No, no, I was just installing insulation and then rubbed my eye, is all...

I don't know if it's left over hormones from my wife's pregnancy, or just that I'm a wimp, but columns like this actually make me cry now.

Weird.

You want some crack? Aisle 5 at Safeway.

This is astounding. Most of the time when I hear about news in San Francisco, I usually smile. San Fran is always on the edge. Sometimes, that's cool, other times, it's just dumb.

San Francisco's city council has a problem. Recently, a number of stores haver cropped up that are selling marijauna. That's right: stores that actually sell marijauna. Selling weed. In glass jars on the counter. Like licorice sticks. Only more expensive.

Now, ostensibly this is for medical purposes for people with perscriptions. But apparently, there's no regulatory agency to make sure those are the only people getting it. You can read about it in today's Mercury News (S.F. ground zero in pot club fight).

Now, I don't know how I feel about medical marijuana. My mother-in-law is a nurse. She says that the exact same medical benefits can be derived from taking marijauna in a capsule. In fact, she says, it's more potent. But people just want to smoke out, I guess.

I suppose I'm not opposed to marijauna in pill form. I mean, I'm not opposed to tylenol or vicodin.

But this is just...well...nuts.

Speaking in Code...

A year ago, before she left her job to be a full-time mother, my wife was at a trade show in Dallas. She was at dinner with some clients. She mentioned that her husband (me) was a part-time pastor at our church.

So this woman next to her says, "Have you read The DaVinci Code?"

To which my wife says, "Actually, no. But I've heard a little bit about it."

At this point, the book had been out for a few months. My wife hadn't read the book, didn't know what the book said, or even a vague sense of the general plot.

The woman leans over to her and says, "Well, I just want you to consider it. Just consider it."

Nicole looked at her. "Consider...reading it?" she asked.

"No," the lady continued. "Just keep an open-mind while reading it. Just...consider it. Just consider it."

She kept saying that - "Just consider it" - which started to irritate my wife. When she got back, we were on a hike and she was re-telling the story to me.

"Consider what? What am I supposed to consider."

Now, before I go much further, I have to admit that I haven't read more than 10 pages of the novel. But I've read enough about it to sort of know the general plot - which, as I understand it, is basically the plot of "National Treasure". But what my wife was supposed to consider was Brown's theory that the story of Jesus Christ was made up by a bunch of guys who wanted political power at the Council of Nicea in 325. The real Jesus was just a guy who said some cool things, then married Mary Magdelene, and had a bunch of kids who went to France and became kings and knights.

So, in one fell swoop, Brown attacks the legitimacy of Western and Christian history. Which is no small tower to topple.

Here's why it bothers me. Because people believe it.

Yesterday in my AP English class, I had a student, a bright girl who is a star on the basketball team, who said something that bothered me. I was talking about the purpose of literature, and how it's never written so that students can later study it. It's written because the author has something burning in his or her heart that needs to be told. A story. A theme. An idea. Authors want to say something about their world. And that's why they write. And literature works best when we come away feeling as though we've learned something about our world.

To which this girl said, "That's the way I felt when I read The DaVinci Code."

Now, I don't know what she meant by that. But my sinking feeling is that she felt as though she were reading real history. Real history that finally made sense to her.

How do you deal with that, as a devoted follower of Christ?

I ask because the question is only getting stronger. Ron Howard is making a movie of the book, set for release next summer. It stars Tom Hanks. And folks are going to be asking and wondering.

What to do? I welcome any suggestions.

First Day of School....

I've been going through a bit of a funk lately, especially after getting back my student's AP English scores from this past year. I don't want to go into it, but the pass rate was miserable. In the teens.

So, obviously this means that I'm a horrible teacher. The administrators aren't saying that, of course, but I kind of feel that they're thinking it. So that made me go into a bit of a tailspin, questioning and doubting my cause, my purpose and in general, feeling pretty darn worthless, especially from a vocational standpoint. I mean, I'm hired to do something and I can't do it. And it wasn't like I didn't try. I just...didn't.

So that has been hard. And last night before the first day of school, I spent a lot of time praying. In my small group, we're watching this sermon series from LifeChurch.tv, called the Life Development Plan. The pastor, Craig Groeschel, talked about how everyone arrives somewhere, but not everyone arrives somewhere on purpose. I have been thinking a lot, as I approach my 30th birthday, what my life is all about. What am I supposed to do? Are there "good" things that I've been devoting myself to? Are those things preventing me from doing something "great?" What does that even mean, to be great? I want my life to matter. In the Bible, they talk about is God's glory. In the Hebrew, the word "glory" could also be translated into this idea of having "weight." God is heavy. You know when He's around. He impacts you. I want to be a person who has weight. One of those people who walk into a room and make a difference.

So I tried something different with my junior class. It's one of my tougher classes to get through to. The first day of school is nothing but taking role, and teachers handing out green sheets, which is basically a list of class expectations and rules and policies, which looks identical to the list of every other teacher's list of expectations and rules and policies. It's stunningly boring.

By third period, the kids were already looking brow-beaten. The came in, and sat down. The bell rang, and I quickly took role.

"Are you going to pass out a green sheet," one of the more conscientious kids asked.

"We're going to do something different," I said. "Follow me."

I then walked out the door and led 32 kids outside. Out back, behind our school, we had these 32 small temporary buildings called "the lower portables." I say temporarily in the same way that Fidel Castro is temporary. They've been behind our school since 1982. Well, this past summer they got bulldozed as part of our renovation plan. I mean, they were levelled. That area is now just a big dirt hole, about the size of a football field. So I took my third period class out to the fence surrounding the construction area.

"Okay," I said. "Quick question. What used to be out here?"

"Portables," someone said.

