On a lighter note.

Here are a few thoughts on the NBA playoffs. Hopefully this will bring some lively discussion.
Bracket



Western Conference

Lakers beat Houston last night. On most accounts, I enjoy seeing the Lakers get beat down with no mercy, so I was a little dissapointed. However, the one plus side to the Lakers victory in round 1 is that now the Spurs will be able to, once again, beat the crap out of the dirty dirty Lakers.


Mavericks are playing the Kings tonight. Sorry boys, but like Sir Charles said last year, get your fishing stuff out. Dallas might be able to take one game in Sacramento, but not two.

Minnesota will beat the Nuggets tonight; no big surprise.




Eastern Conference

Now, onto the eastern conference. . . .


HAHAH, just kidding. . . . . . . . . . .freakin east.

I just got the book. These stories are from the 60's and wonderfully relevant. . . . .

The Innovator: And other Modern Parables
By: G. William Jones



Creatures of Habit

Hiram was a good man - a good farmer too. The crops had paid off well at the last harvest, and he and his wife felt quite snug and secure in their little home now that winter was coming on.

Only one thing bothered Hiram - the old barn. Its roof was leaky, there were a few boards rotted off the sides, and the dirt floor was uneven so that puddles collected when it rained and soon turned into indoor quagmires. Hiram was a sensitive soul, who really loved his animals, and he winced to remember last winter when the worst storm blew sleet right through the old barn from one end to the other. The horses' water froze solid, and the little calves had ugly yellow icicles hanging from their muzzles.

Rising from his chair so quickly that he startled his wife, Hiram went to the phone and called Moco Edwards.
"That new barn I was talking to you about?" he reminded Moco. "I want it. Start right away so's it'll be finished before the real cold weather sets in."

Nothing had pleased Hiram quite so much in a long time as watching that new barn go up. It pleased Moco too, because Hiram had insisted that nothing but the best materials and workmanship go into it. He and his wife were going to be mighty comfortable this winter in their house, Hiram reasoned, so why shouldn't his animals be comfortable too? He had even had a thermostatically controlled heater installed.

As it happened, the finishing touches on the new barn were completed just the day before the first cold snap was due to hit. An orderly man who liked to do things one clear step at a time, Hiram had Moco's workmen tear down the old barn that very day, leaving nothing but the outline of the old foundation.

That night Hiram proudly ushered his animals into their new home and pulled the doors shut, warm and tight. In his warm bed Hiram enjoyed not having to worry about his animals, and not feeling guilty about them being in a cold, drafty barn while he was in a snug house.

Next morning Hiram and the Mrs. set out early for town, leaving the barn doors open for the animals in case it should turn bad. While they were in town the wind began to blow, it began to rain, and the temperature dropped to freezing, turning the rain into sleet. Hiram didn't feel a bit uneasy though, thinking of his cattle and horses filing into the new barn.

When they returned to the farm early that evening, Hiram went out to the barn. When his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness of the warm inside, he saw that there wasn't a single animal there.

Puzzled and frightened he ran outside to scan the fields, seeing nothing. Then, behind the barn he saw all his animals. Miserable, huddled together, with drifts of sleet and snow heaped on their backs, his cattle and horses stood within the vague outline of the foundation where the old barn had once stood.

Wednesday I got hit

David likes to hit me.
It's not all so bad, though, he's only 12.

His mom died Sunday evening. She's had cancer for 5 years. She was only supposed to live about a year after she heard the news. David's mom has been dying since he was 7. He's used to it by now.
The psychologist would probably say David hits alot because that's his way of showing his emotions. It's playful hitting, but hitting nonetheless. Doctors would say he doesn't know how to show his feelings yet, so he just hits. Like a little boy on the playground who pulls the girls hair because he doesn't know how to say 'you look pretty today.'

I don't know why David hits me when I walk by. I know I'll let him keep doing it as long as he wants, because we have great conversations while we're hitting each other.


