Month: May 2010

“I am a Christian.  I have been a Christian for most of my life.  But there are times – a growing number of times, to be honest – when I’m not entirely sure I believe in God.  There.  I said it” – Jason Boyett, O me of little faith

Before I get into the book review, let me start by giving you a picture.

A slightly gross picture.

Imagine that you had a terrible wound.  I don’t know how you got it – maybe you were stabbed, or cut, or you fell and broke a bone.  Whatever the case, it’s serious.  There’s blood everywhere.  You can see bone sticking out.

Then imagine you went home and put a band-aid on it.

That would be stupid.

I think a lot of people have wounds associated with their doubts regarding faith and God. But instead of letting others take a look at it, dressing it properly, and letting it heal (there will always be scars), they hastily cover it up.  With a band-aid.

And the wound that led to doubt gets infected, and it starts to eat away at the rest of them.

In Jason Boyett’s book “O me of little faith”, he rips the band-aids off.

Initially it doesn’t feel great (I’m kind of a hairy guy, so ripping band-aids off has some side affects). In fact, during the first three chapters I found myself getting more and more frustrated with Jason as he dug around in the wound, inflaming my own doubt.

“Dude, that hurts,” I found myself saying.  “I don’t think you should be pushing on that.  It might be best if you just let that one alone.”

But as I worked through the latter half of the book, I found myself coming to terms with the doubts that I have – Jason’s list of belief statements helps with that, as do some of his ideas for dealing with doubt:

trust in grace,

pray,

admit doubt to God and others,

take a leap of faith,

live in committed obedience to the teachings of Jesus,

and keep looking for incarnational moments, when God is present

I’m still not sure about my analogy – I don’t think doubt IS the wound.  More likely doubt is the RESULT of the wounds we receive at the hands of an over-religious church, or life’s deep disappointments, or unresolved questions about the pain-riddled world in which we live, or the inconsistencies we perceive in the scriptures.

But I am convinced that when we expose our wounds, along with our doubts, there is a type of healing that can take place – not the kind that leaves you feeling certain and doubt-free, but the kind of healing that somehow allows faith and doubt to coexist.

Jason Boyett is a freelance writer and speaker from Amarillo, Texas.  Check out his blog HERE for more details about him.  Click HERE to check out his book. And stay tuned for a question and answer session coming up soon, where Jason agrees with every single one of my top ten choices (kind of) and promises never to hack his way on to my web site again (okay, neither of those is true, but it’s a great q&a).

Comfort stinks.

I know, we all love our La-Z-Boy recliners and our 182-inch flat screens and our newfangled technological devices that are simultaneously cell phones, cameras, video cameras, and microwaves, all in one little hand held device.  I don’t want to give up my air conditioning or my car or electricity (contrary to popular belief, just because we gave up tv doesn’t mean we are on the path to becoming Amish – not yet anyway).

But with each new thing that brings us comfort, another little tentacle wraps its way into us.

This comfort thing reminds me of Spiderman.  Remember how Spidey gave in to his feelings of rage and anger and hate and put on the black Spidey suit, only to realize that it had taken him over?  Remember how, eventually, the only way he could get out of it was to rip it off his skin?

Comfort can do this to us.  Before we know it, we’re being controlled by it.

So why the depressing rant against nice stuff? you ask.  Who climbed up your tree and shook all the apples out, you may wonder?

I’m not against nice stuff, in and of itself. I’m not against spending money on cool gadgets or nice cars or big houses.  But what I’ve started to realize is that having all of this stuff, and trying to figure out how to pay for it, often keeps people from pursuing their identity.  I’ve known people who wanted to go off and do some adventurous, exciting things but couldn’t because they were stuck in this huge house they could barely afford, or couldn’t imagine life without those two nice cars (the payments of which added up to nearly $1000 per month).  I’ve known people who were in credit card debt out the whazoo (no matter how I spell whazoo, spell check won’t accept it), and the plastic kept them tied up in a life they wanted out of.

All because of too much stuff that made them comfortable.

Are you making huge life decisions based on how comfortable you expect to be?  Are you avoiding your calling because you think it might be a little uncomfortable?  Have you decided not to start that business or change your vocation or up your involvement in something that you’re passionate about because you want to remain comfortable?

Did God promise us comfort?

He promised to meet our daily needs.

He promised to never leave us or forsake us.

But most of the great stories show people leading extremely uncomfortable lives.  Adventurous, yes.  Fulfilling, yes.  Were they provided for?  Yes.

Comfortable? Not often.

Abraham had lots of stuff, but for decades he was in the uncomfortable position of waiting for a child to arrive.  This is a very painful, uncomfortable place to be.  When he tried to alleviate that comfort on his own, Ishmael was born, and all kinds of chaos broke loose.

