khad.com

"If Jesus were walking today, he’d have one arm around the death row inmate and one around the..."

Mon, 07 May 2012 21:04:10 -0700

“If Jesus were walking today, he’d have one arm around the death row inmate and one around the victim’s family. Those are both sides of the cross. Our faith stretches us. It tests us and challenges us to love in ways we hadn’t thought possible. I don’t believe the death penalty is a peripheral issue. It’s a central issue.”

- Sister Helen Prejean

Invocation for Creativity

Thu, 03 May 2012 22:10:10 -0700

Invocation for Creativity:

Don’t get caught in the “paradoxical whirlpool of baloney.”

Beautiful rendition of Psalm 139 as read by Tribe of Los...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:39:00 -0700

Beautiful rendition of Psalm 139 as read by Tribe of Los Angeles. Compiled and edited by David Eppley.

Download MP3

KONY 2012: The Perfect Excuse for US Militarization of Oil-Rich Uganda?

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:47:28 -0700

KONY 2012: The Perfect Excuse for US Militarization of Oil-Rich Uganda?:

Adam Branch, senior research fellow at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Uganda:

As someone who has worked in northern Uganda and researched the war there for more than a decade, much of it with a local human rights organisation based in Gulu, the Invisible Children organisation and their videos have often left me infuriated. I remember the sleepless nights after I watched their “Rough Cut” film for the first time with a group of students, after which I tried to explain to the audience what was wrong with the film while on stage with one of the filmmakers.

My frustration with the group has largely reflected the concerns expressed so convincingly by those online critics who have been willing to bring the fury of Invisible Children’s true believers down upon themselves in order to point out what is wrong with this group’s approach: the warmongering, the narcissism, the commercialisation, the reductive and one-sided story they tell, their portrayal of Africans as helpless children in need of rescue by white Americans.

Branch proposes a different approach: education. What is the actual problem? Are we already part of it?

Things are always more complicated than we wish they were.

Fotoshop by Adobé

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:25:40 -0800

Fotoshop by Adobé:

Great video by Jesse Rosten:

This commercial isn’t real, neither are society’s standards of beauty.

(via Kelli Lane on Darling Magazine)

The Great Divorce

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:27:00 -0800

The Great Divorce:

Any article which finds a decent reuse for a C. S. Lewis book title deserves at least a cursory review. David Brooks actually does a pretty good job with it:

Murray’s story contradicts the ideologies of both parties. Republicans claim that America is threatened by a decadent cultural elite that corrupts regular Americans, who love God, country and traditional values. That story is false. The cultural elites live more conservative, traditionalist lives than the cultural masses.

Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness.

We’re all in this together.

A Parable About the Church

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:28:51 -0800

A Parable About the Church:

Donald Miller:

Jack was born to be a dentist. Both his mother and father were dentists and from an early age they took Jack with them once a week to their local dental school. Even as a child Jack loved dental school because of the children’s program where kids gathered in colorful rooms and listened to well-mannered teachers read ancient stories about famous dentists, pioneer dentists who created endodontic and prosthodontic procedures. Jack sat wide eyed and mouth agape, as close as he could to his teacher as she turned page after glorious page of cartooned characters knuckle deep in the mouths of sun-drenched and bushy-bearded patients.

You too can quit church to do more ministry.

Merry

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:40:59 -0800

Merry:

Simply beautiful.

Xmas, Crissmas, and Grace Bombs

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:54:00 -0800

Xmas, Crissmas, and Grace Bombs:

It is a longstanding Christmas tradition of mine to share C. S. Lewis’s playfully satirical essay called “Xmas and Christmas”. (Hint: it’s not about word choice.) I can’t think of a more appropriate tradition to be sharing with you this year than a reminder of the “reason for the season”. Go ahead and read it. I will be here when you get back.

I had the opportunity to share your generous donations for the “Christmas Grace Bomb” with a family of five yesterday on Christmas Eve. Let me tell you, I was a little jealous. They have such cheerful, beautiful kids. Their stockings were hung. Movies were playing on the TV. And the sheer magnitude of stick-togetherness was palpable. It made me miss my own family immensely.

You see, this is the first year I have ever not been with family on Christmas, and I’ve been trying to make up for it by infiltrating other families. I had great success yesterday which was entirely thanks to friends like you who came together to make Christmas a little bit brighter for a family in sunny Southern California.

So please don’t get caught up in the Rush of that crazy holiday the Niatirbians call Exmas. Rather, may the grace of God through Jesus Christ his Son shine in your hearts and minds this Crissmas and every day.

Those of you who donated will be receiving a special thanks with more details and photos as soon as I can write that many emails. Thanks for your patience and support.

