Chris and the Dragon

Turning Thirty

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:17:07 -0400

Thirty is a milestone because it ends in zero and that number always provokes us to look back and look forward. I must say that as I looked around at my life on my birthday yesterday, I was filled at gratitude. I have been blessed far more than I deserve.

The night that I turned twenty was the first night I held EA’s hand. It was to pull her up off the floor. I was bored and throwing things off the top balcony and wanted her to come along. We liked each other, but were still a couple of months away from dating.

I could not have anticipated that night what my twenties would bring: marriage, four moves, starting, stopping, and re-starting my seminary education, and the birth of our two sons. I am not for hyperbole but my twenties were “The Decade That Changed Everything.”

And in all of those big shifts have been a hundred tiny movements that have transformed me into whoever it is I have become. When I was young, 30 was well past the border of adulthood. It didn’t seem old, but it did seem like it was an age inhabited prominently by those that had things figured out.

That is not the case. My twenties have taught me that growing up means carrying what seem like paradoxes. I have watched my college-aged idealism erode away rapidly and yet I cling to hope even more. While growing up is supposed to make you more self-sufficient, I find that I need people now more than ever. The wound that I have always carried around has been a horrible insecurity, a belief that I was not good enough. I thought it would disappear, but there have been seasons where I have found that ignoring has only made it fester and grow.

And then there is faith. Faith has been with me from the beginning. It is always going to be an important part of my story. Yet the contrast I have discovered with that is, for me, a mature faith means a less certain faith.

That is pretty much the exact opposite of what I thought when I was younger. I figured that growing up would bring me an indefatigable confidence in my faith that would vaporize any challenge that life threw at me. I figured that a person that wrestled with doubts had bought a one-way ticket to Lukewarmville. Population: You and Satan (Actually, I didn’t think that. The train/Lukewarmville/population triumvirate was too fun a sentence for me to resist).

Yet this is what happens in the uncertainty: I hold on to Jesus more. It sounds cheesy and there is a detached/post-modernist guy inside of me that rolls his eyes at that. Yet in adulthood where all of the theoretically easy answers to life’s issues turn to dust, holding on to Jesus is absolutely all that one can do. When you realize you don’t have all the answers, all that you have left on which you can hang your hat is God’s grace.

I don’t think that I would have anticipated that ten years ago. I certainly would not have chosen that, but I would not trade that for anything today.

I have decided to stop trying to anticipate what is coming next. No one has any clue what is going to happen to them when they’re 40 or 50 or whether they’ll even make it there. I just hope that I can be the kind of husband, father, son, brother, friend, and whatever else that people need me to be. I pray God’s grace will carry me forward and carry me home.

A Modest Prayer for Oklahoma

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:12:20 -0400

Dear God,
Comfort those that mourn
Protect those that hurt
Guide rescue workers, doctors, nurses, and every human hand helping
Give strength for people to sit, listen, hug, and cry
Forgive us our pithy answers
Bind the broken hearts
Walk with them through this storm and those that will follow
Bring healing and hope
Please
Amen

To Jim on His 3rd Birthday

Sat, 18 May 2013 10:00:47 -0400

Jim,
You probably ask me a hundred questions a day. That is not an exaggeration. But this is a good thing. It means you’re curious about the world around you and want to know how it works. I’ll admit that it sometimes gets annoying when you ask the same question eight times in a row, but, hey, you’re a toddler right now.

But there is a question that you do sometimes ask eight times in a row and probably a couple of dozen times every day: “Daddy, do you love me?” It is a question that I will never tire of answering.

Both your mom and I love you with our entire hearts. It is not something that you have to earn and it is not something that you will ever lose. But as you are turning three today, I want to write down a few things that I love about you at this time in your life.

I love the way that you are protective of your new little brother. When Liam cries, you’ll tell your mom that he is hungry. If you find a pacifier, you will bring it to us to give to him. The other day Liam started crying while we were in the car and you said, “It’s okay Liam. We’re almost there.” There is a ridiculous amount of joy in your voice when you see him and say, “Baby Liam.” You have only been a big brother for a little over eight weeks and you are already awesome at it.

I have loved seeing you go to preschool. I can’t believe that you have already finished your first year. It has been cool to hear your stories of school, to watch your teachers fall in love with you, and to see you make friends. Every single time we drive by your preschool, we ask you what it is and you almost always yell out, “It’s my CLASSroom!”

