"new year's project" further seems forever

happy father's day! i spent my father's day at a mini golf course in valparaiso, indiana. i drove up to my sister's place in chicago then the three of us (including my 2 year old niece iris) drove to valpo to meet dad and chris. my father's day present to dad was a six stroke defeat! oops! after that we went to red robin and had some great food and then to target. at target i ran into newlyweds mike and jessica denny! small world, haha! all in all, a great great day filled with fun and laughter.

the best part of days like these are spending them with my two year old niece iris. i will miss her oh so much when i move to kansas city. here are a few highlights:






spending time with iris inevitably brings my mind to that happy day that will come in the future when i can look into the eyes of my own child. i have many goals in life, personal and professional, but in the end i believe that if i am so fortunate and if God so decides to richly bless me, it will all be worth it if i can come home at the end of the day to a wonderful loving family. oh how i long for that day to come!

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one of the things I enjoy most about visiting my sister is stopping at trader joe's on the way back home. for those who have not encountered trader joe's, you are definitely missing out. it is a grocery store that stocks all organic and wholesome foods (for the most part!). everything is fairly priced and is of the very utmost quality. well, i didn't get a chance to stop there this time (too late heading back), but i did find a new stop that i will have to make: half price books. I found out recently that there is a half price books shop just beyond a certain exit i take to get to my sister's. i was first introduced to half price books in kansas city and am SO GLAD there is one near here. on this stop, i picked up seven books for a total of $25 (yes you read that right!). my haul:

"the inner life" thomas a kempis
"Jesus - god and man" pannenburg
"the return of the prodigal son" nouwen
"let me tell you a story" tony campolo
"Lord, teach us: the Lord's prayer and Christian life" willimon & hauerwas
"confessions" st. augustine (yes, i didn't have a copy before)
"the secular journal of thomas merton"

you should be able to sense a common theme in this trip to half price books. i'm trying to gather more theology for my personal library. i'm so excited to get these books at such a steal. i especially loved getting pannenburg's work at six dollars, the cover price is $30! as always in my blog, i will report my thoughts and findings as i delve into the stack.

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well, left over from my previous hauli have some thoughts and reflections on the lauren winner book i am currently reading. the book is entitled Real Sex and the main thesis is the idea that the church has cast aside the virtue of chastity in its teachings. i especially want to rest upon chapter three of the book tonight, "communal sex." in this chapter, winner dissects the rather recent overarching cultural opinion on sex: "one person's sexual behavior is not anyone's concern." Winner outright proclaims this as a lie. she contends that this is a result of the relatively recent advent of birth control which privatised everyone's sex lives. instead, our sex lives should absolutely be of public concern. "Because sex forms us, sex is a community matter" (51). this way of living out your sex life publicly is just an additional way that the christian community should be at its core countercultural. the privatization of man is a modern artifact brought about by the advent of the printing press specifically (borrowing from shane hipps here). that privatization of man has moved from secular culture into the very understanding of christian culture now. we ask for personal commitments to Christ yet we never (or almost never) emphasize a communal faith that requires particiaption in the greater christian community (now borrowing from rodney clapp and stanley hauerwas). anyways, back to winner: she herself borrows from wendell berry in saying that households are the foundations of communities, thus the things that directly contribute (or take away from ) the health of the household (namely, marital sex) should absolutely be the concern of the community. to end the chapter, winner says:

"To say that sex is communal is to... encourage married Christians to speak to one another - not just about sexual sin, but about all the complicated emotional and physical thickets one can find oneself in when one is having sex. It is to urge Christians to speak frankly to one another about the realities of chastity, about the thrills and tediums of married sex, about the rich meanings inherent in being sexual persons who live in bodies. It is to ask the church to serve as narrator, reminding ourselves who we are, and why we do what we do" (59-60).

i especially resonate with the final sentence of that quote. i do realize that next to nobody reads this, but if you do happen to come upon this blog, i would LOVE to hear your input on this. winner is speaking about a type of community that i, frankly, have never encountered or seen on this earth. not saying it doesn't exist, but it must definitely be rare. should sex be communal?

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in lieu of posting another old poem, i want to do something different tonight. the poems will return in my next entry. i know you're all worried...

don't look ahead, just run to me. each step will find the next one recklessly. we'll find ourselves on the safest ledge... well pardon me, i couldn't help myself. fall into your life here. if only for a while, i'm here. could you be happy to fall like a stone if you'd land right here safe in my arms? it's fine, lock all your doors thorugh the night... keep it all right here safe in my arms. it's fine.

you felt alone before you ever really knew how alone you were. an empty house, a lonely room... the TV talks the fear right out of you. you feel like someone's standing by... but you'll never know... could you be happy to fall like a stone if you'd land right here safe in my arms? it's fine, lock all your doors through the night... keep it all right here safe in my arms. it's fine.

the sun burns a hole straight through your old flaws, if you look toward the sky even on your grayest night. could you be happy now with the wind in your hair, your eyes open wide and your feet going nowhere? could you be happy to fall like a stone if you'd land right here safe in my arms? it's fine, lock all your doors through the night... keep it all right here safe in my arms.

it's fine.

