What do teachers do in the summer? -- My Summer Beat

I'm often asked what I do in the summer. This year I'm taking some online classes and a graduate class, but I'm also spending time making videos with friends and family. Here's one of my favorites:

My $1 Christmas Gift

I'm getting really sick of playing along with the commercialism of holidays, so Kendra and I really went simple on Christmas this year. I opened no presents from her on Christmas morning, but on Christmas Eve she did give me one gift. It cost her $1 from the local thrift shop and I think it is my favorite gift from all family members this year.

She found God Shuffled His Feet by the Crash Test Dummies. Back in the early 90's a friend let me borrow that cassette tape and I loved it. A couple months ago I had remembered some songs on it and I talked to Kendra about it. She found it at the thrift shop and for $1 she made my holiday break. I still haven't stopped listening to my favorite tracks.

Afternoons and Coffee Spoons is great fun and I live for the last verse. "I've watched the summer evenings pass by."

I get addicted to How Does a Duck Know with its dark warnings and excellent contrast. The bridge?

Satan lives here
In grain and earth
Rain and air

If there's a message on the album I'm sure I don't buy it all. Like a conversation with friends at a coffee shop, though, deeper ideas appear woven throughout the songs. There's something about God no saying anything now that the machine is moving and things are working great if we'd just quit screwing it up.

But in the end, who cares much about what they're saying? The songs make for good poetry and the sounds of the lines stand alone apart from whatever they might mean.

In the days of the caveman
And mammoths
And Glaciers
Bugs and trees were your food then
No pajamas
Or Doctors

The syllables are crammed and stretched across the melodies that leap high and low with engaging energy.

But in the end my praise is over a decade late. The band didn't make much of a splash. If you ever thought that Mmm, Mmm, Mmm song was fun, though, take a look at their site and see if you find anything else of value to you.

Reflections on the Homeless Shelter

Kendra leads a group of people who run a homeless shelter in our city each winter. I strongly encouraged (and forced) her to reflect on it a few times each week in a blog. It's here:

http://therefugeoflapeer.wordpress.com/

Please check it out and comment if you find anything worth thinking about.

New Blog

As is clear from the lack of activity here, I haven't been writing anything lately. Focus has been a problem.

I recently caught up with an old friend, though, and we've been discussing life and faith like we used to. I seriously need to get back to that. He wanted to write something together, so I suggested yet another blog (I've created three of them in the last month).

It's here if you're interested: Hidden Measure

I haven't yet written anything for it yet, but Richard has a few posts already. We don't always agree. In fact, after our time apart I find there are really some serious differences of opinion between us. Still, our conversations reveal we both have been learning about the importance of life and of the Kingdom. I was glad we met up again and that we're doing something. I will see where it leads.

Video for our Freaky Forest Halloween Game

Here's a video we made for our latest family game project:

A Game for Halloween

This year the family and I put out another push-your-luck game for children: Freaky Forest. The theme has players walking through a scary forest looking for the candy they lost while trick-or-treating. Each time they reveal a card they go a little further into the forest. If they roll a number on the card they lose some candy. We included some rules for playing with real candy. Needless to say, our kids love playing that way.

We're selling a limited number of copies through Fair Play Games. Money we make goes to the Blanket Project.

Play Eurogames Music Video

Here's a look at my personal project this summer. The song and video was a lot of work. The CD contains three of my favorite designs.



The music is from Holiday by Green Day. I wrote most of the lyrics and I played the instruments. Darin Stephenson provided the vocals and made a few changes to the lyrics.

U2 Devotion 5: Yahweh – Loving with words

Yahweh was my favorite song on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb for the first weeks after I got that CD. I listened to it over and over. After I got to that point where I could barely hear the song, one line still hit me hard:

Take this mouth
So quick to criticize
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

The song, of course, is a prayer. It’s a powerful one, filled with good things to pray for. This part, perhaps among other things, asks to speak words of love instead of what is natural.

I can relate because it is so easy for me to criticize. I guess it’s probably pretty easy for anyone if you think of it. It’s easy to mock someone’s behavior or words. It’s easy to devalue what someone else stands for. What’s so bad, though, is that it’s easy, but it gets a big payoff.. It can be pretty funny. At least I find I can make people laugh pretty hard at my criticism of others. I had some friends at Michigan State who were masters at criticizing. Unfortunately I learned a lot from those guys. I didn’t learn a lot about love though.

I was reading Blue Like Jazz this week and I liked the chapter on loving other people. I think it fits nicely with this prayer from Bono. After outlining his struggles and taking us through his learning process the author, Don Miller, writes:

“When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever it is our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don’t.”

