Family events...

So far, I've been to Indio, CA twice to visit my girlfriend's parents. ("Hey sweetie, how should I dress to visit your parents?" "Like you are going to meet them on the surface of the sun.")

One of the things that I am in awe of this family is their sense of family.

Let me explain.

Growing up, our family struggled to come up with common games and events that we could share as a family. "Family nights" usually ended when we all reached a creative blank as to a common interest. Mom and Dad's idea of fun was a quiet night with a board game. John and I usually wanted to eat ice cream until we were sick, then run around making insane noises until we collapsed into sugar comas.

At her family's house, it is/was assumed that any event one participates in is going to involve family in one way or another. It was a very different experience when I told Tab that I wanted to show her how to play Gumpsch (the most awesome multiplayer card game EVER!), and it was just assumed that I will be showing the whole family how to play.

It's amazing to see what happens with a home where Christ is the center from the start. I don't begrudge my parents with the way they raised me one bit. They were learning as they were going, and, all things considered, I'd say things turned out very well. But my desire would be to improve on that, to make things even more stable for my family.

And now, a note to make Kristin Calderwood sick: *ahem* I wuv you my widdle cuddly wuddly girlfriend. You are so cute, pookie, and I'm so happy to have spent this time with you so far. I don't need to drink water, for I sip from the fount of our eternal love.

Ooof. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth...

The Urge to Give...

Today, when coming in from lunch, a good friend and co-worker came in, visibly crying, and distressed.

Concerned, I failed to notice a bandage around the forearm near their elbow.

Walking back to my desk (which is on the way to her desk), they began to tell me about how their first attempt to give blood resulted in the discovery that they can't due to small veins. This distressed them to the point of emotional breakdown.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am renowned far and wide for my inability to summon compassion for my fellow faceless man. My friends are my friends, and I will be there for them in any way I can. But otherwise, I have always felt that people in their natural form are cruel, mean, selfish animals.

My form of giving to people has been to help the ones that are trying to get extract themselves out of a given situation. "Teach a man to fish" rather than "Give a man a fish", if you will.

So to have someone in my office/cubicle crying because they were unable to help random faceless people was an odd and enlightening experience. It expressed an intense desire to better their surroundings, and not in a focused, visible way.

I suppose it is in matching with this person's giving nature. I tend to want to invest in people, to see my time spent well and things to come to fruition.

In Santa Barbara, people give in such dispassionate ways: recycling, volunteering for animal causes, putting political bumper stickers on their car, etc.

I guess this is my first collision with someone who genuinely cares about such things with passion up here.

It actually stopped me and gave me a moment of introspection. How odd.

Love, romantic movies, and chivalry...

So let's open on a standard Hollywood romantic comedy. The girl, awkward, falls for our dashing hero.

Our dashing hero makes a sweeping gesture that makes all the women in the audience go "awww".

But if it happened in real life from a guy she'd known such a short time, the title would be changed to "While you were sleeping...I filed a restraining order".

So where is the disconnect? It is amazing to look at how Hollywood distorts things after you have realized it, and see both how it affected you, and how you unknowingly applied it to your own life.

In my instance, I have been a hopeless romantic since I figured out that girls didn't have cooties. Or, if they did, I wanted their cooties.

Ok, that sounds dirty. Forget I said that.

I would hear of how girls melted over the latest romantic situation set up by hollywood, and I would plan.

The thought was to give them the experience they seemed to idolize in films and such, they would react like the movies they idolized.

Needless to say, I would creep them the f*ck out.

This is not to say that I emulated what hollywood shoveled out like a mindless consumerist automaton.

The error creeped up not in my desire to be a romantic, but in my application of those desires.

So, in my desire to NOT scare women off, I've squashed my desire to apply romance to any of my attempts to start a relationship.

Since doing that, all the material I've read, and the issues from my first relationship, point to the fact that such grandiose gestures give the impression as to being a bit of a doormat, leaving most women with nothing left to respect. No balanced girl would want to be in a relationship with such a person.

Now that I am in a relationship, it's hard to allow those muscles to be flexed again. I have a girl that seems to like spending time with me, and I with her.