Christmas Grace Bomb

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:09:00 -0800

There is an outlaw preacher who is struggling this Christmas. She has three kids: a nineteen month old girl, a three year old boy, and a thirteen year old girl. She lost her job, and her husband’s hours were recently cut. I just found out that she applied for help through a local church for an “Adopt-A-Family” type program that gave gift cards to struggling families for Christmas.

Her family didn’t make the cut. She’s been ashamed to reach out for help, but would like to buy her kids a few gifts this Christmas like she has been able to in the past. I know it’s close to Christmas, but we could sure use your help. We’ve been able to find a few people to send her some small gift cards. I know money is tight for everyone, but any gift is a blessing right now for her.

As it would happen, she lives only about an hour from me. I haven’t had time to set up anything fancy, so this will take some level of trust, but if you find it in your heart to donate to her and her family, you can send me a donation via PayPal. I will personally deliver the amount to her on Christmas Eve (even if the funds don’t clear in PayPal; I am willing to trust too).

Thank you for your generosity!

An Evangelical Remembers His Friend Hitchens

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 11:40:06 -0800

An Evangelical Remembers His Friend Hitchens:

Larry Taunton, endearingly, on Christopher Hitchens:

The debate over, I crossed the stage to shake Christopher’s hand. “You were quite good tonight,” he said with a charming smile as he accepted my proffered hand. “I think they enjoyed us.”

Sadly, all future such debates must go off without a Hitch.

We were never meant to die.

Indonesia's Aceh punks shaved for 're-education'

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:16:20 -0800

Indonesia's Aceh punks shaved for 're-education':

Karishma Vaswani, for BBC Asia:

Dozens of young men and women have been detained for being “punk” and disturbing the peace in Aceh, Indonesia’s most devoutly Muslim province. They are being held in a remedial school, where they are undergoing “re-education”.

Unreal.

Leaving on a Jet Plane to Meet People from Twitter

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:25:05 -0800

Leaving on a Jet Plane to Meet People from Twitter:

Deanna Ogle on Outlaw Preachers (re)Union 2011:

The first hour or two was awkward for me, but instead of getting uncomfortable hello’s from people I got warm hugs and bright greetings from everybody.

Ain’t no huggin’ like outlaw huggin’.

On the Efficacy of Prayer

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:40:06 -0800

God seems to do nothing of himself which he can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what he could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye. He allows us to neglect what he would have us do, or to fail. Perhaps we do not fully realize the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills to co-exist with Omnipotence. It seems to involve at every moment almost a sort of divine abdication. We are not mere recipients or spectators. We are either privileged to share in the game or compelled to collaborate in the work, “to wield our little tridents.” Is this amazing process simply Creation going on before our eyes? This is how (no light matter) God makes something—indeed, makes gods—out of nothing.

So at least it seems to me. But what I have offered can be, at the very best, only a mental model or symbol. All that we say on such subjects must be merely analogical and parabolic. The reality is doubtless not comprehensible by our faculties. But we can at any rate try to expel bad analogies and bad parables. Prayer is not a machine. It is not magic. It is not advice offered to God. Our act, when we pray, must not, any more than all our other acts, be separated from the continuous act of God himself, in which alone all finite causes operate.

It would be even worse to think of those who get what they pray for as a sort of court favorites, people who have influence with the throne. The refused prayer of Christ in Gethsemane is answer enough to that. And I dare not leave out the hard saying which I once heard from an experienced Christian: “I have seen many striking answers to prayer and more than one that I thought miraculous. But they usually come at the beginning: before conversion, or soon after it. As the Christian life proceeds, they tend to be rarer. The refusals, too, are not only more frequent; they become more unmistakable, more emphatic.”

Does God then forsake just those who serve Him best? Well, he who served Him best of all said, near His tortured death, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” When God becomes man, that Man, of all others, is least comforted by God, at His greatest need. There is a mystery here which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to explore. Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.

The above is excerpted from “The Efficacy of Prayer” by C. S. Lewis. I recommend reading it in its entirety if you are interested in the topic.

That said, I think the essay is only a response to the question of prayer’s efficacy (as the title would imply). It doesn’t necessarily address prayer in a more general way. (You’ll have to read a lot more of Lewis to get his take on that.)

Frankly, measuring the “efficacy” of my communication with God is as absurd to me as attempting to quantify my communication with my mother, father, friend, or spouse. It just doesn’t make any sense if I start to think about it like that. If I have a conversation with my best friend, he is under no obligation to listen to me, but he does because he loves me. Because we all have free will, we need to remember that people will do whatever they want to do one hundred percent of the time. Not eighty percent. Not ninety. Not even ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine…

One of my favorite illustrations about communicating with God is one that Donald Miller relayed in a talk he gave. He was over at a friend’s house and his friend’s wife had made macaroni and cheese for dinner. Upon discovering this, their little daughter Cassie began to throw a fit. She did not want macaroni and cheese. She wanted chicken nuggets and demanded a change to the menu.

