Wheat & Weeds

A couple of weeks ago at Rockbridge I was talking with a student who was struggling with her churched upbringing. She was particularly frustrated with the fact that the church seemed so apathetic towards the things that seemed to really matter. So many people there seemed to be so cold and lifeless. She still liked Jesus, but was really unsure about the church as an institution.

I pointed her to a parable that Jesus told. A man plants wheat in his field. An enemy comes along and plants weeds. His servants realize what's happened and they ask the master if they should pull up the weeds. Don't, he says. You'll accidentally pull up the wheat, too. Let's wait, let them grow up together, and we'll separate it out at the end.

This is the church.

Of course, it was like this from the very beginning. Jesus picks twelve. One of them is a traitor. He was a hypocrite--the gospel writers record that he kept the treasury and would regularly steal from it. You wonder if anyone inside or outside of the company of the apostles knew about Judas' thieving habits. You wonder why Jesus would suffer to be associated with such sleaze. Doesn't he have a reputation to uphold?

Judas and the disciples grow up together. And in the end one of them plunges into the darkness to betray the Lord of the cosmos.

If Jesus had a hypocrite in his company from day one why do we expect our experience of his people to be any different?

Celebrating Sarcasm Redeemed

I just found out that today is G.K. Chesterton's 134th birthday.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Chesterton was a brilliant writer who's words blend an incredibly quick wit and dizzying theological insight into one fun-filled reading package. Nobody leverages the power of sarcasm in more redemptive, God-honoring ways than Chesterton does. He gives me tremendous hope that some day by the power of the Holy Spirit, my own sarcasm might bless people as richly.

I've only read two of his works: Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. He also wrote a bunch of fictional works--mostly mysteries. And I don't agree with everything he says. He's certainly not a big fan of the Protestant Reformation (and really, given that the Reformation has produced Joel Osteen as one it's outcomes, I'm starting to see his point) and there are other minor places where I would beg to differ.

But if you're a person who fashions themselves to be an intelligent, nuanced objector or struggler towards issues of faith, you could do no better than to give Mr. Chesterton a read.

Hard to Say Goodbye

Today's post is dedicated to our good friends Mike and Michelle McClure who are probably in the car on the way to their new life in Austin as I type.

Mike pulled up to our driveway in Richmond, Virginia five and a half years ago. He had just graduated from UNC and was trying his hand at this InterVarsity staff worker business. He was to intern and train under me for a year at Virginia Commonwealth University. His fund raising had come along slowly. So Kelly and I offered to have him live with us to cut down on his expenses and get him to campus quicker.

Since that time, the pictures of the major events and milestones of our lives are like a "where's Waldo" picture game featuring Mike (and later his wife Michelle) McClure.

Mike stayed on staff for just that one year, then ventured into the business world. He met his wife Michelle in our kitchen at a party. We got to know Michelle along with Mike as their relationship developed and grew.

Our oldest child Davis was born a couple days before Thanksgiving, 2003. Mike and Michelle were engaged and already on the Thanksgiving day guest list. The rest of our families joined them. We brought Davis home on Thanksgiving day to the families and Mike and Michelle. Fitting, really. A couple of weeks later, one of Davis' first public outings was to Mike and Michelle's wedding that I had the privilege of being a groomsman in.

After some business-world work in Richmond, Mike decided to pursue business school back at UNC. Several months later, Kelly and I decided to accept the position of IV staff team leader back at UNC. We chose our houses without consulting but we ended up being within a mile and a half of one another.

Mike and Michelle helped us to welcome Zoe into the world six months after we all arrived in Chapel Hill. This past fall, when Kelly went into Labor at 4:30 a.m, we called Mike and Michelle to come over at that ungodly hour to be there for our kids when they woke up. They loved the chance to serve us and love on our kids--even at 4:30 a.m.

Mike just finished up grad school and the Lord was good to respond to all of our prayers as he landed a sweet job at the University of Texas in Austin.

