a quiet child

Hey, were you there last night?
I thought I saw you at another table.
So did I do alright?
I held her gaze as long as I was able.

Perhaps she noticed you.
Perhaps she brought me there simply to spite you.
Maybe she’s trying to prove
Something about her meaning just to woo you.

The conversation flew
Like a bobsled through an unfamiliar course.
Riding along I knew
I’ve become a slave to her attractive force.

My God, she knows her act!
Each effortless move once born becomes a thrill.
Wherever did she learn?
Lessons you once taught in love are now fulfilled.

This girl has all the moves
I’ve got her but she is not going for me.
Maybe you saw us leave?
That goodnight kiss felt like making history.

God doesn’t control my life.  Friends don’t control friends and God is much better than a friend. Why do we feel the need to control our friends?  We try to control their enemies, we try to control our distant friends, we like to control God, we to control our close friends.  Folks like to control their kids and they like to control their spouses most of all.  The closer the relationship, the more legitimate the control.  We probably feel that way because when we invite a person into our life we become vulnerable to them and so we keep them in line in order to protect ourselves.  It’s only ironic because control runs contrary to love and it reduces relationship to possession.  Love is to try to be perfect for the sake of others.  That would be the opposite of control.  If people love each other like that, the relationships can grow forever.

peace

Maturity: acting out or working toward one’s full potential

Let’s see… turkey in a pit.

Tuesday Night

Turkey goes in the brine-bath.

Wednesday Night

Dig a big pit, remove child and stack up lots of wood and big ol’ rocks. The wood will burn to heat the rocks, and the rocks will bake the turkey.

Pat turkey dry, rub in butter and pepper and wrap in corn leaves/foil/chicken wire

Wear layers; it’s chilly in here!

Thursday Morning

Get up early to start pit fire

Let that burn down to embers

Once its just rocks and embers, quickly remove remaining embers, drop in the turkey, cover top and sides with soaking wet rags, and cover the pit up with dirt so no steam gets out. At this point the meat can stay in for anywhere from 3 to 8 hours; the rocks cool down eventually so there’s little danger of overcooking it.

3 hours later

Dig up the meat and unwrap. Our turkey is uberjuicy and so tender the meat is falling off the bone.

The turkey was delicious, prep was really not that hard, and the beautiful part: for three hours before Thanksgiving dinner I was free to prepare mashed potatoes, dressing, etc. I think brining is really the way to go for a fabulous tasting turkey, and baking it the pit added a bit of a smoked flavor to round it off. This method’s a keeper. Maybe I’ll try a pig next time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ll start out by saying I don’t want to rant against the conventional evangelical church, I just need to write so I don’t forget why it is I don’t attend a conventional evangelical church.

I basically ended up going to church because a friend invited me, and we wanted to get together anyway.  So we walk in, sing a little bit, sit down, and hear a sermon, sing a little bit, and walk out.  To be honest, those were the most boring 90 minutes I’ve spent since the last time I “went to church”.

The pastor, by most standards a very competent pastor, talked about Christ’s resurrection.  “What would this church look like, what would the Conejo Valley look like if we all believed in Christ’s resurrection?”.  Then he proceeded to explain how Jesus did really come back to life.  In conclusion, if you believe that Christ rose from the dead, your life should look like this and that therefore go and change your life based on this knowledge.

Next we joined the youth group.  Again, we sung some songs, then gathered in a big room and more or less listened to the youth pastor.  He talked about James 1:19-20, a pretty simple message telling us we really shouldn’t be quick to get angry.

Throughout all this I realized that the church operates in a special plane of existence where we come and do all these things in the name of God and remain totally irrelevant to the real world.   I also realized that youth pastors are always fun because they make an effort to be interesting (i.e. relevant) to their audience.

I had a quick conversation with a lady who is apparently pretty involved in ministries at the church.  At some point she realized that I was part a certain infamous band of religious bohemians.
“So when does the Spring meet these days?”

“We’ve been getting together at people’s houses whenever we decide… we just call each other up and hang out.  We’ve moved away from a rigid structure.  The idea is that the community is always moving…”

“Well, I think God can move in more structured organizations.”

Indeed he can, indeed he can.  But I have trouble sometimes.

The farmer is a man
well aquainted with the past
by constant labor
he determines the future.

The earth is a nearly infinite garden

like the little ecosystems in a glass ball
it keeps on going and going and going
as long as the sun shines
the circle of life continues forever
it only loses a tiny piece of a percent each time

hakuna matata until it runs out

One activity included in the camp I recently attended was evangelism. Street evangelism, to be specific. The view I have held up till now is that in this country evangelism is pretty futile outside of the context of a relationship. I went into this with serious doubts about whether any good could come of encroaching on peoples afternoons in the park and challenging them on issues they didn’t want to talk about. Nevertheless this was a mandatory event, and it would provide usefull experience, so I went. I figured I’d give it a shot, be amiable and see what happens. We (about a 100 of us on the first shift) got on busses and headed out to Balboa Park in San Diego. We were given pamphlets to guide us in our conversations. The starter question was “What happens when you die?”. From there it could progress in three directions: reincarnation, extinction, or directly to heaven/hell. Since everyone will admit that they have sinned, we can then tell them how sin gets you into hell and Jesus is our only hope for life.
We split into groups of three and commenced to approach lost people. Imagine three young people with pink bracelets and pamphlets walk up, wanting to ask personal questions. I felt like a JW. Many of our victims were hostile and would have nothing to do with us. Most other people answered our questions with varying amounts of interest. The point we reached in our conversations is that the atheist is working on faith, but so are we. Sure there is great evidence out there for the validity of the Bible as God’s word, but thats a matter for another day. Overall, 206 students halfway converted two people, planted seed in the minds of a few more people, and reinforced the evangelical Christian’s stereotype for the rest of the crowd.
I may be wrong, but to me this type of proselytization seems outdated and has proved itself a relatively ineffective means of spreading our gospel of love. At the same time, we do hold words of life and many of us tend not to be very outspoken about our faith for fear of causing more harm than good. I wonder if there could be a balance, a new kind of evangelism that is just as direct as street evangelism but starts with service and invites people to ask us the questions. Some way we could wash society’s feet and impact them without confrontation. This is the 21st century after Christ. We are not dealing with Stoics and Epicureans, but there is no reason for millions of Christians today not to be able to do what 13 men did quite naturally almost two thousand years ago.

Peter

Last week, I sat through a lecture on Christianity and art. The guy started out by defining art as “Skilled human creativity that reflects God’s truth and God’s beauty.”  The point was that art should glorify God through order, beauty, and good content.  In an ideal world I suppose all those thing would be included in art, but for now I think we should work with a more objective definition.  Otherwise you could say Jackson Pollock should have been painting French gardens.  I venture to restate my view of art:

Creativity that effectively communicates a concept or sentiment held by the artist.

It is important to understant the nature of creativity.  First, creation is always original, and so is great art.  Second, creation is a physical expression of the creator’s nature.  If the creator is ordered, beautiful and good, the art will reflect that.  If he is lost and confused, then that’s what will show.  It doesn’t matter whether or not it took skills to splatter paint on a canvas.  The skill lies in articulating a thought in a way that speaks to the viewer.  We were made creators.  Even lost people can glorify God through that.

I’m not blind, but I can’t see
through the cloud of second-hand smoke.
Nobody knows where it comes from,
no one can find the fire.
We’re just enjoying life.