Yesterday afternoon a lid was closed; and now the only time David will see his mom again this side of heaven will be in pictures and in his memories. She was burried about an hour from here, next to her grandparents. David has two brothers, and he's the oldest. God I hope our church is more than a building. . . . . .

New Old Books

Several weeks ago my pastor showed me a book he's had in his collection for quite some time. It was a small book; a backpocket kind of book. The Innovator: And other modern Parables. By G. William Jones. It was published in the 60's. It is a fantastic collection of parables. I have yet to read one that doesn't make my brain spin round for awhile. Jones has this to say about teaching through stories.

"As professional observers and students of life and the world, teachers and preachers tend to think of their role as one of predigestion. Much as the mother Eskimo chews up her food, then transfers it to the toothless mouth of her baby, school and church communicators observe actual occurrences and experiences, extract from them their 'kernal of truth,' then turn to give their hearers only the bare kernel, shed of its 'confusing' trappings. The prejudice seems to be that a straightforward 'A+B=C' approach is the clearest and therefore most understandable and meaningful form of
communication from one mind to another. . . .If I want my listener not only to hear, but also to understand, then I must give him room to work on what I am saying and his own share of the communicative task to do. If I make what I sense to be the 'truth' of what I am saying as explicit as possible, then I have taken away his work from him and done it myself. I have forced him back into the passive stance. However, if I am willing to let the 'truth' in what I am saying remain implicit, then his share of the work - the interpretation, or making the implicit explicit - is left for him. My speaking becomes an
invitation for his involvement. He may not do his explicating the way I would have done it. He may not come up with the same kernel of truth of which I was thinking when I told the parable. I take the risk that 'hearing, he will not understand.' But I also encounter the possibility that in rummaging about for himself in the parable, he may come up with a truth that is
truer than my truth. At any rate, whatever he gets from the experience will be his truth which he garnered himself, and not my truth to which he could only give either mental assent or rejection. (and neither of these latter possibilities is very dynamic)"




I've only been able to find the book for sale at Biblio.com
(And to think, this was published way before anyone said the words 'emergent church')



And with that, here's one of his parables, The Diamond

A tattered prospector entered the Great Glass City one day. Riding his mule down streets between dazzling glass buildings, he shouted "I've found it - the stone of great price!"
A few curious passers-by stopped and crowded around him.
"Look!" he shouted ecstatically, holding a large uncut diamond before their gaze. "It's a diamond!"
"Looks just like glass to me," said one lay expert, "and downright inferior glass, at that. All melted looking. Must have been fused by the Blast. Curious."
With this assesment the crowd began to disperse.
"No! No! Look again!" cried the prospector. "It's valuable, exceedingly valuable!"
"If you want to see something exceedingly valuable, take a gander at THIS!" said a millionaire in the crowd, extending a knuckle circled by a large, ruby-colored, cut glass ring.
After the "ooohs" and "aaahs" of the crowd died down, the prospector protested, "No! My diamond is far more valuable than your glass, no matter how beautiful your glass, nor how ugly my stone. Here let me show you," he said, taking the millionaire's ring firmly in his grasp. With his diamond the prospector scratched a very small "X" on the surface of the ruby-colored glass.
"There! see?" he said, stepping back from his work. "Do you see now how the diamond is greater than the glass? Diamond scratches glass, but glass can't scratch diamond!"
"Ye gods, you stupid idiot!" screamed the millionaire, looking closely at his ring. "You've ruined a ten-thousand-dollar work of the glassmaker's art!"
The prospector was thrown in prison for three years.
At the end of the third year, when he was released from prison, the prospector marched straightway to enact a plan he had been formulating all these years in his dungeon. Boldly he approached the Wonderous Shring of Multicolored Glass at the center of the Great Glass City. (The residents had a habit of gathering there on their day off to watch the amazing display of colored lights on the colored glass, and then going home with a good feeling.) The prospector stepped resolutely up to the mammoth center panel of the glass shrine and with his diamond inscribed an eight-foot circle in its surface. Then he tapped the circle lightly with his forefinger. The sound of shattering glass brought a mob on the run. Pleased at the response, the prospector held the diamond aloft and was about to begin speaking when they all cried out, as if with one voice, "Just LOOK what you've done to our shrine!"
With this they began pelting him with glass cobblestones, old bottles, and shards from the shattered shrine until he was quite covered by them, and quite dead. Only the diamond, still clutched in the prospectors dead fist, projected above the pile of vitreous debris.
In the days that followed the incident, some heathens, heretics, atheists, doubters, and malcontents in that great city began to form a society devoted to the carrying on of the prospector's message about diamond being more valuable than glass. They also devoted themselves to the living-out of the implications of such a revolutionary thesis. And so they too were persecuted, and many were killed. (It may be of passing interest to some readers to not that, rather than being called 'diamond lovers,' they were called 'glass haters')
But posterity has been more kind to the prospector and his memory. Around that original pile of glass, still topped with the bone-held diamond, is today a large and most impressive shring of the finest multicolored glass that money can buy. The residents of the Great Glass City have a habit of gathering there on their day off to watch the spectacular displays of colored lights on the colored glass, and then going home with a good feeling.

