Our Faults

Posted on May 2, 2009 by Jason

“Never was a mother so blind to the faults of her child as our Lord is toward ours.” — Daniel Considine

Posted in Kids, Quotes | Leave a comment

Why?

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Jason

“Dad, why did the Cardinals lose to the Braves?”
“Why do we eat potatoes?”
“Why is there grass?”
“Daddy, why did Jesus die on the cross?”

These are just a few of the questions my kids have asked me over the last week or so. The older ones are at that point of wanting to know why things happen. As a result, I get a lot of “Why?” questions right now. I don’t mind; I know that’s how my kids are learning right now and I remember asking my parents a million similar questions when I was growing up. (On the occasions where the question has taken a bit of a disrespectful tone, I’ve even had to resort to the proverbial “Because I said so” line. Funny how we become our parents, isn’t it?) In fact, our kids ask “Why?” so much these days that Jackson has started mimicking them. When we tell him to put on his shoes or head to the van, inevitably he’ll ask, in his sweet little voice, “WHY?” But with all three kids, no matter how accurate my answers are, there’s a sense in which they never really satisfy. I mean, I could try and explain that the Cardinals lost because Kyle McClellan had poor control in the 8th inning and the home plate ump blew the call on 2-2, giving Matt Diaz an extra swing, which he promptly deposited in the outfield to plate two runners and give the Braves a 2-1 lead Tuesday night. But all of my cause-and-effect reasoning simply leads to more questions. (Especially when I try to explain why Jesus died on the cross!)

Let’s face it: the “why” questions never really go away for us. In fact, it’s been my experience that they only become more frequent and bewildering the older we get. My parents died when I was very young. My sister miscarried three times in a span of three or four years. My best friend’s sister is 35 years old and she’s been diagnosed with breast cancer. A kid who used to be in my youth group is fighting for his life after liver transplant surgery in Arizona. I can hardly keep up with the friends and loved ones who have lost their jobs in the past year. One million children worldwide will be forced into the nightmarish world of child prostitution in 2009.

To all of these situations and countless more, I find myself asking “Why?”. And even when I find a rare answer or two, I’m often still left unsatisfied.

But I’m also learning that “Why?” is also a question of faith. What I mean is that I was taught as a child that one should never question God. God is a sovereign Being whose “ways are not our ways” and trying to understand the reasons why certain things happen is like trying to explain trigonometry to a ladybug. To question God was to act irreverently and disrespectfully. To ask why was tantamount to renouncing the faith.

But the “Why?” questions don’t strike me as being the disrespectful questioning of God that my teachers told me it was. I guess that’s because I’ve done a fair amount of questioning myself and I don’t feel as if I’m some faithless pagan. In fact, the questions (not the pat answers that were recited to me) that produced greater faithfulness in me. Even Jesus on the cross was bold enough (read: faithful enough) to ask God, “Why have you forsaken me?” In the context of this quote (from Psalm 22), the question is a faithful one, full of expectation and hope and yearning for God’s activity in our lives.

At the end of the day, I’m still left with my questions and with an expectation. And I’ve learned that this is often better than any answer anyway.

Posted in Devotional, Jesus, Kids, Scripture | 3 Comments

LOST Season Five: The Variable

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Jason

Well, the producers told us that our last episode (“Some Like It Hoth”) was purposefully a bit slower and humorous, given the direction of the final episodes of Season Five. Boy, they weren’t kidding. This week’s installment, “The Variable”, was a dense, satisfying, shocking hour of programming (the 100th hour in the series). I’m thinking this will probably rank right up there in the top 12 or 15 episodes of all-time for me once I have the chance to watch it again.

With brief opening and closing scenes in Los Angeles circa 2007, the bulk of the episode centers around Daniel’s return to the Island in 1977. In Dharmaville, Farraday approaches Dr. Chang in an effort to warn him about the pending accident at the Swan station. When Chang doesn’t respond, Farraday drops the news that Miles is his son. Chang didn’t buy it immediately, but I’m guessing he’ll come around before season’s end.

