Playing Catch-up

It never ceases to amaze me when I discover that it's been over a month since I last updated this thing. I have to say, a lot has happened since my last post... some good, some bad. My friends and I got the house we really wanted (unless it falls through last minute, but let's hope it doesn't). I graduate in four weeks, one month (before which I have to finish my systematic theology paper, the last 2/3 of my senior thesis, and countless other menial tasks)... then off into the excellent job market, ha! It's a bit crazy though, I've lost both of my minimum-wage jobs (one of which paid me less than minimum wage, but I won't get into that), and I'm staring down the barrel of life after college. Fortunately, I have my internship with Emmaus lined up, so I've got a year before I have to panic. Ironically, I turned down a six-figure income a couple weeks ago, and it's been on my mind ever since. It would have required me to abandon my internship in Chicago to sell cars... like that's gonna happen. The funny thing is, the offer will most likely still be on the table when I return from Chicago, but I'll figure that out when the time comes.

All that is pretty much pointless though. I have to say, some of the things I've encountered the past two weeks have made me acutely aware of the brokenness around me. One girl told me about how she was raped, and an hour later another friend of mine told me he might have HIV. Today as I was driving home from work, after picking up what is likely my last paycheck, I saw a middle-aged woman standing on the corner with a makeshift sign made from an old Fed-Ex box... on it was the picture of an adorable baby girl, with the words "Burial Fund" scrawled across the top. Normally I'm not too moved by people asking for handouts on the street corner, but this broke my heart. I parked the car near the closest ATM and withdrew my last $20 before depositing my last paycheck, and went to meet the woman. The girl's name was Erica. She had pneumonia, and the doctors forgot to turn her over, so she drowned in the fluid in her own lungs... 18 months old. The funeral costs would be $4,000, and this woman, Erica's grandmother, had no choice but to stand on the street corner collecting dollar bills from passersby.

I don't know why things like this happen, and I hate knowing that from a theological or pastoral standpoint, there is no answer. I suppose that if there was an answer, Erica's death wouldn't be the tragedy that it is... maybe it's supposed to be tragic. Maybe having the answers would cheapen or belittle the sorrow people experience when they are raped, or diagnosed with life-threatening illness, or lose their 18-month-old granddaughter.

After a Month of Silence

I realized that I haven't posted anything here in over a month, partly because I don't know what to say, and partly because I haven't had time (to be honest, neither of those deterrents have ceased, so I don't know why I'm writing this either).

I was officially accepted to Emmaus a little over a week ago, and I honestly feel better and better about participating in that ministry as time goes on. Everything I truly value theologically can be found at this ministry, including a few things I didn't even know how much I valued until I was challenged with them during my interview process.

I've got a lot of small things on my mind right now that I want to get off my chest - things about how much I'm learning in Systematic Theology, my frustrations with having only a minor in Theology, my frustrations with the Youth Ministry major, busyness between school and work, my exhaustion, my future, my job at the church, girl stuff, etc. All things I'm probably just too proud to vent about, although I hide my silence behind the guise of my busyness.

Anyways, there's a poem I keep coming back to called Flower, from a collection called Gitanjali...

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not!
I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.
It may not find a place in Thy garland,
but honor it with a touch of pain from Thy hand and pluck it.
I fear lest the day end before I am aware,
and the time of offering go by.
Though its color be not deep and its smell be faint,
use this flower in Thy service and pluck it while there is time.

Emmaus Visit, Part 2

I've got only 9 minutes before I leave for the airport, but I thought I'd post a quick update. I went to about 4 interviews yesterday with different staff members, each charged with asking me a different set of questions (about coping with stress, community living, etc.) They all went pretty well for the most part. It seems to all be coming down to whether I am willing to sign a statement saying a "believe, agree with, and fully support" their position paper on homosexuality. It's a topic that I've been wrestling with, so I explained to them that I'm reluctant to sign my theological convictions away (not that I agree or disagree with their position yet, but I'm in process). I'm more than willing to submit to their theological position during my time here so that I can serve the guys.

In a way I feel caught between wanting to be only halfway honest on the application, and between letting my "integrity" get in the way of me showing the redeeming love of Jesus to the most broken and hurting group of people I've encountered...

Emmaus Visit, Part 1

So, I just got back from my first official interview with Emmaus in Chicago, and it was with the director of Outreach Ministries. The interview consisted of, well, outreach. We went to all the local hangouts, and I met two male prostitutes and three transvestites, and heard all kinds of horror stories, most likely them testing my boundaries and trying to elicit a shock response from me. Despite the fact that it was entirely different from anything I've ever been comfortable doing, and the fact that I was out several hours past my West-Coast bedtime, I had a great time. The lives these people have led are diametrically opposed to the life I've lived, and both of us know that, so there's no pressure to find common ground. Honesty, transparency, and authenticity are valued among this ostracized community, and that's greatly comforting to me, knowing that there's very little I could probably find in common with them.

I found this quote extremely relevant tonight.

"Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." -- C.T. Studd

More updates tomorrow...

Foregone Conclusions

you were too busy steering the conversation toward the lord
to hear the voice of the spirit begging you to shut the fuck up
you thought it must be the devil trying to make you go astray
besides it couldn't have been the lord because you don't believe he talks that way
too close to call yet
still so tightly wound around our foregone conclusions

These lyrics have been floating around my mind all week, and offending me the whole time... but in a good and challenging way. There's so much clutter in Christendom these days, especially with the recent inundation of "Emergent" and "counter-Emergent" literature. That's just the area I've experienced this clutter in (not to mention the thousands of Christian blogs floating around, which this is one of)... there's also been an overabundance of easy-Christianity for years, since Billy Graham brought conversion to the living room and local stadium.