Today I cleaned my shoes.

Yesterday I found mud on the side of a pair of nice brown shoes I wear to work. Usually they're shiny and have that squared toe that makes them look trendy. Thursday they were muddy. I didn't notice the mud until I got to work. Seeing the mud made me my breath stop, as if it were an evil thing. But it was only mud. I'm sure I must have smiled when I realized why the mud was on my nice, shiny working shoes. . . . . .




Monday afternoon I was standing in the mud wearing nice clothes and shiny brown shoes with a squared off toe. If you live in Texas, you know that Monday afternoon was rainy and colder than normal for the day after Easter. That's why it was muddy. I stood in the mud with other people wearing nice clothes, most dressier than mine. So I'm sure it was a bigger deal for them that their shoes were getting muddy. Some people sat, but on benches, not in the mud. The ones who sat were under a cover, because of the rain. There were flowers. . .lots of flowers. A few words were spoken, and with the words some people cried. I saw old men pat each others backs, just the way young boys do. . .they didn't look like tough old men today. They looked meek and weary.
When it was finished, people began to leave. The ones sitting left first, because they were to be followed. Some of the flowers were taken, and through tears people talked quietly. I was silent. I'm never good at speaking when people don't need to hear words. For what else is there to say?

Thursday I left the mud on my shoes all day while I was at work. But this morning before I left I washed it all off. I cleaned them with windex and a paper towel. The mud is gone. The square toe looks trendy and they're shiny again.

Real Live Preacher Props

If you haven't checked out Real Live Preacher you need to get in there and do some reading. At this point you'll have alot to go through, so I encourage you to spend some time milling about, reading what's up. His latest post, called All the right questions makes me feel good inside. I just don't have any other way to describe it. I guess it reminds me of my time at camp. Simple living.

Change it up.

Well here it is, a new template for the 'ol blog. Nothing too crazy, mainly just color changes and what not. My main concern is always the difficulty in distinguishing between posts, so now the dates are bigger and colored. Hopefully the new site is easier to take in. Maybe if I'm lucky, one of these days I'll actually pay for a site that will let me change things much easier. Some place to store files and what not. I think the archives are still a little hairy, so that's still to be hammered out.
-Peace-

15 people go into a room: Freedom vs. Protection

[Read the previous post before you read this one. . . . pretty please]

Let's play a game.



15 people will enter a room. Your job is to keep these people safe.
At least one of the people will hurt or kill someone else.
What do you do?


Here are a few suggestions:

Search them for weapons?
You gotta be kidding me. That's an invasion of privacy.


Look into their history or background?
Well, maybe, but only if you have reason to believe they're the potential criminal. And you have to prove it before you can check.


Only allow people into the room who you know won't hurt anybody?
HaHa you stink at this game, that's hardcore discrimination again. Don't you know our room is a melting pot?!


Don't let them interact with one another?
I guess that could work, but you're still infringing on their rights. So nope.