"That's right," I said. "Is there anyone new here to this school? Anyone who this is their first day of school here?"

A girl in the side raised her hand. She looked like one of the stars from Laguna Beach. Bleached hair. Trendy skirt.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Sam," she said.

"Can someone tell Sam what those portables were like," I said.

"Oh man," said one hyper kid named Michael, a white kid with dyed black hair styled up like a punk-rock star. "They were freezing in the morning because they didn't have heaters and then in the afternoon, you'd fry."

"And they had those nasty curtains that smelled," a girl named Yessina added.

"Someone told me that water got under the floor and there was all this mold, and that's why it smelled," a tall kid named Kenny said.

"And they were dusty," someone said.

"And there were cockroaches," a girl said.

Everyone groaned a bit in disgust.

"That's true," I said. "How many of you liked those portables, liked having class in them?"

No one raised their hands.

"Let me tell you," I began. "The reason I am a teacher is because my experience in high school was a lot like those portables. It was ugly, and dirty and nasty and not a whole lot of fun. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. For some of you, school isn't a really fun place. It's a place where you go to, because if you didn't the police would come to your house, but truth be told, you don't enjoy it. It's not fun. You don't learn. And sometimes, you feel as though the teachers don't even believe in you.

Some of you have had teachers that have gone out of their way to let you know that they think you're stupid. And you suffered for an entire year, just sitting in your desk, wasting hour after hour.

Some of you hate English. You dread it more than anything because you're terrified that someone is going to ask you to read something out loud, and then everyone will hear that you don't read super well. English might not even be your first language. There might be another language people in your famiyl speak at home, and sometimes, English is hard. Maybe really hard. So you've never liked it. Some of you, you've never even read one whole book your entire life.

Here's what I want to do. I want to tear down those portables. I want to rip out those old conceptions of what school is, what English is, what a classroom is, and I want to build a new building. That's what I'm committed to. A new kind of English class. Where you learn, and want to read, and we talk and we debate and you think and you know that when you say something, everyone in the class is listening and everyone is interested.

I want to tear down those portables. They're smelly and stinky and it's about time someone came in with a bulldozer, anyway.

But I'm going to need your help. You see, tearing something down is a lot of work. You know how much a foot of concrete that's one and a half inches thick weighs? Almost 20 pounds. That's 12 by 12 by 1.5. Think how big an entire wall is. And this whole yard was filled with dump trucks. Thousands of pounds.

So you need to do two things this year. That's all. Just two things. Let me tell you what they are.

First off, you need to respect me. I'm the teacher. There are things I know that you don't know. That doesn't make me better - because there are things you know that I don't know - it just means that I'm in charge. It's my job to run this class. Just like it's a head coach's job to get the football team to win. So if I tell you to run, you run. And you don't complain. And you don't whine. Because if I tell you to run, it's for a good reason. Because if we don't run, we don't win. I'm committed to you. I need the same level of respect back from you.

But there's one more thing you have to do. And this is a lot more important than respecting me. You decide not to respect me, I can deal with that. I'm not that caught up in myself. But there's one thing that will just set me off. Make me go ballistic. And that's if you decide not to respect yourself.

You decide to not respect yourself, I will be up in your grill faster than you can think. If I start to hear you say things like, "I can't do that," that tells me you don't respect your own intellectual ability, and I'll be all over you. If you say something like, "I don't want to do that," that means that you have settled for mediocrity, and have decided that your academic potential isn't a goal worth reaching for." And I will not accept that. And if you start to slack off, and decide not to do your work, I'll know that's a sign of a person who put having fun as a higher priority than their own knowledge. And I won't accept that.

I will not accept you behaving in a way that diminishes your full potential. And if I see those attitudes, the second they pop up, I'm going to be playing whack-a-mole. I take you too seriously to let you look at yourself and see anything less than greatness. That doesn't mean getting As. It means doing the best you can. It means taking what you have and going as far with it as you possibly can."

The class stood in a circle, looking at me.

"Look at that field," I said, pointing to the area. "Right now, it's just dirt. But when you leave my class next spring, there will be something built there. And at the end of your junior year - this is what I commit to you - we will have built something, too. In your minds. In your character. In your ability to think, reason, debate, discuss and get along as a community."

I turned to Michael.

"There. That's my green sheet."

"That was a good green sheet," he said, patting me on the shoulder. "But I'm a bit concerned about what your tests are going to be like. We don't have to drive any heavy machinery, do we?"

And that...is why I teach.

Stay Inside! About 3/4 of a Mile from Here, There Might Be Something That Smells Bad

So today was weird. About 10 a.m. a truck heading southbound on 101 (the major highway that runs pretty close to both my house and my church) had an accident right near Bernal Road, the exit that you get off to get to FCC. Not a big deal, right? Well, yeah, unless the truck happens to be carrying several tons of nitric and sulfuric acid, which is toxic and highly flammable.

So Southbound 101 was closed because of a giant battery acid spill. Not sure what someone needed an entire tanker full of battery acid for. That's one big Duracell. Probably some crazy science teacher somewhere. "Look kids! Watch how this boulder of potassium reacts when it's dropped into this basin of acid! Luis, man the crane."

But whatever.

Actually, I learned that sulphuric acid isn't too dangerous unless it's on fire, which it wasn't. But just to be safe, the fire marshall told all businesses and residential owners to go inside, close their windows and doors, and stay inside until further notice.

The kind of scary part was that as soon as I found out about it, I called my wife, who had just left home and was on her way to church. Exactly the wrong direction. I kind of over-reacted and told her to turn around and go home right away. Only I said it with a level of intensity you usually reserve for war-time firefights.

After I explained what was going on, she finally understood.

I blame the noxious fumes that were 1/2 mile away.

