The problem with blogging . . .

is that, . . . “I define myself as I tell you who I am.“ Taylor suggests that one of the ways we find identity, is by making our life stories public. Thus the World Wide phenomena of blogging. We are telling our life stories, making them public, but in that process we are defining ourselves. We want to put our experiences out there for the world to see them (validate them?). The problem with blogging is transparency and honesty. I have to be really careful that my honesty and transparency is genuine rather than calculated for effect to make a point about missions or to define myself in some manner that does not reflect reality. That is why it is good that my wife reads my blog (even when I am writing about her) because she knows when I am BSing. That is a good thing . . . I think we call that accountability.

This medium for communication though, is crippled and held captive by it’s monologue nature. Sure we can leave comments and have micro-mini conversations via that, but really, this is a monologue format. It can become a platform to make me appear holy, or sensitive (NOT) or daring or outrageous or non-conforming or intelligent or well spoken or rebellious or Godly or a good father or a bad husband or 10 foot tall and bullet proof or WHATEVER! Because I control which snapshots of my life I show you, and even worse, I have spin control, framing power, to set myself in the best possible light. ”I define myself as I tell you who I am.“

And culturally this can be seen not only in the blogging community, where we are making a new tribe as Coupland would say, but it can be seen in Instant Messaging, weblogs, webrings, facebook, and on I could go. This is where we define our public selves, in this carefully controlled environment that gives me almost limitless power in the framing of myself. And this ”I define myself as I tell you who I am“ does not stop with words and pictures and blogs. It can been seen in body art and body piercings. Everyone is telling a story as they modify their bodies. There almost always is a point to it, a story, an experience . . . if you don’t believe me, then ask someone who has a tattoo or interesting piercing and see what doors to that person may open up.

Though one warning here. I still recall once when I was riding on one of the fast trains in Switzerland going from Zurich airport to Basel when I would catch a ride to go visit my kids at BFA. This particular day I was wearing a double earring that I had had especially made at a jeweler in PA. It was a cross and then a lightening bolt, connected by a tiny gold chain. And a 20-something year old gal got on the train and sat down and started making conversation. She asked me about my earring (to hear my story, my definition of myself) and I asked her about hers and what they meant for her. Then she asked me about my ”art“. I show that I am a short fat middle-aged man now, when I confess that I had no earthly idea what she was talking about. She asked again if I had any ”art“ and when she got little reaction from me, she pointed to one of her tattoos and said ”body art“. (I am seriously thickheaded some times.) I then confessed that while I had some really cool earrings, I did not have any ”art“.

That was it, conversation was over, she got up and moved to another car because my story, my defining of myself, was over. I often think about that chick and wonder if the story I told her about the Cross and the lightening bolt have stayed with her as significantly as my inability to communicate with her because I had no ”art“? So you have been warned in a minor manner . . . but if you can handle the potential of a little rejection, you will be amazed at what you might hear as people tell you their stories, as they define themselves.

In closing my sermon monologue, . . . er I mean blog, I want to say that I am a complete and utter sinner, in the Kingdom of God only by His initiative and amazing grace, through nothing that I have accomplished or done in my entire life, and that I humbly admit that I incurably paint myself as better than I am . . . OK, so you know now.

chaos and the big man

She drove her car right into the post! I know, because I was sitting there today in my car waiting for her to back up and leave, in order to park in her space. But it took her so long to back up, (and then she hit the post) that there were cars behind me blowing their horns and cars beside me blowing their horns, and we were sitting in the middle of this mess. The President of the Evangelical churches and I were sitting right in the middle of this bedlam, waiting for this gal to back out of one of the holes here that pass for a parking spot. With 5 cars blowing their horns and my Peugeot holding everyone at bay until she could back her car out . . . the pressure on her must have been immense! As usual, The Prez and I were howling at the chaos.

But soon you could not hear yourself think, much less have a conversation, and now in addition to blowing, people are swearing at us . . . somehow we had become the focal point of this pandemonium, and people are starting to roll down their windows and open their doors swearing and cursing us. It was rather hysterical . . . all this was happening because I was willing to wait three minutes for this car to back out of a hole! Now granted, it should have taken 15 seconds, but still three minutes is not too much. Anyways back to the chaos . . . a crescendo was building and getting louder and uglier, and finally Mirco decided to get out of my car, and help this lady by driving her car out of the hole for her.

Now Mirco is a very large man . . . a very imposing figure, especially in a country where most people are anorexia thin, he is very . . . noticeable. So when Mirco got out of my car, instantly every car stopped blowing, instantly every cursing driver began rolling up their windows and scrambling to move away from us! The silence was deafening! Folks, that is presence! The chaos ended the moment the big man expressed himself. Mind you the lady in the car banging into the post, almost ran him over, but Mirco standing with his imposing form, brought quick order to the situation.

Isn’t that exactly what happens with Christ? His presence expressed, genuinely expressed, brings an immediate result of some type. These big guys are impossible to ignore! I for one am glad that I am on the same side as both big men, Mirco and the Son of God.

The fat skinny on who gets saved

There is a raging argument in my neighborhood about who gets saved. We have Buddhists from mainland China, Catholics from Mexico, and of course Orthodox and Muslims . . . all on my short little street! The Buddhists/Confucianists/Taoists from PRC maintain that all people are on their path toward enlightenment or Nirvana. My Catholic friend next door insists that Mary is the key to eternal life, my Orthodox friends are genetically Orthodox as far as they are concerned and so is God, ‘nuff said, and the Muslim says that those who get to heaven are those whose good deeds outweigh their bad ones. And then there is little old us here.

