I'm moving!

Well, I'm moving digitally.

Beats Two and Four will be inactive after this post (big difference, I know).
My new blog is The Timshel Project. I'm pretty excited about it because it is where this blog was headed, but without all the baggage. Some of these post will reappear in the new blog because I really like them. If there were any you liked and would like to discuss with a larger audience, feel free to let me know and I'll repost them.
Thank you all so much for following me on this broken path of blog. Go to The Timshel Project. I hope that you will support it and invite your friends to follow it too.

Vaya con Dios
'Pole

I Was a High School Band Nerd

If you go to most news sites this week, or look at the blogs on LinkedIn, you will find many articles on "How to get organized for the new year," or "How to keep your resolutions"or "The 7 secrets of success for this new year (or 4 or 7 or 13 depending on how creative the writer was)," along with other diet and exercise plans.

At the beginning of the year we make our resolutions based on what has or hasn't worked for us and others in the past. We look to successful businessmen and women for how to arrange our lives so that we too may one day own a company like Virgin Airlines. As holiday photos go up on Facebook, we notice how our faces look rounder than they did last year, and commit to more exercise and eating right. We look to the past to inform our future. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. It doesn't make you unoriginal or foolish. We get in trouble when we think that we are doing something completely new that has never been done before. Either it has and we look arrogant, or it has been tried before, failed miserably, you will look ridiculous for attempting it a second time the same way.

So this week, looking at the year to come, I think back to the past.

Like the overwhelming majority of people, I want to be happy. So I look back to the happy, fulfilled time to inform my direction.

In high school, I did nothing but band. I'm not a great musician. I watch performers on stage and wish I were them, but I remember all the joy of playing music. I kept doing band in college with the Redcoats. What was it about band that kept me involved? It wasn't a career, it was a time-consuming hobby that I didn't excel at or take advantage of to advance myself.

I liked the way music inspired me.
I liked the identity of tradition that a uniform established.

I liked that a bunch of different people came together and made something beautiful.

I liked that I was a part of something that other people enjoyed.

This year:
I want to find inspiration
I want my identity to be as strong as tradition
I want a bunch of different people to come together and make something beautiful
And, I want to be part of it.

Lucky number '13

Every January 1st, most people take stock of their lives from the past year. We look back upon what we accomplished and failed, our estimations of where we would be one year from this moment. And so, the  year begins with bleary eyes, red from a late party the night before. Eyes that are either full of hope for the coming year, or full of fear from the magnitude of it all.

I have a unique situation. My birthday falls a week-and-a-half after the new year, and so I have a week-and-a-half that separates two new years. In the past, these eleven days have served a variety of purposes. Sometimes, this time is a grace period. No resolutions were formed on New Year's Day and now I have some time to think about it. In other years, this time can serve as a mulligan. In eleven short days I fall of the resolution wagon and get a do over (which never sticks) on my birthday.

This year, the familiar resolutions are here: lose weight, read more, pray more. But this year, my aim is to get to December 31st 2013 and look back on the previous 365 days and be content with my progress or lack thereof. I can't replace my ambition or desire to improve, but I can control my response to the outcome. To me, a content life is a strong, resilient life. The lows are not measured by the highs, but that my response to the lows is determination and a faith that I will be ok.

2013 can be a great year. I'm sure there will be sorrow along the way, but who knows what we will discover in science, what will be created in the arts, what a child will say next, what example an elder will set. Oh yes, 2013 is a year of endless possibility. You and I will blaze the path for the year. Those endless possibilities will become more finite and detailed as we move from day to day, week to week, and month to month. So, with each passing moment we lose the endlessness, but gain perspective (like backing away from a mosaic).

With a content life, I will be able to risk more of myself, because I am risking less. The chances I take can be bigger because the risk to my self-image is low. Contentment begets a strange combination of confidence and humility. These juxtaposed ideas ensure the lows are leveled out and the highs are reachable.

So for the next week-and-a-half, think of me as I struggle with this idea of contentment and the surety it brings to act, and my thoughts will be for you and your daily strivings.

If I live the life I'm given, I won't be scared to die. -The Avett Brothers.

Preparing a lesson

Sorry its been a while.

A good soundtrack for this post is Chris Bathgate's "Serpentine"

Right now, I'm in the middle of putting together my lesson for tomorrow night. And honestly, I want to wallow in the material all day tomorrow. Bible lessons, at least for me, don't come out like cookie cutters. There is no formula. Formulas lead to repetition and boredom, and the last thing we need is more boring Bible classes.