Snoop Dogg Gets All Philanthropic

Could it be true? First the lead guitarist for Korn quits to follow Christ. Now, not as dramatic, but perhaps, is Snoop Dogg changing his colors and becoming...good?

I read this story today about how Snopp Dogg created a youth football league to keep kids involved in summer sports. He showers the kids with attention, presents, and pay the entry requirements that keep poorer families out.

Why'd he do it? Because football meant something to him.

Snoop, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, has deep roots in youth football, having played for the Long Beach Poly Junior Jackrabbits. "It taught me how to work with other kids," he says, "how to have a relationship, how to learn. My coach taught me about religion as well as football, about keeping God in everything we did."

So clearly Snoop ignored that last advice for a long while. It's hard to imagine God wanting anything to do with "Girls Gone Wild" or most of the message of Snoop's earlier stuff.

But still. I sense a change. First teaming up with clean-act Will Smith. Maybe Snoop's at the end of his hedonism, and like Solomon, is finding out that nothing satisfies. Maybe he's searching for meaning.

Wouldn't it be awesome if Snoop became a follower of Christ?

Crazier things have happened.

Unusual, Any Way You Slice It

I'd like to start off with a cartoon from one of my favorite strips, Calving and Hobbes.

Since it's too big to imbed here, start off this blog by clicking here to view the strip.

So for the past few weeks at Take2, I've gotten to talk about something that's near and dear to my heart, and that's the idea that Christians must get outside of themselves and become agents of action in order that we might partner with God to bring heaven to Earth. I believe this means actively working to give up your life so that others will benefit.

We've been talking about one aspect of that: Global Poverty.

Take a gander at these stats, which I gathered from an organization called Global Issues.

Global Priorities in Spending - 1998
Basic education in the world = 6 Billion
Cosmetics in the United States = 8 Billion
Water and sanitation for everyone in the world = 9 Billion
Ice cream in Europe = 11 Billion
Reproductive health for all women in the world = 12 Billion
Perfumes in Europe and the United States = 12 Billion
Basic health and nutrition for the poorest 117 nations in the world = 13 Billion
Pet foods in Europe and the United States = 17 Billion
Business entertainment in Japan = 35 Billion
Cigarettes in Europe = 50 Billion
Alcoholic drinks in Europe = 105 Billion
Narcotics drugs in the world (estimated) = 400 Billion
Military spending in the world = 780 Billion

If you'd like, you can continue and read some other other facts and figures along with an annotated bibliography of sources for accuracy.

Here's the point: that's just messed up. And we can't change the world, but we can begin to make a dent somewhere. So as a community, we've been studying the Bible. The idea is to ask ourselves this question: Do God and I care about the same things? Ideally, we want that answer to be "Yes." So we started studying some passages from the Bible that I believe really reveal some of God's heart.

Proverbs 19:17
He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done.

The implication here is that if you do something kind for someone else, it's the same as doing it to God. God here equates kindness toward each other as an expression of love...to Him. Which is jaw-dropping. Later, Jesus would say that whoever gave poor folks water or visited people in prison was doing it to Jesus himself. Even though they obviously weren't, Jesus said, "No, no. You help someone out that's in need, that's the same thing as helping me out."

1 John 3:17-19
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

I remember reading this verse with Jon and Jason last summer in our morning Bible study. I'm not sure there's a more direct statement about humanitarism in the Bible. John asks a rhetorical question, but I think the answer he's pointing at is that if your brother is in need, and you don't do something, then the love of God isn't in you. I don't know if this means you aren't "really" saved, or just that you're saved and a miserable human. But what committed Christ follower wants to be a giant jerk in whom the love of God resides not?

We also stepped through Deuteronomy 24:17-22 and Jesus' story of the sheep and the goats.

But the coolest part was hearing from actual people in our community who had gone on Missions Trips. Last week, Jenny and Jason Jones talked about their medical mission to Ghana, and how it changed them. One of the more striking images they showed was from the hospital. There's one doctor there for 180,000 people and the conditions are shocking. At one point, they showed a metal bowl on the floor with what looked like skinned plums resting in the bottom.

"Those are tumors the doctor removed," Jenny said, still clearly amazed at the methods and the lack of modern medical equipment.

Take2 was really impacted by the stories and pictures from Ghana that they heard. And at the end, Jason and I talked about partnering together with the parent organization World Vision International to buy a well for one of the local communities in Ghana.

Clean water is a giant issue for many of these isolated communities. And all it takes is an engineer and some pipe: they come in, clean out the area, jam a pipe down into the head of the spring about 50 feet underground so there's no contamination, and then cap it off with a pump. That's it. It costs about $5,000 dollars (roughly) to install a pump that will provide clean, safe drinking water for a community of about 5,000 people for 20 years.

So we made up cards that were called "Fast for Africa" in which we agreed to give up something for two weeks and in turn give that money to World Vision for the well. I passed out the cards last night, and had people consider what they might be willing to give up.

Take2's generosity astounded me. Nearly everyone in attendance decided to fast something. Many were simple stuff, like vending machine candy, fast food and Starbucks. It's amazing how quickly those daily items add up. Some people went further, giving up eating at restaurants for dates. One guy gave up smoking, which is good for several reasons. One person gave up movies. One girl gave up buying new clothes for two months.

In all, of the 74 people in attendance, people pledged $5,313.

Pastor Bill told me I could reasonably expect about 80 percent of that to actually come in, which is $4,250.40

And I haven't even contacted other people who told me "they want in."

Any way you slice it, that's a big number. And I'm enormously proud of people coming forth and being willing to give up something so that others might have. I think that speaks volumes about the character of the amazing young people and community I have the privelege of hanging around.

But more importantly, I feel good because together, we did something. I feel proud, not in a "I'm so great' kind of way, but in the same way I feel good making Nicole a suprise breakfast and setting the table with the good China. It's an act that I do because it's good to do it and I know it'll make her happy.