Is there truth/light in these other religions? This is one I have been chewing on for all the years I have been a missionary. This pot of coffee has been percolating for 12 plus years . . . and I still am not sure. No, I am not a chicken to say what I really think, I really am undecided. (And my decision is irrelevant in the end anyhow. God’s decision is the one that carries weight, not mine) And some might think that the question unimportant and all that reveals, is that they have never shared their faith against another major world religion. The question matters.

So why am I undecided? Well it’s complicated. When a Buddhist says, “Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do to you” it sounds suspiciously like Matthew 7:12 (There is something similar in 21 of the World Religions see see here) Or when a Muslim prays the words, “God is all-forgiving, all-compassionate,” well . . . he is speaking the Truth, is he not? And there are countless other examples . . . these two Hesslegrave gives and for time’s sake I used his.

When I talk to people, the truth can easily get all twisted up in endless little traps and corners. Logic is rarely a friend to Faith, unless you have a mind like Ravi Z, which I certainly do not. My mind is much more of the holy variety, er, I mean full of holes. I am starting to come to the conclusion that God’s glory shines into all corners of the world, and that to some extent includes religions. But I also believe that systems that point people in the opposite direction of where God can be found, are not conveyers of the Truth, even though they may have truthful statements within their systems. The revealed Truth of God seems to consistently point to the fact that God is in the business of bringing people back to Himself. And ultimately and finally it seems equally apparent that Christ is the only means of that reconnection. There has never been someone like Him in the history of the world. In the end, one has to decided what to do with Jesus. He just doesn’t go away.

So the fat skinny on who gets saved is this, only sinners do. No matter where our religious affiliations may lie, we are all abject sinners . . . and that is good, because those are the only kinds of people He saves. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance . . . THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS; THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE . . . For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And that is the fat skinny.

An axe and a beer

You don’t have to have a 3 digit IQ to see that those two do not go together. But that is what my neighbor was doing . . . drinking his favorite beverage (one of my favorites too) and wielding an axe as he was chopping firewood! I was ready to rush out and stop him from bleeding to death at any moment, assuming I could recall my EMT skills 20 years after the last class I had attended, but thankfully the need never arose because eventually he became more interested in the beverage than the axe. Whew!

It was sorta morbid watching him do this. Waiting as it were, for the axe to glance off one of those knotty pieces of oak and whack a huge cavern into his leg or chop his foot off. I struggled between hoping the axe was dull one moment, to hoping it was sharp the next. There were advantages and disadvantages to both perspectives. (Ok Ok I said it was morbid) And yes I thought about going out there and drinking a cold one with him, but I was afraid that we might both get a piece of the axe if I did that, (yes I am a coward when an axe is involved), or that the CMA might give me grief over some silly thing like that (the beer not the axe damage). Finally I could not stand to watch anymore and had to go back to parsing Greek verbs from the book of James.

The entire experience was just a great illustration of how I sometimes live my life . . . mixing spirituality and sin . . . what a dangerous combustible blend . . . . . and it made me think of a few other incompatible combinations . . . like:

Sin and a Godly life.

Love and lust

Concern and selfishness

Godliness and self-addiction

Evangelism and denominational distinctives

God’s work and my agenda

A love of money and a love for the Kingdom

Spirituality and living by my feelings

One could ask, “well is that all?” and my answer would be, I think I need a lifetime just to get these eight right.

The Garden of the Gods

While splitting wood today, (that is how most folks heat their homes here - it is a terrible pollution problem in the wintertime) and drinking coffee from my Garden of the Gods mug, I was thinking about how this September day was so different than last year this time. This morning (Sept 23rd) we awoke to our first snow on the mountains! Down in the valley where we live, it was only a rainy day. But I was thinking that last year this time we were in Colorado Springs.

Our primary reason for being there was some continuing training with Entrust, but a close second to that was for medical reasons. Last summer we discovered in the most painful fashion you can imagine, that Brenda was/is an epileptic. She had a grand mal seizure (technically this is a tonic-clonic seizure) for the first time ever in her life! I don’t know if you know what happens during a grand mal seizure, but literally the brain freezes up resulting in a total, dead weight, instantaneous fall. The results for Brenda was: three broken vertebrae in her spine, five broken ribs, four cracked ribs and one terrified husband.

Of course our medical situation in the Balkans is frightening on any day and we were actually in Greece when the whole gig happened. Long story short we (Brenda primarily) had planned for a long period of time to go to this Entrust training in the Springs. Her medical situation was so murky at that time, that it alone almost became the reason for visiting the States.

It was a difficult time for us. Brenda had literally not been alone for three months at this juncture, because we had to guard against another big seizure. She loves us all, but after not being left alone for a single second for 12 weeks, she was ready to take a large weapon, and hasten all our departures for the eternal kingdom.

So in response to that, I made a critical error. I let Brenda go to Florida and see her folks alone, but primarily to see the doctor. I once again underestimated how much Brenda hates doctors and what she will do to avoid them . . . and ignore them. She did go to the doctor, but when the doctor told her that basically she should be in a body cast (with three broken vertebrae), Brenda’s response was to not tell anyone what the doctor said, and to get on the next flight back to Macedonia. That is precisely what she did. I told you she was supermissionary.

While we were in the Springs, we visited the Garden of the Gods, and I got a coffee mug while there, as I usually do. I have coffee mugs from most of the places we have visited. We have lots of mugs. I have lots of memories. Those mugs always remind me of those places and those events in life. The Garden of the Gods was wildly beautiful, but it has a feeling of uneasiness to it as a result of all the unknowns that we were going through at the time.