My experience has been that there is a lot of melancholy that accompanies lesson prep. It's not the dread of teaching, but the dread of impact. When one examines the material, it firsts works its way inward. Like John's little book it is sweet to behold, but then it hits the stomach and turns to wormwood. Before I can teach, the teaching must work its way through my sinews, get into my blood, work its way into the marrow of my bones. Yes, it is as painful as it sounds. The Word cuts in, violently replacing the diseased tissue with healthy. Because the process of redemption, which first began with Christ, is now working in me.

Becoming a remade creature is taxing, because you must confront the built up scars that you use to cover old wounds. Suddenly, that protection is gone as the lesson allows old wounds to flow again, convicting the soul.

It is only afterwards, one can confront with melancholy the state of what is. Just as Christ sighed within Himself before healing the blind man. God requires we to must sigh. To recognize that this isn't the way it was meant to be, and the only reason it is... well, is because this is what we chose.

The sadness, the conviction, the guilt. These are tough hurdles that must be surmounted. If we stay there, we lose the vision of the story. We remain bitter and add to the hurt in the world. We become vain and righteous.

Christ gives sight to the blind and it is with great difficulty I emerge from the mire. For Christ has already won. To teach the lesson now is difficult because there is a time limit and how can you take these people on this journey and send them away changed and energized in 1 hour?

There is the challenge of teaching and preparing your lesson

Currently, I'm teaching a class on "The Good and Beautiful Life" at Campus View. One, of the things Smith hammers home is the idea of narratives. Now, I've written about this before on this blog. And, so now I'm looking back on the different narratives for my life.

One of the most painful times in my life was during elementary, middle, and early high school. I didn't live in the right place, my family didn't go to the right church, I wasn't interested in the right things. In essence, I was an outsider. So, I acted like an outsider. I began seeking those things that the mainstream disliked. I still do this today. It's hard for me to like anything that the majority of my surrounding culture likes. So, I've descended into tribalism. My tribe is the indie-cyclist-Christians. (There's not that many of us, but I did marry one.)

What is amazing is how my narrative of being an outsider influenced my thoughts on my faith with profound impacts. I read this article this morning on Scott McKnight's blog, which reminded me of my past. You see, when I was younger, Rubel Shelley was kind of a traitor. Terrible things were said about him and some didn't call him a Christian anymore. This is a sad thing. I grew up in a right of middle church of Christ. I was taught that we were the only faithful Christians. I don't think anyone came outright and said the Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians were going to hell, but the outlook did bode well for them. Here's the thing, I felt really comfortable with this. Why? It fit in great with my narrative of being an outsider. It felt like the whole world was against me and it felt like all of Christendom was against my church.

Here's where it gets mucky. My personal narrative fortified a false narrative. My feelings of church exclusiveness began to decline through the last part of high school and throughout college. I don't think we can solely credit my increase in Biblical knowledge, although it helped. I changed. My narrative altered. I was becoming accepted by my peers. The outsiders found each other and became friends. We were all different, and it seemed no one shared the same interest. But, we all shared a narrative, outsider. In college, where there are more people, I became popular for the first time since kindergarten because there were more outsiders.

I think there are many lessons we can draw from this.

1. Don't turn people into outsiders (it can affect there faith)

2. Our personal narratives can override Jesus' Narratives (they're that strong)

3. Narratives can change, not because we change them, but because we live and grow through them.

4. Our environments of learning are crucial.

Are there any personal narratives that have shaped your faith?

DIOS le bendiga

Today's Lepers

(Backstory)

So, those of you who are long time followers of this blog (and let's face it if you still read this that most likely means you), probably read my post on homosexuality two-years ago and it's ensuing barn-fire. I would like to say I'm a different person that I was then. Of course I am! It's been two years. Two years filled with eight season, trials, victories, and defeat. I didn't delete that post, even though it is a bit embarrassing, because it was truthful. It was written in the wake of a the first wound I'd received from a friend in ministry. It dealt with a subject that I hadn't fully explored and therefore didn't understand completely. I still stand by the original point of the post that belief in God will not take a back seat to preserve a friendship, however, I can couch my beliefs about God to preserve community. And, for those of you who wonder, our friendship, though damaged, is preserved. And, I think stronger than before because now when we meet we talk about serious matters that shape our views.

