...for the most dangerous men on earth goes to...(drum roll)...the Bush Administration, starring George Bush and Dick Cheney. January can't come fast enough to get these dangerous men out of office.
shalom, matt
What a Nightmare
How do you as a youth minister even begin to recover from being the leader on a trip where something like this happens to a kid in your group? How horrible for the family, the youth group and the church.
shalom, matt
The Flood of '08
So it rained a crap-load last weekend and my town, along with most of south central Indiana, was buried underneath more water than any one I know could possibly have imagined. Our house was spared, but others weren't so lucky. I was out of town and couldn't get back home to my wife and son who were trapped because the water rose so fast on the streets in our neighborhood. Not a good feeling. Here are some pics my wife took of the flood in our neighborhood.
My son, Elijah, in the middle of our freaking street. Unbelievable.
At any rate, we are doing fine and suffered nothing more than a fridge full of spoiled food. But we needed to clean it out anyway.
shalom, matt
The Cold Front of Doubt
For many of us easy answers to the tough questions of life and theology wreak, like the putrid stench of a silent fart in a warm car (come on, we’ve all done it and know that stench well). These answers, while sounding like truth to the non-discriminating ear and uncritical mind, leave the rest of us scrambling for the power window button, gasping for fresh, unfouled air. In other words, the answers just stink.
For a number of years I approached my Christianity with doe-eyed innocence, prancing through the golden meadow of faith with my Sunday School answers in tow. Then, one day, sometime during high school, my brain awakened from its comfy slumber and I found myself asking questions in my mind and soul. The questions started quietly, gentle rumbling of a distant cold front of doubt clashing with a warm front of Sunday School faith. As I matured and grew in my discipleship that storm front grew closer, louder, more ferocious. But here’s the rub: I didn’t know it was a normal part of discipleship to have questions. It wasn’t that someone told me explicitly that it was wrong; they just never told me it was okay. So I hid under my poncho and waited for the storm to do its worst.
College came. With college came friends, good, lasting friends. And what I discovered were friends who had come from a little further west, who came already wet from the storm of questions and doubts. And they stood with me in the rain. They helped me shed my protective poncho and allow the storm to overtake me. Soon I was drenched with the questions that had rumbled for years inside me, in my deep places, that, like the waters of the Flood, were now bubbling up and gushing forth. I was soaked from all directions.
What I found, to my surprise and pleasure, were a host of other people with similar inquiries and doubts. I didn’t have to feel overwhelmed by my doubt, by the onslaught of mystery as it overtook my Sunday School assurances. It was okay to ask the questions. And it was equally okay, even healthier, to not have any answers to the questions. By asking those questions I gave my Christianity the space it needed to breathe and grow by soaking in the deluge of questions. I discovered more faith, trusting in a God who is bigger than our inquiries and theological hang-ups. Faith, it seems, is dependent on a probing, prying heart that asks thorny, complex questions without regard for the answer it may or may not receive. In the seeking is the finding. To quote David Crowder in his song Here is Our King, “From wherever searching comes the look itself/ A trace of what we’re looking for/ So be quiet now and wait.”
I have found a deeper faith in God through my probing, wondering, and inquiring, partly due to a new understanding of how deep the mystery of God is: He is inexhaustible. Joy comes in knowing that there is always a new question, a new search just beyond the previous question or answer.
So, take off your poncho. Let the storm wash over you. And find a deeper faith in He Who Is Beyond All Questions.
shalom, matt
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