And I know that God is happy. And that's a really good feeling.

Rocks Are Gone, Soreness Isn't...

My father-in-law and I moved that pile of rocks in my backyard.

Here's the coolest part: I saved $150 to have someone remove it. My buddy and co-worker Tony had recently been doing some yardwork on his house and had a trailer delivered to his house to get rid of the rocks. Since it was only about 3/4 full, he let me put my pile in there for free, which was really helpful.

It took 8 pick-up truck loads, each one consisting of 7 wheelbarrows full of hunks of concrete, representing about 3 tons of debris, all of which we moved by hand, but it's done.

So now, my backyard looks like this:



I was thinking about how much work that was and we only moved two cubic yards of concrete. To give you an idea, the World Trade Center had 400,000 cubic yards.

Building Bridges...

Talking to people who don't believe the same thing as you is tough. For example, I came out this morning into the living room and my father-in-law was listening to the Rush Limbaugh show.

Rush. Limbaugh.

Sometimes, it's tough when your family has vastly different values than you do. My buddy Jonathan actually experienced this difficultly recently. It'd be a funny story if it weren't true.

So, how to go about talking to people who really believe differently than you? Well, I found this Interesting article about building bridges by controversial Christian author Brian McLaren.

Tell me what you think.

Addiction Isn't Just Drugs...

Apparently, this is a huge problem in some Asian countries: people are so addicted to computer games, they actually don't live actual life. They stop going to work, stop interacting with people, stop everything to live in a fantasy land.

And in some bizarre cases, they die.

Any thoughts on this?

It Went In One Temple and Out the Other: Luckily, No One Was In Either Temple

THAT'S TAKIN' ONE FOR A FRIEND:
So this is amazing. A singer song/writer named Marc Cohn, probably best known for his song Walking in Memphis was with his band Sunday in Denver when a carjacker shot him. In the temple. Now for the amazing part: he's okay. Let me say that again. He got shot in the head and he's okay.

Doctors said that the bullet was probably slowed down by the windshield and the fact that the bullet grazed Cohn's friend, who was sitting next to him in the car. That is just nuts. reminds me a bit of an icky story of a man named Phineas Gage, a 19th century railroad worker who was working with explosives to blast rock away for the railway. Apparently, he put the black powder in the hole they'd dug in the rock, and then you put cotton, and then you "tamp" the explosive with this long, metal pole, about twice as thick as your thumb. But since there was no cotton, when Phineas tamped, there was a spark and the resulting explosion put this tamping iron through his head. But he lived.

Of course, there were some side affects with Gage. Hopefully there aren't with Cohn. Wouldn't it be weird if he came out singing all high like Prince. That'd be strange.

LAKE WHAT:
So my parents-in-law are here, visiting from Michigan. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Is Albertsons still having that crazy 3-for-6-Dollars sale on Fruity Pebbles and other fine General Mills cereals?" I don't know. You might also be thinking, "Dave, wait a minute. Didn't you just visit your parents-in-law." Yes. Yes, I did. But Terry, my mother-in-law, is a nurse and she has a conference here at Lake Tahoe next week, so we get to hang with them.

The funniest thing was that Nicole's cousin, Jeremy, is out in Sunnyvale on business, and called Rex and Terry in Michigan to try to get our phone number to hook up with us. Rex's 94-year-old mother answered the phone, and informed Jeremy that
Rex and Terry were gone, visiting Nicole and Dave up in Lake Taco.

Hahahahah.

Sounds like my kinda body of water.

THIS ROCKS:
So while I have some free labor, I'm putting Rex to work. He and I have been sledge-hammering my back patio's concrete, which was this really nasty 70s pebble stuff that just had to go. Only problem was, it's really quite thick. And heavy. I had a great idea, thanks to my friend Ryan Roberts, who often does work on his home. He suggested that getting rid of the rock pile would be easy. "Just put a little in the trash each week," he said. Since I'm watching our neighbor's house this week, I figured it'd be a great opportunity to get rid of two loads. So I loaded the two trash cans to the hilt with cement. Then I couldn't move them. Then I read the giant letters painted on the side that read: Maximum Weight: 112 pounds.

So I'm stuck with this pile of rocks.

How Do You Know Your Interpretation of the Bible is Valid: Being a Modern-Day Rabbi

So, as I said before, I'm reading through the New Testament with a companion book, the Jewish New Testament Commentary by David Stern. I'm still in single-digit Matthew, by the way. There's just so much. Recently, because of Rob Bell's new book Velvet Elvis, I have been questioning my own interpretation of Scripture.

I once heard someone say, "God's word is absolutely true and reliable: until you read it." The idea is that you bring to the text vast amounts of prejudice. Social, ethnic, economic, geographical, historical, political, personal. So how can a person - say a man teaching Scripture to a congregation - know that he's correct?

Rob Bell would say you don't. As a teacher/preacher, I'm a rabbi. Which means I have my own interpretation (in Hebrew, a yoke). People come and listen, and hear my yoke, and then they talk about it. Then they hear another rabbi's yoke. And they discuss the differences and the variations. The idea is that the yokes are discussed in community by everybody, and that discussion is crucial. Which bothers me a bit, because I'm like, "So who's right?" Bell would argue the idea of "being right" is Western. Eastern cultures rely more on the digestion, the arguing, the idea of a community wrestling with truths that could never really be fully understood anyway. Which leads to a certain sort of humility, I would say.

Like in Acts 15, when the elders of the church have this massive decision to make about what to do with Gentiles who were converting. This decision will affect the history of the church. They came out of their meeting and said, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements."

Seemed?

Seemed?