Now one year later, Brenda is 3 inches shorter, has a fair amount of pain, but is enjoying her work to the max. So I guess I will keep splitting wood to warm the house in the wintertime and we will plow ahead with the work here. There certainly is plenty to do.

the moans of an uninvited guest

It was a serenely beautiful setting. The sun sparkling through the trees near sunset, a flowing breeze, a warm September afternoon, grilling out my favorite health food (hamburgers!), Brenda and I decided to eat outside on the patio . . . it was perfect . . . and a bit romantic too (couples that have been married 20 years still like romantic).

Well the romantic atmosphere soon evaporated. Not because I said something buttheaded or because I burned the food (both which are perfectly possible reasons), no, none of those things ruined the atmosphere . . . it was the moans of an uninvited guest that poisoned the air. It was one of our neighborhood cats, moaning this deep and soulful and highly irritating moan. I mean on one hand I took it as a compliment - my grilling smelled good! On the other hand it was ruining our dinner on the patio.

Now I am no poster child for PETA, as their headline statement reads, “Violent acts toward animals have long been recognized as indicators of a dangerous psychopathy . . . ” maybe I am a psychopath. But I am not a violent person, heck I don’t even hunt any longer. But this cat was tempting me to take up guns, bullets and hunting once again. My parents were poultry farmers, and shooting cats is a highly refined skill that I have (perhaps I will write about that another time), but I generally leave that information for the back page of my CV.

It was one of the little big irritations in life. The kind that seem so huge at that very moment, but in the big scheme of things don’t even rate. And while I don’t hate cats or any other animal, I don’t care about them very much either. But I find that I can sound caring when in the company of these PETA people! That really scares me. This is not very biblical at all! It seems that I should be what I appear to be. I think I need to be much more concrete in my understanding of God, e.g. when God says feed the poor that means I should REALLY feed the poor people in this world, and not just with some big fat impersonal missions group with my monthly offerings, but at my table!

You see the bottom line is this, what I really believe is not the words coming out of my mouth, though many they may be. What I really believe is what I do . . . not matter what I say, this is what I really believe. Now I am certain that I am not a PETA poster boy, but I need to find a way to discouraged uninvited guests from moaning through my romantic dinners.

God's not a liberal, He's a communist!

My coworker (Balkan Brink) this morning wrote a great blog entitled, God’s a liberal, but I personally am pretty sure that He is a communist, or at the very least a socialist. He sure as heck isn’t democratic! In a democracy it seems that everyone labors for their own personal benefit. In socialist and communism, everyone (at least in principle) works for the good of everyone else. In socialism, its about the group, not the individual. It’s not about me in socialism and communism, its about us. You do not have to have a two digit IQ to quickly see that socialism/communism is heavenly and churchly stuff. It’s what the Kingdom is like.

Of course the earthly expressions that we have seen in our lifetime so far of socialism and communism have been pretty sad expressions of these systems. It seems that they are always tainted by the greed of those in power. It clearly doesn’t work that way with God, because He is not greedy, although He is terribly jealous. And He definitely is running a dictatorship (theocracy) not a democracy. He is the only person making corporate decisions here!

It seems that church and religion are far less about God and His Kingdom than they are about me and me. I think this is the primary reason we fall into idolatry all the time. Let’s face it, Jesus ain’t gonna do what we want Him to when we want Him to, ever. So instead we focus on being attractive, cool, spiritual, smart, religious, faithful, witty, philosophical, educated, connected, technological, experienced, paid well, successful, famous, in the spotlight, influential, etc, etc none of which are necessarily bad in of themselves, but are golden calfs of worship in most people’s lives . . . at least the people I hang with. Perhaps I hang with particularly false gods oriented folks, but I don’t think so. We generally are pretty average sinners.

The scary thing . . . and the beautiful thing is that God does not work like this. He is the Kingdom of God, and all He does is for the Kingdom. No selfishness, or self-addiction here. This entire issue reminds me so much of my Russian friend Illiya. We were in my Lada one day, driving toward his dacha out on the edge of town. He was bragging to me how he had bought this little piece of property after Perestroika, and how he had planted trees and built a little shack/cabin there, and on and on he went. I finally told him, “Illiya, you have become a capitalist!” This is probably the most negative word you could have called anyone in Russia 10 years ago. “I certainly am not!” Illiya retorted. “Yes, you are.” I confidently told him. A Communist would have taken that land and used it for everybody’s welfare. You purchased this property and are developing it for the welfare of your own family (primarily). And back and forth we argued for the better part of 30 minutes. He finally said, “Ok, I am a capitalist, but just don’t tell anyone.” I told him that his secret was safe with me.

The me I invented

Authenticity is a tough gig. In a world where people are not only constantly re-inventing themselves, but feel compelled by the culture to do so, authentic people are scarce. In fact I consider them to be the rarest of all people. But I would much rather have people like the real me than the person I invented. The problem is that the person I invented can often be far more . . . well, everything, than the person I really am.

More likable, more insightful, more knowledgeable, more wise, more knowing, more cool, more nice, more personable, more positive, more engaging, more . . . everything than I really am. The us we invent and masks we wear cause us infinite grief, endless stress, and pointless relationships since those relationships are not with the real us in the first place. We applaud when pop stars and icons re-invent themselves. We love change and new looks and cool accessories, but what about the real me? I think this person is in danger of being totally lost, forgotten and, shelved. I am not totally sure that I even know where to find that person any longer.

