Bart's Blog

Mattress King

2009-07-17T20:58:00.002-05:00

I think we have all seen mattress commercials before. These commercials can differ slightly, but they all aim to do one thing: convince you that your current mattress is not good enough and you deserve to be able to sleep through gunfire going off in your bedroom- all thanks to their superior mattress technology!

Now, it seems to me that most marketing is firmly founded in untruth and does not aid a Christian’s pursuit of simplicity and contentment, but mattress marketing is more egregious to me than many other products.

No, the Normans are not in the market for a new mattress. The reason I bring it up is that I see eerie similarities in the desires of a mattress shopper and of American Christians, of which I am one, which makes this blog a confession in some part.

I have no statistics, but most of us know that there is not a 1:1 bed to person ratio in our world. There are millions of God’s children and, consequently our brothers and sisters, in our world without a bed nor pillow. Our tendency to begrudge our beds as old, lumpy, saggy, too small, lacking a heating and vibrating element, or any other less than desirable attribute speaks to our lack of perspective and gratitude. This is similar to the argument our mothers used against us when, in our youth, we didn’t want to eat our vegetables: “Kids in China would love to eat those vegetables, and you should be thankful that at least you have something on your plate!” There always was, and still is, truth in this argument which spurs us unto contentment.

Yes, we can be gracious for whatever measure of comfort we are afforded, but I see in myself and in other Christians the steep cost of pursuing physical comfort headlong. The prototypical commercial says that comfort is worth spending $2000 to replace a adequately serviceable bed. The pursuit of ever-increasing comforts surely deters us, and sometimes precludes us, from a spirit and practice of generosity. In my experience, that path leads away from the heart of God, as revealed to us by the life and teachings of Christ.

I have recently learned that it costs roughly $5000 to fund the complete construction of a clean water well for foreign urban villages. These wells provide clean water where people are drinking the same water they use to wash their clothes. The same water in which animals bathe and defecate (it is no wonder that these places’ infant mortality rates are at astounding heights!). What if 2 families came together to fund a clean water well instead of buying a new mattress, TV, couch, house, vacation, etc? That would be pretty sweet.

Check out Living Water's Site!

The biggest pitch in most every mattress commercial is the glass of wine/bowling ball or woman jumping (never a man jumping) illustration. This is the kicker for me. American Christianity is prone to slumber and we seem to prefer not to be disturbed from our dreams of choice. We want to be able to wine and dine our way though life, dreaming sweet dreams, when all around us bowling balls of social injustice, suffering, war, and slavery in its many forms fall with crashes and bangs. We want to sleep through the jumping and shouting of today’s prophets who are calling the church back to the radical path of carrying a cross and sharing/alleviating the burden of the suffering.

Kristen and I see in ourselves our own desire to be coddled by a cushy, entertained life. This life is comfortably secure. If we continue down that path, we will soon need to build bigger barns…

I pray that the Spirit would continue to awaken us to the call of Christ in our time, place, and culture and lead us out into new, life-giving ways.

Messages from Metal

2009-07-16T20:33:00.007-05:00

Some may not know that I am and have long been a fan of punk, metal, and hardcore music. No, not Nickleback...try Living Sacrifice or August Burns Red. Let me just say that I would like to de-stigmatize hard music. They are not all brazen worshippers of Lucifer, aggressive brutes, vulgar kids, or extreme drug users. Some? Maybe. But not all.

I have decided to regularly post lyrics from some of my favorite bands just to help others see that you can scream nice things just as easily as you can whisper them. I may also add in a few of my own thoughts. Let me just say that the lyrics don't usually flow like poem...they may be choppy, they may not rhyme. Hey...they are headbangers after all.

So here we go.

