khad.com

“Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey” (via Matthew Paul Turner)

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:33:24 -0800

“Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey” (via Matthew Paul Turner)

Outlaw Preachers 2: Queermergent Edition

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:10:56 -0800

Outlaw Preachers 2: Queermergent Edition:

A new Outlaw Preachers podcast is available. This time, I got to meet Adele Sakler of Queermergent.

Listen to us try to get rid of god.

Family

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:54:11 -0800

It strikes me as odd just how similar different types of love can be. I have been in California since August and have not seen my parents since I drove through the Cleveland area on my way out here. Tonight they arrived in Los Angeles, and I was so anxious to see them I left work early. We went out for dinner at a delicious vegan restaurant called The Veggie Grill. Afterwards I walked them up to their hotel room where my exhausted dad promptly fell asleep, but my mom stayed up for a while talking with me. At first I was worried about keeping my dad up. Then I was worried about waking him after he had fallen asleep. I was just so glad to see them though that I did not want to miss a moment with my mom who was herself straining to stay awake. I do not know if I should be ashamed or nervous to say so, but it felt like a late night talk with a girl I was really interested in. I simply did not want it to end. Eventually, I played the role of a gentleman and excused myself to let her rest as well, but I had to force myself to do so. I could have stayed up all night talking with her. When I left, there was even an awkward pause at the door before I hugged her goodnight.

What can I say but I love my mom. She is the woman to whom any other in my life will forever be compared. It is a high bar to set, to be sure, but I would not have it any other way.

I love my mom.

I love my dad.

I have missed them so.

"We didn’t hike to the Sun Gate; we ran. We ran on blistered feet and sore legs. We got there and it..."

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 07:03:10 -0800

“We didn’t hike to the Sun Gate; we ran. We ran on blistered feet and sore legs. We got there and it was fogged in so we sat along the rock, on the ruins, and waited for the fog to burn off. We sat and sang songs. And it was like Carlos said, because you can take a bus to Machu Picchu; you can take a train and then a bus, and you can hike a mile to the Sun Gate. But the people who took the bus didn’t experience the city like we experienced the city. The pain made the city more beautiful. The story made us different characters than if we would be if we’d have skipped the story and showed up at the ending an easier way.”

- Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Xmas and Christmas

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:51:00 -0800

Xmas and Christmas:

Though I’ve missed some years, it has long been a tradition of mine to share this witty piece by C. S. Lewis with friends and family every Christmas.

Don’t get caught up in the Rush of that crazy holiday the Niatirbians call Exmas.

May the grace of God through Jesus Christ his son fill your hearts and minds this Crissmas.

The Wave

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:26:39 -0800

The Wave:

On unity and camaraderie. Through the eyes of a biker.

We could all learn a lot about how to treat others from this modern tale reminiscent of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Who Is Poor Enough?

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:57:41 -0800

Who Is Poor Enough?:

A nice reminder before the upcoming celebration of the birth of our savior.

Give.

God will do the judging.

“What Matters More?”by Derek Webb You say you...

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:23:00 -0800

“What Matters More?”
by Derek Webb

You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
‘Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak

‘Cause if you really believe what you say you believe
You wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak
Wouldn’t silently conceal when the liars speak
Denyin’ all the dyin’ of the remedy

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

If I can tell what’s in your heart by what comes out of your mouth
Then it sure looks to me like being straight is all it’s about
It looks like being hated for all the wrong things
Like chasin’ the wind while the pendulum swings

‘Cause we can talk and debate until we’re blue in the face
About the language and tradition that he’s comin’ to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit
About 50,000 people who are dyin’ today

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

Dodgy Garden Hardware

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:41:50 -0800

I am often jealous of the impact the invention of the printing press had on the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. This message was sent by a new friend living in Australia. The Internet kicks the printing press’s ass.

Khad,

I hope you don’t find this message strange, even though I kind of do.

I’ve listened to all the Outlaw Preachers podcasts/precasts in the last few weeks and found them all excellent. However, it is after listening to Sehnsucht for about the fourth time that I felt I really wanted to write to you and tell you how profoundly that touched me.

