From Hip Hop to Orthodoxy

Why Can't I Shake It?

2006-04-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I'm somehow more distrurbed than I expected by the death of Proof of D12 fame. I never really listened to anything of theirs, and thought that what I did hear was a lot like Eminem himself without any insight or thought as to the source of their behaviors. But when my friend told me about it, I was shocked.

And even now it makes me sick to my stomach to think that he was not so much a victim but possibly a perpetrator at the time of his death.

I think I had some vague notion that there would be redemption for Eminem and his crew, somehow--that they would turn from violence once they had acheived some level of success. But this is what their successes glorify, I suppose. Proof was keeping it real, right? But in all seriousness, as Chappelle says, sometimes keeping it real goes wrong.

Yep, I KNEW it!

2006-02-24T10:28:00.000-08:00

Sure enough, seminary and semen are related words.

Whoa!

2006-01-26T11:50:00.000-08:00

Woe to you, Nashville! Woe to you, Colorado Springs! For if the mighty works performed among you had been done in Vegas or New Orleans, they would've repented a long time ago, put on black clothes in mourning with their faces and tears in the dirt.

Tookie MUST NOT DIE

2005-11-23T20:29:00.001-08:00

The other day I was informed by a coworker that Stanley "Tookie" Williams, co-founder of the infamous Crips in L.A. is sentenced to be executed on December 13, 2005. Stanley Williams has been in prison for the murder of four people since 1981. In 1988 he was put in the hole (total isolation). He didn't come out until 1994.

During the time he was in the hole, Tookie found purpose in his life. He was inspired to study the dictionary and read, read, read. When he came out, he coauthored 6 books for children on the negative effects of gangs and gang life. He wrote a book for young adults titled "Life in Prison" about the realities of prison life, another attempt at keeping kids from getting into the downward spiral of street life all together. He earned enough merit to travel to schools across the country while still incarcerated. He started a newsletter that is circulated to young offenders in juvenile detention centers and adult prisons. Corrections officers have used his materials for young inmates being reintroduced to society.

Criminoligists say that he has done more to articulate the causes of black-on-black crime than anyone else, criminologist or criminal. Now the State of California has decided to execute him after 24 years behind bars. The highest federal court in California rejected his plea for a stay of execution. The only person who can save him at this point is Governor Arnold Scharzenegger(sp?).

He is not even trying to get out of prison, he's just trying to continue doing what he's been doing with what's left of his natural life. I was truly touched by this story, because there are too few people who give hope to kids wrapped up in street life. So here I am asking that you think, read, and pray about this issue. Then, if God so compels you, call the governor, spread the word to as many people as you can.

If you want to know more about this issue:

http://www.savetookie.org/

The actual petition for clemency:
http://www.cm-p.com/pdf/executiveclemency.pdf

Check it and see what you can do...

And yes, I wrote this all myself. I am not copying and pasting spam.

Blessings

2005-11-15T10:02:00.000-08:00

Michael Frost wrote
[One core practice in our church community is to bless] others at least 3 times every week- someone in the community, someone outside of the community and a third from either of those groups.

Jeannie U. wrote
what does it mean to "bless" someone? how you would all describe it, in terms of what it really looks like, feels like. is it just praying for each other?

_________________________________

I was about to reference Strong's concordance when I actually read Jeannie's post more thoroughly. Blessed is she for asking this question! It's a great one. "Bless" is one of those words that Christians love to toss around often without thinking about what it might actually mean beyond sounding generally positive. To me, to bless someone else would be to show them favor.

When I say that I'm blessed, I am acknowledging God's favor toward me as one of his adopted children, set apart by the work of his son. When I think of being blessed, I think of Jesus' opening words in his sermon on the mount, where he uses the term "blessed" over and over again. I think the implication is that for those who mourn their poverty of spirit, who are meek and hungry and thirsty for righteousness, who are pure-hearted peacmakers, persecuted for their righteousness, these are favored by God. It is a favored position, not one to be ashamed of, because the rewards that God bestows are manifold!

Thus, after rambling, I will sum it up by saying that, for me at least, blessing others is showing favor. Maybe that means buying a homeless person a slice of pizza, or giving your friend a ride to work even though it makes you late, calling someone to tell them you love them, praying for their strength and faith to grow, or healing on the sabbath. Maybe what Frost has in mind is different, but that's blessing to me.