I do want to express it, but I have problems putting my guard down and showing her, for fear of scaring her off with something too big.

So, in short: women need to make up their minds when it comes to expressions of initial interest and romance. Either go for the big gestures, or don't.

But stop messing us up.

Pick one.

Either you continue to point to romantic comedies and such and not get freaked out when it happens to you, or stop propping up these contrivances of actual romance.

Another thought is: where does chivalry fit into all this? And I think that deserves a second exploration.

Chivalry is not what you do to impress someone. Chivalry is when your hand is forced into doing a particular behavior that benefits someone else not out of a desire to impress them, but out of a sense of ethics and honor.

Every time I open a door for what turns out to be a radical feminist, and she responds with "I could have opened it myself, you pig" or the like, I feel like spinning them around and explaining that I'm not doing it for their benefit. It is my part in making for a more polite society, and if they don't like it, I've got a finger for them.

It's 2AM. I miss her. 'Ay me, sad hours seem long'

Ok, side note: I've never had a song make me want to buy a video game. But I might just go get Endless Ocean because of this song. The games I've reviewed seem to tell a story of a game that is just as beautiful as the song.

Follow up...

Remember this post?

As a refresher, it dealt with environmentalism as a religion, rather than a hard science, and gave multiple examples and reason.

Now, I opened up imdb, and read this. (At the bottom)

Terrorism in history and Asymmetric Warfare...

A lot of news space is being delivered to the war on terror, the war in Iraq, etc.

I thought I would start by getting at the fundamental issue: what is warfare? Or, more accurately, how does warfare end?

The Merriam-Webster definition is: "an activity undertaken by a political unit (as a nation) to weaken or destroy another"

I think in today's warfare, we can safely remove the "as a nation" portion. Al Qaeda, Shining Path, et. al. are operating without country, mobile between countries as alliances come and go.

The fact that their training centers have been destroyed reduces the quality, if not the quantity, of the fighting forces that we deal with.

However, the question still remains: what is the endgame of any war? How do you end a conflict?

Past wars have ended at the armistice table or with the routing of an army. My friend, who has forgotten more about ancient warfare than you and I will ever know, could think of no time in ancient history when any army was ever destroyed to a man. (As a side note, sometime sit down with him and discuss ancient warfare. He brings it alive, and you will be astounded by the amount of info he can recall from the top of his head).

Most wars between nations have been conceded when only 10% or so of the fighting force has been destroyed.

The Japanese in World War II understood that, which is why they expected to fight to the last man, and we expected to take huge casualties (estimates were around 1 million US casualties for Japan alone). It was only through a massive technological leap were we able to bring them to the table.

In other words, an actual victory on the battlefield means nothing if the politicians are willing to concede defeat.

Which brings us to our present conflict. Using the venerable slogan, "If it bleeds, it leads", the media is finding all the worse spots it can to report from, ignoring the successes to sell advertising space. In fact, few of the good things going on are reported from Iraq.

I am trying to get into the Marine Reserve. The recruiters I have been talking to have been telling me that the people who are completing their tours are re-requesting Iraq. That's not something the media is eager to report on.

They want the one homesick midwestern clerical Sergeant with a new baby that will make us so upset that we feel like buying the Toyota from the commercial they show right afterwards.

Now why is that such an issue? Because, as I stated before, the problem is with how wars are won. When a side feels like it is losing, historically, they have lost. The perception, not the actual facts, direct the march of warfare.

So when media, in an attempt to sell advertising, restricts themselves to only the things that are going wrong, they are losing us the war.

In this manner, we are fighting what the military is calling "asymmetric warfare". We are fighting their military troops, but they are really fighting the PERCEPTION of the war back on us back in the homefront.

They want to force us to the armistice table by weakening our resolve.

And the media is helping them by showing as much footage as they can of insurgents killing our troops.

To help Old Spice sell deodorant.

Something to remember from our grandparent's generation: There were naysayers throughout the entire course of World War II. "We'll never recover from Pearl Harbor", "The allies should concede European waters. We'll never sink the Bismarck", "The Germans can't be overrun. We should just allow them to sign another armistice.", "The Japanese will never surrender.", etc.