I won’t bore you with the details, but, like many, my experiences of churches and Christians have been pretty horrible. I was once asked why I “fell away” from my faith. I didn’t fall away, I ran away — and hid. Subsequent attempts to return invariably confirmed that decision. I had an actual physical church phobia for a while. (It made attending weddings really awkward!) In the intervening years, my life eventually became really nice, but sometimes … well, Sehnsucht sums it up perfectly.

I assume you also have these over there, but in Australia it’s common to have little lights in the garden which have built in sensors. So when you visit somewhere new you’re walking along thinking, “It’s really dark, how am I going to find the front door without stumbling into the garden or falling over a step.” Suddenly a little light comes on, and you can see the next metre or two of the path. It’s not bright and it doesn’t stay on very long and you still have no idea where you will be going next or if another little light will come on, but at least it’s no longer pitch black. I feel a little bit like that at the moment, and it’s mostly thanks to you and the outlaw preachers.

So I set out to write something that sounded grateful and maybe even encouraging but ended up comparing you to dodgy garden hardware. Sorry about that. Please try not to mind!

I really don’t know where I’ll end up with all this but I’m listening and reading and thinking a lot, and I think, finally, I might be able to explore this whole God thing again from a place of genuine inquiry rather than one of old prejudice and pain. Thank you. I hope you are blessed.

I am blessed, and it is because of people like you. Thank you so much for letting me share this with everyone else.

What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:26:40 -0800

What If Jesus Meant All That Stuff?:

Shane Claiborne writes an amazing open letter to nonbelievers:

To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Me too.

Outlaw Preachers on Wikipedia

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:41:00 -0800

Outlaw Preachers on Wikipedia:

We have arrived.

UPDATE: But apparently we were kicked out. The Wikipedia page was deleted. Please continue this great work. Do not let one overzealous user dampen our spirits or momentum.

Pi

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:14:22 -0800

SOL: You remember Archimedes of Syracuse? The King asks Archimedes to determine if a present he’s received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks. Insomnia haunts him, and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife--she’s forced to share a bed with this genius--convinces him to take a bath, to relax. While he is entering the tub Archimedes notices the bathwater rise. Displacement. A way to determine volume. And thus, a way to determine density, weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams “Eureka!” and is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the King’s palace to report his discovery. Now, what is the moral of the story?
MAX: That a breakthrough will come...
SOL: Wrong. The point of the story is the wife. You listen to your wife, she will give you perspective. Meaning, you need a break, you have to take a bath, or you’ll get nowhere. There will be no order, only chaos. Go home Max and you take a bath.

KJV-only Church to Burn Other Bibles and More

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:59:53 -0700

KJV-only Church to Burn Other Bibles and More:

“Sorry, kids, no candy for you, but we’ll take that NIV off your hands. Thanks.”

Brilliant.

Don’t forget to take their candy, too. We would not want them eating Satan’s sugar.

(via @julieclawson)

Convenience Stores

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:58:00 -0700

by Buddy Wakefield

We both know the smell of a convenience store at 4 AM like the backs of a lot of hands. She sells me trucker crack: Mini-Thins, like Vivarin. Doesn’t make me feel awkward about it.

She can tell it’s been a long drive, and it’s only gonna get longer. Offers me a free cup of coffee, but I never touch the stuff. Besides, I’m gonna need more speed than that.

We notice each other’s smiles immediately. It’s our favorite thing for people to notice: our smiles. It’s all either one of us has to offer. You can see it in the way our cheeks stretch out like arms wanting nothing more than to say “You, are welcome here.”

She shows brittle nicotine teeth with spaces between each one. Her fingers are bony. No rings. And she’d love to get her nails done someday. One time she had her hair fixed. They took out the grease, made it real big on top, and feathered it. She likes it like that.

She will never be fully informed on some things just like I will never understand who really buys Moon Pies, or those rolling, wrinkled, dried-up sausages, but then again, she’s been here a lot longer than me. She’s seen everything from men who grow dread locks out of their top lips to children who look like cigarettes.

I give her my money. I wait for my change. But I feel like there’s something more happening here.

I feel like a warm mop bucket and dingy tiles that’ll never come clean. I feel like these freezers cannot be restocked often enough. I feel like trash cans of candy wrappers with soda pop dripping down the wrong side of the plastic. I feel like everything just got computerized.

I feel like she was raised to say a lot of stupid things about a color, and I feel like if I were to identify myself as gay, this conversation would stop.