Hip Hop Battles: What Are They Good For?

2005-11-13T00:26:00.000-08:00

[For context to this blog read this and then listen to the battle raps ("Kevin Winkle" and "Eat35 Battle Record", respectively) on the following web pages: htttp://www.myspace.com/835rappin and http://www.myspace.com/yamio263. WARNING: EXPLICIT LYRICS AND NOT SO NICE CONTENT]

Before the beef between 8:35 and Yamio emerged online--it is, as Yamio states on his own blog, close to a decade stale--I sent Yamio a message in response to something he wrote in a song called, "It's Like That." A track seething with venom, an emcee featured on the song says that his music will sell because "it's blood. They love it." Then he says something to the effect that he's hard enough to walk around "with a gun in public."

Yamio, for his part, proceeds to speak negatively of virtually everyone in his middle verse. This, of course, is the nature of the emcee battle. But he starts talking about the crew Forgotten Dialect, of which I was a part back in the day. He dissed everyone specifically, with the exception of Kayer (a.k.a Kazrah, Kaerah, Kaer) and myself. Kayer still raps and puts out straight hip hop material, so I suppose that's why he goes untouched. And though he doesn't explicitly diss me in the middle of a battle track, he says, in effect, that as long as I am not putting hip hop first (making beats, writing rhymes, doing shows, etc.), I am wasting my life.

Forgotten Dialect disbanded long ago, and many of the guys who were in the original crew have continued to make music, or remained involved in the hip hop world in some capacity. Some still Dj, some still rap, some still bomb trains, but for the most part, hip hop is not what they do for a living. Yamio took this to mean that they--really, we--have fallen off.

So I wrote to Yamio expressing my dismay at the way he wrote about me, and the context in which he wrote about me. I felt as though he was being condescending, like I needed to check myself and my priorities in life. That hurt. I have two children and my beautiful wife to support. I work at a bookshop full time, I'm going to school part time, I spend my weekends with the fam. My initial reaction was to respond in kind. I got him started making beats and writing rhymes and painting. I know his family. But I knew that wouldn't solve anything. I knew I would end up right where he is with 8:35. And everybody knows that this is unproductive. This is a microcosm for the eastcoast/westcoast, B.I.G./Tupac, Jay-Z/Nas, 50 Cent/Ja Rule P.R. entertainment bullshit that I thought we all hated. But I see people jumping on and posting this and that, so I guess I was wrong.

I told Yamio in my message that battling is hardly useful in building hip hop community, with the exception of being aimed at the betterment of one's opponent. If an emcee tore into their competitor's real flaws, not that they're like a dog that needs a whooping for stepping out of line, or telling them that they're a bitch, but got down to the real issues, I might actually appreciate it more. But see, these guys don't even know each other well enough to do that. They just have hate (or boredom) that needs appeasement, so they channel it in whichever direction sets them off. That's wack. Ask anybody who has been through it (that doesn't have an ego the size of Texas).

Back in the day, emcees would battle about who was the dopest, and yeah, there was some real beef, but look at those same cats now. The beef is hip hop legend, now they're working on building global community together. That's what we need to do. We need to continue to battle wack emcees who rape the culture for its lucrative appeal, or who cheapen it by inflating their egos beyond reason or comprehension.

I know what battles are about. I have witnessed and participated in them more than once. I have Canibus' "Second Round K.O." on vinyl. What I'm saying is that everybody needs to sit down and listen (I know that's hard for rappers) to "Hello, Hi, Hey" like it's a textbook for the class, cause they nod their heads, but they don't hear it.

"Beef is when workin' niggas can't find jobs/
So they tryna find niggas to rob/
Tryna find bigger guns so they can finish the job/
Beef is when the crack kids can't find moms/
Cause they end up inna PINE box or locked behind bars...

When a soldier ends his life with his own gun/
Beef is tryin' to figure out what to tell his son/
Beef is oil prices and geopolitics/
Beef is Iraq, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip/
Some beef is big and some beef is small/
But what y'all call beef is not beef at all..."
--Mos Def (with Talib Kweli), "What's Beef", 2003

Visa to Heaven Rewards Program

2005-11-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

I'm talking the results of your life...
And that means character and Christ-likeness...