World War II gave us around 4 years of warfare with 407,300 military casualties at 112 times the casualty rate of our present operation, and yet we are conceding defeat.

We have lost the heart to fight on, not because our armies are not capable, but because our people are willing to give up.

And I say "give up", not "peace". Peace is not the absence of war. Living under the threat of harm or death is not a peaceful existence, even if no actual fighting is breaking out. To quote Edmund Burk: "All that is necessary for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing."

Something else that has gotten people's goat is the treatment of "un-uniformed combatants"

Allow me a detour:

I will admit I am late in starting on Tom Clancy's Ryanverse series (I laughed out loud when Jack Ryan brags about his 2 MB PDA), I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Patriot Games", which is actually the first chronologically in the Ryan series.

In it, he makes an eerily predictive point about the stickiness in dealing with non-country-based terrorists operating within a sovereign country. In the novel, it is the Provisional IRA/ULA, but the problems are very applicable today with our issues at Guantanamo Bay: How do you deal with people who are not citizens, yet operating militarily inside your borders?

Slumping them in with common criminals is treating them too lightly for what they have done, military tribunals aren't applicable, deporting them is not an option...

The book makes an excellent point: We deal with them as pirates. Not to say we make them wear peglegs and a patch (although....), but rather, once they are people sans country, they have no rights to any country's protection, and are dealt with as right-less.

Article 19 of the Geneva Convention deals with Piracy here:

On the high seas, or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any State, every State may seize a pirate ship or aircraft, or a ship taken by piracy and under the control of pirates, and arrest the persons and seize the property on board. The courts of the State which carried out the seizure may decide upon the penalties to be imposed, and may also determine the action to be taken with regard to the ships, aircraft or property, subject to the rights of third parties acting in good faith.

In other words, we get to make it up as we go along!

With today's news that we bagged the #1 Al Qaeda man in Iraq, the troops AND THE MISSION need our support, now more than ever, to finish the job.

One of my friends suggested a bumper sticker campaign that might work: "Pull out of Iraq. Rape rooms aren't that bad."

Hey...it doesn't hurt anyone...

Often, when faced with the facts as to how little humans truly affect climate change, they fall back to one of their old stand-bys: "it can't hurt to help!"

Yes, yes, it does.

In case you are lazy, the push for corn and soy-based ethanol is driving the prices up, keeping people in third world countries from one of their primary food sources.

What truly grinds my gears is the fact that this goes un-noticed. Even Christians are getting on the bandwagon by renaming it Creation Care.

Watch this BBC program. De-program yourself.

Why we should be intolerant....

Johann Hari has a brilliant column on the travesties being done in German courts in the name of "multi-culturalism".

The upshot is that Muslim immigrants who manage to screw up enough courage to approach German courts claiming "my husband is beating the tar out of me" are being told, "Hey, it's your culture. I would hate to enforce my cultural stereotypes of women's rights onto your glorious culture. That leads to Crusades and stuff. Besides, you knew this going into a muslim marriage. Don't forget to shield your face with your hands."

On the one hand, I feel very very sorry for these women. They are hoping for a better life, and are being sold upriver in the name of being politically correct.

On the other hand, this puts the oh-so-tolerant left in the rare position of having to piss off one or all of its constituent members: Either the very powerful women's movement is going to have to sit by and watch their foreign sisters get beat, or they will have to denounce a religious practice, making them seem intolerant.

Personally, I'm hoping for muslim women to rise up and institute a smackdown on these radical Imams. Wouldn't that be humiliating?

It'd be Mujaheddin brothers vs. the Menopause sisters. Sounds like pay-per-view.

Let's make fun of disturbed dead people!!

Well, everyone is now psycho-analyzing the ass-hat that shot up Virginia Tech.

However, what everybody might not know is that Mr. Cho was also a burgeoning playwright.

The fine folks at Somethingaweful.com managed to get ahold of one of his manuscripts and have reviewed it for your pleasure.

What a whack-job.

Success Means You Aren't Doing Something Right...

Yup, Billy and I are disagreeing again.