I love it when you sing. Sometimes you’ll pop up with a song from school that I’ve never heard. Many times you will sing the silly VBS songs that I have sung to you. You don’t always get the words right. You have this knack for getting stuck on lines and repeating them over and over until you somehow find your way out. It’s pretty adorable. One day after church when you sang, “You make beautiful things out of the dust.” You sang that line about three or four times in a row and that was it. But it was probably one of my favorite times hearing you sing.

I love that you want to go into the sanctuary and “see colors” after church. When I pick you up from nursery, you always want to look at the big stained glass windows. You find the seeds in a window depicting the Parable of the Sower. In the window where John is baptizing Jesus, you have picked out favorite fish for you, me, your mom, and Liam. And recently you have liked looking at the picture of Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph before we leave.

I could honestly go on and on. I love that you love books, watching you play outside, and the way that you sometimes toss your cape in the air and say “Ah-hoo!” I love it when you say, “Daddy, you and me are friends.” I love that you know who Superman, Batman, Flash, and Donatello all are. I love the mischievous grin that you get on your face. Your laugh is possibly my favorite sound in the world. And one of my favorite things ever is when I carry you and you throw your arms around my neck.

Your mom and I feel unbelievably blessed to have you in our lives. We would not trade you for anything in the world. Even on your worst days — when you throw huge tantrums, accidentally kick me in the face, have poops in your diaper that seem impossible for someone your size, and want to watch the same episode of Dinosaur Train non-stop all day — we are incredibly grateful that we get to be your parents.

You probably won’t ask me if I love you nearly as much as you get older. It’d be fairly hard to top the clip at which you ask it now. But know that if you ask me or your mom that question at any point of your life, the answer will always be the same. Yes, I love you with all of my heart. And I always will.

Happy 3rd Birthday Buddy.

Love,
Your Dad

Two Cents: Iron Man 3

Tue, 14 May 2013 23:37:00 -0400

The Movie
Iron Man 3 starring Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, and Sir Ben Kingsley
Written by Drew Pearce and Shane Black
Directed by Shane Black

Tweet the Plot (140 Characters or Less)
Tony Stark seriously ticked people off in 1999 leading to terrorism, exploding people, & the Stark Mansion getting blown up. Also? Tennesee!

Who will like it?
This is part three, so we pretty much at this point know what we’re getting. Do you like superheroes? Do you like Robert Downey, Jr. doing Robert Downey, Jr. things? Do you like your summer blockbusters with a dash of snark? Do you like robots? Do you like cameos from other superheroes after the credits? If you answered “Yes” to any of those questions, you’re going to be pleased with FeMan the Third.

Who won’t like it?
This is a crowd pleaser popcorn flick. There are obviously some people that feel those type of movies are beneath them. Obviously, this movie is not going to garner an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Individuals that get incredibly frustrated with plot holes will probably find things with which to get incredibly frustrated. But again, it’s a crowd pleaser. I’m a solid DC guy and even I enjoy the Marvel cinematic adventures of Tony Stark.

Favorite Random Scene
Hold up…I should probably throw up the spoiler warning and then put in a jump for those that haven’t seen the movie yet.

Be Warned: Spoilers Follow.

Favorite Random Scene Now That We’re in the Safety of Not Ruining the Film for People (Unless They Completely Ignore Warnings and If So Then It Is Entirely Their Fault)
The videos featuring The Mandarin are chillingly intimidating and Kingsley plays him with a creepy menace. Then when the curtain is pulled back to show that the villain is actually just a puppet, a clueless mess of an English stage actor named Trevor Slattery, the scene is hilarious. Kingsley nearly steals the movie in the second half.

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It (or If It Was Slightly Broke, Make Some Basic Repairs)
The first Iron Man is considered one of the highlights of the superhero movie renaissance thus far and rightly so. The second movie was a bit of a disappointment (mainly due to a lack of focus, an uncompelling motive for the villain, and perhaps Iron Man being a little bit too obnoxious). But still the basic ingredients were there: Robert Downey, Jr. is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s linchpin. His cocky, often jerky Iron Man is something unique amongst movie superheroes. The rapport with Don Cheadle’s War Machine (now Iron Patriot) was good. You got a pretty good romantic interest in Gwyneth Paltrow.