This is one of the things I like best about the up and coming generation . . . they are into authenticity in a big way. Unfortunately most of the people in my generation and those older than me, diss them completely for this honestly and authenticity, using it as a billy club to whack them with, because the authenticity is often raw and let’s face it, it can be really uncomfortable. It is much like what I think of when being with Jesus, the real live human man Jesus; its like really being with Him. He was always authentic, but I bet you this month’s allowance that it was really uncomfortable for those hanging with Him.

Can you just imagine the scene where the stone-head brothers wanted to secure the left and right seats, to be closest to the power, for themselves in Matthew 20? Then everyone else got wanked about those sons of Zebedee asking for such positions of honor . . . clearly they were ripped because they did not think of it first. Then Jesus slays them all with a discourse about serving . . . and this discourse is like one of the passages in the bible that is the most difficult and counter-culture messages in the whole bible. It is the annihilation of inventing or re-inventing yourself. Actually it is the annihilation of self-addiction. It is the bottom line acid test of a person who has died to self, and has begun finally to follow Jesus. Let’s face it, “if we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus?”

The me I am constantly inventing is not the person God is calling me to be. The me He is calling me to be, is the person I really am once I forget about myself and follow Him.

200 times I said, "have a nice dinner"

It happens all over the world, but it is an epidemic here. It can often be the most frustrating experience of each day. You call the plumber because there is water all over the bathroom floor . . . this is my current reality. “I’ll be by in an hour, hour and a half at the most.” That was yesterday and today is today and still no plumber. You can call the plumber back and ask him why didn’t he come and he will say, I got busy doing other things, or my car broken down, or I got hurt and couldn’t work anymore yesterday, and all of these things may be true, but more likely none of them are. People say all kinds of things that they don’t really mean. For instance, the statement in the title was said by the bride at her wedding reception. Later she told us that what she really wanted to do was bash half the people in the head because of the things they were saying to her.

It seems to be one of the least liked results of socialism -- people pass the buck. No one is ever at fault here for whatever is happening at the moment. I just got off the phone with our internet company and it was a fairly typical conversation. Meaning that the first 10 minutes was practically an argument, just to get the technician to admit that they were actually having a problem! Then once he finally caved in an admitted that they were having some problems with the internet service, he emphatically declared that they would have in resolved in 30 minutes or less. They always say that here. It may be days or weeks before it is actually resolved, but no matter how many times you call, it always will be resolved in 30 minutes or less. This particular call I made hours ago . . . the internet is still running at about 20% of the speed I am actually paying for . . . .

The other answer that one consistently receives if the first answer is not employed, e.g. that is will be repaired in 30 minutes or less, is, “It’s not our fault.” That is the answer one gets when the person hearing about the problem does not want to get out of their chair nor stop playing solitaire. There is no sense of personal responsibility at all. And scary thing is I find it can rub off on me. I can say things that I really mean . . . at that moment, but which I don’t follow through with and it becomes something less than the truth. I can also just offer the first thing that comes to my mind, and that too can be less than the total truth. Worst of all is that I can blame others for what falls within my power to affect and be responsible for . . . what’s happening?

Well it seems that to really be a person of integrity and truthfulness I have to first of all have a really honest conversation with myself and decide that nothing less than exact and precise honesty and truthfulness is acceptable. I am working on that, . . . honestly! But here in the former Yugoslavia, it’s proper, expected, understood, common, dependable and without fail that the person you are talking with is obligated to tell you what you expect to hear, and that is the truth as we know it in this part of the world.

I don’t want to become that kind of person. I want my faith to be visible in my words. My yes yes and my no no and all the details in between precisely and wholly truthful. Otherwise I will say what is expected and sought after rather than words of life.

"There is more than one hole back there!"

This profound statement comes from my wife the supermissionary. And she really is . . . a supermissionary. I am just sort of an addendum to Brenda . . . in the way that a tornado is to a hurricane . . . the way water is to a rainbow . . . the way that a brick is to a castle, you get the picture. Now she will probably (read certainly) get upset when she reads this blog, because she detests people tooting her horn. But she is the goldmine of the CMA. She would work for free. No! She would pay the CMA for the opportunity to do what she does! In comparison to that, I am somewhat of a liability.

Now back to the profound statement above . . . she is supermissionary, I think I already mentioned that, but she is also rather challenged in a number of ways. She is challenged with technology, directions, details, etc . . . what can I say she’s a blond. She recently realized that there was a radio in our car . . . the one we have been driving for the last seven years, and listening to music in for the last seven years . . . but I digress as ususal. The statement in the title is one of the technological challenges she faces. She teaches English classes like all over the entire country, using only the Gospel of Luke and that totally rocks, because 99% of Macedonians have never read the bible, thus never encountered the claims of Christ in a significant manner. She is quite the evangelist. She can preach better than me too! BTW she is currently screaming at the top of her lungs in the kitchen because she just accidently picked up a cockroach.

So she had just completed level four re-write on her ever-so-sad-of-an-excuse-for-a-computer Dell laptop (DELL = Dutifully Enabling of Limitless Liabilities, better known as computer viruses) and she needed to get the work to the printer, and so she came downstairs to my office and asked me for the thingymabobber, that . . . diskthingy . . . the you know! I think she means the flash drive. And so she did. So she happily skipped off to her DELL pleased that she had been able to connect once again at the soul level with her Neanderthal. Soon she returned with a less than thrilled look on her face. “I can’t figure out this thingymabob” she says. I always find such technical speech coming out the mouth of an English teacher very humorous. So I asked her what the problem was, and then she said it, the profound statement, the “There is more than one hole back there.”