This time, he's quoting This blog with the following statement:

The emerging church used to say mega-churches are going away. They’re not going away. They’re predicated on the metaphor of consumerism. And as long as consumerism is the dominant mode of our culture mega-churches will always thrive. Some are saying that this next generation hates that. They don’t. They love it.
-Shane Hipps

To be fair, the rest of the blog that Billy quotes goes on to excuse itself from its inflammatory stance, but as Billy has chosen to pull up and talk about that one quote, I will do likewise.

Reading and re-reading this post, I am reminded of something my Mom used to tell me:

"Don't over-spiritualize being poor"

And she didn't mean "broke", "On a down-cycle", "experiencing a negative cash flow situation". She means f---ing poor. We're talking about a woman who at one point had to decide if buying a 10 cent pen would break her budget.

Allow me to give a little history lesson about our denomination (Foursquare).

WAAAY back in the day, Aimee Semple McPherson started a radical movement of faith called Foursquare.

It bloomed.

Like, a lot.

At one point, her soup kitchens were feeding more than the government's.

After some controversies inside the church, and after Aimee's death, things kind of waned.

In that period, the Foursquare movement died down. The huddled Foursquare masses hunkered down.

Enter Pastor Jack Hayford. Jack's gift was to bring Foursquare out of its exclusivity and make it accessible for all.

Some people did NOT like him for that. He had shifted the status of Foursquare for a small people who fancied themselves as the few, committed, misunderstood devotees, who know the whole truth. Suddenly everyone is at the party.

Success and having everyone in on a movement of God does not make it "consumerism". It means you have made something that people can identify with.

Wherein lies the problem with Mega-Churches?

Is it the fact that a lot of people come together in the name of Christ?

Is it the fact that the pooled resources of many can make for powerful contributions and provision?

Here, let me learn you some edumikation: It's a cultural instinct of us as U.S. citizens to always root for the underdog.

However, sometimes, the underdog isn't right.

So, with the new "emerging church" coming on the scene, they have a need to viciously rail against the "mega-churches". Otherwise, how can they, the small, few, misunderstood, be able to justify their continued course of action despite the lack of apparent interest?

Jesus was NOT the underdog. Yes, I said it. He was the epitome of someone who has everything under control, knows what is going to happen, and does what He needs to do.

Throughout the Bible, God consistently chooses the underdog. But they are humble underdogs. If Mr. Hipps' comment holds sway on the course of the emergent church, it will be destroyed from within by those who think any church that grows too big is "consumerism".

I'm famous! Sort of....

Ystrday (Tusday), I got into th Santa Barbara Nws Prss...thy did a fature on social danc in the ara, and I was fatured on the covr of the "Lif" sction.

Thy mis-splld my last nam. Can you guss which lttr was lft out?

Western culture is perfectly fine...I'm not so sure about the Emergent Church though...

It's happened again...

God bless my Pastor, but he has a tendency to rail against people who are...well, like me.

This, I explained... was the best analogy I could come up with for why so many rich, comfortable, western, neo-conservative, first ammendment protected, christians could claim they are being persecuted in a society of freedom.

(Found here)

Now, I happen to agree with him that the church claims persecution too much, and what we see in America is more of a "it's not as popular as it used to be" mentality than true persecution.

I also agree that persecution forces people to take a stand.

What I am concerned about is the mentality in the emergent church to think that anything conservative, or western is automatically discounted.

Take Pastor Billy's infamous "...arrogant, overfed and unconcerned west." line. I use to beat him over the head anytime the US, England, or Australia does something magnanimous.

Having only been exposed to the emergent church from Pastor Billy's viewpoint, I sometimes wonder if there is a place for me there.

As shown in two different places, it seems to champion leftist causes, often accepting feel-goods over fact. The "we should be doing something to help people" often trumping more realistic solutions. After all, sometimes the best solution is killing the people doing the killing. Does anybody really think that Saddam and his sons would stop the rape rooms if we had asked them really really nicely?

The irony is that most people in the emergent church seem to idolize Diedrich Bonhoeffer for his radical views on how a church community should operate, and seem to conveniently forget that he helped foment an assassination attempt.

True, it was Hitler, but Saul was an evil leader, and David still slew the man who killed him. It should not be the place of any modern Religious icon to be involved with the active planning of military matters. That is called a Crusade, and you can see how well that turned out.

