him, to give him everything." Can a song really do that, "provoke people to follow Jesus," or is that the work of the Holy Spirit? Likewise, [Christian musician] Carman explains, "I don't just want to spend my time on social commentary because there's too much of it going on and it doesn't deliver anyone from sin." And the members of a Christian rock group said, "Issues are great, but there's no transforming or cleansing power in them."
These sentiments are admirable, but I believe they're mistaken. Why can't one of these artists write a beautiful love song to his wife or a soothing lullaby for a child? Why can't he write a beautiful song whose primary purpose is to praise God, not to convert unbelievers? Why can't he write an instrumental piece for the sheer sake of writing something beautiful? I believe using your God-given talents in this way is honoring God just as much, if not more, than producing mediocre work with no heart in it. To be sure, you must "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15), but you also serve God by doing whatever you do with passion and to the best of your ability.
One of my favorite movie scenes is from Chariots of Fire, where the sister of Olympic runner Eric Liddell questions why his passion for running seems stronger than his passion to become a missionary. Liddell answered, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure."
God made me -- and you -- for a purpose. What do you love to do? What gives that little tickle in the belly when you think about it? Sure, it might be as a missionary or preacher. But it might be as a butcher, baker or candlestick maker. No matter what it is, "work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving" (Colossians 3:23-24).
Every few weeks, I am compelled -- usually via a loving yet firm request from my wife -- to clear out and recycle the previous few weeks worth of newspapers that have built up in a corner of the living room. And each time I tackle the task, I inevitably find myself reading an article or four that I missed the first time around. This weekend was no exception.
The article appeared a few days ago in the Colorado Springs Gazette, and it examined the theory that Evangelicalism "may be losing its sway" with voters, particularly in light of the upcoming 2008 elections. Some of the reasons cited -- the cyclical nature of politics, the recent passing of some prominent Christian leaders -- were mostly vague guesses by various religious and political scholars. The leading theory, however, at least had some basis in fact: The biggest reason of all, though, may be the changing face of evangelicals themselves, experts say. Evangelicals no longer seem to be the monolithic voting bloc they were a few years ago. A growing number don't think it's their place to politicize their faith, and many young believers are not interested in the traditional evangelical battlegrounds of abortion and gay rights; their focus is turning toward environmentalism and social justice.
The article went on to cite survey data from the Barna Group that point to an ongoing cultural shift among self-described born-again Christians -- particularly those age 40 and younger:
- Twenty-eight percent of born-again Christians under age 41 say they believe it is morally acceptable to have sex with someone of the same gender, compared with 13 percent of older born-agains.
- Thirty-three percent of young Bible believers support abortion rights, compared with 27 percent of older believers.
- Forty-seven percent of born-agains under age 41 say that the efforts of conservative Christians in politics are a problem.
Such trends among young believers, while not exactly new, are nonetheless troubling for those of us with a high view of Scripture. Supporting candidates who stand for biblical values is certainly important, but how can we realistically expect Christians to cast their votes based on a biblical worldview when their worldview isn't biblical to begin with?
Please don't get me wrong. Respecting human rights is critical. Caring for the environment is vital, too. Indeed, most of the evangelicals I know are absolutely convinced that God has entrusted humanity with stewardship of the planet, and that forsaking this duty would be a grave mistake. But this very concept -- caring for the environment -- has led some to believe that saving an endangered field mouse is more important than respecting the "human rights" of a preborn child crafted in the image and likeness of God. Likewise, the Bible is full of cries for social justice, but how is it "just" when so-called believers condemn the efforts of conservative Christians fighting to protect religious freedom in the public square?
I always thought that "evangelicals" were simply those Christians who believe in the literal truth of the Bible. Based on the numbers cited above, young evangelicals may be heading the way of the field mouse.
You really can't tell from this week's show, but I'm a big David Wheaton fan. I remember rooting for him against tennis great Andre Agassi in 1991 on his way to the men's singles semifinals in Wimbledon. And it was a genuine thrill to have him as a guest on The Boundless Show ... though we sort of grill him about singleness.
It's appropriate that we have David on the show this week. You may remember that he sported a stars-and-stripes headband in his heyday in support of our troops during the first Gulf War ... though we really don't talk about that on the show.
But we do celebrate the 232nd anniversary of declaring our independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain with patriotic music from the Colorado Wranglers and a partial reading of the Declaration of Independence.
Now back to David Wheaton.
Roundtable -- 10:01
David Wheaton was such a gracious guest. He indulged some very personal questions about being a 39 year-old single. And he openly acknowledges how his career as a highly ranked tennis pro put him on a trajectory that made it difficult to meet godly, eligible young women. But he leaves little doubt that despite his desire for marriage and family, he feels he's in the center of God's will.
Culture -- 25:29
Though David Wheaton still plays professionally, he's transitioned well from tennis pro to author, speaker, and radio talk show host. After the Roundtable, he and Lisa talk about his book University of Destruction in light of the recent Pew Research study chronicling the large percentage of evangelicals who believe there are many paths to Heaven.
Hungry Years -- 45:25
This week we celebrate the 4th of July with a partial reading of the Declaration of Independence expertly voiced by our very own Dave Salkeld, engineer for The Boundless Show. So, as Lisa encourages, grab a slice of apple pie, sit back and relive this bit of history with us.
Inbox -- 49:49
Do Christian men experience more pressure to marry than non-Christians? Hear from a listener who is growing increasingly weary of being around happily married Christians while longing for a wife himself. Steve, Candice, Lisa and I offer our perspectives including, get those happily married Christians to help you out!
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