(Main Body)

Despite where I, or you, or they stand on the morality of homosexuality, the fact of the matter is the LGBT community is made up of individual people. Each bearing unique personalities and the imago Dei. To which I say, those of us who call ourselves Christian have shown an ample amount of disgust, prejudice, and sheer hatred toward. As much as the Jews showed the Samaritans. And, a segment of this community has been afflicted with a mysterious disease that has no known cure and whose sufferers are ostracized to watch their friends die around them with little support from those outside the community. I want to compare leprosy and HIV-AIDS, and the church's un-Christian response to it. This is article that fired me up. It tells of a lonely old man who watched his partner die and is now waiting to die himself. Say what you will, he loved his partner. He has no children nor grandchildren to comfort him, and it is that loneliness, that lack of community that breaks my heart.

In the ancient world, disease was seen as judgement of sin from God. Leprosy was one of the most feared diseases, it was mysteriously and dangerously contagious. It caused deformity. Lepers where put out of the camp to keep the community from being infected. This quarantine was from the Law of God. It's purpose was not to shame the sufferer. Indeed, it was done to protect the whole, but the intention was not to make a mockery of suffering as it became. Lepers were cut off from worship and community so it makes sense that they would form colonies resentful of the larger community, yet so yearning to be apart of it again. In Luke 5:12-14 (see also Luke 17: 11-19) we see Jesus encountering a leper. His response is startling. He touches him. Jesus, Son of the Most High God, makes himself unclean to restore community to one broken, lonely man. In the case of HIV-AIDS, which disproportionately is found among gay men, the disease is viewed as a judgement of sin from God. Some Christians view it as Jews would leprosy on a Samaritan. A deserving punishment for an unclean life.

Do you see the problem?!

Do you see where we put ourselves in this postion!?

"Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean."

Oh church, let us stretch out our hands and touch the lives of those afflicted with HIV-AIDS. When the blind man was brought to Jesus, He was asked, "Who sinned, he or his parents?" Jesus responds, "Neither, this was done that the works of He who sent Me might be displayed in him." (paraphrase John 9) Likewise, we must view HIV-AIDS not as means to further reject people, but as a way to display the works of the One who sent us among the rejected. This is Christ's clarion call to start His ministry. I once heard it said that the reason a cure for HIV-AIDS has not been found is that the world is waiting for the church to join.

The world is full of broken, lonely people. The kind of people Jesus walked among and calls us to do the same. We, as the church, are not here to create a social club, but to declare "freedom to the captives."

We must do something

namaste

DIOS le bendiga

Pandora's Box

So I'm listening to Pandora Radio, and it's just not right. I mean, I've seeded the stations with my favorite artists: The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons, Justin Townes Earl, etc. I've liked and disliked songs to direct the bots to choose relevant songs but it's still not right. And then, I found out the reasoning for picking songs. There's a formula to predict what you like. Listen to a description of one of the songs,

"Based on what you have told us so far, we're playing this track because it features mellow rock instrumentation, acoustic sonority, acoustic rhythm piano, extensive vamping, and major key tonality."

What's missing?

Content

Soul

When something as emotional as music is reduced to science, it loses its luster. Experiencing art triggers the same part of the brain as falling in love. And, Pandora is picking songs based on the background not on the content. Granted the background colors the foreground. Even in a play such as "Our Town" where there is intentionally a spartan set, the audience is invited to imagine the houses. But, the background enhances the message of the play: that life is quick.

Back to the music, why do I like the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons? Well, lets start with the background, you throw in a banjo, mandolin, or horn section and you have my attention. But what separates those bands from Old Crow Medicine Show and JTE (other bands I like but not at the level of favorite)? Simple, its the content. It's what makes me listen to Brandi Carlisle instead of Taylor Swift. The lyrics have a deeper meaning than just, I love you. The lyrics cry out of the soul of the singer to the point where the voice remains barely within control. Its the same reason why I like the Christian artist that I do (Gungor, Jon Foreman, Jars of Clay). Their songs come from somewhere else. Some plain where I never been but feels like home. Maybe that's just my taste in music, but I don't think one can quantify or measure that parameter. And, not every song by any of the above artists hits me that way. The mix could include K' Naan's "Wave Your Flag," or maybe one of Common's rap poems, and "Lazy Eye" by the Silver Sun Pickups.

Then we wind up with a mix that even Pandora couldn't compute.

DIOS le bendiga