Mike and Michelle have shared the most continuous, in-the-same-place-history with our family of anyone in our lives right now. Saturday night we shared several hours together reminscing and putting off good-byes until we were all too tired to ignore that ache any more. We prayed for one another and gave deep, sad, glad hugs.

Blessings, my friends, as you head to Texas. Thanks for sharing so much of life together for these past five years.

Grab-Bag Re-entry

Back in the saddle today, here's some thoughts to cover the past three weeks:

*For two of the past three weeks, I was at Rockbridge, IV's year-end, week-long summer conference for students. Students get to choose from a number of different tracks to engage with different topics from learning how to lead small group Bible studies to sharing their faith to studying Scripture more deeply on their own.

Once again but especially this year, I was darn proud to be a part of an organization that offers students quality, thoughtful, thorough, nuanced, creative instruction while allowing good space for students to wrestle with key issues like politics, sexuality, pluralism, and leadership.

I also really loved the group of UNC students we took with us--115 strong, we had lots of fun being together without being too obnoxious.

*I watched two movies of note over the past couple of weeks that I'd recommend: I Am Legend and No Country for Old Men. I was drawn to the former by my love for apocalyptic/survival stories. I enjoyed the latter for how it messed with my head.

*Summer time is here, which makes me happy. I've got lots of good books waiting to be read and plenty of other work to do get ready for the fall. I'm currently reading Lesslie Newbiggin's The Light Has Come, which is his commentary/exposition on the gospel of John. If you're currently or ever reading John on your own, this would totally be worth the investment.

*If you're someone who tracks the blog for family posts, you might have noticed that it's been a while since I've posted any pictures of the kids. This is because of a growing nagging sense that posting pictures of my kids on the internet for anyone to see opens them up to creepy people. I'm hoping to post several pictures of my family from the last several weeks on my Facebook page. That way only folks who I've more or less approved can see them. If you're interested in the family pics (and you're not a creepy stalker), friend me up on Facebook and look for those to come soon.

Blogger Vacation

In case you're still checking in, just a heads up that I'm on blogger sabbatical until sometime next week.

That means more time for you to spend doing something productive with your life! You're welcome!

Talk to ya'll soon.

And I thought I had a Weird Job...

So imagine packing up your life and hitting the road for a school year on a quest to see just about every major (and many minor) universities that you could think of?

That's basically what Benson Hines is doing. He interviewed me last week in his quest to get as much information as possible about campus ministry styles and flavors from different organizations. He told me he hopes to write a book that will raise the value and profile of campus ministry in church world.

Which, of course, I'm all for.

A lovely chap, check out his site: exploringcollegeministry.

James v. Itunes

Yesterday I was working feverishly behind my computer screen writing talks and organizing year-end stuff. And so, of course, I had my Itunes MP-3 player on shuffle all day long.

One particular song transition in the shuffle was a bit jarring: going from Handel's Hallelujah Chorus (downloaded this past Christmas) to Kanye West's "Gold Digger" (downloaded in a moment of weakness last fall).

The movement from worship to frivolity coming out of the same speakers within seconds of one another reminded me of a favorite passage in James 2:

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God's likeness. 10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11 Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12 My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

So I'm thinking that James probably wouldn't be a big fan of my Itunes playlist...at least when it's on shuffle.

Zoe

This morning for a treat I made me and the kids some French toast. I use wheat bread as a nod to a healthy breakfast. Davis requested syrup, Zoe requested powdered sugar, which I prefer because it's less mess and it's less sugar.

I served the kids up and was busy fixing my own plate when I looked over to Zoe. She was picking up the small pieces of French toast that I had cut up for her and was licking the powdered sugar off each little piece.

So much for the nod to health.

I think that the Lord designed two year old girls to be good for the male ego. To be regularly out-smarted regularly by a pretty-in-pink sassy little thing really helps to put me back in my place.