Ok, game over. No love. . . .


So where in America is the government keeping people safer than anywhere else in the country?
Solitary confinement.

Now we cry for preemption

So I'm listening to Condoleezza Rice testify in front of the 9-11 commission this morning, and some of it irks me. But I'll get to that in a second. First I want to lay some groundwork.

The whole premise for the 9-11 commission is fine by me. America was attacked. Let's take every opportunity to learn how the attacks happened and what we can do to stop them in the future. Along these same lines, let's look at how a terrorist network was able to pull off these attacks, or any for that matter, without being stopped by the people and institutions charged with protecting us. If ineptness is found at the top, or if a lack of response to overwhelming evidence of a coming attack is found, further action must be taken.

Now, onto the committee. Here's what rubs me wrong with the whole thing.

During her testimony, Rice fielded questions based on the Bush administrations previous knowledge about the coming 9-11 attacks. She made it clear that this was a problem spanning multiple presidents, influenced by both parties. Fine, whatever, that sounds like the truth to me. Because it's obvious the Bush administration had the power to stop the attacks, it's also key to note that the terrorists were living in our country during the Clinton administration. Yadda yadda, we already know all this. But here's where I get ticked about the whole argument. . .

To say that the Bush administration could have/should have stopped the 19 highjackers brings up, yet again, the hot topic of preemption. Groups like the ACLU say we can be free from government intrusion and secure at the same time. They claim the government should be able to preemptively stop any attack on America, but the government isn't allowed to gather information about the people inside our borders that might help in process. (Civil liberties vs. civil rights)
Here's the part that makes no sense about this whole preemptive notion.
While so many people are screaming at the Bush administration, or the government in general, about their failure to stop these attacks, can you imagine the uproar that would have occurred if, on Sept. 4, 2001, 19 people were arrested by military personal?! There would have been unimaginable outcries from the so-called civil liberties groups shouting discrimination, infringement of privacy and whole hosts of other crap that I'm not smart enough to know about. What if the 19 highjackers hadn't even been allowed in our country because of their terrorist affiliations? Can you imagine the protests that would have ensued. (All this, for men who would later instigate 9-11)

My only complaint with the 9-11 hearings are when questions revolve around preemption. The same people who want America to be secure are the same people who cry foul when the government takes preemptive action. For an example of how the ACLU's idea that we can be free and secure is full of crap, check out the next post. If you don't care about it, then peace out.

Need more Passion in your life?

That's the sign outside my church right now.
I'm not sure if it makes me laugh or cringe, but there it is.

Tonight we're having an open forum at church to discuss The Passion. The idea is that people outside the church that want a place to vent or discuss the movie can do so. I'm excited for it; but no one knows what to expect. There could be 3 people tonight, or there could be 300. I'm betting on about 20, but we'll see.

Because of tonight's events, I've had to sift through more of the Passion stuff today and I'd like to make a point about it all. Namely this. . . . .We must be daily reminded of our worthlessness apart from God.

That's really what I feel is the crux of the whole matter.
When we forget that apart from God we are meaningless, sinful beings; evil to our very core, we forget what a big deal Christ's sacrifice was.
Last night on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, they were once again discussing The Passion and someone made a comment along the lines of "If God is all powerful, why not just forgive everyone for their sins? Why the death?" (Paraphrased of course)

It was another of those moments where I wish I could jump through the TV and give a response. My reply would simply be; "If God lets any of us into heaven, he's not just." Plain and simple. If you or I or any other human being one day goes to heaven, God cannot be just.
Matt Chandler put it well: (To paraphrase his words)
'Imagine a hardened criminal standing in front of a judge. He's asked if he's sorry for what he's done. "Well, right now I guess I am." He's asked if he'll do it again. He says "Well, I'll try really hard not to." And the judge lets him go free. Any judge doing that in America would wind up in jail himself. Because the sentence is unjust.
In this same way, God doesn't simply forgive sin in the sense that he just chooses to forget about them. The wages of sin is still death, thus death is required for my sin.
Because of all this, we come to know the magnitude of Jesus' death. Payment was required, otherwise God would be unjust and unfair.

