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"What makes us think that the American dream and a life of wholistic, true, discipleship can be married together? Really?"

Welcome to my funeral...
I am down in Atlanta at the CCDA (Christian Community Development Association) Confrence and God is kickin my butt all over the place. In the words of Switchfoot, which of recent have been the words of my heart, I scream out "I'M ON FIRE"! (* "on fire"- beautiful let down.)

It is so unreal how God is speaking, whispering, shouting, giving me answers like this one to the questions that have been running through my head and heart for the last few weeks, and i'm on Fire. No more well put words or clever rationale. So weary of the madness of self. So exhausted of ME, my wants, my fakeness. Your self loving, pleasure seeking life makes me sick. The world is dying and the best you have to give is your opinion. Enough. Empty conversations, filled with empty words! Serving self in the name of Jesus. How tragic. Has the salt lost it's saltiness and so become good for nothing? Have I counted the cost? How horrifically disgusting our lives are. How dare we ask God to worship us! If we saw Him we would have no other alternative but to fall on our faces and worship. True? Then I obviously cannot see Him.

Keep your sunday morning service and your religious songs. Keep your latte lifestyle and your big screen comforts. Where is your sacrifice? where is your death? Eternity is on the doorstep and before an audience of One shall I attempt to explain my disobedience. Not worthy to follow? perhaps...
Where to? I chose the death of me. Truth is cutting my heart like I have not felt in months. I crave nothing else. God I thirst for You. Let this daily death begin. Hand to the plow. Standing on the edge of where I have never been before. I'm on FIRE when You're near me. I'm on FIRE when You speak.

"Jesus replied, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."- Lk9:62

Loser

Only the losers win
they've got nothing to prove
They'll leave the world with nothing to lose
You can laugh at the weirdos now
Wait till wrongs are right
They'll be the ones with nothing to hide

'Cause I've been thinking, thinking
I've got a plan to lose it all
I've got a contract pending on eternity
If I haven't already given it away
I've got a plan to lose it all

I've been the burnout kid
I've been the idiot
I'll turn the other cheek to be hit
You can take what you want from me
Empty me till I'm depleted
I'll be around if I'm ever needed

I wrote this song for you
To show how I'm selling out
I'll take the benefit of a doubt
-switchfoot

Thanks to the Bosworth Babes living off Grace we got to experience this heartfelt expression last night live at the Riviera. You girls are awesome. Thanks for the set up. Keep bringing on the rock!

the apostate Paul

my wing man paul lane aka "pimp daddy lane" has finally left the world of Xanga, which I too abandoned for the newer, swifter, Goggle owned world of Blogger, and has come on board. If you want to check out the messed up world know as his life check him out on my blog links to the right. For those of you overly sensitive prayer of Jabez types take notes and who knows, his blog might become your daily devotional.

Bonhoeffer's words...

This morning I was hit with an awesome startling revelation that my morning voice is almost identical to that of Adam Duritz from Counting Crows. Now don’t laugh…really its quite brilliant. It was when I passed the Foster exit on I-90 while the song “Perfect Blue Buildings” was rocking and my vocals where harmonizing that I was like…wow I’m grooving it. (I know… humility issues.) Nonetheless… the start of a good week. Mmmm… , video making, early breakfasts, Bulls game, Switchfoot concert, Kondo in for the weekend. It’s all-good.

I have started re-reading my favorite book in the whole world, “The Cost of Discipleship”. Anyone who has read this book will know that it is like playing with a stick of dynamite around a campfire. Dangerous.
This book will turn your once pleasant world upside down! My mind and heart has recently been challenged by the crisis of living that far too many young adult Christians find themselves in. In a lukewarm society it’s hard to be on fire, passionate and soled out. It seems that the Church is inexcusably breeding mediocre, powerless, passive, self-centered followers. Before I enter into a heated diatribe on this topic, I want to just share a nugget of truth I took from Bonhoeffer’s words that ate at me last night and into this morning. I think here may be the missing piece to this spiritual conundrum we find ourselves in.

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods….
Costly grace is the gospel, which must be sought again and again, the gift, which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.”

Thoughts?

words are powerful

Potbelly’s is a great place to have lunch, especially if you are meeting my good old friend Will Busse. Yeah, Will is one of the coolest dudes in the world. I met Will a few summers back out in the mosquito infested woods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Today Will sincerely thanked me for words I had said to him during that summer. Words, he said, that were defining and instrumental for where he now stands in his life and the direction he has chosen to go in. Wow…I am truly humbled. Will is leaving to spend a year in Kenya serving God’s church in Nairobi. How overwhelming that our simple words mark each other’s lives' and determine each other’s steps. Words are powerful.
Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. (Proverbs 16:24)
Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. (Proverbs 12:18)

what's the point?

Mood: “We were meant to live for so much more! Have we lost ourselves?” –switchfoot.

I’m ticked…. No, actually I’m pissed. (Sorry if I offend your overly sensitive self with that expression.)
I am so frustrated with American politics. I am frustrated that I feel so much rage about all this ......ahhhh! Every time it comes up, in my mind I commit to silence, but I can’t! I just can’t keep quiet. Sucked into heated debate I express my two cents worth.
But every time I walk away frustrated. Frustrated at the state of the Church and it’s neglect of the poor, it’s disregard for injustice and it’s misplaced faith in government and man made structures to bring redemption to this world. I am frustrated that we the Church have forgotten that we exist to give ourselves away. I am sad that we have lost our passion for justice and simply living like Jesus. I hate that we promote a selfish, self-centered Christianity that believes in “me and my jesus” and what Jesus can do for ME. Because we the Church have failed to do what we were commissioned to do we have welfare, food stamps and every other do-gooder aid program under the sun. If every follower of Jesus really believed Jesus’ basic call to take up our cross and walk perhaps we would be spending less time debating which candidate to vote for and more time loving the unlovely. Am I over simplifying?… or have we over complicated our existence. Where is our call, our passion, our obedience? I am disgusted at MY failure, MY indifference, MY disobedience and MY self-righteous hedonism.