Meanwhile, Sawyer and Juliet’s domesticated Dharma existence is collapsing like a house of cards. Holding Phil hostage was only going to work for a little while. I worry that something might happen to Juliet; everyone else is wearing Dharma jumpsuits and she keeps wearing red. Good thing she’s not in an M. Night Shyamalan film.

I really love Farraday’s character. Whereas most of our characters have significant Daddy issues to sort out, Farraday gives us a character who has always been fighting for his mother’s approval and respect. This episode filled in some gaps in his storyline (I’m glad we got to see why he was crying when he first saw the staged Oceanic crash on TV) and it also advanced the mythology in some pretty crucial ways. Here’s the quick run down of what we learned, with a few questions sprinkled in:

  • Farraday is Widmore’s son and Eloise is Widmore’s baby mama. I guess this makes Penny and Daniel half-siblings (I’m assuming Penny is the child Widmore had with someone off-Island that was referenced a few episodes back). These ideas have been circulating for some time, but it’s nice to get some confirmation.
  • Eloise explains that Ben’s attempt to murder Desmond was precipitated by her son, Daniel. How is this true? Eloise makes a comment toward the end of the episode that for the first time in a long while, she doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. Is this an indication that the future (Eloise’s present) has in fact been changed. If “whatever happened, happened” is still true, is there a sense in which “whatever hasn’t happened yet, may or may not happen”? Has Eloise been stuck in some sort of perpetual time loop only to have that loop broken now by some force outside herself (The Island, perhaps?). Do these last two or three sentences even make sense? Boy, this show messes with my head.
  • With 4 hours or so before Farraday’s predicted “accident” at the Swan, will Jack and Kate take Farraday’s advice and detonate the hydrogen bomb from earlier in the season? And if so, how will this shape the direction of Season Six? Is it possible that Season Six becomes a dramatic replaying of what the lives of the Oceanic 815ers would have looked like if the plane had never crashed?
  • How did Farraday get off the Island in the first place? I was hoping to hear more about his time off the Island in Ann Arbor. Guess we won’t be hearing about that now.
  • For the record, I wasn’t expecting Daniel to be shot by his mother. But that certainly explains her comment about sacrifice, how she had to send her son back to the Island, knowing that….and then she was cut off. Now we know what she was about to say. What would drive Eloise to do something like this? Does she truly believe this is her son’s “destiny”, to be shot by a younger version of herself (before he was even born, perhaps?) or is she holding out hope for an Island healing / resurrection? Remember, we’re at the point now where she doesn’t know what’s going to happen.
  • Still no Rose or Bernard. It’s been, like, 12 episodes.
  • Confirmation: Widmore IS the one who satged the Oceanic crash.
  • LOVED Jack sticking up for Kate, telling Sawyer she can speak up and say whatever she wants. Maybe we’re finally going to get Jack with more of a backbone again.
Posted in Television | 19 Comments

Rat Pack Night: Jamie Foxx??

Posted on April 29, 2009 by Jason

Am I the only one who is confused by American Idol’s “mentor” choice for Rat Pack Week?

Michael Buble? Too obvious.

Harry Connick, Jr.? Nah.

Producers chose Jamie Foxx to “coach” the Top 5 on the nuances of singing these classic American standards.

Because an R&B artist with an album called “Peep This” is the natural fit for Rat Pack Week.

Could you find an artist with less of a connection to Big Band / Jazz? What, was Quiet Riot not available? Was Ted Nugent not available?

I hear Mickey Gilley is going to be the guest mentor for next week’s hip-hop themed episode.

Posted in Humor, Television | Leave a comment

A Morning Reminder

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Jason

All right, so allow me this indulgent moment to brag on my son: (although, isn’t the whole idea of a blog indulgent? Writing about your little life with the assumption that anybody would want to read it in the first place? I digress)

This morning, the kids slept in a little bit; Joshua was the first one of them to wake up. He came out into the den while I was getting my shoes on. We exchanged hugs and did our little knuckles handshake. Then he looked up and he goes, “Dad, there is no one like our God.”