-Bob Hyatt

Here's how I see the Visa to Heaven Rewards Program:

Our mission is to know Christ and to see him as he truly is. Paul and the rest of Christ's closest friends were clearly closer to Jesus than any of us will ever be in this life. When we start over with the perfectly purified life, the character and Christ-likeness that we developed will carry over into that incorruptable life with God. Some will have learned less of the treasure and beauty and power of Jesus than others, but all of us will see him as he really is--no bias. And if God's being is infinite, then there will never be an end to knowing him. We will know all of his perfections, but we will never know them fully; we will spend eternity delving into that infinite depth of perfection that is our God.

The apostle Paul, because of his life experience with Christ and the way he chose to live, is way ahead of me on that journey into knowing God. That is his reward, being closer, being "ahead" in the unending race for the fullness of God. This eradicates envy, jealousy, resentment, and regret. We all will have what our hearts have been longing for, and we will all be striving forward through eternity for more. Yet each of us, as a result of our life lived, will begin post-death eternity from different places. And when we see Paul, we will see Christ in him and want more of Christ, not more power or money or authority. When we see Peter, we will ask him why he was so freakin' stubborn and laugh at him, walking away.

But really, that's how I think of rewards in heaven. Not the cause of class, but the effect of our earthly relationships, with God, people, creatures, and the planet.

The Sense of Community

2005-09-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

Sesame Donuts is a family run business at the intersection of Beaverton-Hillsdale and Scholls Ferry. It has been there since I moved to Portland from Detroit in 1986. My mother got a job there when I was very little, probably one of her first after relocating. I remember her bringing home the old donuts from the end of her shift, and while my brother got sick of eating donuts for dinner, I never did tire of the expectation, delight and fulfillment of donuts for every meal and occasion.

I don't know if they remember me from my childhood--surely I will never forget how they always worked hard and happily, giving away donuts and much-desired attention to children like me--but I have just recently been made "cousin." I don't fully know what that means, except that they like me and I love them.

When it was announced that I was cousin, one of the other family members (by blood) asked me, "Why are you a cousin?" She had this look on her face like I was just admitted into the club without the full approval of the board. In order to avoid conflict, I simply smiled (and probably turned red) and gestured to the kindly man who had made me cousin saying, "You'll have to ask him."

I don't think she was offended, just confused. I thought it was a joke, but maybe they're serious about offering cousinhood to customers come in. Or maybe she thought it had something to do with my skin color. The family is middle eastern and I have a tan complexion. Maybe she thought I really was somehow related. I should have told her, it confused me, too.

Upon returning to the store a few days later with my wife and youngest daughter (who was immediately greeted with smiles, hellos and a chocolate glazed donut hole), I relayed the story of having my cousinhood questioned to the gentleman who made the pronouncement. He explained that we are always so easy to help and so nice when we come in. I thought to myself, Really?! How could I not be? I thought everyone who came in here could sense the joy and enthusiasm that permeates this place. The regulars sitting and drinking their coffee with the morning paper, the woman I've seen in here twice with the middle eastern garb that makes the whole donut joint light up with culture. Don't other people feel the smiles on them when they walk through the door?

So I ordered an iced caramel latte and we sat down with our donuts and my drink. An apparent regular, an older gentleman with a blue trucker hat that said "hang loose" with a caricatured finger-and-thumb on the front, was doing a crossword (in pen!) a couple tables away from us. He took immediate notice of our little one. He smiled and told a joke about a little boy eating the half of the donut with the icing on it before sharing the other half with a friend. We laughed.

Just then, the man who dubbed me cousin walked up with a newspaper in hand. I had left it on the counter after reading the headline. He asked if we had forgotten to bring it to the table. I quickly apologised for not having returned it to the news rack. And he stood there, a very serious look across his face. "Oh," he said, "that's fine. Do you want it? 'Cause I will give it to you, if you want it. Do you want it?" He looked intently at the paper, perhaps just reading the headline, but seeming very serious about giving it to me just for the convenience. I refused to take the free paper, but the gesture was so genuine. I should give him this paper. He might want to read it. seemed to be the thought behind his expression.