One other thing that seems to pervade the Emergent Church is the readiness and willingness to take swipes at the Conservative viewpoint.

To be fair, Billy did amend the headline to say that "Sutton says" to blame Aimee Semple McPherson for the religious right.

My question is why should we isolate the "Religious right" to begin with? It only serves to isolate and divide a church along political lines instead of denomination lines.

Pastor Billy and I have disagreed about the church's involvment in politics. I think that the politics should follow the church. Pastor Billy thinks that the church should get in on the political game.

Now, with that much venom between political sides lying just below the surface, why infect the Church with venom that had formerly been left at the door?

Yes, pastor was joking with me when he stated that he wished there was so little conflict in the world that my employer (a defense contractor) wouldn't have work.

However, would it have gone over so well if he told one of the more-hippy-ish people that he hoped that there would be enough environmental understanding so that his people could stop torching SUV dealerships and spiking trees? Somehow, I think not.

As one of my friends used to say, "Multi-culturalism/tolerance is only tolerant as long as you agree with their politics."

Tell someone with a left-leaning slant that you think global warming is linked to sunspots, and not man-made CO2, and see how tolerant they are.

Tell someone with Birkenstocks that you think current firearms restrictions make no sense, and, more likely than not, you'll get a diatribe on how firearms in the hands of citizens are the worst thing we have ever thought up. Never mind that it prevented Japan from invading during WWII after they had smashed Pearl Harbor.

The emergent church, with its exploration of viewing things from other points of view, seems to reject mine.

How am I expected to get behind a supposedly tolerant movement that feels free to rail against my viewpoint almost exclusively?

Please don't take this as me leaving my church. When I don't feel my viewpoint assaulted, I value the different take on the Bible that Pastor Billy provides.

As should be the case with any blog, this is me simply expressing my viewpoint for all you sicko voyeurs to read. For those who agree 100% with Pastor Billy, good on you. I am simply voicing a concern regarding my exposure to the Emergent Church.

P.S. H1alphas were the only true Hummers. That makes this a thing of wonder and beauty

Pastor Billy is gonna hate me...

My pastor has a problem with the new owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press, as you can see here and here.

Sooo, I was swing dancing on Friday night. It was a pretty good night. Awesome band, good dancers, my co-worker was there, I ran into an old friend, Jofflyn from my swing dancing days back in LA. A good night!

I was tearing it up with a girl named Tasha, when we get flagged off the dance floor by someone I've never seen before and a guy holding a fairly large case.

Thinking I had done something wrong again, I was relieved when she told me that she is a reporter doing a news story on Social Dance in Santa Barbara.

She asked me if she could interview us, and take pictures.

Tasha and I agreed fairly quickly, and we proceeded to swing dance while the cameraman took pictures of us. (It's HARD to do that, btw. I'd set him up for a good shot, then have to do a turn-out to get out of it, resulting in a very unflattering shot of my back and ass, and you couldn't see Tasha at all!)

So, the reporter then asked us a few questions. Afterwards, I asked what paper she was from, and she said, "Santa Barbara News-Press".

Sooooo, Seeing as I know that Pastor Billy isn't too fond of them, AND that he reads my blog, here you go! I am contributing to the downfall of journalistic respect in your eyes by giving the News-Press useful content to help further their circulation. Now the Daily Sound will have to struggle to catch up!

I'm off to spread more hate and discontent...

Ok, What in the hell...

Soooo...you joined the Marines. We won't question why for a second, but we'll be back.

They train you to kill people. You are told multiple times that you will be sent out to kill people. You stay through boot camp.

Suddenly, you are called to war and told that you need to kill people like you have been trained.

Oops, suddenly, I'm a "conscientious-objector".

If you are anti-war, at least you are being honest. Misguided, perhaps, but honest.

But for the love of mud, if you are going to join the military, have the intellect to figure out that sometimes, the military will ask you to over-run/neutralize/kill/destroy/secure opposing forces with extreme prejudice.

Our military isn't made for tea-parties. K-bars make horrible stirring sticks. (Don't ask me how I know).

Global Warming is bunk. Here is proof...