Now what is most hysterical about all of this is that she said this with a totally straight face. I on the other hand, was ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing). She was not impressed with my humor no more than she is with the length of my hair. She said, “I am serious, there is more than one hole back there.” At this point I was in danger of meeting Jesus in an immediate face to face sense, as I could no longer breath! Laughter had robbed me of all capacity for oxygen-nitrogen exchange.

When I finally changed my pants and got dry again, I went and showed her which of the two holes back there were the USB ports. By this time, even she was laughing at me laughing. She really is a supermissionary and soon I am sure she will find a way to write, edit and print without technology of any kind. I just hope she does not get lost on the way home. If the next 20 years are as funny as the last 20, I will never make it.

love as an article of trade

There is terrible truth in that title . . . we christians love conditionally. We rarely if ever love unconditionally. I mean really love people . . . all people, including terrorists. I still shudder a bit when I recall the enthusiasm my military chaplain friend had for killing the terrorists. In fact we had an argument about it. I am not a pacifist, but on the other hand, violence only spawns more violence, killing more killing, hate more hate . . . love more love? I find my patriotic roots struggling against the idea of loving terrorists from Iraq (although none of the terrorists on 9/11 actually were from Iraq). The bottom line is that I am more American than I am a Christian (citizen of the heavenly Kingdom). This is bad, really bad.

It expresses itself in much more insidious ways everyday in my life, but worse yet in the church life. We christians use love as a product we are selling, a tool to be used. When we are targeting someone for evangelism, we love them. If it becomes apparent that the target of our evangelism is not ever going to respond, we move on in our love attention. That’s not love it is project management. Loving attention was only one of the methods employed to reach the objective, and when the objective could not be reached, loving attention was shifted elsewhere. I have seen this people-as-projects mentality throughout my entire life in the church. I hate to break this to you, but that ain’t love. And furthermore, pagans are way smarter than you and I, they already know we don’t really love them. My gay barber in the states once said it best, “I don’t go to church, those people hate me there.” Yep, those are god’s children in there . . . hmmm?

And then we use love to keep everyone in line. If our children, or the people in church behave and stay righteous, they receive our most intense and approving love attention, if they start to blow it, fail, (ye gads sin!), then we pull back from them, show our disappointment (and implied righteousness) by limiting the quantity and quality of love shown or given. Man, I get that kind of feedback from people just walking in the door of their church most of the time! I mean I don’t wear dockers, or ties or suit coats on the one side, and have long hair, and sport a couple of earrings on the other side, . . . I don’t look like their idea of christian, at least I certainly don’t look like a missionary (thank God). Don Miller said it well, "Something got crossed in the wires, and I became the person I should be and not the person I am.  It feels like I should go back and get the person that I am and bring him here to the person I should be.  Are you following me at all?" I think I should be the person I am, not a cookie cutter christian, because then I would have to hate homosexuals and look neat and be busy all the time.

This whole issue of how I/we use love as emotional blackmail has been riding heavy on my soul these last couple of days. I have been really thinking about it and came to realize that this is about as unchristian, e.g. not Christlike, as I can get. This is why our backdoors are at least as large as our front doors in the church. This is why so many drop out of the journey. Hell, this is why I think about dropping out of the journey! I am 100% certain that no one in the church would love me, if they really knew me. And I am equally certain that everyone in the local bar would continue to love me were they to know everything about me, because they don’t use love as a weapon. This bothers me much, and I am not going to try and fix you (a sigh of relief), instead I am going to try and fix me by throwing myself at the feet of the One who loves me, the real me, as ugly as it may be, without conditions. And the second thing I am going to do, is try to see people how Jesus sees them, even the terrorists. I am pretty sure He does not see them as objects to be killed and executed, but rather much like me.

the dirty old man next door

My 83 year old neighbor is one seriously dirty old man. Mind you, Uncle Lybe is 3/4 blind and so most of the dirtiness is in his mind, but then again isn’t it always? And he hates Americans, but we are friends. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it is true. I am an American mostly in the passport sense. Honestly, we don’t live nor act very Americanish . . . few people here would quickly identify us as Americans . . . Westerners certainly, Americans not.

But I have left poor Uncle Lybe sitting at his table.

Now this 3/4 blind octogenarian constantly walks by our house, as his is situated behind ours. And when I am “working” I don’t see him much, but when I am “relaxing”, e.g. working with my flowers or trimming the yard, he walks right past me and we talk. Of course then it is no longer very relaxing for me, because Uncle Lybe speaks a particular form of Macedonian that is liberally sprinkled with archaic words (because of his age I guess) and Serbian words. He is hard to understand. But he often gets this conspirator gleam in his eye, he leans forward so that he head is touching mine (don’t pull back as most foreigners do!), and he tells me he is on a walk to watch the girls wiggle!

Now I have cleaned up what he precisely said for the sake of the blogging community, but you get the gist of it. He boldly proclaims that “the Macedonian girls are the most beautiful in the entire world” and that “they are so pretty they make me pant” and etc, etc. I am pretty sure he can’t tell if the person passing him on the street is a girl or a guy, except by the perfume they are wearing, because he is so blind! His nose and ears are still functioning well though. I tell him that he is going blind because he has been watching the girls wiggle and jiggle for far too many decades, and he giggles in agreement.

Now we are not friends because I chide him about watching girls, or rather wanting to watch the girls. We are friends because I can see him and I treat him with care and dignity. He lives behind us as I said, along with his 50 something year old daughter. Together they bring home about 200 euros a month ($250). They are poor and live on the ragged edge of life. Heck my rent alone is three times their gross monthly income.