You don't hear that kind of humility in a lot of evangelical circles today. So, that led me to ask, "How does a Rabbi come up with a yoke while they're studying Scripture?" This is what I learned.

There were four basic modes of Scripture interpretation used by the rabbis. These are:

P'shat: Simple Intepretation
This is the plain, literal sense of the text, more or less what modern scholars mean by "grammatical-historical exegesis." This method looks to the grammar of the language and the historical setting and context as background for deciding what a passage means. Modern scholars often consider grammatical-historical exegesis the only valid way to deal with a text: pastors who use other approaches in their sermons often feel defensive about it before academics. But the rabbis had three other ways of interpreting Scripture, and their validity should not be excluded in advance.

Remez: Hint
This method wherein a word, phrase or other element in the text "hints' at a truth not conveyed by the p'shat. The implied presupposition is that God can hint at things of which the Bible writers themselves were not aware of. For a fascinating look at remez in Scripture, especially Jesus, click here. It'll blow your mind.

Drash or Midrash: Search
This method is an allegorical or homiletical application of a text. This is a speciaes of eisigeis - reading on'e own thoughts into the text - as opposed to exegesis, which is extracting from the text what it actually says and would have meant to its original audience. The implied presupposition here is that the word of Scripture can legitimately become grist for the mill of the human intellect, which God can guide to truths not directly related to the text at all.

Sod: Secret
A mystical or hidden meaning arrived at by operating on the numerical values of Hebrew letters, noting unusual spellings, transposing letters, and the like. For example, in September, I'm preaching on the Biblical account of David and Goliath. I never noticed this before, but check this out. Goliath is six cubits tall. His spear weighed six hundred shekels. His armor weighed six thousand shekels. This repeition could be a covert reference to Satan. Add in the fact that the author calls Goliath's armor "scaled - a curious way to describe armor - and you could have a reference to Satan, the tempter, a reference to the serpent in the Garden of Eden. The implied presupposition here is that God invests meaning in even the most minute detail of Scripture, and even the individual letters could mean something.

The presuppositions underlying remez, drash and sod obviously epxress God's omnipotence, but they also express His love for humanity, in the sense that He chooses out of love to use extraordinary means for reaching people's hearts and minds. At the same time, it is easy to see how remexz, drash and sod can be abused, since they all allow - indeed require - subjective interpretation; and this explains why scholars, who deal mostly with the objective world, hestitate to use them.

However, rabbis historically used all four. They even had a method for remembering all four methods. It's a Hebrew acronym, taking letters from each of the four words. The acronym is:

PaRDeS

In Hebrew, the word pardes means garden or orchard. I find this fascinating. It's as though this word is both a reference to the Garden of Eden, and how God's word is a like a link to Him, and a link to paradise. But it also - for me - holds the idea that God's word is like an orchard: it provides food for us each day, but there's no way you can ingest all of it in one sitting. Or in two. Or in a million. We can no more exhaustively mine God's word of all it's secret treasures than we can eat all the fruit in an orchard.

So true.

Peter Jennings:1938-2005

Peter Jennings was my favorite anchor. I respected Brokaw and Rather, but Jennings was always my favorite. Growing up, he was always on the television right before we clicked it off to eat dinner. I feel as though he's been there a lot.

• He was there January 25, 1986, when the Challenger exploded.
• He was there to explain the significance of the Berlin Wall coming down.
• He was there when Operation Desert Shield became Storm and the first waves of bombings on Baghdad began in on January 17, 1991.
• He was there on the TV in Humbert Dorm on Nov. 22, 1995 when the Alfred P. Murrah building exploded in Oklahoma City.
• He was there on election night, telling us that Reagan had won.
• And then Bush.
• And then Clinton.
• And Clinton again.
• And then...Gore. No, Bush. No, Gore.

I watched him, exhausted as I was, trying to convey all the information he had about 9/11. His voice and face was comforting, somehow.

C.S. Lewis talks in his book The Four Loves about common love, in which we come to love and appreciate something simply because it's part of our life because we see it every day. It's a simple, basic, and in some ways selfish kind of love. But we miss those things and people because they were a part of us, somehow.

And I'll miss Peter Jennings.

Great Posts from Great Guys...

I love this blog thing. For some reason, it really inspires and helps me to read what other people think about stuff. Three I read in particular really got me.

1. Jonathan Ziman's post on his struggles finding a church. Hilarious, gut-wrenching, thought-provoking. As with anything Jonathan does, stellar writing.

2. Russell Pierce's new blog is up and running, and if his second post is any indication, bookmark it now. His post today on the weaknesses that come with our strengths is poignant, personal and will plunge you into reflection. Killer stuff.

3. Missy VanMeter (can the VanMeter clan do no wrong?) is as sharp as they get. This 20-year-old Bible student runs circles around almost all of us intellectually. Her post today on the Music of Saturn made me think "Where do you find this amazing stuff?"

Jim Wallis' Editorial in today's New York Times

Editor's Note: For those of you interested in politics, or Christianity, or especially where the two intersect, tell me what you think of Wallis' essay, which appeared today in the New York Times Opinion Page.

The Message Thing
By JIM WALLIS

Since the 2004 election, there has been much soul-searching and hand-wringing, especially among Democrats, about how to "frame" political messages. The loss to George W. Bush was painful enough, but the Republicans' post-election claims of mandate, and their triumphal promises to relegate the Democrats to permanent minority status, left political liberals in a state of panic.

So the minority party has been searching, some would say desperately, for the right "narrative": the best story line, metaphors, even magic words to bring back electoral success. The operative term among Democratic politicians and strategists has become "framing." How to tell the story has become more important than the story itself. And that could be a bigger mistake for the Democrats than the ones they made during the election.