He returned the paper to the stand for me. The old man doing his crossword said, "He was serious. He would have given you the paper." Yeah, he would have. He put kindness over sales. I know it was only a 35 cent paper, but he wanted to give it away. He had no desire to sell it. It was a beautiful thing that just added that much more desire for community to my being. Something tells me that after seeing them give away so many donuts, and to sell them so cheap, it isn't merely money that keeps it going. It's community.

Struggle and Realization

2005-07-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

Entry: 7.19.05 5:32pm
What do I know? For all of the knowledge I have in my head, I cannot see God with the clarity I once possessed. God is there, and even if I reject him, he is still there. What kind of apologetic is this, that I should deny the God I believe in? There is always something in me that will not allow me to fully reject Jesus, for I know with all of my heart that he is real, and that the gospels are true. But I have no commitment to him, or to them. My passion is affixed to lower terrain. I struggle to unite once again my very lifeblood with Christ, but it seems that my energies fail. Perhaps I should think that God is draining me of my own illusions of self-sufficiency once again, but I should not be so deceived to think that my lack of discipline and relentless shirking of my relations with my God are something that he would casually pass over. Are these not the cornerstones of faith? For how should I be saved if my passion is not above all for him; if our relations are like that of amicably distant departed lovers; if my discipline in doing his will (which is above all to love him and others more than my own life) is dismal, forgotten, less than a priority? It should not be this way with me.

Entry:7.26.05 3:20pm
I seem to have emerged from a valley, and am now ascending the hillside to see the glory of God's mercy like a sun shining down on me. God would never casually pass over the sins of any, but has exacted his payment in full: the blood of Christ is evidence. It is not only the evidence, but also the means by which God passes over my sin. But not casually. Jesus -God in a human suit- suffered pain, torture, and a slow, suffocating death, so that I could turn from his father in so many ways and still have a place at the table. I am nothing, worthy of destruction in the presence of the King of the universe, yet the King came to me and said, "Trust in me. My power is perfected in your weakness. Be weak that I may be shown to be strong, able to save you."

A mighty apologetic indeed, not in the strength of my own wits or ability to save myself, but in God's ability through Jesus' death to rescue me from my own stupid, self-pitying destruction. This whole struggle is a testament to God's mercy.

Drugs

2005-07-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

It's funny that the FDA approves drugs with side effects that include death while marijuana remains illegal, and in federal cases can get you a life sentence without possibility of parole.

Cigarettes and alcohol are legal, yet they are connected with the leading causes of death in the United States (cancer, car accidents).

During WWII the US government encouraged midwestern farmers to grow 300,000 acres of marijuana for use in the production of hemp rope and to further stimulate the domestic economy, only to make it illegal once again after the war had been "won" (See Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness for a fuller exposition of this event in our nation's illustriously backward history).

As a result, marijuana now grows wild along the roadside throughout the midwest. They call it ditch weed, and it is usually not at all potent. But Schlosser suggests that ditch weed may be cross pollinating with more potent strains still being grown (illegally - for now) on farms in the region.

Is it really worth all of the effort to keep a plant illegal, especially when it has so many benefits beyond any possible medicinal use? Truly, it is reefer madness.

Palm Readings

2005-07-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

(Notes to myself on my pda)

Cannot God be broader than the bounds of a single theology?

Jesus' desire to usher us into the feast in the kingdom is like parents trying to get a 2-year old dressed for a holiday feast where food and family are waiting to be enjoyed.

Jets overhead on the fourth of July are a display of power toward pride [and awe and security]. Jets overhead on the eve of war is the display of power toward terror and destruction. [We are often privileged to witness the former without the contemplation of those who bear awful witness the latter].

Make a track of silence 1 second long and call it "The Eternal."

Nuance eventually becomes orthodoxy to the exclusion of all nuances.

What Does That Say About Christian Commitment to Family?

2005-07-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

There was a spider web over the shelf of Marriage and Relationship books when I came to work this morning.

A Moment of Clarity, Befuddled Into the Ether

2005-06-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

“We may go through meeting after meeting, and all of it is reassuringly familiar, but we do not come out saying, in effect, 'Surely, we have met with the living God!'"