Artist: Living Sacrifice
Album: The Hammering Process
Song: Bloodwork

A simple test, probing loss, looking for a view
Tapping on a grave they call their own
I desire, I invite this process, injection begin
Begin, break the skin, salvation quickly driven in
Pride in fracture, in subjection
A new supply running red with purpose
Nothing less than flawless in design
Systematic in possession, igniting all within
Running red with purpose
Nothing less than flawless in design

The title of the song is important here. If there are diseases or defects in one's blood, blood work is the process of extracting, testing, and finding those defects for the purpose of repairing the blood and restoring the patient. Though I am no doctor, I can confidently say that blood is absolutely necessary to the body (I've heard the "its the same as oil to an engine" comparison). For arguments sake, no blood = no life.

I perceive the lyricist to be speaking spiritually.

We all need blood work, due to the fact that, apart from God, we are broken and flawed (our lives have defects and diseases). God can perform the blood work, but He will not do it against our will. In fact, He will provide new blood, i.e. new life, for us if we ask it. The process will probably cause some pain, much like pinpricks. Sometimes worse. Who really wants to be poked and prodded anyways? Our lives have been lived as if they were ours for a long time...lifestyle transfusions can be quite intrusive. Nevertheless, this new life flow brings glimpses of the Perfect into our lives, giving us hope that we, like a well and sound body, can live a life that is full and perpetually renewed.

This new life spreads throughout all of us, like yeast permeates dough, and cause us to glow; to become ignited by a fuel that was absent before. As we grow in new life, we find new purposes, largely due to the fact that we are now able to entertain and accomplish purposes that before were beyond our ability. We can now take on the causes of generosity, the seeking of others' welfare above our own, patience through trial, contentment through discomfort, sharing in the suffering of the least in our world, and being a means of reconciliation to a splintered, striving world.

We always remember, though, that we did not perform the blood work on ourselves. It was done for us. No matter what the quality of our lives were before our new life began, we were the one's lying on the bed, not the One wearing the white jacket or the One providing the new lifeblood.

This, for me, is much of what I call good news. And most of it was touched on in this one song!

See, isn't metal inspiring?!

Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ.

Ephesians 2:13

Devotion

2009-07-14T21:15:00.006-05:00

This is a video of my Great Uncle, Landon Saunders, recieving an Lifetime of Service Award at Lipscomb's Summer Celebration week. It is a long video, just so you know. If you would like to pass over Randy Lowry's intro, just skip to the halfway point of the video. Uncle Landon will begin speaking soon after. I was holding the camera, so I hope the footage isn't too shoddy to be benefical.

What strikes me about my great uncle, and about his short speech is how committed he is to the betterment of others. It seems that he has long ago passed the point where he obediently sacrificed his own will and dedicated his efforts to serving the purposes of God. I may be wrong, but Landon Saunders may be an example of a man who now considers it not a sacrifice, but a pleasure, to dedicate himself to service, teaching, and living out the life of Jesus Christ. I may be giving him too much credit, but his obedience and commitment to God have become almost like knee jerk reactions. He reminds me of the scripture about having "the mind of Christ."

I believe that very few people in the arena that night would or could have given the message he did, short as it was. His awareness of and love for people who are suffering and whose cries have not been heard by the people of God (for various reasons, some of which are quite incriminating) was striking to me. It would have been quite easy to give some "glory to God" speech after receiving a service award, which isn't all bad. But he pushed the issue in his own way. He took that time as an opportunity to bring everybody's consciousness in touch with the fact that there is still so much to be done, as long as injustice, abuse, and despair continue to ravage our world in both boistrous and muffled ways. Church (of Christ, especially) has often seemed to me an us vs. them organization. His inclusion of the outsider was a prophetic reminder to us all that:

1) God has lots of children.

2) Many of them don't know their Father.

3) That's a problem.

4) That the church of old understood these things to be significant.

He also announced that he has recently dedicated the rest of his life to the teaching and equipping of a younger generation.

His words: "Devote a great portion of the rest of my life..."

Who talks like that? Not me...

I wonder how one comes to the point where, in perfect peace, he can boldly dedicate his very life for the cause of Christ, making it his purpose. All of us who are Chrisians have supposedly done that, but I marvel at the intentionality and the specificity that Uncle Landon brings to the table.

