Cats and church

The last few weeks -- six of them now, I suppose -- have been so full of learning, writing, sleeping and complaining about the excess of the secondary and the lack of the latter that I've neglected to post any thoughts here.

Philadelphia, October 2015

Unfortunately, the thing that brings me back is the lack of my presence in a church. The last time I attended was before I left in August.

My stay in Grants Pass thus far has been a good one. The job has become more comfortable, and I've been blessed with a great place to stay while I look for something more permanant, something more of my own. My cat Philadelphia is staying with my parents in Klamath Falls, about 100 miles away, and I've visited her (and them) on a number of occasions.

In other words, more often than I've been to church.

My job has me working long, mentally taxing hours between Friday and Saturday, and I often find myself waking up on Sunday afternoon wondering where the day has gone. The haze and copious amount of Netflix on Sunday leads to another lazy day on Monday, and then it begins anew.

I need to somehow break myself out of this little cycle. I'm not sure if that means forcing myself out of bed on Sunday morning, or if that means I search for something on Sunday evening or Monday, but it needs to change. And it shall.

Stay tuned for more updates. I hope to begin writing more often, and using this blog as an excuse to get out of the house and mingle with... people...

...ugh.

Many thanks in advance: the move

In the time between my last post and this one, my world has turned inside out -- kinda. A month from now, I'll be moving to Grants Pass to take a position at the Daily Courier, as most of my tiny blog-readership is already aware.

Change is difficult for me. I'm excited for the new possibilities that come from a larger town and a bigger newspaper. I'll get to cover seven high schools instead of two. I'll get to cover some collegiate athletics, including Oregon and Oregon State at times. Rent is cheap; the future is bright.

But something about all of this is still terrifying. I think it goes back to yearnings over the last several years for the chance to have God ask me to blindly jump into a new situation.

I know three people in Grants Pass/Medford, and one of them is my future editor. I don't make friends very easily, and usually prefer to hide away with Netflix, my cat and a bottle of wine. The prospect of having to find an apartment some 250 miles away and cultivate a new group of friends puts me on edge.

This is definitely a jump: find a home, find a church, find a new life. It's a fresh start, and one that God can dictate from the beginning.

Hopefully, I can look back at this post a year from now and write about how God stepped in and found me a place to live. I'll have a group of people I can trust and spend time with, and life will be peachy.

Experience should be enough proof, right? I found an apartment in Oregon City because I happened to look out the window on my way to work and discovered a perfect situation which hadn't ever been advertised on Craigslist. My place in Scappoose is close to my office, is cheap enough for me to afford and has been a good living situation.

For some reason, though, I still have anxiety about where I'll live. I've spent the last few days anxiously checking Craigslist, the local online classifieds and other apartment websites, desperate for a lead. Will I have a roommate? Will I have to live at the new office? How hard will it be to find a place for my cat?

I have to expect that God's answer will come in time. Maybe it'll come when I drive down in a few weeks to check things out again. Maybe it'll come after I've been living on somebody's couch for a month. But whatever happens -- and I need to work this into my fear-filled heart -- God will carry me through.

Rainbow Joward

The Supreme Court's decision to extend equal marriage rights to the homosexual community this week broke the internet.

It became the fad to add a rainbow filter over your Facebook profile photo, whether or not you'd ever openly advocated for gay rights before. Companies and news organizations trumpeted the ruling and jumped on a massive multicolored, politically-correct landslide.

I'm not here to debate politics. What I am here to do is leave a message for the Christianfolk with whom I (at times begrudgingly) identify.

To those of you who posted updates about how gays and lesbians will burn in hell, to those of you who wildly flailed your crucifixes in desperate hope that you wouldn't be mistaken for having agreed with the movement, for those of you who posted bible verse after bible verse condemning homosexuality -- this is for you.

Just because you don't agree with the movement doesn't mean you should be spreading a movement of hatred and fear.

We are called to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, as I've written about before. But we are also called to love the people around us -- and that's regardless of their age, race, eye color, hairstyle, religion, height, smell, favorite hockey team... and sexual orientation.

Putting a rainbow on my Facebook doesn't mean I'm a-jumpin' on the gay train, it carries a far more valuable meaning. I'm taking a stand to be loving and accepting, regardless of how others who share my faith have been reacting all week long.

Some of my thoughts were sparked by something a friend posted, a message by Ian Pratt on Instagram which captured my feelings in a really good way. Pratt talks about how Jesus met with and loved people from all walks of life, from the pharisees to the tax collectors and prostitutes. Pratt was moved to action, not by his convictions on the issue of gay marriage, but on the reaction from fellow believers.

"My message to the gay community is this," he writes. "You are loved. You have infinite dignity and worth."