Moses was called OUT OF the comfortable life of an Egyptian prince to lead God’s people into the wilderness.  But he never even got to see the Promised Land.  Did you catch that?  One of the few men who God EVER spoke to face to face, as a man speaks to a friend, one of the greatest servants of God to ever walk the planet, and he spent the majority of his life in the wilderness.

Ouch.  Doesn’t really line up with our capitalistic, name-it-and-claim-it, pursuit of happiness religion we’ve created, does it?

David was called to be king but spent years before that wandering the country side, fighting for his life.  Then, when he was king, he never seemed to stop fighting battles.  When he finally pursued comfort, and stayed home when most kings were fighting, he ended up having an affair and nearly destroying himself and his kingdom.

When we begin to pursue comfort, a new found sense of selfishness will always lead us astray.

Are you spending a lot of time and money trying to make your life more comfortable?  Or are you actively seeking to put yourself in uncomfortable situations that force you to mature and grow?

Someone who wants to run a marathon enters into a training regiment that always goes just beyond where they are currently comfortable.  If, during every run, they stopped when they got uncomfortable, would they be successful?  Of course not.

Life is no different.  Break out of the current comfort zone that is defining your existence.

Am I some kind of ascetic who thinks you should deny yourself every pleasure, that you shouldn’t own anything, that you should inflict pain on yourself to become a better person?  That you should live in van down by the river?

No.

I’m just asking you – what is motivating your decisions?  Are you be led through life by the master of comfort?  Are you increasingly enamored with leisure?

“A life dedicated to leisure is in the end a life dedicated to death, the greatest leisure of all.” -Anne Lamott

The letter I wrote to my television yesterday put me into a nostalgic frame of mind.  Ah, the good old days, when my tv and I would spend the mornings together over a hot cup of tea, or sit down for a lunch break, or go on those dates that ended in the wee hours of the morning, me sleeping on the couch while the tv, well, just kind of sat in the corner.

As I looked back over those years, I was suddenly reminded that my entire adolescence was spent staring at a television, but not to watch the shows.  No, video games were my preferred method of time-wasting.  And my top 10?  I’m glad you asked.

10) N64 Super Mario Cart – this game affected my college GPA by at least .25 of a point.  There were nights when my room mate Doug, good old Mario and I watched the sun set, and then rise, just the three of us, cruising through the jungle or down Rainbow Road.

9) Anything Legend of Zelda – I knew I had found the girl I would marry when Maile claimed to actually enjoy watching this game with me and trying to figure out the various puzzling boards.

8) 007 Goldeneye – this shaved another .25 of a point off my collegiate GPA, and also introduced into my vocabulary the words “proximity mine”

7) Double Dragon – I remember stuffing a $1 bill into the arcade change machine, hearing those quarters drop gleefully into the catcher, scooping their wonderful weight into my pocket, and running straight for the Double Dragon arcade game, wondering if life could get any better

6) Super Mario Brothers – when Chad Fisher was the first one of my friends to get the NES, and I played this game, I would lay awake at night pondering the most tactful way of approaching both his parents and mine to inquire about the possibility of getting adopted into his family

5) Pitfall Harry – running, jumping over alligators, clinging to vines, leaping over scorpions.  To my 6 year old mind, the only adventure more exciting was my morning bus ride.

4) NBA Jam – three words for you HE’S ON FIRE!

3) Sega’s EA Sports NHL Hockey – oh for the days when I could dominate an evening with Brett Hull at my command (when Burn wasn’t hogging the Blues)

2) Asteroids – a game in space?  with ever-approaching, splitting asteroids?  and UFOs? and a ship/small triangle that could shoot and even fly around if you so chose? Awesome.

1) Pacman – that simple theme song followed by the never-ending wakkawakkawakkawakka as pacman flew through the course was pure genius.  The brown ghost, Clyde, however, was not. Yet Blinky, the red ghost, was fast, and that made all the difference.

So what are some of the video games that take you back?

Dear TV

Thanks for the letter.  It was good hearing from you…I guess.  Glad you’re doing well.  It’s hard to believe it’s been 129 days since we broke up.  I know, I’m still counting, which probably isn’t a good sign, but try not to get your hopes up.

I hear a lot about you through our mutual friends.  Bill is always talking about Survivor.  Bryan weeps when he mentions that Lost ends this year. My mom and sisters are all into Amazing Race XXIII.

Speaking of them, I wish you’d stop hanging out at my parents house – it’s weird when I go over there and they’re all talking to you in the corner.  What am I supposed to do?  They’re my family – I can’t ignore them. I guess it was kind of good seeing you, but I’ve got to admit: just the sight of you reminded me of why we broke up.