Red Flags

A couple of weeks ago I realized I was over-reacting to someone. For whatever reason, this person's personality was driving me crazy...even though we've been in relationship for many years now and there were no new events going on that would compel me to be annoyed in a fresh way.

I was talking with a good friend yesterday on the phone (one of my tortured introverts) and he had a good word: an over-reaction to a situation is generally a red flag that there's something deeper in you that needs to be dealt with.

So I spent some good time this morning journaling through this red flag. In the process, I stumbled across some pretty significant baggage I was carrying around from long ago. As I dealt with that, I began to piece together some other odd sounds in my soul that connected with that baggage.

I think that everyone's got baggage. It's just a question of whether or not it matches. As it turns out, my baggage is matching quite nicely--better than I previously realized.

I think that the Lord is good to patiently show us our sin. We couldn't handle it all at once. There's sin in my life right now that God won't reveal to me for another five or ten years.

I think the same thing is true for our baggage. I'm relieved that I don't have to process it all at once. But I'm also glad for good friends who will help encourage me to watch for those red flags...and for the Spirit who is good to pull back the curtain ever-so-slightly in order for me to take on what it is my time to deal with.

Markers

Last week I was talking with a friend of mine who works in cube world. It was the last day of classes. The last day of classes is a tremendous mile stone, an end point, a place to step back and evaluate, consider, reflect, celebrate, rest.

Cube world doesn't have many of those places.

I'm glad for my friends who do good work in cube world. But there are many reasons why I'm glad I don't spend my days there. Having a natural end point, something marks the end of this leg of the journey, is one of those.

I don't have summers "off" but I do have summers "different." Part of the work of the summer is to do the reflection and evaluation that I don't have time to do on the fly. It's good and important work that I enjoy when I've got (or have made) the time to do it.

I'll get there soon. In the mean time, a big part of my job is praying for students as they wrap up the year with exams. Ah, the joys of exams! But that's another post for another day...

Self-Defeating Community

One issue that we talked about a week ago while I was in Chicago working on the Small Group Leaders' Handbook was the importance of community, particularly given the cultural shift from modernity to post-modernity.

So our culture clamors and longs for connection and relationships. But the problem is that because sin is at work in our world we also have self-defeating behaviors that undercut our ability to actually enter into community. There are several of these, the ones we talked most about were the addiction to convenience/a consumer's mindset to community and technology.

It is impossible to be a consumer of relationships and have those relationships actually develop the depth that we crave. Genuine community only takes place over a long period of time in a context of forgiveness and working through plenty of conflict and inconvenience. Real community is never convenient. As long as our own comfort and "safety" is our primary concern, we will never be in real community.

Secondly, technology; it can augment relationships but never replace them. If some of my students spent half the time in face-to-face conversations instead of updating their Facebook profile,they'd be much better off. Technology as a primary method of connecting doesn't work. It can round out or be a starting place but as a finish line it is a dead end. Technology apart from human contact is only further isolating.

The challenge with both of these issues is to get a hearing without sounding like an angry luddite. But maybe that's just the cost of speaking into culture

Nic At Night

A couple of weeks ago now our small group looked at John 3, the story of Jesus meeting a Jewish teacher named Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes at night. It's dangerous for a respected Jewish teacher to be seen with this Jesus guy when he's causing so many problems.

Throughout John the imagery of darkness is synonymous with un-belief. Nicodemus, I would think, deserves some props for coming at all. But Jesus is not so enabling. He dazzles and confuses Nicodemus with a series of images and claims that leave Nicodemus more confused than when he came. John the writer sums up the conversation saying that those who do evil hate the light but those who live by the truth come into the light. Nicodemus is weighed and is apparently found wanting.

But this is not the last we see and hear of Nicodemus.

Later in John 19, Jesus is dead and the disciples are scattered. Someone has to bury Jesus. And here Nicodemus ("the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night") approaches the authorities in full view and asks to help bury him. He brings expensive gifts symbolic for the death of a king. He has made the move from darkness into light. Nic at night becomes Nic who loves the light so that his deeds might be seen for what they truly are.