That is authentic worship. That is what is sought in real worship, to meet with God as Moses in the tent. This is an experience so intense that it changes our appearance, like the glow that women can sense of other women who have just conceived. So authenticity is a means, but it is not an end. The end is two-fold: to meet with God, and to put his glory on display in our lives.

So I want to be authentic, because the alternative is that I have not encountered God, I have not let him in. So I am faking it in order to fit in, or in order that I may work myself into an encounter rather than to simply surrender to his Spirit.

This is where I fail, in time with God. Moses spent time with God. Let us not immediately go to the spiritual metaphor or typology that these events may infer. Let us remember that Moses was a real sin-soaked man, and that the presence of God in the tent of meeting was very real, and that he experienced it tangibly.

Today, there is no tent, no temple, except the one we each walk around in and which our souls carry with us. And that pillar of cloud has diffused throughout the whole earth, so that God’s presence is in all places at all times. And so time can be spent with God anywhere, under any circumstances, mundane or critical. Through prayer and meditation on the message of God’s mercy through Christ, we may surrender ourselves to his will at all times.

Last Sunday, we found that in the first book of John, he writes that we can know and be sure that God hears us right now, and that we can ask God for anything in line with his will. Bob reminded us that before we ask for anything, we must ask God what his will is. I fail in doing this, preferring to work out my own solutions. Rather than the consultation of an invisible being, I prefer to work with what is concrete. And then I wonder why confusion ensues rather than trust. Because I haven’t met with the living God!

I know that he is continually at work in and around me, working all things together for my good, because I love him and have been called according to his purpose (not my own). But I insist on trying my own purposes out as being his will. I have failed to surrender to God in meeting with him, and thus being transformed by his mere presence.

Isaiah, in the sixth chapter of his prophecy, writes of his encounter with the living God. This vision is overwhelming as an image in my mind. Isaiah said, “Woe to me, for I am undone! I am a man of unclean lips!” In the presence of God, all Isaiah could say was, “I’m coming apart! My mouth is filthy!” Before God, Isaiah was seen through like a million particles of crystal clear glass. God knew him perfectly, and Isaiah felt the eyes of God upon him.

Moses went into the tent of meeting and came out with a glow so bright that the Jews had to put a veil over his face to even look in his direction. Paul was tossed off his high horse by the revelation of Jesus as Lord, and it radically, extremely shifted the course of his whole life and thought. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 that by beholding the beauty of God in the face of Jesus, we are transformed into the very image we behold. The longer we behold it, the more we are transformed.
The image of Jesus, the true Logos of God, is his message, the Bible, which is given life and made clear by the presence of the Spirit. Behold it.

The presence of God in surrendering prayer and meditation is like living with a friend, where an exchange of words and intentions has its transformative effect. The longer I spend with my wife, the more I become like her. The more time she spends with me, the more she becomes like me. Truly we become one new being, as over time together, we exchange parts of ourselves in the creation of a whole being. This is how we should live with Christ and desire to be so close to him, that without necessarily realizing it, through mundane things, in critical moments, we are transformed from one degree of glory to another until we are like him. And, as the writer of 1 John says, we don’t know what Jesus will be like when he comes again, but we know that we will be like him, because we are his children transformed into his image!

Hamtramck

2005-06-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

From here to Hamtramck
I spread wide panic
Like mondays make you manic
You'll drop your mug like ceramic
Exposing your glass jaw
Frozen like words on paper
Chosen by my grazing gaze affixed
Decomposed like the music in my brain
We can close the deal
Rainmaker on Kapiti Plain
Drawn in 3-D Graffitti planes
Beyond dawn completely drained
Like inkwells felled then neatly staining
Papyrus scrolls unfurled like a rap sheet
Upon arraignment
You better rock your finest raiment
It's Judgement Day,
Hell, clothes couldn't save you
God extracts exact payment
Name it and claim it:
Hypocritical mystic straggling two steps behind attainment
Say my name in vain

You caught static like a shuffle on shag to the door knob
I'm machine-like teeth and your the corn cob
Or I'm before time
Your just yesterday's jester phase
Played for a gay time and a laugh
You must a got your rhymes from a bathroom stall
AWWWWWWWW......

Ransom Paid

2005-05-25T18:54:00.000-07:00

My Word is withheld until I speak. Therefore I seek its return to the womb of my hand, so that the fetus of the Spirit might mature within me; so that the gestation period in my sentence of death will spring with new life as the flower breaks crusty, dirty earth from an embedded seed to show its raiment, finer than Solomon's garb.

