Tonight’s Veritas Forum session was really exceptional for a variety of reasons. Each presenter had a different take on the issue of poverty and how Christians should address it, which allowed a bunch of pretty helpful viewpoints to emerge. Add to that a pretty skilled moderator and a series of insightful questions, and then re-connections with a couple of good friends that I’d lost touch with… It makes for a really good evening.
There’s not really a lot of point in rehashing what each speaker said… a fairly standard liberal/social justice point of view, and two evangelical/social justice points of view, though with different foci (focuses?). All good stuff, and nothing that I really disagreed with though some of the semantic points made for interesting conversation/thought. However, all three panelists certainly aren’t the sort of people who think interesting discussions are an end in and of themselves.
What’s helpful for me, though, is just a simple reconnection with some of the reasons that I moved to Fields Corner in the first place. I’m here ‘cause God loves this place, he loves the people here, and he wants to see a community transformed. But I think he also wants to see me transformed in the experience.
I’ve been holding back from my involvement in TXV and the community for a variety of reasons, but… It’s time. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, but man… I feel poverty only on an intellectual level, and I think I need to get down into the trenches and start crying with people. Not that I think that in and of itself will be enough, but it’s a starting point. Ultimately, I do think my role is on the job creation/wealth generation side of things, but I want to do that with dirty hands and feet.
Yeah… Good stuff. One more panel discussion tomorrow night. Promises to be pretty interesting: a brilliant preacher and a secular humanist talking on how to actually reform/transform individuals and communities. Check it out, if you’ve got time: http://www.veritas.org/Harvard/schedule.htm
So I’ve thought about posting several times in the past couple of days. In my head everything came out really eloquently, but when I got near a computer, I felt like I couldn’t actually express what I was thinking. I still can’t, not very well, but I sort of wanted to get some thoughts out on paper, so to speak. I’ve never been very good about keeping journals, but that’s one of the ways that I’ve been using this space…
So I guess I’d better start from the most recent and work my way backwards until it all vanishes in the haze that comes of having spent too much time memorizing useless information.
Today’s sermon at church was really powerful. I may just have to pick up the tape, or check to see if anyone is going to rip it to MP3. Spoke directly to a lot of things I’ve been feeling, but have had trouble putting to words.
The gist of it is that God loves us a whole lot and chooses to bless us. But we can choose into that blessing, or we can find our blessing in something else. The thing that Gary picked on is success, and yeah… I resonate with that.
The thing that’s really tricky about success is that, of course, success in and of itself is not a bad thing. Neither is working hard, or accomplishing a lot, or even making a lot of money. Neither is it bad to be popular or to have a lot of friends or to be successful in almost any way that I can think of. And yet to put your identity in your success… Well, it’s the wrong source, so ultimately (if that whole crazy Christian thing is true), you’ll find it unfulfilling, especially because there’s pretty much always going to be someone who’s better than you.
Okay, so how does that apply to me? A lot of my angst has been because I’m not as successful as I think I should be, given all of the opportunities and talent I’ve been given. Or sometimes “success” runs counter to what I think God is doing in my life. But I can’t help but compare myself to the people I see around me. And what do I see? I see people dating, getting married, having kids. I see people who buy cars, houses, and the latest gadgets. People who are going to grad school. People who have found their calling. And I sit lost in the middle of it all.
And sure… I have lots of friends, but not that one special person, or even a close group of friends that I spend a lot of time with. I have a pretty good job, with a manager and a CEO who are both genuinely interested in my personal development, but it’s still not the right fit. I’m in an a cappella group who’s making a run for it in the Harmony Sweepstakes, but which is also likely to disband in the summer (and my dream all-male a cappella group from a few years back fell apart only after a few rehearsals).
I’m measuring myself against 50 different criteria and I come up short in all of them (I’m my own harshest critic). But I don’t know what to do, where to go, nor do I want to do something or go somewhere just because it’s something new. I’m the guy who asks what I have to do to inherit eternal life, but I don’t realize it’s the wrong question. I want to make an impact in the world, but I want to figure it out, work towards the goal, do it on my terms. These aren’t bad things, not entirely. But what’s God saying in the midst of all this?
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:3-14, NKJV).
That’s a mouthful or ten, and I’m going to have to read it a couple more times before I understand, and a couple more hundred times to believe it. But I also believe the promise is true, and comes from God. True for me, and true for you too, if you want it to be.
I was going to write more, but I think this might be enough for today. But hey… pray for me? I’ll pray for you. 
Today’s The Boondocks:
I’m really glad that I’m not the only person who has ever been bothered by this. I suppose it comes from watching Sesame Street as an adult. As a kid, I always just thought that Cookie Monster ate a lot of cookies. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that he suffered the same fate as Tantalus, though not quite so bad because he could (presumably) taste the cookies (though come to think of it, he doesn’t have a tongue).
HMM.
Yeah, baby! The VariAsians will be performing in this year’s Harmony Sweepstakes.
This is the competition. It’s going to be tough with a lot of stiff competition, but we’re ready to bring it!
What a great use for Google Video!
http://video.google.com/superbowl.html
I can’t speak to the quality of any of these commercials, given that I watched very little of the Bowl, and pretty much none of the commercials.
That being said, here’s a smattering of my favorite commercials. There are other great ones out there, but these may very well be my favorite three commercials of all time. In no particular order:
When I Grow Up
Security Camera
Office Linebacker
P.S. On an unrelated note, my “fixed” ski pole barely survived the first run. Alas. I’ll post a picture soon.
