The Cobalt Season - In Search of a Unified Therory
Friday September 28th 2007
Falke House
If you need directions e-mail me by clicking here
8:00pm - Cost $10 per person.
Erin & I will provide drinks.
The Cobalt Season is truly talented and their CD has become one of my favorites.
They begin their tour in Fresno at our house this Friday.
If you will be joining us PLEASE e-mail me and confirm clicking here
Here I am Lord and I’m drowning
In Your sea of forgetfulness
The chains of yesterday surround me
I yearn for peace and rest
I don’t want to end up where You found me
And it echoes in my mind
Keeps me awake tonight
I know You’ve cast my sin as far
As the East is from the West
And I stand before You now
As though I’ve never sinned
But today I feel like I’m just one mistake away
From You leaving me this way
Jesus, can You show me just how far the East is from the West?
Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been
Rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
You know just how far the East is from the West
From one scarred hand to the other
I start the day, the war begins
Endless reminding of my sin
And time and time again
Your truth is drowned out by the storm I’m in
Today I feel like I’m just one mistake away
From You leaving me this way
Jesus, can You show me just how far the East is from the West?
Cause I can’t bear to see the man I’ve been
Come rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
Cause You know just how far the East is from the West
From one scarred hand to the other
I know You’ve washed me white
Turned my darkness into light
I need Your peace to get me through
To get me through this night
I can’t live by what I feel
About the truth Your word reveals
And I’m not holding onto You
But You’re holding onto me
You’re holding onto me
Jesus, You know just how far the East is from the West
I don’t have to see the man I’ve been
Come rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest (mercy I find rest)
You know just how far the East is from the West
From one scarred hand to the other
Mr. President,
Please take the time to seriously pray before you make a decision whether to sign the Iraq spending bill into law or to veto the bill. It seems to be a reasonable withdrawal plan of combat troops out of Iraq. I believe as many do that when we look at the Bible and the teachings of Jesus that it is clear that war is never the best option, especially one that has resulted in so many innocent lives lost. Jesus teaches us that we are most effective in dealing with our enemies by loving them and showering them with kindness and good deeds.
Many of my friends and I are really trying to pursue the teachings of Jesus in a very real way. That being said we are learning more everyday just what it means to try to follow Jesus to the fullest. We recognize that we don’t have it all together and frankly that nobody does. We understand that our utter dependence on Jesus is becoming more and more important and more necessary all the time. Above all we are learning that we need each other in this pursuit.
So Mr. President I ask you to please seek wise counsel from spiritual leaders and from the Lord before you make up your mind to veto the bill before you. I ask that you would consider all possibilities and that you would consider all means of resolving this conflict. Please pray about how we can end this war without any further innocent lives lost. I ask that you would consider setting goals in the near future for exiting Iraq. And lastly I would ask that you would consider spending less of the federal budget on national security and the armed forces and more on goodwill and issues such as poverty, AIDS and illiteracy. I think that this refocus of resources will not only make the United States a safer place to live but also we will be recognized as a nation that truly is working on the human condition
I understand that I am not in your shoes. I realize that the position of President of The United States is incredibly difficult. I just ask that you would seek the Lord in the decisions before you and that you would be open to all possibilities of the future.
May the Lord be with you.
Today I presented before our City Council. I thought it went very well and I hope we have the support of our council members. Call me crazy but there is something strangely appealing to me about being a city council member. It seems you would be on the frontlines with a real ability to create policy change and shape a community. I have always been very interested in politics and there are times I feel that God could really use me in that realm. I am just not sure I could put up will all of the other baggage that no doubt goes along with a commitment such as that.
I do have a reasonable amount of respect for all politicians simply because their lives are so on display. That would be really difficult at times I would imagine.
Ultimately I just have a passion for creating positive community change where I live in Fresno. I think I am in a great position as the executive Director of Rotary Storyland & Playland to begin to really see that positive change happen but I wonder still what God would have for me next. I suppose only time will tell.
Truth be told, It has been a pretty crazy month and a half. Work has been very demanding, family had been awesome but I never feel like I can spend enough time with them and I have not had a whole lot of time to think creatively, theologically or philosophically. Honestly I miss it. Maybe it is just the season I am in right now but i can’t complain to much either.
Today I received two comments on a post that is almost two months old. If it wern’t for Nicks push I probably w ould not even be writing this right now. I really wish that I could blog as faithfully as some of my friends but it is just a little tough right now. I should let everyone know that I am alive and well but just pretty busy.
Tomorrow I speak before the Fresno City Council about Storyland & Playland. I will push them for more funding and give them a 10 minute speech on why these parks are so important to the landscape to our city. There is a total political side to my job where I dance between meeting with council members and being on television and radio stations. Saying the right thing is often a difficult dance. I am becoming more diplomatic and I am not sure if I like that about myself but again it is just part of the job.
I am ready for a vacation again. Really I would like a vacation for my soul. I feel like things are great professionally and my family is great but I do feel spiritually dry lately. A spiritual getaway (even a short one) would be really great.
Well there is a short update. I really want to stay in the routine of blogging like my friends on the right side of the screen but I am not all that consistent. Maybe sometime soon.