And that should be the message. My personal beliefs aside, I love you guys. This isn't one of the, 'Hey, you can do what you want as long as it doesn't affect me,' things. I hope to treat you as I should the rest of my friends, with love and respect for who you are.

Jesus loves you, and that doesn't change.

To those who are 'enraged,' as one commented mentioned, I'd challenge you to discover why. Gay people are nothing to be afraid of. In fact, they are to be loved as neighbors -- much like the Samaritan, who would have been the sworn enemy of the Jews along the road. God doesn't set parameters of who he loves and when he loves, so why should we?

Jesus the wave-maker strikes again

Jesus is excellent at shock-value statements. Excellent.

It seems to be through some strange plan of God's that I find myself sitting in a cafe hiding from the rain, sipping a sweetly caffinated beverage and reading up on Jewish law on an otherwise unremarkable Monday afternoon.

My mini-study began as research on a post about how sex and worship are on a level with one another, and it ended with a fairly fascinating realization regarding a verse and a bible story I'd known for years.

It's a story reflected in three of the Gospels -- Mark, Luke and Matthew -- and we know from experience that if God wants to emphasize something in his word, it gets repeated.

Flashback: Jesus is asked by one of his disciples (you can read the whole story here) about who will be the greatest in the kingdom of the Heaven. It's a selfish request from selfish men, who size one another up and ask for special favors on more than one occasion.

But Jesus isn't about to cater to their worldly wants. We're talking about one who has the power to calm the wind and the waves, and he's about to make a few waves on his own.

Jesus responds in a way that likely surprised them, calling a child over to sit on his knee and explaining to his followers that the greatest in the Heaven will be the ones who humble themselves like children. Jesus then goes on to make an interesting statement.

"If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea," Jesus tells his audience.

For the Jews, who would have understood the basic rules and prohibitions of their culture extremely well, that statement would have been mind-blowing.

A large part of Judaic law centered around preserving life -- even at the cost of violating minor laws. There's an extensive list of what things do and don't count as "minor" enough, a list which excludes desecrating the name of the Lord -- whether through idolatry, public transgressions of Judaic law meant to desecrate the Torah or otherwise. It also includes certain forms of sexual immorality, and murder.

It's a little more complicated than I fully understand or have the time/space to include, but the Jews were supposed to value life -- even their own life -- above everything but those three commandments. If the Jews were under threat of death, they were supposed to allow themselves to be killed rather than break one of the three above-all rules. Jesus is now telling them that, rather then cause a child to sin, it would be better for them to literally tie a giant rock around your neck and jumping into the sea.

It goes beyond personal responsibility, and has to do with how your actions affect those around you.

Jesus is laying the groundwork for the theatre of the mind in which we battle to manage our thoughts and imaginations. Lust is equated to adultry -- part of the "sexual imorality" section -- and hatred is akin to murder. In a moment, he'll talk about how it is better to cut off your hand than have it cause you to sin -- the same with one of your eyes.

It's a well-known quotation of Jesus that the most important commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The Jewish leaders took the same commandment to justify giving up your own life -- all your strength -- in order to fulfill the commandment. Loving your neighbor was rule 1A in the mind of Jesus, and with that background in mind, his words would have hit home with those listening.

Your actions, and the way they affect the people around you, matter. Jesus adds essentially adds a fourth exception, saying that causing others to stumble was on a level with murder and should be avoided on pain of death.

Thankfully, God forgives. The penalty for all sins, big and small, is death. We have grace as we stumble and cause others to stumble with us, but Jesus gives a strong warning: in the same way that it's better to cut off a hand than steal or cut out an eye than lust, death is better than being a stumbling block.

God's heavenly solutions

I had a moment like this today, minus the broom and the pink shirt.

Anyone who knows me well understands that I enjoy pushing the envelope from time to time, and I like getting under peoples skin and watching them react.

My bad habits as a columnist have caught the attention of angry parents or administrators from time to time, and in turn, my publisher. I've been called into the little conference room at our office on a number of occasions, and each one has been thrilling in it's own right.

Once, we discussed my accidental reference to an administrator's coworkers as "cronies." Later, we talked about how my coverage needed to be more comprehensive. A few months later, I was informed of a different administrator's attempt to ban me from campus and have me arrested -- for which we threatened a lawsuit.

The top such incident came after a column critical of game day operations that resulted in an irate parent emailing the CEO of our company, suggesting that I be reigned back to simply reporting box scores and occasionally using words like 'slam dunk,' and ended by saying, "I merely ask that your publication NEVER pay him for anything ever again."

Needless to say, my publisher threatened to fire me if I wrote about the cheer team again.

Also needless to say, when he asked me to step into the conference room with him today, which is more than a year removed from our last private visit, I was convinced  -- a little sarcastically -- that I was headed for joblessness.