So one day Uncle Lybe stopped by in the evening while I was pruning my roses, and told me that they were smelling mighty good. I asked him what all that commotion going on at his house was about? He told me that they were doing some necessary repairs to the roof because it was leaking, but that they had to stop because the wheelbarrow tire went flat. I mentioned that I had a pump and would come and put some air back into the tire. He was amazed, and pleased as punch that I would do that. And I did it a number of times, because clearly the tire had a slow steady leak and every few days the tire would go flat again.

So this week, Uncle Lybe came walking by as I was resowing some grass in the back shady part of the house. He was not his usual calm self, he was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, reminding me of my son when he had something he needed to tell me. I asked Uncle Lybe if he had something to tell me. He said, “no I need help.” It clearly killed him to ask, because we are Americans after all and he has made it clear many times in the past that America is responsible for much of the unrest in the Balkans, and I often agree with him, which unsettles him even more.

“I need help, because as you know the inner tube in the wheelbarrel is doomed and it needs a new one which I have . . . but I can’t see well enough to install it . . . and I can’t afford to have a meister do it.” Now if you look carefully here, he did not actually ask me to do it, but rather made the need known. I wasn’t about to take his dignity away and make him ask me, so I told him that if he could wait a day, I would see if I could help him. I did not want to promise to help, because the modus operandi of ministry here (perhaps everywhere?) is to under-promise, over-deliver.

It worked out last night that I was able to go and change the tube for him, and he was telling me ribald jokes and stuff like usual. When they were funny, I laughed; when they were just dirty I did not laugh. He said after I finished, “would you sit down and have a drink with me?” I said, “sure”. So we sat down and drank oyzo together. And they asked me many questions about Faith and Belief and action for the next hour as I sipped my oyzo. As I got up to leave, Uncle Lybe commented that while I am not much for checking out the ladies, I lived out Faith in my actions . . . I had helped him do what he could not do for himself.

As I walked away, I came to the uncomfortable conclusion that I am not the good man that Uncle believes me to be, nor is he quite the dirty ole’ man that he purports to be. We are both more and less than we appear. I wonder what God will do with us today?

The Call of the Peacock

There are endless ways to be awakened on any given day. Perhaps you prefer the drone of a vacuum cleaner? An alarm clock? Perhaps you prefer your kids to wake you from some sweet dream, screaming at the top of their lungs because they have pooped all in their pampers? Or perhaps you would prefer to wake up to the scream of a peacock?

Now peacocks are beautiful birds and everyone loves them . . . here they have almost divine status, as Orthodox churches cultivate them relentlessly. Now I don’t know if you have ever heard the call of a peacock before, but it is not a pretty sound. In fact if you are in the middle of one of those dreams I was referring to earlier, they could cause you to have a heart malfunction and experience dangerous palpitations! You could easily experience the need for defibrillation after being woken by the call of a peacock!

On the other hand here, the call of the peacock tells you that you are generally in a nice expensive place in the former Yugoslavia. The kind of place your friends all wish that they could be there too. A peacock call, tells you that someone else is going to be preparing breakfast today and that you can sleep in a while longer . . . if the stupid peacock will hush. And so, when I have the sometime pleasure of being awakened by a peacock rather than the drone of a vacuum cleaner, it probably is going to be a fun day.

That screeching peacock signifies that you are far from home and leisure is in the plans for the day. The call of the peacock is like the call of God on our lives. It is startling, uncomfortable, but sweet and warm in it’s implications of being invited in to join the work, by a loving Father who wants you to wake up and get moving.

Dinner arrived at 11:35 pm

Flexibility is a mark of a mature, thinking, intellegent missionary. Since I am known for few of those things, most people like me or hate me because of my honesty and general transparency. But on this night, flexibility ruled fortunately, not my honesty. When dinner is served at 11:35 pm, I am generally beyond hungry, I have gone postal and am considered dangerous. Especially when breakfast was 13 hours earlier and it had been a very very long day of stressful activities.

Now here I sat in a room with 200 other people praying, hoping, wishing that dinner would be served before I did some kind of chick thing and passed out on the floor. That would have been too embarrassing for words. I am so, not a chick. Not only was dinner being served as late as possible, but also this was a no dancing, no drinking party so it had few interesting things occurring to amuse me so that I would not think about being so hungry.

Now mind you I am fat. I don’t need to eat, but I certainly enjoying eating good food on a very regular basis. Not tonight my friends. We are sitting around tables with people that we like, but who are bored and as hungry as we are and this is not a happy scene. I have a killer headache coming on because of low blood sugar or some thingy like that, for sure. Plus I am going through second-hand smoke withdrawal, because so few people were smoking practitioners at this particular party.

Finally the food came at 11:30ish and the quiet in the room was almost ghoulish as everyone stuffed the faces as fast as possible.

I discovered once again that, to be spiritual is really difficult when your stomach is roaring and rumbling. The application of that is that I can’t expect most of the people in the world to hear the Gospel of Christ, until I put something in their bellies. "Poor nutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death." Jean-Louis Sarbib, 2006

fun is from Satan

Let’s face it, we don’t know how to have fun. Not even a little bit. In fact, we are afraid of fun. Fun seems evil and dark and out of control. At least that is what I concluded at the end of our super-conservative wedding in Southern Macedonia that we attended yesterday. The night was highlighted by two stark contrasts, the first was at the Christian wedding where we all sat stoically and primly in our chairs and quietly talked to one another; the other is when we returned to our hotel and a wedding was in full roaring blast, and people were literally (I lie not) dancing on top of the tables.