Language is clearly important in politics, but the message remains more important than the messaging. In the interests of full disclosure, let me note that I have been talking to the Democrats about both. But I believe that first, you must get your message straight. What are your best ideas, and what are you for - as opposed to what you're against in the other party's message? Only when you answer those questions can you figure out how to present your message to the American people.

Because the Republicans, with the help of the religious right, have captured the language of values and religion (narrowly conceived as only abortion and gay marriage), the Democrats have also been asking how to "take back the faith." But that means far more than throwing a few Bible verses into policy discussions, offering candidates some good lines from famous hymns, or teaching them how to clap at the right times in black churches. Democrats need to focus on the content of religious convictions and the values that underlie them.

The discussion that shapes our political future should be one about moral values, but the questions to ask are these: Whose values? Which values? And how broadly and deeply will our political values be defined? Democrats must offer new ideas and a fresh agenda, rather than linguistic strategies to sell an old set of ideologies and interest group demands.

To be specific, I offer five areas in which the Democrats should change their message and then their messaging.

First, somebody must lead on the issue of poverty, and right now neither party is doing so. The Democrats assume the poverty issue belongs to them, but with the exception of John Edwards in his 2004 campaign, they haven't mustered the gumption to oppose a government that habitually favors the wealthy over everyone else. Democrats need new policies to offer the 36 million Americans, including 13 million children, who live below the poverty line, as well as the 9.8 million families one recent study identified as "working hard but falling short."

In fact, the Democrats should draw a line in the sand when it comes to wartime tax cuts for the wealthy, rising deficits, and the slashing of programs for low-income families and children. They need proposals that combine to create a "living family income" for wage-earners, as well as a platform of "fair trade," as opposed to just free trade, in the global economy. Such proposals would cause a break with many of the Democrats' powerful corporate sponsors, but they would open the way for a truly progressive economic agenda. Many Americans, including religious voters who see poverty as a compelling issue of conscience, desire such a platform.

Similarly, a growing number of American Christians speak of the environment as a religious concern - one of stewardship of God's creation. The National Association of Evangelicals recently called global warming a faith issue. But Republicans consistently choose oil and gas interests over a cleaner world. The Democrats need to call for the reversal of these priorities. They must insist that private interests should never obstruct our country's path to a cleaner and more efficient energy future, let alone hold our foreign policy hostage to the dictates of repressive regimes in the Middle East.

On the issues that Republicans have turned into election-winning "wedges," Democrats will win back "values voters" only with fresh ideas. Abortion is one such case. Democrats need to think past catchphrases, like "a woman's right to choose," or the alternative, "safe, legal and rare." More than 1 million abortions are performed every year in this country. The Democrats should set forth proposals that aim to reduce that number by at least half. Such a campaign could emphasize adoption reform, health care, and child care; combating teenage pregnancy and sexual abuse; improving poor and working women's incomes; and supporting reasonable restrictions on abortion, like parental notification for minors (with necessary legal protections against parental abuse). Such a program could help create some much-needed common ground.

As for "family values," the Democrats can become the truly pro-family party by supporting parents in doing the most important and difficult job in America: raising children. They need to adopt serious pro-family policies, including some that defend children against Hollywood sleaze and Internet pornography. That's an issue that has come to be identified with the religious right. But when I say in public lectures that being a parent is now a countercultural activity, I've found that liberal and conservative parents agree. Rather than fighting over gay marriage, the Democrats must show that it is indeed possible to be "pro-family" and in favor of gay civil rights at the same time.

Finally, on national security, Democrats should argue that the safety of the United States depends on the credibility of its international leadership. We can secure that credibility in Iraq only when we renounce any claim to oil or future military bases - something Democrats should advocate as the first step toward bringing other countries to our side. While Republicans have argued that international institutions are too weak to be relied upon in the age of terrorism, Democrats should suggest reforming them, creating a real International Criminal Court with an enforcement body, for example, as well as an international force capable of intervening in places like Darfur. Stronger American leadership in reducing global poverty would also go a long way toward improving the country's image around the world.

Until Democrats are willing to be honest about the need for new social policy and compelling political vision, they will never get the message right. Find the vision first, and the language will follow.

Will Smith's New Album Lost and Found: So Refreshing

I was talking to one of my close friends and co-workers who has a seven-year old son named Josiah. Josiah is at the age where he's discovering music. His favorite album when he was younger was TobyMac and Grits. Gotta hand it to him: the kid has taste. So he loves rap. His dad tried to feed this by giving him other Christian rap music, like KJ-52 and John Reuben. Unfortunately, he didn't know about The Cross Movement or The Ambassador, but oh well.

But a couple of weeks ago, my friend came home to see his 7-year-old son watching and dancing around the living room to BET. He had inadvertently unlocked his Satellite TV Parental Control, and Josiah was flipping through and heard awesome music.

The problem, of course, is that it was BET. Josiah likely didn't understand what he was hearing, but the images don't need much explaining.

My bud had a long talk with his son about while rap is great music, it's not okay for him to watch videos. Now, he's in a pickle: he wants his son to listen to music he likes, but most rap music contains images and ideas that are utterly anti-God. I suppose you could say the same for a lot of other genres, but when it comes to blatant sexuality, materialism, misogyny and pseudo-manhood beat-your-chest kinda machismo, hip-hop is the clear leader.

That's why I love Will Smith. His new album is not just fun, but filled with strangely moral lessons. I'm especially a fan of his tag-team with Snoop Dogg, called Pump Ya Brakes, in which the two rhyme:

If your girl's in ya face & she's outta place
What you need to tell her is... PUMP YA BRAKES
If you're out with your girls & he's pressin' you hard
What you need to tell him is...PUMP YA BRAKES
Now if you're underage & you're actin' all grown
What you need to do is PUMP YA BRAKES
If you're offended by this record, then you know that's you
What you need to do is...PUMP YA BRAKES

Earlier on the album, in the song SwitchSmith also raps about scantily clad women, clowning on them by saying:
Hey vibe to vibe a second/This a club girl, why you arrived naked?