"I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” - God (Amos 5:21-24. Check out Isaiah 58 to)

God please straighten me out, let my passion not melt into hypocrisy.

A foolish pattern

Are there things you do that perhaps make you feel stupid and mindless that no one knows about?

Well, I must confess there is a poor pattern that has developed in my life since I joined the world of the working. Every morning before I join the proletariat masses on the drive to work in our tin coffins I take my pre-made lunch in one hand, my man-purse and laptop in another and head out the house. I walk over to my car place my lunch on the roof of the car, put my man-purse and my laptop in a snug reachable position should I need, gum, floss or a book to read for the journey. I then jump in and take off. The first 60 seconds of my backing out the drive way is spent assessing the weather and mood of the morning in order to find my tune for the day. Its fall today and lets face it, Counting Crows, “August and Everything After” is more than a suitable soundtrack for this time of year. I hit the road with a couple of evasive NASCAR maneuvers and find myself at work surprisingly earlier than I thought.

At that hour of the day when weekends have been divulged and a little work has been done the lunch hour tolls. It is at this point I realize my stupidity, lunch in nowhere to be found. So should you be in the area somewhere between Old Town and Rolling Meadows and see what appears to be road kill, take a closer look and you might find the remains of my lunch, a once rich pasta or disheveled Jewel special Cordon Bleu. So for all you animal lovers, fret not when you see that familiar smear on the roadway. It may not be a once innocent woodland creature. It may just be my lunch. So help yourself, enjoy, its on me, lucky you, coz now I have to settle for Subway.

360 degrees x 3

This morning after a late night of wings, beer, sports and spiritual formation discussion I awoke to a rainy, rainy overcast beautiful Chicago fall morning. I picked one of my boys up to take him to the airport on my way in to work. After sipping on un-fair trade coffee and having considerably deep morning conversation for that time of the morning I saw him off at the airport.
Now this is where it gets interesting. I pulled away from the curb and started down the road to my work, which is not too far from O’Hare. As I contemplated last nights conversations I suddenly saw the world blur right in front of my eyes as my car began to spin around 3 times as it hydro planed out of control. To tell the truth the first thing that crossed my mind was, “damn this is fun”. Then as I saw taxis and mini vans blur all around me the seriousness of this merry-go-round dawned on me. I counter steered (what not to do), hit breaks (also what not to do) and came to a sudden stop. Dave Matthews was still groaning away but my V-tech engine had had enough. People stared; kids in passenger seats smiled and taxis just kept going with “been there before” grins on their faces. I hit nothing and nothing hit me. I had crossed 4 lanes of traffic driving out of the busiest airport in the world. God You Rock! Thank You for giving me another day to be me…in one piece.
Now, I’m not having a re-evaluate my life experience, I have that everyday regardless, but it did make me think that today, any day could be my day. So I am going to enjoy the falling leaves and the grey clouds, my ridiculously cool friends and warm bed. I’m going to laugh as much as I can and love till I have nothing left to give. This is my goal today. Tomorrow…. Well tomorrow, I’ll take the train.

busy life....good or bad

I read this beautiful piece by Henri Nouwen. It really challenged me.

"More and more the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter
their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as
someone who wants to live with them.  It is a privilege to have the time to
practice this simple ministry of presence.  Still, it is not as simple as it
seems.  My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part
of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by
meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking
the streets.  It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around
an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social
progress.  But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know
people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell
your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not
simply like them, but you truly love them."   - Henri Nouwen

tough thoughts on race

Last night I sat at a table with 16 really smart people who are seeking to wrestle with issues of race, reconciliation and diversity. Being from South Africa and being a racially mixed kid myself I have wrestled with this topic (I hate to call it a topic) for my entire life. I came to a point where it wearied me and frankly annoyed me, frustration from all sides and opinions galore. From people like Rodney King simplifying a very complex social problem by saying, “why can’t we all get along” to the old Afrikaner governments social policy of Apartheid. Thousands of books and brilliant minds have been poured into this discussion and last night we touched on some of this. Two things really stood out to me as we dialogued. One, if racism is a social construct surely it can be deconstructed. This truth only holds true when one understands the definition and the distinction of race and culture. Culture, we should celebrate. Racism is an attacking force on that celebration. And secondly, we don’t need to keep expounding on how wrong racism is to people who get it. I feel it seems to drag us away from our goal and I feel it is done over and over, again. Why I ask? I think it is because we don’t have a vision beyond reconciliation. We all know racism is wrong but we don’t know how right and beautiful diversity is. Diversity too is not the assimilation of cultures into one but the enjoyment of our differences. And these differences are always secondary to the awesome truth that we are all made in the image of God. Now that’s something to celebrate.
Perhaps we all need to figure out for ourselves if we value diversity beyond eating at an ethnic restaurant, and if not, start asking the hard questions and get on the road to what heaven is going to be like, all the cultures of the world, throughout time subject to one culture; the culture of the cross. This I feel can only really be enjoyed in true deep authentic relationships with people who aren’t like us. This is hard, hard work. For this journey we all need thick skins.
“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” 2Cor5:16-19

in the beginning was...

So this is the beginning of a hopefully new world for me. Is this an excercise in coming out of myself and sharing my madness with an already mad world or am I just wanting to identify with an overly trendy digital planet? Either way...it feels like therepy. Mmmmm...this I like.
Not sure how long this will last but yeah, I'll give it a go.
Let the games begin!