Today my prayer is that I would love the light. That I would love the light and hate the darkness. That integrity and truth would be who I am and what I am becoming. No playing in shadows. No cutting corners. No part of me clinging to the darkness. All of me in the light so that what is death and evil in me might be exposed. All of me in the light so that I might know the Father who has sent me to follow after Jesus.

This is a journey. In my natural state I don't love the light because it exposes me for who I truly am: the good, the bad, and the ugly. But the Spirit is giving me new appetites, and a fresh and abiding trust in the exposure process. Apart from full exposure, there is no true healing.

Just ask Nic.

Tortured Introverts

So looking at the men who comprise sort of my "inner circle" of friends there's one remarkable trend: most of them are tortured introverts. That is, they have these inner worlds that are rife with inner conflicts, struggles, questions, wrestlings with God and with themselves over issues like calling, purpose, identity and why the NHL even bothers having playoffs any more. Okay, I made that last one up--nobody I know even cares about why the NHL bothers having playoffs any more.

I was talking with one of these tortured introverts just the other night. He was asking me why I had relationships such as these.

I think the answer is that I am an off-the-charts-extrovert who does not want his entire life to be comprised of externals. I want to have a rich internal life that fuels my work and my relationships. I want to be thoughtful and engaged in the world of ideas while at the same time working out those ideas in ministry and in my relationships.

One barometer of whether or not I'm actually living out this desire for a rich internal life is this blog. I started this thing because I had so much stuff going on in my head that it was getting a little bit crowded in there. I needed some way to process it. I needed a vent. So I started Piebald Life.

When I'm healthy--which includes reading thoughtful books as well as being in Scripture regularly and journaling--I've literally got thoughts stacked up like circling planes waiting to be blogged about. I told someone the other day that I blog about every 36 hours. Her response was, "About what?!? What you had for breakfast that morning?!?" But when I'm healthy, these posts are just piling up, waiting for expression. Sometimes I'll write up a couple of posts at the same time and just publish them later.

When my life overly-consists of externals, my internal world goes flat-line. And so my blog quality is a good barometer of my internal health. And these last several weeks have been pretty blah. Which is pretty indicative of the life I'm living right now.

But give me several weeks and summer time's here. And then it's a whole different ball game. And hopefully I'll have the space and time to pursue those internal-world things that give the external stuff of my life the quality and texture that I so deeply desire.

In Over My Head

So last semester I was extended an invitation to help gather together a team of about six staff to do a re-write of InterVarsity's Small Group Leader Handbook. This was an opportunity that I was stoked about. I've worked with training small group leaders pretty extensively over the past six years or so on staff with InterVarsity. And I occasionally like to write. What could go wrong?

I spent the last several months searching near and far for other IV staff who could join me in this work. We wanted a diverse team from various parts of the country to help make this thing worthwhile.

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, the team was assembled and we fly to Chicago-land last week to get to know each other, eat deep-dish pizza, and hammer out what this new edition of the handbook should look like.

As the time approached for these meetings, I realized I was in over my head in two ways:

1. I've never written a (hand)book before. I've never written a book with a group of other people before. How exactly does one shape a productive, thorough conversation? I mean, if it was just me writing this thing, I think I might know what I want to talk about and just get started. But it's not just me and in the long-run that's going to make this a better thing...but how do we begin?

2. I don't often lead meetings with other IV staff. That is, I don't often lead meetings with peers or those who are older than me/a pay level or two above me. Most all of my meeting experience is with students, where there's obviously some natural "I'm older, I'm the IV staff guy" type dynamics. Even if students don't like my meetings, they are more likely to be compliant (with the exception of the students who read this blog). The folks on the team were going to be mostly my age but a couple were older and a couple of them ran staff-level meetings all the time. My fumblings were going to be annoying for everyone, but for them especially.