In the song Party Starter, he touts the importance of crafting smart rhymes that say something, instead of the bleak, desolate rhymes that are filled with nothing but curse words and empty themes:

I call for the days of the unadulterated
When the artistry was cultivated
You know, back when rap was smart and multilayered
We could rap without A&Rs and ultimatums

Then he says:
Look, people getting trapped in the track
and they be clappin', even when the rappin' is whack
Yo, what happened, when did we get happy wit that?
He's old-fashioned (yup), but let's be happy he's back

It all reiterates my point: one Will Smith/U2/Mel Gibson has more influence on our culture than 100 US Senators ever could.

Latest Sermon - Juneteenth: What Freedom Is

I heard a man by the name of Don Davis, who is president of this organization that does a lot of Urban Ministries speak about freedom the other week, which tied into a book I was reading by John Piper which tied into another sermon I heard a long while ago by Dr. Tony Evans which was also about freedom.

So, last night I kind of rolled all those influences together and spoke on Galatian 5:1, where Paul writes: it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

If you'd like to download it, here it is. Sorry it's in chapters. If it's not convenient to do it that way, let me know and I'll consolidate them into one big file.

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4.
Part 5.
Part 6.
Part 7.
Part 8.
Part 9.

Justus Learns a New Trick, Gets First Harassment Suit Filed Against Him

So my wife and I were thumbing through a new PartyLite magazine the other day, when we came across a description of a product.

The line that caught our attention was that the piece had "faux glass" beads.

"Faux glass," my wife scoffed. "Why don't they just say it has 'genuine plastic' beads?'

We laughed about that for a while.

Another funny thing. Nicole went to a PartyLite party the other night, and took Justus with her because a lot of the women in the church were going to be there, and they like hanging out with him. So this morning, the secretary was like, "Justus is so strong. He sits up and touches his toes, like he's doing crunches!"

"Yeah," I said, swaggering a little. "He learned that from me. I'm an exercise fiend."

Everyone laughed, but I'm not sure why that was funny.

Anyway, one of our friend Cindy came in the room and said, "Should we tell him what else Justus was doing?"

Everyone started laughing. Again, not sure why.

"Why?" I asked, puzzled. "What?"

"He was unbottoning my blouse with his toes," Cindy said.

You know what they say: like father, like son.

Rob Bell Hugged Me

First off, let me clarify something: I'm not a stalker.

That said, I flew 2700 miles to Michigan, then drove three hours to go to Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, MI just to see Rob Bell Jr, speak. This is not because I idolize Rob Bell - although I probably would take a job being his personal assistant. It is not because I am obsessed with him - although I have seen all ten of his Nooma videos and have downloaded and listened to every sermon he's preached for the last two years. I admire Rob Bell, but I am in love with what Rob Bell is doing. He is repackaging Christianity in a new and fresh way so that millions are hearing what it actually means to actually love and follow Christ. And God is using him.

Spartan Stadium
First off, Mars Hill is in an old shopping mall that - unless you're a local - is next to impossible to find. We had Mapquest directions and a map of the area, and we still took us 20 extra minutes. The church bought this old shopping mall, which is kind of perfect because it has wide hallways that all lead down to the anchor store, which used to be Sears but now is just a big hexagonal room. Very industrial. And very...underwhelming, really.

Their sanctuary is just a bunch of gray chairs lined up in the round, which means that there's a center platform that's surround in 360 degrees by rows and rows of chairs. There's a big white square above the stage with four identical projections on each screen. The stage is covered in light gray carpet and is about 30x30. There's a few dozen speakers hanging from the ceiling, one soundboard, a Dell Computer that plays the Powerpoint Slides and a DVD player.

That's it.

Oh, yeah, and 3,800 chairs and people cramming in for each of their three identical weekend services.

That's almost 12,000 people per weekend.

!!

The crazy thing is, it really doesn't feel like 3,800 people in the room because at any give point, you're at max 24 rows away from Rob Bell. That's the power of being in the round.


The Congregation is Our Instrument
The best part of being in "the round" is that during worship, everbody sings at each other, which gives the place this overwhelming feeling of sound. I talked to Troy Murphy, the lead worship guy (you can read his online rants and raves here) and he said something pretty cool.

"During practice, the band is like, 'Man, what is missing.' Then on Sunday, we're like, 'Oh yeah, the musicians.' We really feel as though we're a back-up band, and the congregation is the primary instrument."

It showed. I couldn't see the band, really. Or even Troy, really. All I could see was the white cube above, with the words, starkly projected as white-on-black words on the screen. You couldn't focus on them: they didn't want you to. They wanted you to join everyone in singing. And it was powerful.

I couldn't help but think that 3,800 people all facing one direction would have been a very different feel. More like a concert than a sing-along.

You're Tall
We were there during "Family Worship Cafe" in which they took out a ton of chairs and put down colorful mats for kids and parents to sit together on the floor. On this day, all children's church was closed and kids attended church with their folks. Troy played fun, camp songs like "I Got the Joy Joy Joy Joy Down in my Heart." It was kinda fun.

Then Rob came out with two other teachers, a 23-year old guy Josh who is in charge of the 56 ministry of 5th and 6th graders, and this pretty blonde woman, who read the Scripture, which in this case was the story of David and Goliath. She'd read the story, Josh would re-word the story in kids' terms, and Rob would then come and discuss the geopolitical and religious ramifications of the story. It was cool, tag-team teaching.