I agree completely with him, but I’d go even farther. As I engage in a conversation my heart is communicating what I really care about. If I love a person, I want to meet his or her needs. To the extent that I truly care for the individual, I am desperately interested in helping him or her to improve as a human being. There are countless reasons to engage in a nice conversation that, in words, sounds friendly or possibly even caring. The conversation at the heart level, however, will reveal my agenda.

So that’s my prayer. I need to be aware of my agenda. Is that person at the receiving end of my words someone I care about deeply or do I view him or her as a foothold in my ascent toward some goal? Even if it’s a good goal, it’s not good enough if it’s not to love them. I’ll conclude with Miller’s words again:

“The Bible says that if you talk to somebody with your mouth, and your heart does not love them, that you are like a person standing there smashing two cymbals together. You are only annoying everybody around you. I think that is very beautiful and true.”

Scriptures to consider:

1 Corinthians 13 (New International Version)
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Colossians 4: 5, 6 (New American Standard Version)
Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity.

Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

U2 Devotion 4: One - Theory and Practice

I remember the day I first played Achtung Baby. Wow, was I shocked by that CD! Of course, U2 was trying to re-invent themselves in those years and I didn’t like most of the songs. I would play One quite a bit, though, as it at least had some bits of the group I loved through the Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum period.

About fourteen years later I experienced my U2 revival with my wife. She fell in love with One and we played it repeatedly for days. I learned the chords and we both enjoy singing it. I like covers done by other artists like REM and Mary J. Blige. I have watched the version Vertigo tour DVD countless times now. With the way they tie it into their concert and their call to acknowledge the poorest of the poor in our world, I have a lot of respect for the song.

There are a lot of interpretations of the lyrics. At the very least, we see it's the honest confrontation between two people who, to some extent, have shared love. In the still of the night, alone in their own world, they try to find the heart of what it means to take on life together.

The part that hits closest to home for me is the bridge:

You say
Love is a temple
Love is a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can’t be holding on
To what you’ve got
When all you’ve got is hurt

Here the one person talks about the refuge of love, yet in practice he or she hurts the partner. I believe this brings out the key problem in all relationships—that of acting on what we know to be true.

How is it that we can know what’s right and still be such a mess? We know what matters, but we act differently at important moments.

I have joked in my math classes of how I can understand Calculus and appreciate its finer points, yet I still am off by change when I try to balance a checkbook. Some coach their favorite teams from their armchair, yet they’d die of a heart attack if they had to make a few laps around the house. Does anyone have that family member who knows all that's wrong with the country, has advice for every politician, but he can’t even manage his own home in a way that anyone respects?

We’ve got all the answers, but we fail in living them out.

I see this as a theme of my own life the past six years. In fact, I have pulled back from every area of teaching and leadership in the churches I’ve attended. I decided my well-thought out theology and idealistic view of the world wasn’t translating to the daily practices that God called me to. It has been important to see this, but very frustrating to confront it. I have made little progress and my only consolation is that God has been patient with me.

What would the world look like if all believers would confront this disconnect between our thoughts and actions? We know love is the key, but we are easily distracted. The clear and simple result is that so many in our world, near and far, are left unloved.

In the live version of One, in that huge chorus that carries the song to the end, Bono changes the word “got” to “get”. That little change can still grab me at times. There’s a lot of hope in it.

One love
One blood
One life
You get to do what you should

Message is clear. We know what we should do and we get the chance today.

Scriptures to consider:

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 (New International Version)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Matthew 7:21-23 (New American Standard Version)
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

James 2:14-17 (The Message)

Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

U2 Devotion 3: Grace - Interrupting Karma

Grace isn't one of my favorite U2 songs musically, but I like to read what Bono has to say about the word. In fact, there's nothing more to this devotion than his lyrics, his thoughts and some Scriptures.

Here are some of the lyrics first:

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

--

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

In U2 by U2 (page 300) Bono address these lyrics:

"...the most important thing is that they personify my favourite word in the lexicon of the English language. It's a word I'm depending on. The universe operates by Karma, we all know that. For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. There is some atonement built in: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Then enters Grace and turns that upside down. I love it. I'm not talking about people being graceful in the actions but just covering over the cracks. Christ's ministry really was a lot to do with pointing out how everyobdoy is a scriew-up in some shape or form, there's no way around it. But then He was to say, well, I am going to deal with those sins for you. I will take on Myself all the consequences of sin. Even if you're not religious I think you'd accept that there are consequences to all the mistakes we make. And so Grace enters the picture to say, 'I'll take the blame, I'll carry your cross.'. It's a powerful idea. Grace interrupting Karma."

Scriptures to consider:

Ephesians 2:7-10 in different translations

The Message
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

King James Version
That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The New American Standard Version
...so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

The New Living Translation
So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.