I am not advocating table dancing at our Christian weddings, but I am concerned about a number of things related to this wedding of our close friends. It was the first “Christian” wedding ever done in this town. For that we are thrilled, and honestly the church service was excellent. Great music, great preaching, beautiful bride and groom, full church, lots of atmosphere. This service alone marked this couple’s nuptials as something very special. It also was probably the last Christian wedding in that town.

Folks I am here to tell you, the dinner reception afterwards, probably went down as the worst one ever in Macedonia. You have to understand that weddings are a huge deal here. Families will go into debt for decades to pull off a wedding that would be talked about (favorably) for years to come. It is considered a social coup. And it is one of the few social situations where people really let down their hair and have fun.

This reception was no fun. Mind you I am not a wedding connissiur, nor am I particularly fond of weddings in general, but here in the former Yugoslavia, it is one place where people have fun. And I want and think people should have fun. Most importantly in this society, is that Christians have fun. We are painted as the stupid, deaf, dumb, mentally deficient sect of the West here . . . and that we can have fun, while being the children of God, is critical.

But as we often we do, we err on the side of not taking any risks (thinking that this is no error at all) and in the process made certain than none, not even one of those pre-Christians attending the wedding last night, will be in Church today, nor interested in Christianity for the entire course of their lives. Oh yes, we are afraid to have fun. Don’t you know fun is from Satan? And here I thought Jesus made the good wine at the wedding party.

And the problem with the universe is??

It is me. And let’s face it, its you too. We are the problem. I am as bad as any one else at pointing the finger at the government (or governments since I get the joy of dealing with several) or corporate business or politics or religion and punting my responsibilities. But the real problem is me . . . and you. There is something broken in us that prevents us from taking responsibility for our actions. Something broken that makes doing right really tough. Something so broken that doing wrong seems natural and automatic, but that is also the problem within itself.

That it is about . . . me. All the time, every day, each hour, every conversation, every strategy at play, all the public masks, each stroke of emotion, is almost always about me. As one author commented, “I spend 95% of my time thinking about me.” “ . . . the problem in the universe lives within me.” Ouch that hurts . . . especially since its true . . . I am the problem. There is something corrupt and damaged inside . . . and I am not saying this to give myself permission to be bad or act in unrighteousness. It is much more a simple admission of reality, that my depths of depravity know no limits.

Many Westerners who come and visit this war-torn corner of the world shake their heads in disbelief that people can send young girls to rape camps, and can force 1000’s of boys and men into a hole in the ground and then execute them, and can burn people’s houses with them and their children inside and all the other atrocities committed in the Balkans over the last 950 years or so (although all the things I actually listed here happened in the last 10-11 years).

But after living here for the last 7 years, I don’t think there is any difference between me and them. None at all. I am capable of doing all that and worse. As Miller points out, it’s not that we are somehow better or above such actions, it is much much more that we civilized Westerners live in a world of checks and balances and we will get caught and we will be punished. “But that does not make us good people, it only makes us subdued.” In other words we don’t have freedom in the West as much as we have checks and balances . . . someone is watching us all the time and the judicial system in general will make you pay for your actions.

You want to know what is the problem with the universe? Go look in the mirror, the answer is there.

Yet there is hope. I need hope, don’t know about you, but I need hope. Real genuine scarred-hands of hope. Jesus died for me so that I do not have to stay broken and corrupt and vicious. I can be something more. In fact, it is that wanting to be something more than this animal of perversion, that drives us to God. We need something outside of ourselves to repair us, rebuild us and make us whole once again. We sense that this is possible, and we want it, each and everyone of us. Best of all it is priceless . . . yet free.

verisimilitude

That is, depicting realism, or having the appearance of truth. Realism, truth these are difficult things. Living in the truth is a tough gig. Today it’s Independence Day here and of course everything is closed and no one is working, er . . . , except for us of course. And people love talking to us about how important Independence day is and what a big holiday that Independence Day is in the States, etc. etc. We all love independence, for it gives us the feeling that you are on your own, that we can make it (whatever it is) ourselves, that we do not need anyone, that freedom is ours to enjoy, that we can make unimpeded decisions without thought for others, and finally that they can make the same unimpeded decisions without regard for me.
There is a big problem with independence . . . it’s killing us. Moreover it is not realistic, it does not have the proper elements of verisimilitude. It’s killing us in that what we want destroys us. Old John says it pretty clearly when he states that we will either love the darkness or we will love the light, but I can tell you that loving the darkness is a lot easier. We will do ultimately what we love to do. I wish that I did the right things for the right reasons, but I don’t. Oh sometimes I do the right thing, but usually it is for the wrong reasons.
I love the way Miller says it, “Because of sin, because I am self-addicted, living in the wreckage of the fall, my body, my heart, my affections are prone to love the things that kill me.” Only Christ can help me love the right things for the right reasons. Only Jesus can help me love heaven or, as C. S. Lewis accurately pointed out, we will hate heaven too (The Great Divorce). Of course I hate this . . . that I need Jesus, because I so desperately want to be independent. Once again this is a fantasy not verisimilitude.
My friend Chris Howard says it best, that we need to be gloriously dependent on Jesus. Chris is a motorhead, but unfortunately and sadly (for those loving independence) he is 100% correct. We were not made for independence.

Technology failures in the hairy armpit

This was not a good day for electronics in Eastern Europe. I got up early to go to the police station (see previous blog) and spent an hour working before going there and all was well. Came home and the router was blown out completely, e.g. dead dead dead. So off the the store to get a new one . . . ouch! $200 plus dollars for a router . . . why do electronics cost so much more here? Anyhoo, thank the Lord that I could even get one!