I’m not trying to be mean, but really?  Is that the best you can do these days?  A golf event where they’re still trying to incorporate Tiger, even when he’s 37 strokes behind?  A middle round NBA playoff series?  What are you doing with your life?  More importantly, what are you doing with your Sunday afternoons?  I think I even saw, uh, probably not, but pretty sure, you were showing, um…bowling?

My Sunday afternoons, unlike yours it would appear, have actually improved since we broke up – I’ve been reading Jason Boyett’s O Me Of Little Faith, taking uninterrupted naps, and having picnics outside with the wife and kids.  You should think about turning yourself off every once in a while, get out into the world.  You’re kind of egotistical.

And to answer the last question in your letter…I do miss you sometimes.  Sometimes.  And I know I’ll miss you a lot next month when you’re showing the World Cup.  To be honest, this fall, when the NFL starts up again, I don’t know what I’ll do without you.  But I’m taking it one day at a time.

So stop writing.  And leave my family alone.

Truly

Shawn

Andi is a good friend of mine that I met during my Messiah College days, I think in a Poetry writing class.  So today we’re guest posting on each other’s blogs – you can get the link to my post on Andi’s site in a second.

I’ve always been impressed by how passionate she is about writing, art and life. This guest post by Andi goes a long way to explaining why:

When I was a kid on one of those Saturday afternoons when life seems both empty and totally chock full of energy, I watched a movie All Summer in a Day (based on the Ray Bradbury story of the same name). In it a group of children lived on a planet where there was almost no sun.  It rained all the time, and  the kids never saw the sun.  As I remember it, this fact was translated in a gray-scape for the whole film.  Gray clothes, gray buildings, gray dunes and meadows.  Gray everything.  It was heart-breaking, even to me at 6 or 7, especially to me at that age.

But then hope came in on a sunbeam.  One of the children learns of a prophecy that the sun would shine for just fifteen minutes on this one day at this one time.  They planned for it, talked about it at recess, built grand stories about its coming.  Hope, here it was.

Then, on the day the sun was supposed to show up, one little girl was being picked on by the other kids during a game of tag.  She ran into a storage closet to hide; someone saw her, and they locked her in – just before the sun was supposed to come out.  She screamed at the door and pounded her tiny gray fists against it.  Then, she saw a slit of a window at the top of the room.  Hope again.

By this point in the movie, I was crying, I’m sure of it.  I still cry at every emotional moment in every movie, but this moment – a child denied the thing she most wanted in the world – this was unbearable.  How was I supposed to survive this?  How was she?

As it seemed that the little girl would die of despair, a ray of sunshine slid through that window and onto the ground near her hand.  She reached out and slid her fingers into it.  If this was a really bad movie, I suspect her hand suddenly glowed with color, but I can’ remember that.  What I do remember is the glory she took in that one sunbeam, in the thing she had been searching for her whole life.  Tears flooded her eyes, and she sat totally still with that sunbeam on her hand for the full time it was there.

I have never been able to find the name of this film (Help me out if you know it, please), but it has been archetypal in my life.  This nameless film and the little girl with a sunbeam on her hand has come to represent for me the joy we can all take in having even a sliver of that which we most desire.

Now let me be clear, what we most desire is not ever more money, or more prestige, or even more cake (although cake sounds really good sometimes).  These are just the things we can conceive of to make ourselves happier, the quantifiable, easier things that we settle for when we can’t or won’t pursue what we most desire.

What we really desire is to be most fully ourselves, to live into the fullness of the identity we have been given from before our birth.  We are the children of God, the people created in God’s own image.  We only need to live more fully into ourselves to find our glory.  This is our heart’s desire.  This is our sunbeam.

The other night I heard singer Lucy Kaplansky talk about her daughter Molly’s love of the moon when she was two.  Each night they would say goodnight to the moon, until the night when the moon was new and, therefore, invisible.  Molly cried and said she missed the moon.  Lucy assured here it would be back.

As children, we know what it is to long for something so desperately that our whole body hurts – the return of our parents’ from a night out, the Valentine from the cute kid in our class, the moon that lingers outside our window.  We know what we want, until we are taught to want other things – like the Cabbage Patch kid or the Transformers of my childhood.  People teach us these things because, well, they can give us a doll or a car when they can’t give us the moon.

Yet, when we begin to settle for anything less than the moon, anything less than the sunbeam that is our own selves, we deprive ourselves of our own joy and glory.  We lock ourselves in the closets of our lives and move forward, missing the ray of light shining from our own spirits.  We miss out on the hope that is our life. We miss out on God’s glory.  That’s enough to make me cry right there.

