Not Classifiable as "Witness"

Billy, you are forewarned. This is a rant.

I get invitations all the time to join facebook groups about Christianity. And I would feel bad if I ignored them, but I felt ridiculous joining the “I Believe in Jesus Christ” group a couple days ago, already being a member of the “Christians” group, along with “The One Body of Christ Experiment” as well as “Jesus Christ is the Freakin’ Man.”

I would have just joined the group so as not to offend the person who sent me the invitation, and then never thought about it again. However, I got a message from the group administrator to all the members this afternoon. It said “Imagine what kind of witness this group could bring if all of us added just ONE person a week [to the group].”

Shane Claiborne once said something (I’ll find the quote when I’m not full of turkey and lazy) about people giving money to charities to insulate themselves from real charitable work, from having to be exposed to poor people themselves.

I think we invite others to these little groups on facebook and join them ourselves similarly to the useless way we put the Holy Mackerel on our bumpers, making a silent statement about our faith and thinking that’s the only way we are expected to live it out. Aside from the fact that inviting people to the “I Believe” group is only going to end in a big group of people who already believe and not be a “witness” to anybody, I think labeling and classifying ourselves with names and groups and facebook invites is just another self-serving insulation from evangelism and living out faith.

While I may or may not go on a deletion spree of my own group memberships, I hope that my faith is both more evident than my facebook participation, and evident to more than just like-minded people. As St. Francis of Assisi said, I want to “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” Or facebook.

Presidential Poncho

This is just too wonderful not to be shared. I’m doing a bad thing and using up the Associated Press’ bandwidth by linking to this photo, but doing a good thing and not outright stealing it. W’s Press Secretary really should have foreseen this being a problem for him before he was allowed anywhere near cameras in it.

And I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve actually been writing, and there are 4 drafts saved to my blog software right now. Maybe I’ll have some time to polish and publish those over Thanksgiving. Enjoy this in the meantime.

 

Photo Credit: Associated Press

Update, September 2020: Because I originally did a good thing and linked to the photo, it eventually went away when the AP archived their original story. So twelve years later, I did dig it up in another place on the internet and uploaded it to my own site. Not only was this too good not to share, it’s too good to let disappear. I truly miss the days that the President of the United States managed to still be charming and entertaining even when he was an idiot.

Comings and Goings

This week I’ve talked to Mike in Morocco, Skyped Teddy in Wales, and said good-bye to Julia before she heads to Ethiopia. I’m planning for Jerry and myself to see the Vivancos in South Carolina and play some music when they come up from Ecuador, and setting in motion some other plans that will take me back to la mitad del mundo. I’ve sent text messages to California, Michigan, and half the South, and got a super-brightly colored envelope from Wisconsin.

I don’t particularly like the way people boil down surprising relationships to a set of coincidences when they say what a “small world” this is. But that doesn’t mean I brush off how how amazing it is that certain people have been brought into my life at discrete times (not to be confused with discreet times, though that can be said as well).

Even looking around the Tangent Minds several months before I left for the summer, I  realized that it’s very likely that some time in the near future, not a single one of the people then present will even live in this country, and how significant that group has become in the lives of each other and how strange (and yet how reassuringly) we all found ourselves (or found ourselves placed) at the same certain place at the same time.

Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage is the UMC North Carolina Conference annual youth conference in Fayetteville, NC. I’ve been going since 2000 with a several-year hiatus and a semi-disastrous return last year.

Last year’s sleeping conditions were “not condusive to”, the  showering conditions were “non-existant”, and the music was actually somewhat a solution to the first problem. I was a little more realistic, hopeful, and generally prepared this time around. And overall, from a standpoint of looking at a conference as a success or not, this one was fantastic.

I did some strange things, like consistently getting in the back of the line for food, obsessively counting my ten charges, and drinking at meals in a manner that did not necessitate refills. It was Saturday afternoon before I realized this is the first leadership-type activity of this sort that I’ve done since Quito Quest this summer, and was therefore unsurprised at my disappointment in the (lack of) length of the Pilgrimage leaders’ survey. Habits die pretty hard.

I discovered several things over the weekend though. The first is that I cannot spell “coliseum” or “disappointment” (spell check came up when I just typed both of those).  Another is that the Everything skit still brings me to tears. And finally was a more realistic view of both the vulnerabilities and the strengths of ten teenagers, Kelli, and myself.

Something I’ve been struggling with lately (as I told the D group tonight) is my ratio of giving to getting in worship. Another general struggle is not knowing how to deal with some of the stuff that my brother’s age group is going through because the Band Mafia and the BROs were apparently so sheltered in high school. But that third realization came from seeing God move this weekend beneath the surface-level emotions and interactions of our group.

Some things just need an honest conversation. But sometimes you just need your Merkel Cells stimulated. A middle-schooler with a wide-eyed question brought my to my knees where a Bishop failed  to inspire any emotion this weekend. I know I’m going to be chaperoning Pilgrimage for years to come.

DST Thoughts

I was watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 last night. Get off me, I like it. At any rate, they took a two-stage trip to Hawaii. The first stage was a stop between their Pennsylvania home and their Pacific archipelagic destination for a few days in California. The idea was that they’d put all eight kids on Pacific time so that the transition into UTC-10 (Hawaii time) wouldn’t be as drastic.

It’s something I totally appreciate. Granted James has been home so I’ve not really cared about what time I’ve been going to bed this week. But even taking that into account, I’ve just been exhausted this week because of the time switch. Even five days later I’m not fully adjusted to it (and Pilgrimage this weekend is not going to help). And coming off Daylight Savings Time is only an hour difference. It makes you appreciate how sensitive the human body is to its environment.

My other observation about Daylight Savings Time is that almost every news article about it that gives any kind of history always mentions one the the “pros” of DST being the fact that children can trick-or-treat with more daylight. Why in the heck would you want more daylight? I always thought it was strange when I watched the movie ET and all the kids were trick-or-treating before dusk. Maybe it’s just a Southern thing, but everywhere I’ve ever lived, Trick-or-Treating begins when it starts to get dark and ends at about 9:00.

Are Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas just weird?

Unique Halloween

Heather asked me last night how my Halloween had been. I described it as “uneventful.” I think that analysis came to my mind because at that point Jerry, Adam and I were sitting around my house doing nothing and it was 11:00.  But upon further reflection I decided it was one of the most eventful I’ve ever had.

I went trick-or-treating with Kelli, Nick, Christopher and Madeline. I was Johnny Cash. But even walking around with a guitar, you don’t get much recognition when you’re escorting a 4-year-old Batman. A sculpted 4-year-old Batman, at that. I don’t think my Batman costume was that buff back in the day.

We were mostly done trick-or-treating when “Yan” attacked me with what I thought was silly string. Turns out my hair was full of spray cheese. Yeah. Spray cheese. Not remotely silly (or tasty. I wasn’t even sure if it was cheese after consuming some of it- out of the can, not from my head).