I didn't get fired, I was given a raise.

Remember how I wrote a few weeks ago about clearing my head of earthly solutions and giving God room to work miracles?

Communion's questionable timidity

There's such thing as too much, but I think we're too timid as a Church.

I often ask myself this during church services -- and communion, especially.

Why are we so quiet and reserved? Why are we so timid? If we are celebrating the DEATH and RESURECTION of Jesus, why do we sit silently and think with our minds instead of jumping and shouting for joy?

I think some of this frustration comes from God beginning to change my heart and my walk from an intellectual one to an emotional one. Our relationship takes pondering and meditation, don't get me wrong, but how many times in the Bible did we see characters react to miracles by quietly bowing their heads and solemnly closing their eyes?

I've come to understand that -- and this seems a little obvious, at first -- Bible characters are just people. There's nothing special about Paul, other than his education and ability to teach. The apostles didn't have super powers. They're just some guys with God-given gifts.

Because they're people like us, they wade through the same issues. It takes a little time to build up trust. Even the Bible characters made bad choices early on. They had doubts, they struggled and they made mistakes. Thomas doubted Jesus' resurrection, and the disciples feared for their lives in the boat during the storm.

Look at Abraham, for example. Long before we read about his example of trusting God with the life of his son, we read about how he and Sarah decide to jump the gun and jump the rails of God's plan to make a nation of Abraham. Their impatience -- a lack of trust -- leads to some nasty family business, and it's only years later that Abraham has grown in faith to the point that he's able to trust God with the life of his promised and belove'ed son.

My point? Abraham was human.

So was David, and David praised God by singing and shouting and dancing -- sometimes clothed, and sometimes not. And while I won't condone worshiping in the nude, I think the important lesson to learn is that God is an EMOTIONAL being as well as an intellectual one, and I'm frustrated with how hard it is to let go and worship God in an emotional way.

I'm also not saying that communion should be replaced by jumping up on the table and acting like monkeys, but it'd be interesting to examine how we go about such a service. There's an element of self-reflection, but we can't forsake the jumping and leaping and praising God part of it, either.

The people in the bible were humans just like us, and they made mistakes, just like us. But if  they were human and they worshiped undeservedly, then why don't we?

Reflections on the faithfulness of God

This is my happy place, in my favorite corner with my headphones blaring weird music.

As has been typical over the last several weeks, a night off calls for hitting the road to St. Helens in search of inspiration, a green tea -- or should I say, iced grande, no-classic green iced tea -- and a quiet corner at the only Starbucks in Columbia County.

A quick glance at this afternoon's schedule immediately reminded me of my forming habit, one which has brought about several chances to jot down notes on how God is beginning to shape me a little at a time, and how I've grown over the last few years.

Normally, a thought will strike me early in the day before I get a chance to write. It generally comes to me as I'm showering before work, and I'm able to turn over the idea in my head for a few hours. Today, I came home from a brutally long stretch at the office with my fuzzy, over-worked brain a little burnt out. 

Maybe I would write about a thought I'd had last week contrasting redemption and salvation? Maybe I could finally complete a post I'd started around Easter about my frustrations surrounding exactly how conservative churches are. Maybe I could read back through old posts and wait for one idea to out-shine the others.

Being a little lazy and off my inspiration-game, I opted for the third path and perused the entries from my final few months at Starbucks and first few months working for the Spotlight, my current place of employment.

What I came across was fairly fascinating, and something I've seen from God in the very recent past. I documented financial struggles two years ago, and was able to look at how my reactions have changed when some tax issues hit me a few months back. It was a major testiment to God's work in my heart.

Two summers ago, I was in the midst of having been turned down for a job at my hometown newspaper, the Molalla Pioneer. Even at the time, I noted how I was able to handle the 'rejection' much better than expected, and I looked forward to other opportunities God would have for me. I was frustrated with Starbucks and felt like I was ready to move on to something new.

Sound familiar? I'm not sure how much I've actually captured here on this blog, but I feel some of that still. The job here in Scappoose has been a major blessing, but I'm somehow unable to shake the looking-for-something-bigger-and-better compulsion. It's interesting, though, that every time I've been turned down for a job, there's been something better waiting around the corner.

God kept me at Starbucks a little while longer until something opened up that I couldn't have imagined. It was one of those non-earthly solutions to a problem that I've been thinking about quite a lot over the last few weeks. Maybe the same thing is in store for me this time around.

For me, it's important  that I continue to throw my shoulder to the wheel, no matter where God has placed me. I'm not sure how long he has me in my current position, whether it be two months or two years.

At the end of the day, it helps to look back at my life and see the times that God has come through with the best possible solution for me. God doesn't change his character, and so I can trust that I will be well cared-for in the future.