The above elements needed to stay the same and repairs needed to be made to some of the other elements. The movie has a clear story arc, the villains is a vast improvement over Whiplash, and, by knocking, Iron Man down a bunch of pegs, Stark’s arrogance comes off more as perseverance than just a dude being a jerk.

The Iron Man Rises
From here out, it is going to be hard to see a movie in which a hero’s home is destroyed and is stripped of their superhero-ness and not think of The Dark Knight Rises. That’s just the template we’re playing with now. To Iron Man 3’s credit, they at least traded out Batman’s dude with the magical rope cure for paralysis in the prison for a lovable scamp with a Dora the Explorer digital watch in Tennessee. I’m not saying Iron Man 3 is the better movie, I just enjoyed that particular wilderness experience a little bit more.

Plot Hole Miscellany
Where are the Avengers? Seriously, a terrorist appears to have killed Iron Man, is blowing up stuff all over the world, destroys Air Force One and kidnaps the President and we don’t even get an appearance from S.H.I.E.L.D.? I understand that Iron Man has to be theoretically solo in his own movie, but this is the Pandora’s Box that gets opened when you previously have him team up with a bunch of superheroes.

Also at the end of the movie, Stark has the shrapnel that threatened his life removed and thus does not need the glowing reactor thing that was keeping him alive. Why was this not done earlier? Because if I had a life-threatening condition with which previous movies’ villains had threatened me and that could be easily fixed, I might have set aside some time to get that taken care of. Imagine if Superman could have surgery that would remove his vulnerability to Kryptonite and he said, “You know what? I’m good. It’s not like villains really try to use that on me that often.” I know Tony Stark is arrogant, but he’s also a genius not an idiot. Sorry, that turned into a mini-rant.

Quibbles and Bits
-I know this is a superhero movie and by default we are leaving reality at the door, but, come on, there’s no way any of the people in the Air Force One skydive rescue scene survived that in reality.
-The lady scientist character (I don’t even remember her name) seemed like kind of a weak link. She tangentially had a purpose, but I feel like it could have been better pulled off.
-I love the banter between Stark and “Rhodey” Rhodes. If Downey, Jr. actually comes back for an Iron Man 4 (or as it will likely be called, Iron Man 4ever), I propose a superhero road trip movie with Iron Man, Iron Patriot, and Mark Ruffalo’s Incredible Hulk driving across America, busting each other’s chops, and stopping bad guys. I’d see that in the theaters at least two or three times.
-Speaking of Ruffalo, the post-credits scene was great. I like how both The Avengers and this movie give more of a humorous coda rather than a self-serious moment.
-Speaking two points ago of banter, the back and forth between Iron Man and the kid in Tennessee was great. If you had told me beforehand that Stark was going to be helped out by a blonde moppet whom was abandoned by his father, I would have thought we’d be going to Eye-Roll Country. Not so. It helps that the kid doesn’t really soften Stark, but it seems that iron sharpens iron. Thank you! I’ll be here all week!
-The Extremis soldiers had a definite Terminator vibe to them. When they were wrecking that small Tennessee town, I half expected Schwarzenegger to grab the kid’s hand and say, “Come with me if you want to live.”
-Saw The Man of Steel trailer beforehand. Good gosh, I am so beyond pumped for that movie.
-Marvel characters don’t seem to have the qualms about killing that DC characters have.
-No one can play creepy old guy quite like Stan Lee.
-I admit that even though the climactic battle was just a bunch of robots and explosions, it was an excellently done scene with a bunch of robots and explosions.
-EA, who is a native of Tennessee, is 100% sure that the geography was out of whack during the Volunteer State sequence.
-The opening and closing narration from Downey was great. I have a seriously hard time imagining the franchise continuing if he doesn’t re-up for more movies.

In Conclusion
Iron Man 3 is the cream of the summer blockbuster movie crop. It isn’t perfect. There are plot holes and aspects that don’t hold up, but it is a highly entertaining movie. Definitely better than Iron Man 2 and a worthy successor to the franchise’s first entry. If you have seen those movies, you’ll likely know what you’re going to get here. So if you are looking for a fun piece of escapist entertainment, Iron Man 3 is a good one to check out.