And then tonight in the middle of working on a sermon for this weekend, my Palm dies! And we are talking about completely dead here, not partially dead, not comatose, not in pain, dead pure and simple dead. As in nothing happens at all under any circumstance no matter what you try. Now I have to figure out a way to get that silly piece of equipment back to the States so that I can get another one (since it is still under warranty). Unfortunately I use this Palm everyday, and in multiple ways, e.g. I do my devo’s on this girl everyday, write most of my blogs when stuck in traffic, reference calendars, contacts and to-do’s all throughout the day. I am going to have to figure out a different way to work my information issues and data issues now. What a total drag . . . it will take six months for me to work everything out again and get up and running.

This is what it is like having technology failures in the hairy armpit of the earth. I had a good friend Jeff write me recently about a “scare” that they had with some computer glitch or something. I told him, it’s not a “scare” when you are living in the good ‘ole USA. It’s a nightmare when you are living here though. FedEx wants $54.00 to send the palm to the States! Yikes, it’s a good thing that I am patient enough to compensate for not being rich.

I am so glad that God does not use nor need electronics to keep heaven and us going. What a terrible gig it would be to died, approach the Pearly Gates and find out you have to wait to come in because of some computer glitch or some silly thing like that! Can you imagine? I am further pleased to report that although the power was out this morning, that my prayers still worked fine. There are no technology failures in heaven. Aren’t you glad?

The police

No I don’t mean the musical group. I mean the uniformed group who throw their weight around and around and around. Its rarely fun at the police station and this morning was no exception. It seems police everywhere in this part of the world utilize the waiting game. Now at least I was there for a legitimate reason today . . . we were working on getting our visas for the coming year. But I could not fail to notice how you have to keep a respectful distance from the officer, how you have to use a submissive voice, and often you could be asked which political party you are affiliated with! The level of hassle from the officer you get by chance today, most likely will relate to this last question.

Going through the almost constant process of visa-mongering . . . that process that never ends in our search for legal papers to stay in-country . . . we learn well how to relate to the police and other government officials. An amazing amount of time is lost every year by us and our partners as we continually fight for visas. In fact Brenda and I are planning to attempt gaining Macedonian passports once again this year. We are entering our eighth year here visa-wise and there is a chance we can gain citizenship, which would bring a wonderful stop to the never-ending visa process.

I am thrilled that the Kingdom of God works so much better than this process. There is no constant supplication to stay in the Kingdom once there. If you are there, you are there! No yearly applications to prolong our stay, no begging and no repetitive documents to complete in order to appease some red-tape-loving politician. Just love God and love His world and love His people, and enjoy the stay

Labor Day

I am a bit confused . . . which is no surprise to those of you who know me well . . . but I thought Labor Day was supposed to be a labor stoppage day in celebration of, well, labor. Then why am I working like this?? I guess since Macedonia does not have a Labor Day holiday, folks here are working like a regular day.

Many people here unfortunately do have a job and thus have no labor, at least the variety that produces income and a livelihood. We have an incredible unemployment rate (officially) at 37.7% for the whole country, but the ethnic minority communities suffer far worse levels. According to EU documents the Gypsy unemployment rate is an astounding 78.5%! These unemployment rates have steadily climbed over the last 30 years and show no sign of stopping. Even more critical than the unemployment rates, are the statistics that show 55.1% of the entire population live below the human poverty line. When the annual average income is less than $1800.00 per year, you can imagine what that really means.

Below is the most condemning visual you can imagine. It shows the world’s population by fifths, and how much of the world’s resources each fifth consumes. This balloon is a result of a “more for me” mentality that covers the West. Notice please that the poorest 3/5ths of the world’s population consumes only 6.6% of the world’s resources. That means almost 4 BILLION people live on 6.6% of the world’s resources . . . I am thankful for Labor Day and that I have labor to perform today. That I can have something for my family, but also for many other families. "For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.”

What to talk to teens about?

What do you talk to youth about today? Here, one could be highly tempted to talk about super-tight form fitting clothes, or sex or drugs and laziness. Those are big issues here. But this is the not the approach that builds team, warm feelings and significant change, anyone can be negative, but what about a positive approach? So instead, Brenda and I talked to the kids at the Youth Camp about:

1. Who are you in Christ?
2. What God is calling you to do?
3. Where God is calling you to do it?
4. Does God lead you personally?
5. What does character have to do with Life?

It struck me as we were working through these issues together, that much of this material still needs to be applied in my life, not only in the lives of these teenagers! So much for the idea that "youth" need special messages . . . I still need those same messages today and I ain't no youth.

How to stay clean in the garbage can?

Well the youth camp is going well and we are having a great time studying God's word together . . . but teaching holy living in today's world is much like teaching them how to stay clean in a garbage container! And the Eastern European garbage container is worse than most. Clearly none of us can do this apart from the power of God.

One of the themes we had this camp was Ephesians 2:10. This verse has all kinds of depth and layers to it, but the most interesting thing seems to be that God has prepared specific tasks for each of us to accomplish. Now what exactly does this mean? It says that God has prepared these good works in advance for us to accomplish. Moreover it seems clear that each individual has individual tasks that God has personally prepared for them to do. I guess you can choose to be excited about God’s direct involvement or angry about it, but it doesn’t really matter, He HAS prepared these tasks for you to do.

Some people have a problem with God mapping this out like this . . . but I think you had better get over it.

The bottom line is that God has things for us do . . . are we doing them?