She became so upset by the dinner options (or lack thereof) that she ended up going down on the floor kicking and screaming. She cried out, “How could you do this to me?!”

At this point, as any parent knows, her father had a couple choices. He could capitulate to her demands and say, “Oh, of course, sweetie! I’m so sorry. If only we would have known that you wanted chicken nuggets. We will fix this immediately.” Turning to his wife: “Dear, please run to the store and get chicken nuggets for Cassie. She really needs chicken nuggets right now.”

These are the children that grow up to become third world dictators.

The other, more sensible option is what her father chose. He said to her, “Cassie, we’re not having chicken nuggets right now. Your mother made macaroni and cheese. We’d really love for you to join us for dinner, but if you don’t want to eat macaroni and cheese you don’t have to. That’s what we are having, though, so you’ll need to calm down if you want to eat with the rest of us. We can talk about having chicken nuggets some other night.”

In doing this, he was teaching Cassie that crying and banging on the floor is not a way to get what you want — that there is no magic dance you can do to coax another into acting the way you you want them to. We can try — and, oh, how we try! — but ultimately all we can do is try. The final decision of another to say or do something is up to them in the end.

What this story reminds me is that the God I love and have a relationship with is a personal God with a will and desires of his own. Sometimes we may not talk for a while. Sometimes we may disagree when we do, but that doesn’t me we don’t love each other.

So whenever I am on the floor screaming, “How could you do this to me?!” about the adult-life equivalent of a simple menu option, I try to remember that God is fathering me. And he is the most loving, caring, and patient father that has ever existed.

Do be in touch.

"Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is..."

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:33:03 -0800

““Anger is the most impotent of passions. It effects nothing it goes about, and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed.””

- Carl Sandburg

A Tale of a Farmer’s Bailout

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:18:00 -0800

A man is lost in a rural area and stops at a farm to get directions. As he is talking to the farmer he notices a pig with a wooden leg. “How did the pig get a wooden leg?” he asks the farmer.

“Well”, says the farmer, “that is a very special pig. One night not too long ago we had a fire start in the barn. Well, sir, that pig set up a great squealing that woke everyone, and by the time we got there he had herded all the other animals out of the barn and saved every one of them.”

“And that was when he hurt his leg?” asked the man.

“Oh no”, says the farmer. “He was fine after that. Though a while later I was in the woods out back and a bear attacked me. Well, sir, that pig was near by and he came running and set on that bear and chased him off. Saved me for sure.”

“So the bear injured his leg then”, says the man.

“Oh no. He came away without a scratch from that. Though a few days later my tractor turned over in a ditch and I was knocked unconscious. Well, that pig dove into the ditch and pulled me out before I drowned.”

“So he hurt his leg then?” asks the man.

“Oh no”, says the farmer.

“So how did he get the wooden leg?” the man asks.

“Well”, the farmer tells him, “when you have a pig like that, you don’t want to eat him all at once.”

#occupywallstreet

The Trouble with X

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:05:08 -0700

Excerpt from C. S. Lewis

I suppose I may assume that seven out of ten of those who read these lines are in some kind of difficulty about some other human being. Either at work or at home, either the people who employ you or those whom you employ, either those who share your house or those whose house you share, either your in-laws or parents or children, your wife or your husband, are making life harder for you than it need be even in these days. It is hoped that we do not often mention these difficulties (especially the domestic ones) to outsiders. But sometimes we do. An outside friend asks us why we are looking so glum, and the truth comes out. On such occasions the outside friend usually says, “But why don’t you tell them? Why don’t you go to your wife (or husband, or father, or daughter, or boss, or landlady, or lodger) and have it all out? People are usually reasonable. All you’ve got to do is to make them see things in the right light. Explain it to them in a reasonable, quiet, friendly way.” And we, whatever we say outwardly, think sadly to ourselves, “He doesn’t know X.” We do. We know how utterly hopeless it is to make X see reason. Either we’ve tried it over and over again—tried till we are sick of trying it—or else we’ve never tried because we saw from the beginning how useless it would be. We know that if we attempt to “have it all out with X” there will be a “scene”, or else X will stare at us in blank amazement and say “I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about”; or else (which is perhaps worst of all) X will quite agree with us and promise to turn over a new leaf and put everything on a new footing—and then, twenty-four hours later, will be exactly the same as X has always been.