Virtually anytime that I’m working up in the Batcave, Obie...

Fri, 10 May 2013 15:47:46 -0400

Virtually anytime that I’m working up in the Batcave, Obie is up here too.

An Imperfect Theology of Student Ministry

Mon, 06 May 2013 01:37:00 -0400

My final for my Christian Education and Formation with Youth is a ten page paper centering on my theological understanding of student ministry. Though I am up to about eight pages, I feel like I am spinning my wheels and perhaps veering into cliche-ridden territory. This is my attempt to write my way out of that.

The heart of student ministry is what the heart of every ministry should be: Jesus. The life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ is what gives us our name, our purpose, and our hope. It is a simple answer but it is nowhere near simple in execution.

One of the problems is we layer things on top of Jesus to make it more palatable for students or perhaps to make it more palatable for us. We try to make Jesus cool with lights, music, bells, whistles, mirrors, and smoke. There is nothing wrong with those elements in and of themselves. I am a firm believer that we should use whatever tools we have on hand to communicate the message of the gospel. Paul’s speech at Mars Hill in Acts 17 is a touchstone for this incarnational type of message.

Yet there are times that I think Jesus gets lost underneath the flash of it all. If by making Jesus cool, we are unintentionally trying to make ourselves look cool by association.

On the other hand, we might pile Jesus up with all of these extras of theology or specific scripture interpretations. Again, do not get me wrong. Student ministries should teach theology and how to interpret scripture. But sometimes I think we fill in too many blanks because the blanks make us incredibly uncomfortable. So the next thing you know, the saving and beautiful grace of Jesus is at risk if a random verse in 2 Chronicles is proven to not be one hundred percent historically accurate.

The trouble is all of this is done with the very best of intentions and there is a great deal of good within it as well. It makes it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. I am certainly not the person to draw lines as far as what is too much or too little relevance, theology, or interpretation.

That is why I have to come back to Jesus. I have to go back to the start of this faith. Simplify things back to the roots. When I look at the story of Jesus, I see something that resonates with what I have learned about students this past semester.

The thing that has been impressed upon me the most this semester is that a great many adolescents feel like they have been abandoned. They feel like their schools, churches, and even their parents only care about them if they perform a certain way. So they try to cope with this abandonment through a myriad of ways: some seemingly innocuous, others decidedly dangerous. They form de facto underground communities with peers to give them a sense of belonging. They feel like they do not belong.

Jesus loved those that felt like they did not belong. He loved the rest as well, but repeatedly we see him dining with those that felt abandoned. He reached out to those that could not perform in the way that would earn the acceptance of the institutions around them. Again and again, those people got it. They understood that they did not have it together. They were all too aware that they needed God’s grace. They were grateful in the utmost when such an incredible opportunity presented itself to them. And that grace transformed their lives.

That is where it has to start. It is not about feeling good about ourselves, being cool, getting a ticket punched to heaven, or cheap grace. It is about a God that loves us so much that He was willing to go to whatever lengths to reach out to everyone so that we might truly live as were were meant to.

I sometimes have doubts, but I believe deep in my soul that resonates. Before we talk about discipleship, church participation, or anything else, we have to talk about Jesus. We have to talk about how we cannot pull ourselves together on our own. Yet through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, it is possible for us to be made right before God.

I will not have Jesus perfectly figured out, but that is where I have to start and that is to where I have to constantly return.

A short update on why there has been nothing on this blog for...

Sat, 04 May 2013 22:49:40 -0400

A short update on why there has been nothing on this blog for awhile in video form, because I am really, really sick of writing things right now.

On a lighter note, Superman made his debut 75 years ago today in...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 23:16:26 -0400

On a lighter note, Superman made his debut 75 years ago today in Action Comics #1. Happy Anniversary to far and away my favorite superhero.

A World of Hurt

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:44:32 -0400

Liam’s early morning feeding today was at a time in which it was too late for me to go back to bed and yet not early enough for me to really do anything before Jim woke up. So after EA nursed Liam and went back to sleep, I held him while watching the morning news.

A fertilizer plant explosion devastated the community of West, Texas; injuring well over a hundred and killing a presently unknown number.

The city of Boston is still recovering from Monday’s terror attack and searching for those responsible.