It’s what I do.

I feel.

I get scared sometimes.

And I drive.

But in one minute and fourty-eight seconds I’m gonna walk outta here with a full tank of gas, a bottle of Mini-Thins, and a pint of milk while there’s a woman trapped behind a formica counter somewhere in North Dakota who wants nothing more than to hear my whole story. All 92,775 miles of it. I can tell, though, she’s heard more opinions and trucker small talk than Santa Claus has made kids happy, so I only find the nerve to tell her the good parts; that she’s the kindest thing to happen since Burlington, Vermont, and I wanna leave it at that. Because men — who are not smart — have taken it farther, have cradled her up like a nutcracker and made her feel as warm as a high school education on the dusty backroad, or a beer in a coozy.

I feel like she’s been waiting here a long time for the one who will come two-stepping through that door on eighteen wheels without makin her feel like it’s her job to sweep up the nutshells alone when she’s done been cracked again. A man who won’t tempt her to suck the wedding ring off his … , but will show her, simply, love.

She doesn’t need me or any other man, but she doesn’t know that either, and I’m just hoping like crazy she doesn’t think I’m the one because the only time I’ll ever see North Dakota again is in a Van Morrison song late, late at night.

I promise.

Y’all, I feel like she’s thirty-seven years old wearing fifty-one — badly — dying inside (like certain kinds of dances around fires) to speak through you, a forest, if you weren’t so taken with sparks. But she wasn’t given those words. She has not been told that she can definitely change the world. She knows some folks do, but not in convenience stores and not with lottery tickets.

So I finally ask her what I been feeling the entire time I’ve been standing there still getting scared like I do sometimes — really, really ready to drive. I ask, “Is this it for you? Is this all you’ll ever do?”

Her smile. Collapsed.

That tightly strapped-in pasty skin went loose.

Her heart. Fell crooked.

She said, not knowing my real name, “I can tell, buddy, by the Mini-Thins and the way you drive that we’re both taken with novelty. We’ve both believed in mean gods. We both spend our money on things that break too easily. Like people. And I can tell that you think you’ve had it rough, so especially you should know. It’s what I do. I dream. I get high sometimes. And I’m gonna roll outta here one day. I just might not get to drive.”

Why Won't My Law Work Anymore?

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:03:00 -0700

Jesus is the ultimate outlaw. He “broke” the Law once for all.

After someone quoted Matthew 5:17 (in the King’s English, no less) in response to that, I thought I should clarify.

A better translation of that verse would be, “Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.”

From the perspective of the Pharisees and other religious leaders (i.e.: legalists) Christ definitely “broke” our precious Law. That system was broken already since, as Paul tells us in Galatians, no one can ever be made right with God by keeping the Law. (Galatians 2:16)

As Luther states in his commentary on that very epistle, even if we could possibly keep the Law with total perfection, that would still not save us, for that is not the function of the Law.

Only Christ can save us.

In this sense, it may be clearer to some to say that Christ did not “break” the Law but broke, rather, our sad attempts to prop it up under the weight of our horrible use of it.

Christ broke the Law as it was being used to achieve even a shred of justification, sanctification, or even a closer everyday experience with God. It simply cannot do any of those things. From the perspective of the legalist, that looks like the Law, which seemed so functional before, is very broken indeed.

“Why won’t my Law work anymore?” we ask while shaking it and holding up to the ear. “Who broke my Law?”

For that purpose, it never was working.

Kashiwa Mystery Cafe

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:03:00 -0700

Kashiwa Mystery Cafe:

What if money brought a lack of control rather than control?

Euthanizing the Word “Unbiblical”

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:14:00 -0700

Euthanizing the Word “Unbiblical”:

[The idea of “unbiblical”] maintains that Scripture is a self-enclosed system that cannot refer to anything outside of itself. This is exactly the way that science was done before hypothesis testing…

Some food for fundamentalist thought.

Comic Sans: The Film (via @emilyflores)

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:11:44 -0700

Comic Sans: The Film (via @emilyflores)

Mr. Deity and the Skeptic

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:59:57 -0700

Mr. Deity and the Skeptic

Intention versus Action and a Pretty Good Idea

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:29:02 -0700

Intention versus Action and a Pretty Good Idea:

So… Drew Carey might just be one of the Outlaw Preachers.