Harder than it seems

When life gets busy, it’s harder to blog. I don’t know how the people who do this all the time manage to keep going.

My goal was to average one post a day for year.

I have a long way to go.

Typos. Oops.

My wife read through this blog for the first time the other day.  There were some things she hadn’t known, fully–like why “Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown” is my favorite hymn.  But my wife is my editor-in-chief when it comes to bulletins and church ads.  She’s the one I go to when I want something proofed.  (All this and she’s a remarkable wife to me and wonderful mother to my children!)

And, when my wife read this stuff over, she found some typos.  Yes, there are some…apparently.

I gotta’ say that, for right now, I’m content with this being rough around the edges and not polishing up my perspective too much.  I hope that this will prove to be an OK move from my part.

Enjoy.

Other Potential Names for this Blog

While I had started up a blog on Blogger, a couple of years ago, that was called “The Prodigal Blog,” this time around I really struggled with what to call this place. I knew I wanted the name to have some sense of “journey” or “struggle” to it. I wanted to make clear that it was a place for my perspectives and I wasn’t making any claim to speak “for” the church or maybe even “to” the church. I just wanted to be able to speak for myself. So here are some of the names that I rejected:

JIM’S SHOES — OK, this may sound a little cheesy. But I like the pun implied in the name. Get it! “Jim’s Shoes” / “Gym Shoes…” Funny, huh? Plus the title would lend itself to a nice picture of a pair of my shoes. Although I wasn’t sure if I’d go towards a pair of athletic shoes or a pair of my Keens. Didn’t use either. Didn’t use the name.

THE MIRROR DIMLY — This is obviously (I hope) an allusion to 1 Corinthians 13 and the verse, “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.” Again, a nice image of mirror on the blog. And the name would express my sentiment of not seeing the whole picture down here on earth. “Glass Darkly” was also considered. Neither had the appeal I really wanted, though.

THE WRESTLING MAT — While this might be a better name if my name happened to be Matt or I liked wrestling, I liked this name because it’s a reference to one of my favorite Scriptures, one that has been formative in my life and one that has shaped a lot of understanding about myself and my God. (I’ll explain more at a later time.) The Scriptural reference is Genesis 32:22-31:

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him ther

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.

Perhaps this could have been a place for me to “wrestle” a little with God and myself.

The problem with blogging…people can read it

I got an e-mail notice today that someone had posted a comment to my post below called “The Perfect Storm of Blogging.” This was from a Pastor who has been on the “conservative” side of the homosexual discussion and had been at General Conference. It was a well thought out comment and I was very much surprised that anyone would be reading it…although I should have assumed it might turn up on someone’s radar.

At this point, I’m not going to post comments and will be turning them off. I’m not sure about the direction of this blog and really want it to be a place where I can post lighter, non-theological fare in addition to me working out (with fear and trembling) some issues of theology and church life.

So, if you’ve read this, thanks for reading. And feel free to e-mail me with comments.

The “Perfect Storm” for Blogging

Here’s what’s being going on to get me to this place…

1) I’ve been reading a lot of political blogs lately…almost entirely left leaning blogs (Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Politico) with an occasional journey into some of the right leaning ones (Fox News, RedState, Right Wing News). I don’t make any promises of being “fair and balanced” if that’s supposed to mean I give equal time to both “sides.” I lean left. I’m a fan of Barak Obama right now. But I consider myself a moderate who grew up in a very Republican household with a father who occasionally sends me e-mails with conservative talking points. But… I have gotten this political sense (and I think Obama talks about it most) that we keep arguing from two sides, without any work in the middle. One of the things that has politically turned me against Hillary Clinton is the fact that she constantly says she’s “going to fight” for persons. I think that’s a political attitude that is past its heyday. “Fighting” means fighting against someone and I’m not sure we can politically afford to have the conservatives and the liberals (whatever those terms mean) duking it out for our political futures. There’s too much of an “us/them” attitude.

