Death

Jesus does not concern himself with our life and death-but being glorified in our living and dying.

10 Barrels Inspiration

So Im chatting with my friend Tony the mortgage broker the other day sipping a delightful 10 barrels IPA at Kelly's Olympian in Downtown portland watching the snow come down and we got onto our favorite subject. The church.

Background...most of you probably know by now that I don't really know what to do with institutional church. It eludes me. None-the-less Tony and I were chatting about our most recent thoughts regarding planting a church in Portland. He proposed this idea. What if sending people out is something we do all the time. So as soon as 12-15 folks are showing up and in relationship from a particular neighborhood we send them out to start their own thing in that neighborhood. That we are generous with relationships.

I began to question him inside thinking of the sadness of losing the "best" guitar player, or a great teacher....and then I thought. Wait, I have NEVER, EVER wanted the sunday morning service to be the zenith of our mutual experience as the ecclesia every week. So we love to suck, we embrace the it's not perfect ethos. Why? Because our sunday morning gathering is not the climax of our experience with God or each other.

We (the church) are supposed to be about relationship and being in it together. That is our apogee. That is the thing to which we pour our greatest effort, time, and resources into. Being excellently relationally bound to one another.

So therefore since the sunday morning experience isnt "IT." We can give generously of peoples gifts and talents because we don't need to hold them close.

Maybe it was the inspirational 10 barrels IPA...or maybe it was the alcohol. But I felt inspired and wanted to share.
Cheers

The Un(Safe) Jesus

A letter I wrote to a friend about my latest church experience.

This whole ERT thing for our church just kills me. It's typifies American sunday morning Christianity, why you ask..(cuz I hear it.) Well heaven forbid we actually believe Jesus is who he says he is or we believe God says who he is. So since we cannot trust what they might be up to or doing, we get to take things into our own hands in the name of "safety" and "security" 2 thing God NEVER promised Israel, and 2 things Jesus NEVER promised his disciples or those he called out from their lives and asked to live a life of sacrifice and picking up their own cross and following him.

The idea that I go "TO" church and have to be at a place where doors are being locked or people might be trained with tazer's repulses me. Why are we doing this, for safety, we have fallen into the ways of our cultural trappings of believing that death is something to fear, and thus a fear of death and the fear of God doing his work; has allowed us to step in the face of God and take matters into our own hands.

Welcome everyone to the emergency response team, locker's of doors and carriers of tazers(well a select few who might get trained) Really...REALLY. Our God that we have agreed to sacrifice ourselves to is that small? Really...REALLY? Our God is so incapable, so weak so distracted that we must take our own life into our own hands?

Jesus taught that we must live willing to give up our life in-order to actually experience life...not be protectors of our life.

I want to believe that the Jesus I read about in scripture and the God I try to grapple with, that are supposed to be one in the same, that who they say they are is actually true, and I have professed faith in them and thus in what they have said.

I wish a community of faith, was truly that and wanted to live lives in the way in which Jesus called...

Ranting over:
Jonathan


I showed up to church this morning and found the typical door I enter in to the church was locked. Finally one of the emergency team members came and opened the door for me and mentioned that we had new security measures. There are now 6-7 guys roaming around with secret service radio's wrapped around their ears and down their sleeves. Making sure we are "safe."

Something I would contend Jesus NEVER promised.
This was written over a cup of typical church mediocre coffee made to taste tolerable with a packet of swiss miss.

The best $100 I've ever spent.

Last night I was stuck in Las Vegas. Kathryn, my wife, and I had been there for new years along with some of our closest friends on the planet. I wound up getting bumped on my flight and then they put me up in a hotel near the strip. Around 11pm or so a transformer blew and the block lost power. I decided to go wander inside New York New York. Grab some dinner and just wander while I awaiting power returning at the hotel.

Now some of you know that I live in NE portland, near 82nd Ave. It's well know for the number of women prostituting themselves out on the street and after living there for sometime, they become quite easy to spot.

While sitting watching espn highlights for the night a young black lady from Manhattan approached me. I knew instantly what she was up to. I quickly got out of the situation and let her keep going around the hotel. As I was sitting there I felt prompted to go and speak with her.

I asked her if she had some time to chat. She immediately began playing the game that women do. We wandered around New York New York for 10 or so minutes chatting. Finally I asked, "How much $$$ is your time worth to just let you be you, and to keep you from being dominated by some guy that just wants to have his way?"

She was flattered. I was surprised. I didnt know if she would be offended thinking that I was looking down on her or judging her. We agreed on $100 being worth half an hour.