So these were my thoughts as Thursday morning approached--the one full day we had together where we had to do almost all the work ahead. And Thursday morning's session more or less affirmed these fears. We struggled to get traction, bumped up against impasses, and I wasn't always sure that I was helping us to move through the process as well as we could.

But the team of staff were gracious and patient. And as the day progressed, the fog lifted. We began to take some steps towards clarity and the book began to take shape. By Thursday night, we had done most of the good work we needed to do. Friday morning we rounded out the framework and structure and we had lots of laughter and some inside jokes. Hugs all around on the way out to the airport and new friends on Facebook. What more could I have asked for?

Now everyone's back home and we've got some writing to do. Our goal is to have this thing done by November, it takes a year in the production process, and it's ready for your Christmas stocking by December '09.

I learned some good things about leading a meeting over a couple days and about the writing process. And I got to know some cool folks along the way. I guess it's not always bad to be in over one's head...

Random Thought of the Day

Seriously, does anyone at all care about baseball in April? The season stretches into infinity, running until approximately Halloween or Thanksgiving or Advent or that mysterious date that most of us intuitively know when the neighbor's Christmas decorations have been out just a little too long.

I need something to fill the sports-shaped void in my life and baseball isn't it. Even the "summer" Olympics aren't really all that summer-ish. August is football season, meaning I've got more important things to do than watch twiggy twelve-year-old girls fling their mal-nourished bodies across large bouncy mats. You know why those girls cry after every routine? Because they're hungry!! Someone get that girl a cheeseburger for crying out loud!!

Breakfast at Wimbledon, anyone? I've got my lovely wife (who will spend many hours staying up past her bed time watching the aforementioned twiggy twelve-year-old girls fling their mal-nourished bodies across large bouncy mats) to thank for introducing me to the joys of tennis.

And since I owe her for that, maybe I can endure a little summer Olympics gymnastics along with her.

Jonah's Going

So about ten years ago I was a part of a staff team that led a large group of students through the book of Jonah. The "take home" for us then was the call to "GO" to the places on campus where we (wrongly) thought that the grace of God couldn't possibly reach. Obvious places included the gay community, the communities of different religions, portions of the arts community, etc. We wanted students to get out of the Christian bubble and be actively engaged with different communities on different parts of campus.

In thinking about preparing Jonah ten years later, the situation is different. Our reporting nation wide as a movement have shown that by and large InterVarsity students across the country are way more connected to the broader campus than they were back in the old days. They have moved out of the dreaded Christian bubble.

But what we haven't seen along with that is a rise in the number of people who are responding to an invitation to Christ.

So this year as I'm preparing and looking over Jonah, the message is still "GO"...but go with the message. Students have been so deeply indoctrinated with the message of tolerance and pluralism that they are connected relationally but have been cowed by the culture to not speak a message of hope and forgiveness and redemption.

Obviously, this is something of a correction in our Christian culture. Christians have historically (and still some today) done evangelism poorly and obnoxiously. But realistically, 99% of my students are far, far from obnoxious. We have over-corrected. We have been sent by God to be a part of his work on campus. We're fine (for the most part) if that means doing something nice for people--which is a good thing. But we're very, very, very slow to speak the message that God has given us to bring.

Most students, both Christian and not, have a deep-seated loathing of the heavy-handed evangelistic tactics of fifty years ago. But really, that was fifty years ago. Those folks are still around but they are fewer and further between. If we go but do not go with our message, our going is a building of straw.

I hope being with students in Jonah can help us move towards a more faithful, reckless, winsome, joyful going with the message that we've been entrusted to go with.

Petulant Buts

I'm preparing to lead a series of studies in the book of Jonah. I spent last week reading over it--what a tremendous piece of Scripture! The thing that stood out to me last week was how appropriate it was that a book about a petulant and difficult prophet turned on the axis of a series of "but" statements.

Consider Jonah 1:1-3 (TNIV):
The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.