Yesterday’s vote on expanded background checks on gun purchases naturally raised the memory of the December tragedy in Newtown.

It was a tough morning to watch the news. The more troubling thing is that this is not a uniquely tough morning in the world. That is not to minimize the hurt in the new stories that I saw this morning. That is something that I think I have been carrying around with me today and it is not a good load to carry.

And so let us pray for West, Boston, and Newtown, but let us also pray for the tragedies great and small that don’t fill up our feeds on Twitter or get the 24-7 news coverage.

For people in Syria, Afghanistan, and other war torn areas for whom what we saw in Boston on Monday is a regular way of life.

For those killed, whether by gun violence, automobile accidents, cancer, disease, or whatever else, and the grieving loved ones left behind.

For the tragedies caused by natural disasters that take lives, homes, and a sense of safety.

For men, women, and children living in poverty on the other side of the world and down the street.

For humans that have to live under the shadow of hate.

Let us pray. And may God show us other ways in which we can be a small remedies of healing in a world of hurt.

“Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:22:00 -0400

“Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last ‘trick’, whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.

‘But how?’ we ask.

Then the voice says, ‘They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’

There they are. There we are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life’s tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.

My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.”

- Brennan Manning (1934-2013) in The Ragamuffin Gospel

Is Doubt an STD?

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:16:20 -0400

Is Doubt an STD?:

Ironically, after writing on doubt yesterday, Rachel Held Evans linked to a blog which tried to draw a correlation between young adults having sex and having doubts. As someone who had doubts yet remained a virgin until marriage, I found the premise troubling and a bit insulting. It is frustrating when people have honest questions and others insinuate that the real issue is some sort of secret sin.

So I tweeted back at Rachel that “Doubt as a STD seems like a desperate ploy.” She re-tweeted it and then used it in the title of a blog she wrote in response linked above. As with most of her writing, it’s good stuff (if you aren’t regularly reading her blog then you should, though it will certainly make my writing look all the poorer in comparison).

Thomas and Me

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:34:29 -0400

If I am going to be completely honest then I have to say that I have my doubts about this whole Christianity thing. I am still a Christian and still trust God, but I certainly cannot say that I never doubt it.

My doubts are not found in the trenches of apologetic battles. I figured out a long time ago that many of those fights are more often than not about who, whether Christian or not, can make a more persuasive argument. It’s often style over substance. I certainly have questions about historicity and whether there is a God, but rather my Doubts come from somewhere else.

I once admitted that if I ever turned away from faith, it would be because I had seen that following Jesus made no difference in a person’s life. I see that sometimes out in the world and in myself. I see us acting in ways that drag Jesus through the mud. And I see it enough that I sometimes wonder whether the resurrection ever happened. Maybe Jesus was a great moral teacher and the rest of this Son of God stuff was added on later. I don’t believe that (partly because of the religious education that I have received; the same education that was supposed to torpedo my faith), but I wonder.

What I’m saying is that I can understand Thomas. Or as we often refer to him: last name Thomas, first name Doubting. We put that label on him in a condescending way. We shake our heads and sigh. Doubting Thomas. How could he be so stubborn and blind?

But there was someone who didn’t shake his head: Jesus. He very easily could have told the other disciples to kick him out or have caused Thomas’ head to explode Raiders of the Lost Ark style when the doubter beheld the resurrected Christ. But he didn’t. Jesus met Thomas where he was. Jesus graciously gave Thomas what he needed deep down and the disciple responded with the exclamation, “My Lord and my God.”

I learned this past Sunday that the church lectionary calendar always saves a place for that passage in John on the Sunday after Easter. After the majesty and wonder that is Easter Sunday, those that return the next week are allowed to and given the official space in which to wrestle with doubt.

That is not something that I heard in church growing up. Doubt was something from which to flee. It was either not talked about or it was the sad sign of a backslidden individual.

Yet in an excellent sermon by Dean, one of our pastors, I was reminded again that doubt is not the opposite of faith. Indeed doubt can be the seeds for faith, it can walk alongside it. Faith is not some sort of intellectual assent as much as it is trust in God even when there is doubt. For if faith was something of which we are absolutely certain, if it was the impenetrable logical fortress that some make it out to be, then it would not be faith. Faith requires a leap. I trust Grace is there to grab my hand on the other side.