You know, in fact, that any attempt to talk things over with X will shipwreck on the old, fatal flaw in X’s character. And you see, looking back, how all the plans you have ever made always have shipwrecked on that fatal flaw—on X’s incurable jealousy, or laziness, or touchiness, or muddle-headedness, or bossiness, or ill temper, or changeableness. Up to a certain age you have perhaps had the illusion that some external stroke of good fortune—an improvement in health, a rise of salary, the end of the war—would solve your difficulty. But you know better now. The war is over, and you realize that even if the other things happened, X would still be X, and you would still be up against the same old problem. Even if you became a millionaire, your husband would still be a bully, or your wife would still nag, or your son would still drink, or you’d still have to have your mother-in-law live with you.

It is a great step forward to realize that this is so; to face up to the fact that even if all external things went right, real happiness would still depend on the character of the people you have to live with—and that you can’t alter their characters. And now comes the point. When you have seen this you have, for the first time, had a glimpse of what it must be like for God. For of course, this is (in one way) just what God Himself is up against. He has provided a rich, beautiful world for people to live in. He has given them intelligence to show them how it ought to be used. He has contrived that the things they need for their biological life (food, drink, rest, sleep, exercise) should be positively delightful to them. And, having done all this, He then sees all His plans spoiled—just as our little plans are spoiled—by the crookedness of the people themselves. All the things He has given them to be happy with they turn into occasions for quarreling and jealousy, and excess and hoarding, and tomfoolery…

But… there are two respects in which God’s view must be very different from ours. In the first place, He sees (like you) how all the people in your home or your job are in various degrees awkward or difficult; but when He looks into that home or factory or office He sees one more person of the same kind—the one you never do see. I mean, of course, yourself. That is the next great step in wisdom—to realize that you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

It is no good passing this over with some vague, general admission such as “Of course, I know I have my faults.” It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives others the same feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about—like what the advertisements call “halitosis”, which everyone notices except the person who has it. But why, you ask, don’t the others tell me? Believe me, they have tried to tell you over and over and over again. And you just couldn’t “take it”. Perhaps a good deal of what you call their “nagging” or “bad temper”… are just their attempts to make you see the truth. And even the faults you do know you don’t know fully. You say, “I admit I lost my temper last night”; but the others know that you always doing it, that you are a bad-tempered person. You say, “I admit I drank too much last Saturday”; but every one else know that you are a habitual drunkard.

This is one way in which God’s view must differ from mine. He sees all the characters: I see all except my own. But the second difference is this. He loves the people in spite of their faults. He goes on loving. He does not let go. Don’t say, “It’s all very well for Him. He hasn’t got to live with them.” He has. He is inside them as well as outside them. He is with them far more intimately and closely and incessantly that we can ever be. Every vile thought within their minds (and ours), every moment of spite, envy, arrogance, greed, and self-conceit comes right up against His patient and longing love, and grieves His Spirit more than it grieves ours.

The more we can imitate God in both these respects, the more progress we shall make. We must love X more; and we must learn to see ourselves as a person of exactly the same kind. Some people say it is morbid to always be thinking of one’s own faults. That would be all very well if most of us could stop thinking of our own without soon beginning to think about those of other people. For unfortunately we enjoy thinking about other people’s faults: and in the proper sense of the word “morbid”, that is the most morbid pleasure in the world.

We don’t like rationing which is imposed upon us, but I suggest one form of rationing which we ought to impose on ourselves. Abstain from all thinking about other people’s faults, unless you duties as a teacher or parent make it necessary to think about them. Whenever the thoughts come unnecessarily into one’s mind, why not simply shove them away? And think of one’s own faults instead? For there, with God’s help, one can do something. Of all the awkward people in your house or job there is only one whom you can improve very much. That is the practical end at which to begin. And really, we’d better. The job has got to be tackled some day; and every day we put it off will make it harder to begin.

What, after all, is the alternative? You see clearly enough that nothing… can make X really happy as long as X remains envious, self-centered, and spiteful. Be sure that there is something inside you which, unless it is altered, will put it out of God’s power to prevent your being eternally miserable. While that something remains, there can be no Heaven for you, just as there can be no sweet smells for a man with a cold in the nose, and no music for a man who is deaf. It’s not a question of God “sending” us to Hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud. The matter is serious: let us put ourselves in His hands at once—this very day, this hour.

You're the Ones

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:27:53 -0700

You're the Ones:

Marc Hedlund on Steve Jobs, but, more than that, on leadership:

Steve let the applause go on for a little bit, then, with much effort, settled down the crowd. When things got quiet, the first thing he said was: “That’s an awful lot of applause considering that you guys are the ones who do all the work.”

Humility looks good on you. Yeah, you.

That truck driver you flipped off? Let me tell you his story

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 15:10:00 -0700

That truck driver you flipped off? Let me tell you his story:

We never know what someone else is going through.

"Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this:..."

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 23:08:00 -0700

“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church