Pastor, I beg you, implore you, GIVE ME BACK MY WORD.

Without it I wither just like a seedling in desert sand. My roots too shallow in the world of God, my foliage too frail to receive the fullness of the brilliant glory of the Son without my life-giving water.

Pastor, I beg you, implore you, GIVE ME BACK MY WORD.

Good night.

The Eventual, Unavoidable

2005-05-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

Meditate on your death for a moment.

The room you are in will no longer occupy you.

The people you know can no longer speak to you.

Your body will decay.

There is no way around it.

Does this give you perspective on the things that matter?

Das Capital

2005-04-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

I find it ironic that modern american christians, as a group, continually denounce becoming a part of the "kingdom of this world" and are on their guard to protect against any possible infiltration that would dirty the holy robes of mercy Jesus has bestowed upon them in his infinite mercy. Meanwhile, the great many suburban christians make a weekly pilgrimage en masse to multimillion dollar auditoriums to hear 20-piece ensembles and messages projected with state-of-the-art gear, to worship in a building where the focus is a giant television and the speaker's talk is streamed via satellite in real time to the venue (so that another thousand can be added to the attendance sheet). They leave at 10:30am or 12:30pm - by way of SUV, Lexus, Mercedes Benz, Range Rover, BMW - heading home for NFL Sunday or March Madness on the other big screen in the living room. Monday morning, it's off to trade stocks and lay off employees, off to maximize shareholder value and to be more productive, living to meet the challenges of supply and demand.

Is capitalism not the destroyer? Does it not turn small, vibrant community churches into vast, programmatic mega-mosoleums? Does it not take the inevitability of work and make slavery of it? Does it not take music and make of it an industry to be commodified, copyrighted, and mass produced? Is it not the most naked system of monetary pursuit? Capitalism is the way of life for us in the west, and increasingly in the world. Is the way of market forces not contrary to Mighty God? One cannot serve God and Dollar; there is a choice to be made for all of us. The world is no more evil than it ever was, but this "Christian Nation" has found it's Christ in capital gain. Mammon is our Messiah. But death is the eye of the needle, and our camels cannot come with us.

The corporation has single-handedly overcome all of our institutions: Education, Healthcare, Entertainment, Politics, Faith - FAITH. Regardless of religion, whatever we believe about the universe and our place in it is at the heart of our reactions to it.

...I had another four paragraphs to this and I lost them. Satan is at work! Just kidding... sort of...

Hip...Hop...Tans...mitter

2005-04-02T16:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know that the subtitle of my blog is from Hip Hop to Orthodoxy, so here goes - an online freestyle:

I master the craft of casting the good spell
Which I suppose I could sell
To raise up outta the hood, hell
I would sell my soul
And work for the devil
Shoveling spit
Pedaling sickness
Staying relevant for business

I could then kick the gift
Like Solomon with his wisdom
But fortunately
I got a hand in his riches
I jacked a fist full
Of experience
Literarily
Vicariously
He spared me
From the heat
And the shovel
And the wandering pitbull
And my thought process so wishful

So rather I rescue slaves from the grave
Showing them the way
To the living deity who forgave
By living and dying in a human's place
I sing John Newton's Amazing Grace
So sweet
In the cleft of the Rock I'm safe
What a waste
It would be to turn away
From such an offer
To load up the coffers
In a world soon turned to ash
Cash is burning with it
Don't resist that
Irresistable Force
Or you will miss it.

Couch Surfing

2005-03-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

I'm just sitting here at the beach, staring out over the massive expanse of ocean before me. I can't help but think of the massiveness of the ocean even though I can see only so many miles of it from here. It has so much power and force, yet it is itself subject to the pull of a rock millions of miles away. It crushes shorelines day and night without rest. At the same time, the waves seem to move in slow motion, and never have I seen them overwhelm the shores.