When we start to think we are inherently good we begin to forget the necessity of Jesus' death. We start to think he was just a man following his divine calling, instead of a man/God willing to pay whatever it took for you and me. That's why when I see The Passion or think upon the happenings, I'm reminded of what I'm worth to God. To find definition or purpose in anything else is to, in our own sophisticated way, say "Forget you God, I just want your stuff!"(another Matt Chandler paraphrase.) Romans 1.

On a lighter note, we just started using two projectors in our sanctuary, and I'm excited by the way the images we'll be using for worship don't exactly look like a square projected image on the wall. They all have rough edges and look more like 'Virtual Banners" than anything else. I'm copyrighting that term by the way, "VBans" is what we'll call them, and the book will be out soon by Zondervan telling how you too can use VBans in church, otherwise you're not worshiping correctly; and you obviously hate visitors.

New Updates for the seven foot man.

Well, my time has come. It seems that on my NBA Inside Drive season Shawn Bradley broke his arm. Praise Jesus for this turn of events. Normally I would never wish injury on anyone, but in this case we're talking about a video game so I cheered when he was taken out of the game. All I know is that I won't have to put him in my lineup for at least 3 weeks.

I'm calling it.

So Adam called me today and told me about the Sean Hannity program, which in Dallas airs on AM 820. If you aren't familiar with Hannity, check out his website. Today on his show Hannity is talking about how he's turning completely around and has now decided to support John Kerry in his campaign for the presidency.

I'm calling the bluff. His show airs from 4:00 - 6:00 in Dallas, and as I write it's 4:39. I'm betting this is an April Fools prank. We'll see how it all turns out, but my moneys on the table with this one. I bet he won't even mention the joke on the air today, but he'll wait until either tonight on Hannity And Colmes, or he'll just bring it out tommorow on his radio show. Either way, it's April 1st and I'm not buying it.

-Peace-

My distaste for the Brad

So I started playing NBA Inside Drive again the other day. I started a season with the Mavericks awhile back, but it was taking way too long to finish, so I put it on hold. Well I'm back at it, so I'm given a daily reminder of why I don't like Shawn Bradley as a basketball player. First of all, let me mention that in reality I'm a big wuss so I'm sure if I saw Shawn on the street I'd just run and cry like a little girl, but as for the blog, I can critique with ease.

Shawn Bradley is 7 feet 6 inches tall. This means that when he puts his hands in the air he has to be careful not to hit them on the rim. As for me, I've never seen what the top of a basketball rim looks like. The only thing Bradley does well in basketball is block shots. He's had a couple of standout games with points and a triple double, but on a regular basis, this giant just stands around and gets pushed around by guys who are 6 feet tall. Here's the deal. . .if you're that tall, being a good shot blocker is a given, not an achievment. When I play basketball with 5th graders you better believe I'll block alot of shots. Those punks are only 4 feet tall so I rule.

Whenever I play NBA Inside Drive, I do everything I can to never give Bradley the ball. I hate it. Even if he's under the basket all alone I'd rather bust a 3 in traffic than give it to him. Mainly because he's most likely going to miss an easy lay-up.

Here's my thing about basketball players who are over 7 feet tall. Gain some freakin weight and beast it up inside the paint. Shaq's a good player not on his own accord, but because he's simply huge. (As much as I despise Shaq, no one's gonna stop him down low, but if he acted like a skinny wuss like Bradley does, he'd be a horrible player.)

So here's my advise to Shawn Bradley:
1. Eat everything you see. Whatever it takes to gain weight, do it.
2. Get mean. When you get the ball down low, don't let someone that comes up to your chest push you around. You tower over most people, so start acting like it.
3. Quit throwing up those wussy bank shots that hit the top of the backboard. It reminds me of Vonder. You should be living a dunk-only life.
4. Get a tan.
5. Please don't kill me if you read this and meet me in real life.

-Peace out-