I will continue to raise questions and think critically about faith. And since Jesus says we should love God with our minds, I think he is okay with me continuing to do that. That’s the thing: I trust Jesus. There are many things of which I am not sure. Yet as I have grown older, my faith has moved away from a house of cards model. The whole thing will not collapse if one element gets taken away. Though I have my doubts, my hope is built on Jesus.

I am beyond grateful that he has room for doubters like Thomas and me.

"The church’s identity is not defined primarily by its edges, but by its center: focused on..."

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 21:10:55 -0400

“The church’s identity is not defined primarily by its edges, but by its center: focused on Christ, the sole source of our identity, no intruder poses a threat. No alien hops a fence, because there is no fence. Boundaries are determined by proximity to the Holy Spirit’s centripetal pull, not by arbitrary human borders.”

- Kenda Creasy Dean in Almost Christian (65)

A Brief Note of Thanks Amidst the Good Chaos

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 00:09:08 -0400

EA and I are probably going to look back on the sequence of events from these last few weeks and wonder what on earth we were thinking. Scratch that, we already are. Moving out of our old house, EA giving birth to our second son, and moving into our new house in a span of two weeks was just ridiculous. There’s no way we should have pulled it off.

And there’s no way that we would have pulled it off without our families. They have been incredible at carrying us through these last few weeks and even months. From helping us move to watching Jim to helping us with this and that, I do not know what we would have done if they had not been there for us (I should note that we do have friends that would have gladly helped us, but a few curveballs meant that a lot of moving happened during the workweek).

This is not the most eloquent way of saying it, but I just want to publicly say thank you to my parents, EA’s parents, Shari, Robin, Matt (plus Taylor and Tiffany for emotional support too; being in Colorado prevented physical presence), and others that have and are continuing to help us. Your love and support has meant so much to us during this beautifully crazy time. And we’ll keep needing it.

That’s all. I just wanted to say thank you and we love you.

Movies I Want to Show My Sons #33

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 23:44:01 -0400

Signs (2002)

Patience

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:03:47 -0400

Tonight before bed Jim had a meltdown of epic proportions. Like most tantrums involving toddlers (and occasionally adults) this one started with a cookie. That was the promised reward if, and only if, the rest of dinner was eaten to our satisfaction. It was not. Therefore the cookie was not bestowed and it was off to bed.

This was probably the worst tantrum he has ever had. Whenever he tried to talk, the words could barely get through the sobs to the point that he sounded like a skipping record. It was miserable. Part of me wanted to leave him. Forget about changing the diaper, getting his pajamas on, reading a story, and bedtime prayers. Just leave the kid to wail like a banshee.

The other part of me wanted to just run down stairs and get him the cookie so that he would stop being so heartbroken. I do not like to see my children so completely wrecked. I want to give them the quick fix to make things better.

It would have been wrong to act on either of those instincts. Fortunately, Team Chris and EA stood our ground on the cookie, but also sat on the floor with our seemingly inconsolable toddler. Eventually, EA started reading him Fox in Socks and before we got to the muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle, Jim was better. We prepared for bed, prayed, and kissed him good night. I’m glad that we didn’t abandon him or cave to his demands. I am thankful that we were patient.

I am thankful that God is patient with me. I may not throw epic temper tantrums befitting a toddler (though I certainly have that capacity). But I am reminded multiple times a day that I am not a good man. Sure there is good in me from the being made in the image of God thing. Yet I can be a selfish, lazy, lustful, judgmental individual even on my very best days. And this is after trying to follow Jesus for the last two plus decades.

God could have ditched me and God could have just thrown up God’s anthropomorphic hands and said, “Fine, have it your way.” Yet that is not what has happened. God is patient with me, correcting me, extending grace to me, and sitting with me. It makes a difference. It is not as obvious and dramatic a difference as a Dr. Seuss book had on Jim tonight. But it is ever so slowly chipping away at me and shaping me into the type of man God wants me to be.

I am thankful that God is patient with me. I pray that I will be patient as well.

Christ is Risen

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 16:34:29 -0400

Thank God.

Even in those times when I am not totally sure that I buy into this whole Christianity thing, I look at Jesus. I listen to his words. I look to his sacrificial love that was exhibited throughout his life. And I remember the resurrection.