2) I attended General Conference of the United Methodist Church. You can see my blog account for the Alaska Conference at THIS SITE. I was serving as the Communications Director of the Alaska Conference, which I am, and I basically reported on what was going on as best I could. As has been the case since the General Conference in 1980, the issue of homosexuality has gotten most of the press and has taken up most of the time and energy of the conference. It’s the big issue. And, at least this time, it has gotten played out as a battle between those who are “pro-homosexuality” (or Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender– LGBT) and those who are “anti-homosexuality.” One bishop said this was playing out as a battle between those who valued “hospitality” (welcoming LGBT) and those who valued “holiness” (“homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian teaching). I have considered myself pretty moderate when I was in the religiously conservative environment of Indiana. I consider myself pretty moderate as I’m in the more liberal religious environment of the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church. I struggle to find a voice from the middle. And I was left to wonder how the “pro-homosexual folks” interpreted those Scriptures which do seem to say a word against homosexual practice. And I was left to wonder why the “anti-homosexual folks” weren’t putting equal weight on Jesus’ words about justice and peace or didn’t stress some of the other Old Testament prohibitions — like touching women when they were menstruating or stoning. If we, in the United Methodist Church have a statement in our social principles that says “homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian teaching” shouldn’t we have a statement that says “not tithing is incompatible with Christian teaching” or “gluttony is incompatible with Christian teaching.” If a pastor can not allow a practicing homosexual to become a member in a local church, shouldn’t they have a right to turn away those who eat too much or those who work in the banking industry (take money with interest). Perhaps instead of spending a full day at General Conference talking about homosexual practice, we should talk about the authority of Scripture instead. That would be quite a sight.

3) I read a book. That’s a big deal in and of itself. But the book I read was A.J. Jacobs’ The Year of Living Biblically. This is not, I would say, a book written for a religious audience. He’s a secular Jew who is exploring faith for a solid year. And he finds some of the most obscure Biblical laws and rules and tries to live by them. This book made me more convinced that, liberal or conservative, pro-homosexual or anti-homosexual, we’re all taking some liberties with our biblical interpretation just to make sense of it all. We’re all stressing some parts of the Bible more than others. If we tried to take it all equally seriously, we’d end up something like A.J. Jacobs. (By the way, I highly recommend the book.)

4) Just two days ago I had a brief conversation with the local anarchist. Nice guy. Works in a coffee shop. We were talking religious / philosophical stuff as we have done in the past. He said he believed with Friedrich Nietzsche that the last Christian died with Jesus and that no one really follows it all these days. I can see where he’s coming from. What answer do I have for him?

So, these four things, and some other things I haven’t gotten into, have brought me to this place. I hope I can work some of this out for myself. I hope I can come to some understanding. I hope, somewhere down the line, someone else finds this helpful. I also hope I don’t take myself too seriously.

Delusions of Grandeur?

After three days of praying and working on a name for a blog and trying to determine if I really wanted to go through with this, I have a blog. This is actually my 5th attempt at a blog…although it is only the 3rd that I’ve gone beyond setting it up to actually posting something…and I’ve only had one that I kept up for over a week.

I have this sense that, having a blog, I must feel like I can change the world or that I somehow think my voice is something that persons want to listen to and my words are something that persons want to read. I feel like, to have a blog, I must have delusions of grandeur…that this must be the pride that comes before the inevitable fall. And, for those who know my public persona as one who is very comfortable with public speaking and know that, as a preacher, every Sunday I stand up in front of persons and tell them what I think (or what I think that God thinks I should think on that particular day) it may come as a surprise that I don’t enter this blogging world lightly.

Yet, I think I have some things to say that are important to me. They might be important to my family and perhaps my kids someday. And, maybe, just maybe, I have something to say here as Pastor…as a United Methodist Pastor. Maybe…

Perhaps I do have delusions of grandeur. Perhaps I do think myself more highly than I am. Perhaps this is nothing at all.

I…hope…perhaps…not.