Please check out more great posts at Andi’s blog, and find out more about her.I’ve also got a post there today about why I feel my life right now is very imbalanced, and how that could possibly be a good thing.

I’ll see you all again Monday, so enjoy your weekend.  And find your sun beam.

Last week I reviewed Tyler Stanton’s book “Everyday Absurdities.”  Today he has been kind enough to rejoin us (in written form) and answer ten questions.  Some of the questions are interesting.  Some of them are not.  Don’t judge me.

In any case, I give you the self-proclaimed “world’s most trivial man”.

*****

So Tyler, for those out there who don’t know you (I know there are only a few), why don’t you start off by telling us what you do and how you ended up doing that?

This one is hard. I always struggle with what to tell people what I do. I write. I act. I make comedy sketches with Tripp Crosby. I emcee Catalyst West. I don’t really know what to call that. Someone suggested “entertainer”, but I really have a hard time calling myself that. I usually just lie and say that I’m a kicker in the CFL. It’s easier that way.

I was on staff with Young Life for the past seven years and did all of this other stuff part time, but in January, I left that job and started pursuing this full time.

Why did you decide to write a book?

I wanted to have something to hand to people, instead of just telling them to go to a website. No one goes to a website. Well, I do. But not most people. Not only that, but I was trying to make some extra cash so I could justify having DVR and 28” rims on my Accord. I refuse to live a life without 28” rims.

What’s your favorite knock-knock joke?

The one that wasn’t told.

Okay, moving right along . . . I talk a lot on my blog about the importance of finding your identity – when did you discover your identity, what it is it, and what concrete steps have you taken to pursue that?

I feel like my purpose is to make people laugh. I’ve always wanted that, but didn’t realize until a year or so ago that it could be a full time thing. Doesn’t matter the medium. Could be videos. Could be writing. So, I took a step in that direction. I left my job and went for it. So far, so good (Note: I am knocking on wood with crossed fingers while clutching a rabbit’s foot and taping a broken mirror back together as I type this).

Who’s your favorite comedian and why?

Jim Gaffigan. Jeff Foxworthy. Larry David. Demetri Martin. I love their material because it is so situational. They find the humor in everyday things. They don’t have to resort to gimmicks or shortcuts. I love that. That’s the type of comedian I try to be.

For the aspiring bloggers and writers out there, can you tell us some keys to building a platform and getting your name out there?

Consistency. Luck. Guest posting. Relevance. And most important, great content.

It’s the year 2012 and human existence as we know it is about to end – which one of your blog posts do you put into a time capsule?

Depends. Is the time capsule large enough for a flash drive? You’d be amazed by how much you can store on one of those these days. Seriously. It’s like 8GB or something. That being said, I’d probably export my entire blog collection, as well as all of our family photos. Right now we have them backed up on two hard drives, but I feel like a third would really help my wife sleep better at night.

When I typed “Tyler Stanton” into the Amazon search, “Everyday Absurdities” was the first book on the list.  Directly underneath that was Best Foot Forward, a 1943 movie soundtrack by Lucille Ball.  Is there some connection here?

Besides the fact that my book is dedicated to her and that I have two other blogs devoted solely to that soundtrack, I can’t think of a single connection. Talk about random.

Is there anything you’d rather be doing than exactly what you’re doing these days?

No. Well, maybe. If I could be doing the same thing I’m doing these days and not have to worry where my next paycheck is coming from, that’s what I’d prefer.

I’ve been told by Bryan Allain that I need to add a picture of myself to my blog in order to personalize it – how did you decide to go with the current picture you have of yourself on your blog (the one with the stylish sun glasses)?  What recommendations do you have for me?

Funny you ask that. I actually went to your blog to see what you look like. You know, to see if you were normal-looking enough for me to follow through with this interview. I ended up having to go to your Twitter page to see your mug. Don’t really know what I was expecting, but that definitely wasn’t it.

Even though I typically abide by a strict Never-Trust-Bryan-Allain policy, I’m going to have to agree with him on this. People need to see your face. The reason I chose that picture of me was because it serves as a reminder to me and my readers not to take me too seriously.

Thanks Tyler.  Always good to get confirmation that other people have the same Bryan-Allain policies that I have in place. And the 28″ rims are sweet.  Suh-weet.

Thanks Tyler.  It was fun hanging out.  We’ll have to do it again sometime. 

As an aside, to those who continue to take offense to Tuesday’s Top 10 List of Snack Foods . . . seriously.  It’s snack food.  And gold fish DO rule.  As do Auntie Anne’s Soft Pretzels.  Now move on with your lives.