I remember that even though there is evil lingering ever so strongly in this world, even though those of us who bear his name make a mockery of it, even though things sometimes seem to fall apart, Christ is risen. Death, evil, sin, and whatever other crap that exists out there has been defeated and will be defeated.

That is something to hold onto. That is something for which to be thankful. Because of Jesus, I have been saved, I am being saved, I will be saved. God’s grace and love is available to us all. May God resurrect each of us heart, soul, mind, and body.

Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Thank God.

This right here makes me smile for so many reasons.

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:36:10 -0400

This right here makes me smile for so many reasons.

Wrath of Man, Love of God

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:19:34 -0400

Last night at church, I sat in the back of the sanctuary with EA and heard again the passages of scripture that lead up to the cross. As the sanctuary blackened, I heard of the betrayal, the abandonment, the abuse, the scorn, the pain, and the hell that was unleashed on Jesus. The entire time, my newborn son was sleeping in my arms.

You can’t hold a child in your arms and hear that story and not think that Jesus was once like that. You can’t not think about the fact that he was a fragile baby boy whose parents loved and protected him. You can’t not think about how your heart would break into a hundred pieces if you had to watch your child suffer the worst this life could offer.

I thought about the fact that Jesus was God’s Son and the utter agony of watching what happened that Friday so long ago. And I realized that there was a glitch in the way that I have always seen Good Friday. Somewhere it had gotten into my theological system that Good Friday was this intermingling of God’s love and God’s wrath.

I don’t know if it was a song lyric or a sermon or just a skewed atonement theory, but part of me always saw the crucifixion as God using humanity to mete out the horrifying punishment on Jesus that we deserved. The lyric that sticks out in my head is “The Wrath of God was satisfied.” Jesus, in a way, shielded us from the monstrous blows of God. As a father, I have a hard time making that fit in with the idea of love.

I still believe that the crucifixion (and life and resurrection) of Jesus made our redemption possible. I still believe that we needed it. And I still believe that I deserve that punishment. Yet I am beginning to think that Good Friday says more about our wrath towards God than God’s wrath towards us.

We created crucifixion. We created betrayal. We created torture. The horror and the hell that Jesus experienced on that day was not God’s creation. It was ours. It was our sin, our wrath towards God that erected this hell on earth. And it reached the point when the greatest Good that ever walked the earth, God with us, was utterly consumed by it all. We did that.

That is important for Good Friday. We are often so eager to rush to Easter Sunday. We need to remember that it was not only our sin that made such a scandalous act of redemption necessary, but it was our sin that created all the wicked things that crucified our Savior. We unleashed wrath on our God. And we must remember that we still unleash wrath today, even those that claim to follow the innocent King.

And so what God, what Jesus does is not wrath, but love. God’s own Son enters into the absolute worst that we could create and somehow turns that wrath in on itself. It is love that sees humanity at its most damned, enters into it, suffers under it, and conquers it.

God still uses the crucifixion to accomplish the same thing. It is still atonement (though we’ll only know what that means in part), it is divine justice, and it is something that we deserved. Yet it is not God unleashing divine wrath upon his Son. It is God loving us so much that He lets his Son enter into our wrath for Him.

I don’t know if that makes any sense. I could be wrong about all of this. It is a subtle difference, but I think it is an important one. It is to me.

So God, forgive us of our wrath and thank You for loving us so much that You entered into it anyway. And thank You that Friday is not the end of the story.

Night of the Bat

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:19:12 -0400

This is the story of the midterm that will henceforth be known as bat-term.

I was upstairs in the office of our new house. It is a big, awesome converted attic space. I was up there taking a seminary midterm that I missed last week when we were at the hospital for Liam’s birth. I was fairly exhausted, but I was trudging through and making some progress.

Between question #6 and #7, I heard a noise. It sounded kind of like a squeak. I peered to my left and this black mass is heading right towards my head. Now this bat turned out to only be about the size of my hand, but I swear to you in that moment, it was the size of an eagle.

I duck and the bat keeps zipping around the room. The room is long and narrow and thus that rodent is bouncing around like an airborne pinball that might have rabies. I am not normally nervous around animals, but in this case, I was terrified. I will never again make fun of Bruce Wayne’s mode of striking fear into criminals.