Here's an article explaining the unscientific way that scientists are being bullied if they don't express faith in mankind-caused global warming.

Let's break this down: Carbon Dioxide is a minor gas, and not the main greenhouse gas. Water Vapor is.

Al Gore got it wrong in "Truth". While there IS a correlation between CO2 and temperature, if you look at the data closely, Carbon Dioxide levels are a RESULT of changing temperatures. They do not lead the changes in temperatures.

96% of all Carbon Dioxide is natural. Man has nothing to do with it. Unless we are going to eliminate all leaves, termites, and cows.

Also, from 1940 to 1970, when the post-war boom was happening, and man-made carbon dioxide rates climbed exponentially, the earth was cooling.

So what is changing the temperatures?

Simple.

The Sun.

If you watch the above video, it will tell you that the rates of sunspots dictates the temperature here on earth. And we are coming into a record number.

The Earth has been a lot hotter than now, and humans have survived.

Some say, "Hey, let's just eliminate it anyway. What's the worst that could happen?"

Here is an article explaining how our environmental craze here in the west is starting to set things up to cripple Africa economically.

Global Warming will not "drown your neighbor".

Attempting to control something that will not make any difference in global warming by preventing developing nations to provide for themselves.

Now I want demographics...

Well, I finally read an article that describes how I feel towards people in Santa Barbara.

Just to set the scene, when it comes to housing, EVERYONE here rents. Engineers for 25 years rent. Pastors rent. Newlyweds rent. Homeless people, had they the money to set aside for non-homelessness, would be renting.

And yet, the vanity that permeates this place dictates that they should not be left without fashionable wheels.

Enter this article. Basically, people are overspending for their rides. They are getting too much car.

This quote REALLY applies to Santa Barbara:

Treating cars as a status symbol. You can't watch television for long without being bombarded by car commercials, and many of us have absorbed the idea that we are what we drive. It's complete BS, of course, but some people have been so brainwashed that they literally drive themselves into bankruptcy.

And yet, they rent.

The real reason, I think, is that people fail to see the big picture. A car drops by a quarter of its value the instant you turn it over for the first time.

Historically, over a 10 year span, houses have always gone up in value.

So why?

Three reasons:

1. You are seen out and about in your car. Being the vain place it is, Santa Barbarians must be seen in the latest/greatest/coolest. Anything less would lessen their social status.

2. People don't visit much here. I thought LA was flaky until I moved up here. People here in SB will say "oh, sure! We'll be down!" All the time. It rarely happens.

3. A house anchors you. People here take pride in their ability to pick up at a moment's notice. Making deep roots means that you have to invest in your community. People here are wary to make any kind of social commitment to one another. It interferes with their free spirit-ed-ness. In my opinion, it also detracts from building a sense of community.

Amazing Grace...

So I went to the Scottish Festival down in Long Beach this past weekend.

On Saturday, I hung out at the Clan Inebriated booth, and helped out as I could (got a free t-shirt out of it too!)

Turns out that a certain leader from Clan Stewart is trying to get Clan Strachan un-invited to the Pomona Scottish Games.

drama drama drama.

Oh, on Sunday morning, I went to a church service that they put on. Included was a "Kirkin' o' the Tartans". Its actual history is in dispute, but the story goes that after Bonnie Prince Charles defeated the Scots, he banned the tartans in the hopes of killing any Scottish pride.

However, the canny Scottish would, being devout Christians at this point, would conceal a piece of the tartan, and show it at a certain part in the service, where they would re-avow their faith.

Now days, it's a yearly event, where those in Tartans (which, I hope, will be me next year) come up and declare their fealty to God.

However, later, we sang "Amazing Grace" to a bagpipe. I had arrived late, so I took a seat in the back. Which isn't a bad thing.

However, nobody notified me, and the bagpiper walked up the center aisle. From the back. Scared the snot out of me.

Those things are LOUD!

The service was good. It was about the tribe of Israel failing to learn from the lessons of the past, and repeating their mistakes. He equated it to the US failing to learn from its mistakes, neglecting to keep a careful watch on things, and/or taking the steps necessary to defend ourselves.

Yes, the pastor was an ex-marine.