Mia and I sat in the middle of Nickel slots for 30 or so minutes--chatting. She's a beautiful young lady from New York and has a great smile. She came to Vegas to work as a waitress and quickly realized how much money there was in prostituting herself. We didn't dig into it much further, but just kinda chatted.

I was AMAZED at how joyful she seemed...She was honest with me and kept asking why I would want to spend time with her. I told her that I was saddened at the number of men that show up and meet with her so they can exercise their craziest notions of sex and relationship.

Mia was very gracious and shared that this sort of thing had happened before, a sailor wanted to just chat with someone, but it ultimately culminated in them going up to his hotel room and finishing things off.

I am uncertain why last evenings events were so interesting and saddening to me. I walked away feeling that it might have been the best $100 I had spent in months. Truth be told, I wish I could afford to get her and many others like her to spend their time being them, and having a place to share and laugh, and not be someone sex toy.

I am still working through this experience, as I walk through this journey I will update you all.

Jonathan

Death and all his Friends

Death. I always viewed death as something that happens, don't get stressed about it, there's nothing you can do. I'm logical. So thus death takes on a reasoned place. Something of science, or history, an inanimate thing that happens–it is.

But tonight my cat was hit by a car driving down our street. I am not a cat person; but like all things I wanted a dog, my wife wanted a cat. So we comprimised and got a cat. To be honest this cat was not like most cats. He barked, he let me play with him, rub his belly, even let me put him in a box and toss him around. However, tonight my cat died.

Emotions they are funny things. They are not reasoned, or explained and sometimes they just happen. Tonight for the first time in my life I experienced the emotions of death. No words, can seemingly express these emotions. Its a feeling of sadness of memories to no longer be shared. When someone or something leaves existence its as though part of us leaves.

But Death has no friends, the emotions of death are an isolating experience.

All this, to my wonderfully fantastic dog-like cat, and my friend Felix.

Lord Save Us From Your Followers

I just got through watching "Lord Save Us From Your Followers." Though the style and full-on quality is not up to your typical Hollywood standard, but the message from both lovers and students of Jesus and those who would not classify themselves as such was both appalling and emotional.

I would encourage secular and religious to give this movie a shot. It extends a warm hand to both sides to begin and honest dialog to work together.

I wish my life could emulate the best of these people. I wish I was lest hypocritical, less selfish, less egotistical.

The Being of Subversive and Fukuyama and The End of Time

I have recently been re-reading the book that started me on this path of understanding worlviews, changing cultures, missional faith, postmodern incarnations of people and faith: Subversive Christianity.

The book has a great deal to do with Christian beliefs involving socio-polical thought from an academic yet practical point of reference. A preface to the quote, Wash has been discussing that there is a larger histrical process at work and that these events are on not accidental or contingent but that they point to something essential in time.

He goes on to say, "'...the century that began full of self-confidence in the ultimate triumph of the Western Liberal democracy seems at its close to be ruturning full circle to where it started...to an unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism.' The winner in this historical process is not simply the economic and military power of the West, but, more importantly, this historical process demonstrates the victory of the Western idea, evident first 'in the tita exhausting of viable systematic alternative to Western liberalism', and second'in the ineluctiable spread of consumerist Western culture'"

Later he says, "The end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the univeralization of Western liberal democracy as teh final form of human government."

We live in a time where the western liberal idea and action of culture has nearly dominated the entire world. We, western liberal democrats, believe our socio-political beliefs are the height of human history, and it may be. But what is next?

What will the future of socio-political thought, what will supercede the consumer capitalist whore that has made its "rounds" to the world and the addictive nectar of its breasts have led us to where we sit today. A world saturated with selfish abandon, greed, the phrase keeping up with the Jones no longer apply, as we are swept up trying to keep up with the Jones', Smiths', Walters'....

This consumer capitalist agenda has led to the self-medication through buying power. Those with greater buying power "seem" to be better, they have just self medicated more.

So a couple questions, how do we stop this trend towards greater and greater self-medicating? How do we live a life of less consumer addiction?

Next, what is the future of Socio=political thought, what way humanity will succeed our current capitalist democray. Clearly it is not Communism, definitely not divine right, so I have to imagine that it will be something new, something different, a reaction to this current capitalism.

At this current point in my journey I have been reading a great deal to read the signs and better understand what the future holds, but I have no conclusive understanding. If anyone has any suggestions offer them up, as I am curious to see where other are at.