This would be awesome. Oh how I would love to see Jim Wallis smack around Jim Dobson in a good old fasion debate. Everything below is written by Jim Wallis and is from his God’s Politics Blog found here. (ht. Tom)
James Dobson’s letter attacking Rich Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals has caused a firestorm, and maybe the beginning of a really good dialogue. Brian McLaren’s post yesterday pointed out that the letter from Dobson and friends actually acknowledged that there is a real debate among evangelicals about the seriousness of climate change and the reasons for it. So instead of calling for Cizik’s resignation for saying global warming should be a moral issue for evangelical Christians, why don’t Dobson and his friends accept a real debate on whether climate change is, indeed, one of the great moral issues of our time? A major evangelical Christian university should host just such a debate.
But I want to focus on the following very clear statement from Dobson’s letter:
More importantly, we have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.
That is indeed the key criticism, and the foundation for the real debate. Is the fact that 30,000 children will die globally today, and everyday, from needless hunger and disease a great moral issue for evangelical Christians? How about the reality of 3 billion of God’s children living on less than $2 per day? And isn’t the still-widespread and needless poverty in our own country, the richest nation in the world, a moral scandal? What about pandemics like HIV/AIDS that wipe out whole generations and countries, or the sex trafficking of massive numbers of women and children? Should genocide in Darfur be a moral issue for Christians? And what about disastrous wars like Iraq? And then there is, of course, the issue that got Dobson and his allies so agitated. If the scientific consensus is right - climate change is real, is caused substantially by human activity, and could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths - then isn’t that also a great moral issue? Could global warming actually be alarming evidence of human tinkering with God’s creation?
Or, are the only really “great moral issues” those concerning abortion, gay marriage, and the teaching of sexual abstinence? I happen to believe that the sanctity of life, the health of marriages, and teaching sexual morality to our children are, indeed, among the great moral issues of our time. But I believe they are not the only great moral issues, and Dobson says they are.
So Jim, let’s have that debate - the big debate. What are the great moral issues of our time for evangelical Christians? You’re right, a new generation is embracing a wider and deeper agenda than you want them to. I think that is a very good thing. You think it is a bad thing, and want to get people fired for raising broader issues than those connected to sexual morality. So, today, I am inviting you to have that debate about what the great moral issues of our time really are. Again, let’s ask a leading evangelical university to invite us both and host a public debate, and perhaps ask a major evangelical publication to co-sponsor it. Let’s have that debate, Jim, and see what America’s evangelicals think the great moral issues of our time really are. How about it?
Talking Around The Issue - Post #4
So Christine left a comment on my last post about how we are then to respond. Her question is one that is incredibly important. I think we have to eventually tome to the place where we ask what happens next?
The problem is that we are usually better at talking around the issue than we are at ever getting anything done. I have talked around the justice issue for so long and it seems that finding a place to really start is sometimes the most difficult part. I will say that pursuing justice in my opinion means something different for everyone. None of us will have the same path. Some may feel called to pick up and move to Africa to tackle the many issues there while some may feel called to just start to speak up for the oppressed. I think the worst thing we could do is continue to just talk about doing something without doing anything at all.
There are a million ways we can practice justice. We just have to get past the rhetoric which has become pretty trendy and move to a place of action. Bono in his speech at last years prayer conference reminds us of just what this means when he said:
“I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. “
The best way we can practice justice is to stand up and be for those who are oppressed. May we all come to know how God is calling us to act.
Are We All Truly Equal? - Post #3
So I have been really challenged as of late about the issue of equality. I have come to the brutal realization that while equality is God’s idea, very few of us really believe in it. I mean we may say we all men & women are equal but very rarely are we ever really exhibiting equality in the way we live our lives.
Bono has often said that Justice and Equality go hand in hand He says that they are mates and that equality is a real pain in the ass. Bono is right. You can’t really be a practitioner of Justice without practicing the value of equality. But truly practicing equality is no easy task. It is very difficult to be a follower of Jesus and claim to be a proponent of equality and do nothing about what is happening on the other side of the world.
In Africa today over 6,000 people died from AIDS. AIDS is a completely preventable and treatable disease. On September 11, 2001 we saw one of the most terrible disasters America has ever seen. over 2,700 lives were lost in an act of terror. Today, Africa saw the equivalent of over two 9/11 tragedies. In December of 2004 Mother Nature took her toll with a tsunami that took over 120,000 lives. All of us remember the aid and response that took place after that event. The AIDS pandemic in Africa is the equivalent of a tsunami every month with the death toll on a monthly basis averaging near 180,000. And in the 10 minutes or so it will take to write this blog post over 40 more lives will have been lost in Africa due to AIDS alone.
All of this begs a very important question. Can we honestly say we believe in and practice equality if we continue to let a disaster of that magnitude take place every month in Africa? Can we honestly say that we would ever allow preventable and treatable disease take that many lives on a hourly/daily/monthly basis anywhere else in the world? I am ashamed to write that I am not sure we would let that take place anywhere else in the entire world. What is happening in Africa with the AIDS pandemic mocks our notion that our nation or the western world is even close to considering every person as equal. Africa may be the most compelling example but this argument can be made for me here in Fresno as well.