This was the first time I ever thought the pastor would end a service not with "amen", but "ooo-rah!"

A new analogy...

There is a lot of talk of how God "grafted" us into the promise of the Jewish faith, most often using the whole olive tree/fig tree analogy...

Well, I was in my shower the other day, when I came across a new one...you know how when you get to the end of a bar of soap, you use it until it goes down to a tiny nub, then you get a new, fresh bar, and sort of merge the two?

At first, it looks kind of silly, but as you use the bars together more and more, they become one bar.

I think that you as Gentiles (I'm Jewish by blood...neener neener!) have been grafted into the promise in a similar fashion.

Of course, the fact that I claim Jesus Christ means that I have completed my Jewishness, and now need His promise just as much as any gentile. Plus, I love bacon, have worked on the sabbath, and have never been inside a synagogue.

So, we are all the remnant of a Suave soap bar grafted onto a Dove Ivory body bar.

Conviction vs. Guilt...

So, there was a mix-up on one of my previous posts about guilt from a pastoral point of view (it has since been resolved...just a case of misunderstanding), and it got my wheels turning.

Where is the line drawn?

At what point has a pastor crossed the line from exhorting his congregation, and placed them in a spirit of bondage over guilt?

One of the earliest memories I have on the subject was during Summit '94, when Tony Campolo was speaking. He related the story of a (in his mind), promising intern of his.

As I remember the story, he lost track of the intern, and discovered that he had become a plastic surgeon. The venomous diatribe that Mr. Campolo spewed made it seem as if Lucifer himself had turned this kid.

His tone of voice spoke as if being a plastic surgeon was the worst vocation a man could choose, if he neglected ambulance chasing. (I believe his exact words were "He could have been mighty for the Kingdom of God, but instead, he's a PLASTIC SURGEON")

Two weeks later, my dad went in for a surgery.

He had smashed his nose during a bicycle wreck when he and my mom were first dating. For at least 17 years, he had lived with a deviated septum, which affected his breathing, caused him to snore, etc.

Guess what kind of surgeon he had to see?

Yup, you guessed it, a plastic surgeon.

It was at that moment that I realized that from the stage at Long Beach Arena in the Summer of '94, Mr. Campolo had placed thousands of kids in spiritual bondage over his inability to see past his own point of view.

When someone goes to see a Plastic Surgeon, many times they are in a state of low self-esteem, depression, etc. Thanks to Mr. Campolo, those Christians who would heed the word of clergy have quite likely removed themselves that vocation, thus cutting themselves off from people who are in desperate need to experience the Love of God.

Church On The Way had a nasty reputation for getting people to come to its meetings. They would start with "If you consider yourself an ongoing part of this congregation, then you should come to [insert meeting here]". People would come, but they would come out of a sense of obligation than real joy. It should be noted that they have drastically scaled back the usage of that language in exhorting people to attend.

So where is conviction? What does it look like?

The image that comes to my mind is a thousand hamsters in a huge version of those plastic roller-balls you see.

Ignoring food/water/air considerations, let's look at this: a thousand hamsters, thrown in together. How do you get them all to move in the same direction?

Well, there are two ways to do it. The first is for an outside force to push the ball, forcing the hamsters to collectively move. However, they will tumble inside this ball, and not really enjoy the trip. Most people put pastors in this position: on the outside, moving the church as he/she sees fit.

the other way is for the hamsters to all run in the same direction. In this scenario, the pastor is another hamster in the ball. Seeing the hamsters all running, he gets in front, and harnesses the momentum of the running hamsters, guiding them around possible obstacles.

Pulling ourselves out of the analogy, what does this look like?

A pastor's job is to make a congregation spiritually mature. From there, the pastor has to be able to recognize where the church wants to be led to. Right now, a hot point of care is AIDS in Africa. A lot of churches are making big news getting involved with that point of care.

If, however, a church matures, and the point that really strikes home is about Civil rights abuses in Chinese orphanages, the pastor has to recognize that as the conviction of the church, and lead them there. That is where they are most effective, and that is where their passions lay.

If the pastor should show them the latest video of emaciated Africans and tell them that they aren't doing enough to help ease the suffering there, he has just guilted the church.