A little morning reminder of our incomparable God.

Posted in Devotional, God, Kids | 3 Comments

American Idol and the Myth of Meritorious Salvation

Posted on April 25, 2009 by Jason

If you’re a fan of American Idol, you no doubt know by now the “shocking” and “unprecedented” results of last week’s elimination show. For the uninitiated, this year the biggest TV show in the world added a new dramatic wrinkle to its otherwise bland and bloated elimination results show. This season, the AI judges can choose to “save” an eliminated performer if they determine said performer “deserves” to stay in the competition. Once the contestant finds out he / she is eliminated, they are quickly handed a microphone and told “sing for your life”. (The ironic part is that contestants are forced to sing the same song that America voted them out for singing. Seems cruel if you ask me. To both the contestant and America!) If their performance is deemed worthy by unanimous vote by the judges, they’ll find salvation and live to sing another week.

This new wrinkle, known as “the judges’ save”, can only be used once per season. Here’s the catch: after the judges’ save is used, two performers must go home the next week. Last week, contestant Matt Giraud was spared elimination. (Actually this was the second time Giraud was the beneficiary of the judges’ grace, as he was an original “Wild Card” contestant early on in the season.) With the crowds and fellow contestants chanting “save, save, save” like some old gladiator movie, Simon Cowell looked Matt squarely in the eye and shared with him the results of the judges’ deliberation: “Matt….it’s good news.”

Here’s the bottom line. This week, furious texters around the country doubled their efforts to ensure that their favorite “artist” didn’t get sent home in a “stunning” double-elimination event, thus resulting in a record text-message turnout (45 million). From that perspective, I’m sure the judges’ save accomplished exactly what the producers hoped it would. But it also highlighted for me an idea that permeates our culture: the notion that salvation can be merited. In my mind, I’ve been asking myself all week: what does it mean to “deserve” to be saved? The blogs were humming this week, affirming that Matt indeed “deserved” it, whereas other contestants certainly did not. What does deserved salvation look like? And if you deserved to be saved, did you really need to be saved in the first place? All of this begs us to define what exactly we mean by the term “salvation”. For many of us, it simply means bucking up and trying harder.

But what about when your best isn’t good enough? That’s when we get kicked to the curb (or, in AI-verbiage, our “journey” ends, complete with video montage and Carrie Underwood soundtrack). Of course, the good news (evangelion) of Christian witness is that salvation is neither earned nor merited. To say it differently, salvation does not originate from within us. It comes from without; it comes as the unmerited gift of God for life. It doesn’t come as the result of some performance; it doesn’t come from our efforts at trying harder, being more holy, drawing something out of ourselves in order to please a capricious Judge. (Thankfully, “pitchy” isn’t part of God’s vocabulary!) It comes completely and undeniably as a gift.

And this is truly good news.

Posted in Devotional, Gospel, Jesus, Television | 2 Comments

Washington Natinals

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Jason

Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn, sporting their "Natinals" unis

I know I’m a couple of days late on posting this, but this absolutely cracked me up. Two players for the Washington Nationals baseball club were given jerseys that misspelled the team name. Instead of “Nationals”, the jerseys had the team name spelled as “Natinals”. Insert your own joke about the team’s lack of offensive firepower.

It’s not apples and apples, but it reminds me of the summer I interned for the “Maple Hill church of Chris”. (The “t” had blown off the church lettering on the outside of the building.) My ministry friends really gave me a hard time for that one, calling me a heretic, etc. Good times.

Posted in Baseball, Humor | 7 Comments

Risky Love

Posted on April 21, 2009 by Jason

Over the past few years, this passage of Scripture has become more and more meaningful to me. In Jesus’ day, the Jewish rabbis would spend a lot of time discussing and prioritizing the laws in order of importance. So the question that the scribe puts to Jesus (“Which commandment is the most important of all?” Mark 12:28) would have been a common one. Jesus responds by referring to the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, also known in Judaism as “The Great Teaching”.

Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Jesus affirms the commonly held assumption that love for Yahweh was the greatest command, the ultimate goal of Israel’s existence. It is no accident that the Deuteronomist records this great teaching immediately on the heels of The Ten Commandments (in Hebrew, “the ten words”). The first and primary commandment God gives His people at Sinai is that they should have no other gods before Him. This is what it means to love God with heart, soul, mind, strength. Love for God is devotion, worship. Love for God has always been the first and primary commandment.

But then Jesus does something a little different (as He was prone to do). He reaches back deep in Torah, dusts off the latter half of a forgotten passage in Leviticus 19 – “…but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” – and resuscitates it by placing it squarely alongside the Shema. For Jesus, love for God is intrinsically tied to love for others. It seems there is no place in the Gospel of Jesus for a love for God that does not manifest itself in love for neighbor.

Jesus is actually standing in a long stream of Jewish prophets who proclaimed God’s will that His people tend to the needs of the alien, the stranger, the sojourner, the widow, the orphan, the least of these. God never intended for His people to indulge in self-absorbed navel gazing; His desire was always for His people to be a light to the nations. But where Israel failed miserably at this, Jesus succeeds. The command has never changed; only know, we’ve been shown The Way.

But this Way of Jesus — this Way of loving God with all that is within me and all that is without me; this way of loving others with a relentless, unquenchable love; this way of loving others the way God loves them — it continues to challenge me. I’m more and more convinced that this Way leads to only one place: the cross. You can’t love like this without it leading to death.

And that scares me.

To love as Jesus loved is risky.

Posted in Deuteronomy 6 (The Shema), Jesus, Leviticus 19, Love God, Love Others, Scripture, The Jesus Creed | Leave a comment

In Concert

Posted on April 20, 2009 by Jason

Well, Lord willing, I’ll be able to cross one more thing off the bucket list this year.

On October 6th, I’ll be joining a friend of mine in the ATL to see U2’s 360 tour. I’ve been a U2 fan for as far back as I can remember. I still maintain that “The Joshua Tree” is one of the finest pieces of recorded music I’ve ever heard. But the band’s latest release, “No Line On the Horizon”, is an absolute masterpiece. I’ve been spinning it nonstop since I downloaded it at the beginning of March. I can’t get “Breathe” out of my head. Great song.

Sunny and I used to see concerts all the time when we were dating. Growing up in Nashville, there were always some great summer concerts at Starwood Amphitheatre. In fact, one of our first “dates” was a group outing to a Reba McEntire concert. I didn’t tell her at the time, but I can’t stand Reba. (She was probably my father’s least favorite artist. Ever. Call it a generational curse, I guess.) Over the years, Sunny and I have been to a ton of shows. Off the top of my head, we’ve seen Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, The Wallflowers, Counting Crows, Barenaked Ladies, The Dixie Chicks, The Avett Brothers, Third Day (multiple times), Lost and Found (multiple times), David Crowder (multiple times), Chris Tomlin, Jars of Clay, and Hootie & the Blowfish in concert. In addition, I’ve seen George Strait, Diamond Rio, Alabama, Dwight Yoakam, Ricky Skaggs, and Brooks & Dunn. (Like I said, I grew up in Nashville.) I even saw Boyz II Men in concert back in their heyday. One of my earliest memories is my father taking me to a Johnny Cash show in Hendersonville when I was 4 or 5; I still have the little “Man In Black” T-shirt he bought me. All this to say: I’ve always been a fan of live music.

When I scratch U2 off the list, Coldplay will probably move up to become the band I’d most like to see in concert (although most of their live performances I’ve seen over the years have been a little underwhelming). While we’re at it, they’re in Birmingham next month. Who’s in? 🙂

Posted in Friends, Music, Sunny | 3 Comments

Thanks

Posted on April 19, 2009 by Jason

Just a quick thank you to everyone who contributed to our fundraiser for the March of Dimes. I know it’s a tough economy these days and every dollar is tight for everybody, but we were able to meet our fundraising goal and we appreciate your support.

Posted in March of Dimes | Leave a comment