So I here I am: trapped in a long, narrow room with a territorial, possibly sick, flying beast. After what seemed like ten minutes, but was likely about 30 seconds, the bat zigs over to the corner. I sprint the opposite way to the door and slam it shut. I’m safe, but I quickly realize that my computer is still in the room. A seven-inch flying rodent has seized control of my office and is holding my midterm hostage.

So I head downstairs to tell EA and her mom Marnie (who is staying with us to help out for a few weeks) about our new pet. In the process of trying to figure out what to do, Marnie informs us that she and her husband David found a bat in our bathtub before we moved in. This was news to us. It also made me worry I was going to open that door and a swarm of bats were going to tear out of the office into the rest of the upstairs, finding and biting my sleeping oldest son, and turning him into an emo vampire.

Obviously, we cannot let any of us this happen. I look in the bedroom for a laundry basket to wear on my head, but it then occurs to me that the bat could fly up inside the laundry basket at which point I might as well die. Eventually, Marnie and I settle on the most dangerous bat weapons on which we can get our hands—a beach towel and a broom—and we head upstairs.

We stand at the top of the steps in front of the office door. I hesitate, pray that I won’t have to raise a sparkly vampire offspring, and crack open the door. No swarm. No bat. So we slowly turn the corner into the room. I am holding the beach towel in front of me like a cartoon hunter with a net. Marnie is holding the broom up in the air like Gary Sheffield did a bat.

We slowly creep through the room as tension builds. Finally, Marnie spots my nemesis on the window. We pause because we didn’t actually discuss what we were going to do. We decide that I’ll toss the towel on the rodent and then she will make sure he stays in there with the broom.

So I toss the towel. It covers the bat, but it also somehow—defying physics—stays on the narrow one inch ledge of the window. If I pick that towel up, the bat is going to come out and it is going to be royally ticked. So Marnie puts the broom on top of the towel and we slowly guide the bat prison down to the floor. Now what?

We grab a small trashcan and put the bat on top of the towel. So we’ve properly contained the bat, but quickly realize that we have set up a poor scenario for getting it out of the house. If we flip over the trashcan, he’s flying out. And we certainly cannot slide that trashcan out of the office, over a door threshold, and down a flight of stairs without him escaping.

So we grab a lid to a box (ironically for my comic books). The plan is to slide that slowly under the trashcan and towel, effectively sealing the bat inside. Knowing, that all the bat needs is a big enough opening to escape, we nervously inch the lid underneath. I should mention that the entire time, my computer has been playing music and it is at this moment that it saw fit to start playing “O Fortuna” from Carmina Burana.

We almost get the lid completely underneath, when I notice a squirming. The bat is breaking free as a choir singing in Latin is terrifyingly lamenting fate. Like lightning, Marnie brings the broom down on the side of the trashcan, trapping the rodent between straw and mesh metal. I hold the broom against the can with my foot. And we’re stuck.

To make a long story shorter, ultimately I unscrewed the broomstick off of the broom, and we put a large cardboard box over the trashcan, broom, towel, and lid. The we slide another, larger lid underneath all of that just to be safe. We slide this makeshift Alcatraz all the way over to the office door. At this point, there are so many moving parts that we know turning over the box and shutting it is going to give the bat ample opportunity to escape.

So Marnie heads downstairs to get a trash bag to put over the cardboard box, the trashcan, the broom, the two lids, the towel, and the bat. We shimmy the bag over the contraption and then start trying to tie the bag, periodically yanking our hands back at every squeak.

We take the trash bag outside. We open the bag and run. But the bag did not really open when we untied it. So I tentatively grab the bottom corners of the bag and shake everything loose as I keep hearing the squeaking. The pieces eventually come out, but no bat flies into the night. Now we have to investigate everything.

So here I am in my new neighborhood, standing in my front yard with my mother-in-law at 10:30 at night, poking through trash with a broom stick.

I investigated every part of the prison we built: the trash bag, the lids, the trashcan, the box, and the towel. I never found the bat. We know that it was in that bag when we took it outside. We hope that it flew off when we went back in the house to get a flashlight.

Yet I have seen enough movies to know when you do not find the body, the villain always pops up in the sequel. And if it does, I’ll be ready. Sort of. I’ll probably still be a little terrified, but a little more ready too.