apostate paul & hang2

I am sure you've had people who have come into your life whom you thought will always be friends…and then circumstances change, and it’s all different. I am sure you also have friends whom you just can’t shake. Time and test come and you know they are lifetime friends. No matter how your paths split and what direction your life takes, they somehow are still there. I always hope that I make lifetime friends. It’s hard to tell from the get go and I’m not sure what it is that makes the difference... but perhaps there is a bond that is formed in the quality of friendships you make that just cannot be broken. Since I have been here in the great US of A, I have made some amazing lifetime friends who mean so much to me.

Of recent I have been thinking about two clowns in particular. Probably because Paul came to chill with me for a week here in Chi Town and Hang just graduated with his MDiv. We were there cheering for him from the balcony. These two guys, I have prayed with, cried with and laughed with. Both have been my accountability partners. (which basically means they first laugh and then get real serious and tell me to stop being such a loser coz Jesus is crazy about me)

Hang and Paul are about to embark on new chapters in their lives. Paul is off to join the Peace Corps and save rare, exotic woman from the dangers of this cold and callous world. Hang is to serve on staff in a local Chicago church where he will begin his steady climb to become the first Vietnamese Pope in the history of the world. So here is a toast to you Pennsylvania boys;
“May the steps of your feet be ordered by the Lord and may His Spirit empower you to radically love Him and reflect Him before a dying and broken world. To Hang and Paul, follow close.”

total depravity

“When you are moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other.” – crash

A week ago a group of people were leaving my apt after watching and discussing the movie CRASH. CRASH is an intense film about the prejudices, fears, ignorance and outcomes of racial collision. Set in diverse LA, a city notorious for its interpersonal distance, CRASH takes place on one single day of chaos. This movie is “intense” from start to finish.
But it’s been a week and specific lines and characters linger in my mind. I’m learning a silent valuable lesson as I process this movie in my thoughts. I’m not an overly race sensitive person and I feel like what bothered me most in the movie was not the racial conflicts that emerged but more the poor people to people relational failures that lead to horrific outcomes. We are so bad at relating to each other.
Keeping within this vein I have been thinking a lot about the blame we place on churches, schools, institutions, marriage, dating etc whatever and I can’t help but conclude that its not so much the structures or systems or whatever but it’s “the people”. People suck. Seriously, we fail all the time. We fail each other, and ourselves constantly. This one part of subscribing to Calvinism I am in full agreement with; man’s heart is totally depraved.

I know this is no great revelation or word of encouragement but perhaps more a lesson and call for me to be more gracious to other’s brokeness as well as my own. I need to be more gracious to my fellow commuters on the road. More grace giving to my sometimes messy roommates, and more grace giving to the awesome but fractured people doing this journey of life with me.

Seriously go watch the movie.

U2

“One love, one blood, one life, you got to do what you should.
One life with each other: sisters, brothers.
One life, but we're not the same.
We get to carry each other, carry each other.
One, one.”

A short review
My ears are still buzzing. Like an atomic bomb went off and I can hear this fuzzy silence. I must admit I’m not one who hopes for the magic celebrity fairy dust to fall on me but being like 6ft away from the band was the most unreal thing. Seriously I made eye contact with Bono several times and because he was singing he couldn’t say it… but I could see it in his eyes, he was like “what’s up my African brother”. Sweet huh. That’s when he did the Africa focus dealio speaking about AIDS, DATA, The One Campaign etc. And then they performed my favorite U2 song ONE, with cascading flags and phenomenal effects. I got a sweet shot on my camera phone with the South African flag front and center. The band just kicked some serious booty. The concert just got better and better, song after song. It really was unreal, it was totally unreal apart from the sweaty pot smoking fans and the crazy drunk dude and dudette next to us and their incessant making out, the concert was off the hook. If last night were one’s only encounter with U2 it wouldn’t be hard to understand why they are called the greatest rock band of our time.

Mary girl, you rock! Paul would have loved it, but let’s face it you make a great rocker wing girl. (He and I had Counting Crows so you and I get U2- that’s fair. simple Concert Math 101.) And plus you rock way hard. Well, it’s always a privilege to hang out with me. (Haha.) Thanks. U2 forever….rock on!

Why my stock is low!

Glossary:
Stock= a guys value in relation to the opposite sex
Points= partitions of value that make up his stock
Bottomed out= negative stock

Got it?
Okay so the theory is that guys hold a certain amount of stock that ups them in this game of love and life. The higher the stock, the greater the pool of potential bidders. Points are obtained either by being born with them, being given them or somehow earning them. For example my roommates both have very high stock. Mike is a tall dark and handsome surfer dude with a laid-back attitude and very sincere demeanor. (and he can cook!) Chris is an ex-football player who looks like he just walked off of the pages of a GQ magazine and is a great listener= total babe fodder. So lets face it booth my boys are off to a great start with high stock. GQ boy is on his way to Law school thus almost doubling his stock…oh and he’s just become a homeowner almost tripling his stock! (I’m very proud of him, he’s on top of his game.) Mikey just got back from 20 days of surfing perfect lefts (waves) in Indonesia and is all tanned up and ready for summer lovin. His stock is on a very positive, progressive rise. Okay so some of these things are the lesser value points that build your stock but you get the idea right?

I was talking to my urban youth worker bro Dave. Dave and I graduated together. Dave is originally from the cornfields of Michigan, but was delivered from there and now lives in the Chicago Southside hood. Dave and I commiserated about the current standing of our own stock and how it seems to get harder and harder to gain points as we get older…and apparently getting older itself subtracts points unless you’re a Sean Connery or Richard Gere dude. (those guys are like fine wine- better with age). Anyway, we spoke about how we both want to live in fairly dangerous settings thus minusing “security”, thus minusing high points. We also both don’t think we will make a lot of money being in ministry, (of course this depends on if I get that televangelist gig I applied for last month, double cross your fingers for me.) thus minusing “the perfect provider” attribute and so minus more points. But Dave smiles as he realizes his stock is still afloat. The fact that I plan on living 10, 000 miles away really, really bottoms out my stock. This fact alone halves my stock. So here I am in this dilemma. Coz let’s face it, even if I drove a Hummer, had the ridiculously good looking buns of Brad Pitt, the humor of Mike Myers, the bling-bling of 50cent and the do-gooder but ever so annoying personality of Ty Pennington I still would be plummeting!

So I’m looking for some intense creative ideas on how to up my stock. Seriously people, if you can think of how I can do this by still allowing me to live in Cape Town let me know! I will send $100,000 in real Monopoly money to the best idea! (shipping and handling not included)

ponder this story for the day...

an excerpt

Author Tony Campolo, who makes a regular circuit as a chapel speaker on Christian college campuses, for a time used this provocation to make a point.
"The UN reports that over 10,000 people starve to death each day, and most of you don't give a shit. However, what is even more tragic is that most of you are more concerned about the fact that I just said a bad word than you are about the fact that 10,000 people are going to die today."
The responses proved his point: in nearly every case Tony got a letter from the Chaplin or President of the college protesting his foul language. The letters never mentioned world hunger.

What's So Amazing About Grace? -Visual Edition