In our example, the church is/was motivated to help in a way they felt called to. The momentum was moving to assist as they could for Chinese Orphanages, but the pastor used spiritual contexts to make the church feel culpable for not doing enough for the AIDS in Africa crisis.

But at what point does it stop? At what point do you feel called to say, "Yes, that is a tragedy, but the attention/time I can devote to this is minimal".

You can find hundreds of causes to champion. Because you feel drawn to one does not mean that you are ignoring the others, or are somehow less caring.

And yet, it seems perfectly acceptable to throw up a heartbreaking picture, put up a Bible verse that has something to do with it (and very often, is taken out of context), and end with a phrase like, "What are YOU going to do about it?" ("Nothing. I'm busy trying to feed the homeless here in America.")

People should feel the freedom to mature spiritually, then decide how they want to help out. When all the hamsters start running in one direction to solve a problem, and the church learns how to capitalize on that momentum, we'll see true ministry out of a conviction through the Love of God, rather than out of a spirit of bondage over Guilt.

Ezra's spiritual way made ready by Nehemiah...

The US is coming into a new period of Nehemiah, after much of the Ezra-like spiritual groundwork has been established.

Let's set a bit of a background, as I understand it.

God's people, in captivity, have been told for 70 years to get ready. Priests have prayed, they have been told to expect it, and, true to His word, the people are released to go back to their land.

However, once there, they find the walls in ruins, and Jerusalem in no way to be called a homeland.

Enter Nehemiah. Having been granted favor with the king as his cupbearer, he requested the clearance and materials necessary to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls.

One might say that he was the first example of an engineer in the bible, save Noah.

In my walk, he was instrumental in showing me that it is necessary to be practical, even when you are dealing with the spiritual.

Nehemiah was the fulfillment of what Ezra was praying for.

What correlation does this have with the US?

After much worrying/fretting/praying over many of the major social issues there, the US is about to step in in a major way.

A few days ago, the President ordered the creation of AFRICOM. Its goal is to set up stability in the region..

Now, more than ever, we need to be praying for wisdom, guidance, and protection of our troops, as they are being committed long-term to a very just cause: making things hospitable in a very turbulent region.

The Nehemiah has come for the Church's Ezra-like preparation of Africa.

People...some common sense please...

For those of you out there who have no idea what is going on, A local newspaper, the Santa Barbara News-Press has been taken over by a woman by the name of Wendy McCaw.

Evidently, she took it over, is not playing nice with the unions, has some sort of personal vendetta against Rob Lowe, has reduced the journalistic quality of the paper, and is fighting to make the beach in front of her house private property.

Ladies and gentleman, we have the anti-Christ.

At least, according to Santa Barbara standards.

Everyone loved their little paper, and now it is no more.

So what is everyone doing? Trying to fight to make it back the way it was by writing nasty things about her, organizing protests, etc.

In other words, acting like they are still in University.

People: welcome to the professional world. "Freedom of the Press" means that the government can't censor the paper. It does NOT mean that you can impose your ideas of "journalistic integrity" on the paper.

However, in the quasi-socialistic setting that the people around here seem to prefer, they would rather curse the darkness than light a candle.

In the spirit of capitalism, and taking positive steps, I present you with the only other option: stop buying their paper. Lack of money has been known to make a newspaper change. Also, if nobody is buying it, what they say won't make a difference.

Do you know why the "Enquirer" has been around for so long? People buy it.

If you are afraid that The Santa Barbara Free-Press will stay in business because people who are not up to your level of sophistication might keep them in business, you are being elitist, and need to take a look at yourself and your attitude towards your fellow man.

This is a clear-cut case of the free market deciding. Quit the 60's dream of a protest changing everything. Bumper Stickers espousing the decline of Ms. McCaw only serve to make you look foolish and hopelessly out of touch with economics. Vote with your dollars.

Start here. If Ms. McCaw buys that too, if you REALLY believe that EVERYONE is on your side, form your own newspaper, don't make it a publicly traded company, and put out the news that you think EVERYONE will want to see in a local paper.

If not, I suggest you discover something else to be worried about. It's a big world, I'm sure you'll find something.