But that, of course, isn't the last but.

God sends a storm (NRSV: "But God"), Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard because he's the cause of this life-threatening situation. God provides a big fish (NRSV: "But God"), swallows him whole, Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly and offers up a powerful prayer while he's there. The fish spews him out and the word of the Lord comes again to Jonah.

This time, of course, he's learned his lesson and he goes. Jonah walks Nineveh with the message of repentance and the entire city repents. And in Jonah 4, we get a series of "buts" that capture Jonah's back and forth with the God who is merciful both to the Ninevites and the stubborn prophet.

Jonah 4:1 (TNIV)
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.

Jonah is hacked off about God's mercy being extended to a people so evil as the people of Nineveh.

Jonah 4:4 (TNIV)
But the LORD replied, "Is it right for you to be angry?"

God refuses to let Jonah pout or get off the hook. He will pursue Jonah to the bitter end, just as he did the people of Nineveh. Jonah and God have some back and forth and Jonah sets up shop on a hill outside the city, hoping for a "shock and awe" show--that is, hoping that God would incinerate Nineveh in spite of their repentance.

God provides a large plant that springs up to give him shade and Jonah is happy. The next day, God sends a worm and the plant dies, and Jonah complains that it would be better for him to die.

Jonah 4:10-11
But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this gourd, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left...?"

The book ends here, with the word of the Lord to Jonah. We have no idea if he repents, if his heart is softened towards the grace and mercy of God.

But what we do see is that God is radically committed towards having the last "but." The Lord will pursue Jonah and the Ninevites and you and I, even though we hear his voice, his commands, his calling and the very next word in our stories, in my story, is most often "but Alex."

The Lord will speak his "no" to us through storms, through fish swallowing us whole, through dreams deferred, through failures and struggles and challenges in order that we might finally, one day, come to delight in his very large, and very loud, yes. He is relentless. He will not stop pursuing us with his yes to our very last breath, be we petulant prophets, lost wanderers, hardened skeptics, or some combination of all of the above.

Acting on AIDS

This week on campus we've done a really cool AIDS awareness event through World Vision's "See Orange" campaign. The way it works is that you order a bunch of bright orange shirts that say "Orphan" on them and the goal is to have 20% of the campus wearing them to point to the fact that 1 in 20 kids is orphaned by AIDS each year in sub-Saharan Africa.

This is our first time doing it and we learned some good lessons, but it was pretty cool to see not just IV students but others on campus walking around with the shirts. A great example of what it means that we can partner with all kinds of students to be a part of Kingdom purposes.

If you're a college student on campus or involved with campus ministry (and you know who you are) then I'd encourage you to check out their web sites: acting on AIDS and World Vision home.

Big Universe and Random Chance

I got an e-mail several weeks back from a student who had engaged in a discussion with an atheist who argued for random chance. Here's a bit of her email about this conversation:

God didn't create us but just based on sheer numbers this sort of thing (Earth, humans) was bound to happen sooner or later. They supported this idea by asking me if God has anything to do with the rest of the universe. Though there may be life out there somewhere else (who knows) there certainly isn't any on the planets in our galaxy. So what does God do? Does He just take care of this Earth and us humans? Why didn't He create other people to occupy Himself with? The planets don't really need His control since they're just floating around out there. Why just us?

What about the rest of the universe? What's the point of it?

I thought that this was an interesting question, here was my feeble attempt at a response:

C.S. Lewis actually tackles this somewhere when he asks a question in response to the "huge universe" question. Would the atheist prefer a small universe where nothing else existed but our galaxy? Would that actually change anything about God, prove or disprove his existence, or help us to understand our purpose any better? In some ways I think that this helps to put the question in its proper place. There's no universe/created order that would definitely/definitively prove or dis-prove anything about God or his existence.