And Rob is like 6'1". I thought he was kind of shrimpy. I saw him on the stage at WillowCreek and he looked small. But of course, that stage'll make anyone look small.

Huge News
But the coolest thing that happened was after the service, when Rob Bell made a few announcements. I was just thinking the other day that perhaps the reason that Rob doesn't write books is that he throws the amount of resources that it would take to write a book - which is considerable - into making Nooma videos. I was thinking that maybe he thought that writing books wouldn't reach anyone.

Then, on Sunday he announced that he had indeed, published a book with Zondervan. It's coming out today and it's called:
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Here's the crazy thing. Someone at Barnes and Noble read the book, and decided to make it Barnes and Noble's Book of the Month, which is only slightly less important than having Oprah recommend your book. It means that at EVERY Barnes and Noble in North America, Rob's book will be the featured book of the month, on display and highlighted. Just to give you an idea: last month's Book of the Month was "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

Here's the other crazy thing: the chief buyer at Border's Books also read Rob's book and they made it their Book of the Month as well.

Here's another crazy thing: Barnes and Noble asked Rob to do a book tour throughout the country.
"You mean you want me to travel around to your stores," Rob asked.
"Yes," they said.
"And talk about Jesus?" he asked.
"Yes," they said.
"I think we can work something out," Rob said.

So he's taking the month of August off to go on a book tour and signing tour. And he announced all this to his congregation while I was there. Which was really exciting.

Brothers Can't Shake Hands
After the service, I went up to Rob and waited in a short line to talk to him. The woman ahead of me asked him if he got her email. He said yes, and said something about how he hoped Cody was doing better. I think he was friends with this woman, which was shocking. Can you imagine being friends with Rob Bell? I can. I'd invite him over, and we'd ride bikes. Then, we'd...oh sorry.

Anyway, then he looked at me, who was next in line.

This was one of those moments where I realized I probably should have prepared a speech or something. Extemporaneous speech is not my forte. So what I said was dumb, and I stumbled a bit. I explained that I was from California - San Jose to be exact - and that I'd flown to Michigan to visit my wife's parents in Ann Arbor, and we'd driven to see him because I was such a big fan of the Mars Hill community and what he was doing.

"You're a huge encouragement to me, and a lot of people out in California," I said. "The community you've built

"Thank you so much," he said, earnestly. "That is amazing to hear."

"Keep on doing what you're doing," I said. "Your fire makes a lot of us more on fire, too." I stuck out my hand to shake his.

He did the whole grab-your-hand-and-then-pull-you-in-for-the-hug thing.

"Say hello to the flock in California, would ya," he said.

I said I would.

So, if you're in San Jose, and a Christian, Rob Bell says, "Hi."

Kinda Depressed
I realized after meeting Rob that I was a bit depressed. He's only five years older than I am, and he's done amazing things and is being used powerfully by God. I can't really articulate it, but I'm getting the feeling that as I approach 30, I better vamp it up and really get serious about stuff. Up to this point, I haven't really produced anything worth talking about. I don't care about being on CNN or Oprah or anything - I mean, what would I wear? - , but I'd like to make a big difference somewhere. I feel like I've been given a bazooka, and I should be blowing a hole in the enemy's wall somewhere for Christ - but I haven't really been doing anything.

I guess overall, the whole thing made me wanna clean up my act even more and get more devoted and read and study more of God's word and work on my interpersonal relationships so that I can be in a place - or in the place - so if Jesus says, "Fire," I can.

*You can read more about this tremendous guy at this brief Detroit Free Press column, or read a longer, more in-depth and in some ways, more controversial interview from the Grand Rapids Press's religion front on Saturday.

**If that link doesn't work, try going directly to the Grand Rapids Press (for this one, you have to search at the top. Select "Grand Rapids Press" from the scroll down menu, then type in "Velvet Elvis."

Anti-Drug Advertisements

I don't watch a lot of TV, but the other day I was watching this show on TLC where they remodel somebody's home in three days, and I got hooked. They had a team of about 8 people working on this house, and the stuff they accomplished was just amazing.

But that's not why I'm writing this blog. I'm writing it because of two commercials I saw. They're both anti-drug commericals I saw in Michigan: they might only be local, but they might be nation-wide. At any rate, they're both great.

The first was hilarious. A goofy-looking young teenager, probably 12 or 13, comes home and sees his father in the foyer of the house. His dad has set up an information table in their home: on it are colored plastic models of organs, like you see in science classrooms. One is the female reproductive system, the other is an ovary. The father begins to talk:

"Son," he says, "I think it's about time we had a conversation."

The son looks at the table again. This time he sees all the books. One is titled "What mommy and daddy do." Another is titled, "Waking Up Wet" and has a charactericature of a kid pulling sheets up with a terrified expression on his face.

"Your body is going through changes," the father says. "Some of them might be confusing for you."

The teenager's eyes grow wide.

"Son, I think it's time we talked about sex."

The teenager's face drops in terror.

"Or..." the father says, "We can talk about drugs."

"Yeah yeah, let's talk about drugs," the kid quickly says.

A black screen comes up with the words:
There's no wrong way to talk to your kids about drugs."

Then I saw another commerical that is absolutely haunting. It's a cute, black haired little boy, about 4 or 5. He's sitting on the edge of a bench table in a school's cafeteria. He begins singing a nursery rhyme, only the words are different. He sings:

Baa baa black sheep, have you any "e",
Yes sir, yes sir, first hit's free."

He then goes on to recite an entire modified rhyme, with references to dealers and baggies and all this stuff. He clearly doesn't know what he's saying, but he knows every word and is reciting it with gusto. Then the words flash up:

What do your kids know about drugs?
"It's never too early to start talking to your kids about drugs."

Gave me the heebie jeebies. If anyone finds these actual commerical online, let me know. They're worth checking out.