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"what am i supposed to say? my talent's an acquired taste..."

"thanks to you" by: copeland

well, it has been quite a while since i have had access to a computer. i've spent the last four days back home in huntington. on friday night i was fortunate to be able to participate in bethany's recital. i was co-emcee for the event, sang a duet with bethany, and then participated in two group songs. it was SO GOOD to sing again, to be challenged with learning and memorizing new material, and then to PERFORM. oh it was awesome. i must make room in my future adult life to perform in some capacity whether it be community theater or church productions or whatever. anyways, that was friday. then on saturday i spent the day in fort fun and found two awesome bargain book stores. my catch?

"desire of the everlasting hills" by thomas cahill
"death on a friday afternoon" by richard john neuhaus
"Jesus Christ for today's world" by moltmann
"dangerous wonder" by mike yaconelli
"the secret message of jesus" by brian mclaren
"the sacred way" by tony jones
"real sex: the naked truth about chastity" by lauren winner
and two youth ministry curriculum books from doug fields for a dollar apiece

all of that for around $30. wow! then on saturday night i watched the ufc ppv with my good friend dan. good times were had as we were able to catch up with each other. this morning was church and we had a very intriguing discussion on civil disobedience. the question posed for the class was, "at what point is civil disobedience expected from Christians?" and a couple examples were given: one of harboring slaves in the mid-1800's and the other harboring jews during nazi-occupied germany. my response came from Jesus' teachings to give to caesar what is caesar's and to god what is god's. in the two examples, the civil disobedience is concerned with human life, something that i believe we can all agree would be god's above of caesar's, thus the civil disobedience is expected. now matters such as taxes i believe should be of much less importance to christians. when suffering and cruelty exist in the world, how dare we look past that in favor of fighting a battle over taxes?? unfortunately, the discussion in class moved to the recent trend of "tea parties" all over the nation and several people advocated for those. their reasoning was that we give taxes to the government and trust them to do the right thing with it, so shouldn't we rebel when our tax money isn't being used how we want it?? someone then brought up how the constitution is being perverted and we must fight to protect it. my friends, again and again i wonder: what would happen if we got as upset about Godly matters (such as injustice) as we do about frivolous issues such as these?? I tell you what would happen: a revolution.

...but i digress.

i wanted to throw in this little tidbit on civil disobedience but couldn't due to time constraints, so i'll bring it up here: i read a book recently that described baptism as a form of civil disobedience. i immediately felt a resonance to that description. baptism is our initiation into a different way of living, in stark contrast with our culture. thus, it is a direct act of civil disobedience. i love that image, what do you think?

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the very first book i opened from my haul was the winner text "real sex." not completely sure why i jumped to that one first, but so far i am happy i did. i am four chapters in and am being sufficiently challenged by what she has to say about the virtue of chastity and the role of the church in advocating that virtue. look forward to some discussion of this book in future blog entries.

for tonight, though, i want to follow through on my previous entry and continue our discussion on what it means to be missional. so far we have discussed how missional means a different way of evangelizing and how it means we look at the human race in a much more optimistic light, that God is at work in redeeming the imago dei that exists within each of us. tonight i want to touch briefly upon the missio dei. missio dei, much like imago dei, is a latin phrase meaning the "mission of god," or "sending of god." the missional church is the body of Christ united together in the fulfillment of the missio dei. missio dei is the understanding that God has intiated his mission in the world: the redemption of the world. he sent his son for this purpose and sends the church for the same reason. missio dei is one of the very key foundational aspects of missional. it implies an active working of the church, in contrast to the passivity that can be seen in many branches. align this with my first entry in this series, about how the missional church goes to the people instead of expecting the people to come to them. this happens because of the missio dei. God sends. and it is God that has this mission, not the church. the church participates in the missio dei, it does not initiate it. our God is a sending god, and the church must be an active participant in that mission.

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another old poem (this one i am proud of!):

"I Reached" by: jeremy daniel bixler (10/20/2004)

I reached into my pocket
And found yesterday.
Dirty and disgusting it was,
Covered with thorns and bristles.
I quickly covered yesterday
And threw as hard as I could,
Watched it darken
And slowly disappear.

I reached into my pocket
And found today.
Beautiful, yet blemished it was,
Imperfections throughout.
I carefully covered today
And placed upon the altar,
Turned my back
And walked away.

I reached into my pocket
And found tomorrow.
Shining and shimmering it was,
A kind of beauty not known.
I lovingly covered tomorrow
And wrapped in fine lenin,
A gift for you
And for us.

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"I'm waiting to give you whatever the world may bring. I'd give you my life, cause I don't own anything. It seemed like the bottom was all that I had until now. I'd give you my life if you'd give me yours somehow."