As I look farther beyond the cresting, foaming waves, the water is shimmering and calm to the naked eye. But back there I know that there are arching swells creeping toward me silently, rocking up and down a difference of 20 feet every few seconds. And the seagulls are playing. At least it looks like fun to me. They swoop down just in front of a curling wave, riding right along the razor's edge, almost surfing until, at just the right moment, they pull up and the wave collapses into a million noisy little foam fingers crawling and spreading along the surface of the flowing water, leaving behind a marbled green sea that gives more depth and dimesion to the apex of the next wave about to crest and crash again. For a moment I'm right with the bird, breathing adrenaline, almost feeling the brisk wind in my face. It's good to be here.

2005-03-15T20:54:00.000-08:00

When it comes to really understanding politics, Noam Chomsky is unequivocally rad.

One statement that he made is turning in my head incessantly: States are violent.

Why? What is the end through which violence is the necessary means of the state?

Beyond the Bible

2005-03-10T01:30:00.000-08:00

When the thought first occurred to me, it sounded a bit like heresy. Scripture is the inspired voice of God, alive, active, beneficial to all of us for learning and being taught about who God is and what he has done for us through Jesus Christ. You can’t go beyond that, can you?

Pick up a Bible. What you hold in your hands is a door. A door, in and of itself, is no more significant than the tree cut down to make it. What changes the significance of a door is what it leads into. The Bible is not an end. We do not study the Bible to know the Bible, we study the Bible to know the God who wrote the Bible. We can memorize the whole thing, and it will make no difference if God is not at work in us.

Christians are called not to their Bibles, but to God who reveals himself through the doorway of the Bible. So many Christians approach the doorway and are so excited at having found it that they never move beyond the threshold. They stay there, memorizing, theorizing about what God must be like, rebuking others who come to different conclusions, having never seen the magnificent work of God in their own lives. Imagine walking up to a party at someone’s house and socializing at the door. You run into people you’ve seen before as they head through, and you wonder why no one is staying by the door. Or better, everyone is standing at the door with you. No one has the desire to go inside, but everybody wants to stand right by the door, maybe catch a glimpse of the Life of the party. People start scuffling about who has rights to the threshold cause they were there first. They can’t really hear the music, and the host keeps making his way to the door saying, “You guys might as well come in, it’s cold as Hell outside and I’m closing the door in a minute.” Of course all of the freaks and geeks and cold ass transients rush the door for a chance to kick it with the cool guy or just o be warm. But no, you just stand there, waiting at the door, cause the party’s in the doorway.

Who are we?

2005-03-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

So I'm taking a philosophy of religion class. Well, last night in class my instructor made a statement that immediately struck me as profound. She saidsomething to the effect that you never are fully yourself. You are a different you at 5 than the you at 25 or 95. And just because you are older does not mean that you are more fully you than when you were 13. That is true.

Then this morning I got to thinking that perhaps somehow, God will bring us this fullness that we are missing, that we can never attain here and now, because here and now are everchanging, and ourselves along with it. But maybe in our glorification and purification at the resurrection, God will bring us to the fullness of ourselves, with all of the good perceptions and attititudes of each instant of our lives purified of sin and perfectly attendant in our minds for eternity.

I've always had that question about how we will be when we are spiritually recescutated. Will my grandpa look and be the way he did when he was 25, 35, or when he died at 88? How does God choose? Maybe he will be the best of those. Maybe that explains it. Food for thought on the hot nonstopsoapbox.blogspot!

Now What?

2005-02-26T09:15:00.000-08:00

Suddenly, after deliberately setting up a more accessible blog than my previous (and unused) one, I find that I am numb. Or at least, when I stop to listen to my body and my mind and their respective inclinations, I get no feedback. Should I be ranting? With a title like nonstopsoapbox I guess I should be, but I have no essential information for anyone today.

Ahh, but wait. I feel something. Something I've been thinking about lately: Well, no. I don't want to talk about that.

Why isn't there a Brown History Month or a Native American History Month? Too risky, maybe. We must not be ready to face the fact of eradicating the people who used to bury their dead where our cul de sac now circles. And the wounds of Mexican Americans are still being salted by the US agricultural industry, so we can't talk about their plight until we've manufactured the new cotton gin and they can move onward and possibly upward (at least a few of them- you know, like your odd Cochran, Condaleezza, or Colin Powell). Not to mention that neither peoplegroup is well represented in the governing body that would be responsible for bestowing such a superficial and customary honor upon them.

Wow, I think I'm off to a good, soapy start.