Given that there is a huge, created universe, I think that there's a couple responses:

1. Random change explaining all of this is still a long, long, long shot. That something like humanity was bound to happen somewhere eventually is just not mathematically sound reasoning. That's like saying if I leave my office a complete disaster that eventually it's bound to tidy itself up somehow if I just leave it alone long enough. Multiply my office by a couple billion, still not a good chance that any of those billion offices are going to organize themselves into something intelligible. There's no governing principle or energy or intelligence to organize my office apart from something entering into the raw material and helping to make it happen.

2. I think that Scripture talks about creation pointing to God's character again and again...and I think that this is at least in part why the cosmos is so big; why the details are so infinitely incredible. Go to your local swamp and take a small sample and it's teeming with life. Bust out a map of the universe and the stars and black holes and how big and massive all of it is--all of this is meant to scream out to us that God exists, that there's design here, that it's been done on purpose. God is infinite. It's like he's taken a cheese-slicer and run it across his character: we get something of the variety and diversity of his creative power, just a taste, but we don't get the infinite-ness of his depth--it decomposes, things die, it doesn't last forever. I would argue that the vastness of all of this and the fact that it all hangs together at all is proof in the opposite direction from your atheist friend: random-ness just can't possibly account for all of it.

3. God has clearly ordered some things so that they run to some extent on their own--he creates the laws of physics and gravity and such. But those things are held together in him. Colossians 1 talks about all things holding together/consisting in Jesus. I think of it like all the cosmos
being gathered up in a tennis ball and that ball fully submerged in an infinite bowl of water. If at any point that ball ceased to be under water, it would simply cease to exist. Every moment, every breath, all of it is being propped up by Jesus, the Living Word through whom all things were created and in whom all things hold together.

4. Who knows about life on other planets and whether or not they are fallen and whether or not God has acted in a similar way as he has here on earth? Perhaps one day we will meet more of God's creation and discover that they, too, have a story of redemption, of a God who comes to visit them and to make things right...and of course the atheists will find ways to explain
that away as well...

Thinking about "Busy"

The prime sickness at my beloved campus is the idol of perfection.  Someone once commented to me that at a campus like Dook just down the street from us, it’s okay to be super-nerdy as long as you’re super-intelligent.  But at UNC, there’s not only the academic pressure (which is admittedly less than at a school like Dook) but there’s also the social-polish pressure to be put together. 

 

What this creates is a culture where perfection is the goal.  All attempts that fall short of that, however well-intentioned, just aren’t good enough.  And, of course, that’s the catch with all attempts at perfectionism.  It’s never enough, is it?

 

What this leads to for some folks is the frantic grasping for the un-attainable goal of perfection.  Which, of course, means that many of my students are very, very busy.  They’re involved in every possible club that they can join.  They write honors theses.  They play intramural sports.  They go to formals and attend various Christian meetings.

 

If you are an important person living the Carolina Way, you are busy.  To be un-busy is to be un-important.  No one wants that.

 

Several years ago I read a book by one of my mentors, Eugene Peterson.  In one particularly prophetic passage he wrote about his visceral reaction to a magazine called “The Busy Pastor.”  Busy, he argued, was not and should not be the adjective of choice for any pastor.  A pastor is to not only speak the words of the gospel to the culture, they are also to embody the words of the gospel.  A part of that, he argued, was to live a counter-cultural life that battled fiercely against a culture that equates busyness with importance...often with tragic results.

 

So here’s the reality: I’m overly-busy right now.  April is always a frantic wind up to the end.  We’re three weeks out from wrapping up another school year—my third at UNC, my twelfth on InterVarsity staff overall.  And I want to spend these last weeks meeting up with students and wrapping things up.  But it’s hard and time is getting short.  I want to be available and accessible for important conversations that need to be had.  But the preamble to many requests to meet goes something like, “I know you’re really busy but I was wondering if…”

 

Busy is not the adjective I want to describe my life.  It does right now.  Maybe I just have to be okay with setting up shop in the land of “busy” for a season…I just hope I don’t end up living here.