This isn't to point fingers by any means... because just about all of us go to church to hear a 30 minute sermon spoken to us every singe week. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount takes about 20 minutes to read out loud all the way through, and that was the most influential sermon in history... why do we feel the need to say so much more than Jesus did? Didn't he say that his disciples would be known by their actions (or fruits)? When are we going to "walk the walk"?

Time Flies When You're Having Fun... Or Not

November is upon us, and for that matter is almost half over. I realized this the other day, and thought about how quickly 2008 has gone by. For that matter, I thought about how fast time has gone by since I graduated high school. There are a few people who I graduated with who I've either maintained contact with or have been able to follow through social-networking sites; and I must say, my graduating class of 6 people has churned out an interesting bunch.

One girl I graduated with chose to pursue modeling, rather than a college education (something I was somewhat disappointed with, considering she was an honors student). I must say she's had some success, though, and now owns a $2.6 million home in New Mexico, not at the cost of her dignity though, as her photos suggest that she has her foot firm in the doorway of the porn industry and has made no indication that she doesn't intend to fully step through. Sort of a Pyrrhic victory - she's incredibly financially successful and admired by many... but at what cost? She's valued strictly for her body, but she lacks both the character and available community that so make life worth living. I imagine that, if she would first admit it to herself, she would confide a deep sense of loneliness to anyone willing to listen.

Another girl I graduated with, who happens to go to APU with me, I found out a couple weeks ago is a recovering addict. We both felt a sense of pride as she showed me her first 30-day chip, which declared her sobriety, dangling from her key chain. A week after that conversation, her boyfriend proposed to her, and they're now engaged to be married. I can't help but sense the presence of redemption and hope when I think of how far she's come.

As for me, I'm getting ready to graduate college, and hopefully serve a group of people in Chicago who I would not hesitate to call "the least of these" - as they are ostracized among the homeless community.

That's where half of my graduating class of six is, only three and a half years later! I can't help but wonder where the other three are, and where they're headed...

Thou Shall Not Share?: Pondering the Ethics of Piracy

The issue of piracy has been on my mind lately... More appropriately, the notion of intellectual property, considering that it's impossible to remain intellectually honest in trying to develop a theology that circumvents the law of the land when that law is not in direct opposition to the Gospel Message. But aside from royalties being part of the law, is the idea of intellectual property really consistent with the values Christians are supposed to hold?

When looking at file-sharing through the eyes of the 8th Commandment, it's important not to jump to conclusions. It's important to first understand that in order to steal something, that thing must be steal-able. That means that, in the act of stealing, the original owner is then deprived of what was once rightfully theirs, which is not necessarily true when it comes to the duplication and distribution of copies of information. Sure, this breaks down when one considers the amount of time and effort that goes into generating most intellectual property (e.g. the millions of dollars it takes to film a movie or record and master an album, or even to write a book). To deprive an artist or software author the wages for their hard work is clearly to deprive them of payment for their work, which would be stealing. But then the question arises, are the royalties that people continuously profit from different in nature from the one-time pay of a carpenter to build a chair. Would it be different if the carpenter was paid a certain amount each and every time I sat in the chair? Does the consumer have a right to sit in the chair and examine it before he buys it? Does he have the same right to listen to the CD or watch the movie before he decides to pay for the personal rights to own the movie?

Early theologians held the view that a person's thoughts or reflections did not belong to him. Augustine argued that the truth can belong to no one, and since all theological efforts were pointing to God, then what man can lay claim to his own theological contribution? In the same way, if all musicians (ideally) are in pursuit of making good music and contributing that music to the betterment of society, then how can they withhold the contribution they've intended to make for society. Have we so capitalized our own thoughts that we are no longer willing to contribute freely to society without expectation and even demand of ongoing payment? Do we really participate in a religion where the most widely used translations of our ancient, sacred, "God-breathed" texts are bound by intellectual copyrights, with continuous royalties amounting to millions are consistently being paid to those who translated it?

The so-called "Hacker Ethic" of pirates is one of Open Source. It says that all information should be free information, and that anyone should be able to contribute to the betterment of that information so we can literally work together to make the best of all that we do in society. It says that less fences makes for better neighbors, because once you take the fence away, then you have a bigger lawn; get a few more neighbors, and soon you've got a park. Sure, that sounds a bit Marxist and overly idealist, but what higher calling is there than to hopeful idealism? There's already a huge draw toward ad-supported services that pay royalties through advertising revenues, while remaining monetarily cost-free to the consumer (albeit the consumer opts to expose himself to a few more ads, but what's that on top of the 5,000 that the average American is exposed to everyday, right?)

I don't see a reason why a theology of breaking down walls and sharing everything in common shouldn't extend to intellectual property, especially if we're to serve God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength... (is it possible that we only serve our wallet with our mind?). This should be especially true in Christian circles when it comes to works of theology, Bible translations, and even/especially teaching curricula. Would these resources really cease to exist if we didn't capitalize them? My guess is that we would see a huge jump in the quality and a substantial reduction in quantity, because the number of people who contribute for recognition and financial gain would cease to hog the spotlight, and the people who contribute out of sheer conviction and service to God and society would flourish.

Anyways, there's my two cents, free of charge, of course ;)

(Also, I think that if I ever do publish a book in the distant future, I'll probably waive my copyrights allow for the honeypot distribution where people will pay if they want to... I like that idea)