Fresno has a tent city. No more than 10 miles from my house there are hundreds of people living in tents and even on the street. How can I ever say with any integrity that I consider myself equal to every human being while I do very little if anything at all for my brothers and sisters living on the street just miles away? Justice and equality go hand in hand and right now I am nowhere close to where I know God is calling me to be. I have a lot of growing to do.
I badly desire to practice equality in a way that would honor God more fully. I understand that no one person can do it all but what if everyone took God’s idea of every person as equal seriously. There would be no poverty, many less people dying from AIDS and other treatable diseases and no person going to bed still feeling extremely hungry. Maybe I am overly optimistic but I think this is possible and how God would smile.
Moving Beyond Charity - Post #2
Charity is nice. Not only is it nice, it is important and necessary. So much good had been done of the result of charity but not all issues are issues requiring charity but justice.
Bono has been preaching over the last year about the difference between charity and justice and I think many are beginning to listen. A little over a year ago Bono was the keynote speaker at a prayer breakfast in Washington D. C. and he said these words:
“And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice.
Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice.
And that’s too bad.
Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.
But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.
6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality.”
I wonder at what point a social issue moves beyond charity and moves to become a justice issue. Lately I have been thinking when those affected by any given issue are affected not by choice but by circumstance that it is likely a justice issue. When where you live and the circumstances of where you live dictate whether you live it truly becomes more about justice than about charity.
And justice IS a higher calling than charity. So much so that Micah says that if we are to truly please God we must act justly or pursue justice in all that we do. I am in no way trying to downplay charity but uplift justice. Practicing justice and making a commitment to doing the right thing for the sake of it being the right thing holds much more weight in my mind than doing anything for the sake of charity.
Charity always comes off as someone with a lot doing something for someone or a group of people who have very little. I think Justice is different. To me, justice is characterized by human beings helping other human beings for the sake of it being the right thing. While charity has a way of making one group look like heroes and one group look like the benefactors of heroism; justice has a sense of equality among all involved.
I hope that I would begin to move beyond charity and would pursue justice wherever injustice arises. I desire to help those who are oppressed and suffering injustice. Not for my own ego or need to feel important or worse yet my need for recognition (although this has often been the case for me,) but because of my desire to achieve the fullness of my humanity and my desire to see everyone reach the fullness of their humanity. And with that comes a wonderful byproduct, pleasing God. When I can reach fullness in my humanity in helping my brothers and sisters for justice sake I also am following Jesus in a deeper way.
Lord Help us All.
- When Justice Became A Bad Word - Post #1
I am excited to be writing the first of several posts on Justice. Many things have led me to begin writing on this topic not the least of which is my own personal discontent of where I am personally. I am by nature one who wants the best of everything. A perfect example of this is that as soon as the Apple iPhone was introduced I told myself that I had to have one. Several million people in the world every night go to bed still hungry and as soon as the latest piece of technology comes out naturally my desire for more comes out. I am by nature bad at practicing justice. So much of what I will write over the next several days will really be for me.
Justice is a huge issue in today’s world. Interestingly enough though as important the “J” word is to where we are at in society it seems that justice is a word we wish would just go away. In some ways it has become a word that nobody wants to mention for fear that it will bring any discomfort to our own personal lives. Or maybe we will mention it but with the hope that someone else will act and not us. I am terribly guilty of this. It has not been until lately that Justice has even really been something I have considered and if I am being honest I would have to say that it is certainly something I have talked about much more than I have practiced. I think this is common. Most of us don’t really want to think about pursuing justice, we don’t mind charity but justice we shy away from.
Micah 6:8 is a wonderful passage of scripture which I think should challenge us to think about justice. The verse is a road-map of what it takes to please God. The prophet asks us to “Act Justly, Love Mercy & Walk Humbly with God.” Acting justly is not terribly popular when it comes to personal sacrifice. And that is why in some ways I think the word Justice has become a bad word of sorts. If we are to seriously consider pursuing justice in our lives it means incredible sacrifice on so many levels. Most of us are not ready of that so we shy away from the word.
Justice is a scandalous and dangerous word because it will cost us dearly. But God is calling us to reclaim this word for His glory. While it has in many ways been a word we have avoided at all costs God is calling us to pursue justice in ways that will bring Gods Kingdom to this earth. While the “J” Word has been a word that can make us uncomfortable because of what it demands of us, the cries of the oppressed are increasing and we must begin to open our ears. How can we begin to think creatively about justice in a way that will promote God’s Kingdom on our planet?
I am writing down my thoughts about justice over the next several days because I want to be moved. I never want to be ashamed or bashful of the word justice but pursue it with everything that I am. While it is a scandelous and dangerous word it is one that every follower of Jesus must take up should we want to please God. I need to be moved beyond words to action. I need to move beyond justice as buzz word and turn it into a word of action. Mostly the word Justice needs to be redeemed. For me it needs to move from being a word that reminds me of how much discomfort I will have to endure to a word that speaks of the opportunity I have to follow Jesus in meaningful ways. May it be redeemed for all of us.