I guess you can tell that I love and admire my great uncle very much. He is one of the very few men of all time that I would like to understudy, to quiz, to follow around, and to learn from.

Why?

Because he looks so much like Jesus to me.

Lostness

2009-07-07T20:33:00.004-05:00

My stubborn will at last hath yielded;
I would be Thine, and Thine alone;
And this the prayer my lips are bringing,
Lord, let in me Thy will be done.

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer, Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

I’m tired of sin, footsore and weary,
The darksome path hath dreary grown;
But now a light has ris’n to cheer me;
I find in Thee my Star, my Sun.

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer, Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

Thy precious will, O conqu’ring Savior,
Doth now embrace and compass me;
All discords hushed, my peace a river,
My soul, a prisoned bird set free.

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer, Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

Shut in with Thee, O Lord, forever,
My wayward feet no more to roam;
What pow’r from Thee my soul can sever?
The center of God’s will my home.

Sweet will of God, still fold me closer, Till I am wholly lost in Thee.

While making the trip back up to Nashville from Atlanta after the 4th of July, we (Kristen, Grandma, Elijah, and I) were listening to an Amy Grant CD. Now Amy Grant is not in my top 500 favorite people list, but chalk it up to God's ability to use any and all things to bring us into contact with truth and goodness, because I was impressed by the lyrics to a familiar song that I heard anew.

The notion of being wholly lost in the Divine is quite daunting. Honestly, we may ask ourselves if we really want that at all. But many alternatives to being enveloped by God, though attractive in theory, eventually grow undesirable in practice.

We can choose to go our own way entirely. But there is a lack of direction, of purpose, of vision that accompanies walking the familiar paths that comprise our own way of living.

Or we can take God on our own terms. Let him redecorate the rooms of our lives, but let Him know quite firmly that the floor plan isn't up for discussion, nor will any walls be knocked down or new wings be added. This is my defect of choice. No doubt I have wondered why the power, vigor, and joy I've been promised since I've been "saved" are not potently present in my life. I am finding that this is due to the piecemeal approach I have taken to life in Christ. Quite frankly, it isn't even close to adequate for anyone involved.

This life in Christ (being a Christian) is a deeper, more demanding reality than I have often regarded it as. The more I learn, I find that true Christianity demands the whole of us (and each molecule and moment that comprise it). Can we give ourselves up?

It was once explained to me like this:

I know how to catch a monkey.

1)Get a jar with a mouth big enough for your monkey prey to reach his hand into and too small for him to pull his clenched fist out of.
2)Then put something desirable for him in the jar.
3)Suspend the jar by a rope, letting it hang about shoulder level with you.
4)Wait in hiding for him to go to the jar, insert his hand, and clench his prize. He will hold to his new found treat, trying to pull it out.
5)Walk up and capture the monkey.

It turns out that you can approach the monkey as he hangs from the jar, his full fist caught in the jar, and net him. If he would but let go of his prize and leave it in the jar, he would be able to pull his hand out and escape. But certain monkeys will not do it. They refuse to give up their prize, to their own detriment.

Stupid monkeys, right?

I believe our ability to grow in Christ and in the eternal truth of God is directly related to how much we are willing to give up- our pride, ego, self hatred, entertainment, selfishness, complacency, our judgemental nature...you name it. But it turns out that life in Christ is the only true life to be had- ever.

C.S. Lewis states it this way as he closes his book, Mere Christianity,

"Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end; submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

May God continue to bring us all along in Him and may we have the courage to let ourselves go and be plunged into True Life.

Questioning

2009-06-29T21:39:00.003-05:00

I am usually one who tends to want to come to a conclusion about things and communicate my findings with those who are important to me. Lately, though, my thoughts have been distracted and subdued, and I have generated more questions than answers.

How are faith, hope, and realism related? Are any of them opposites?

How can one, after receiving wonderful news, feel such downcastness?

Why are we so moved by the rise, fall, and death of Michael Jackson and others like him? In other words, why are significant people really significant? And what does that say about us?

Why am I so drawn to being entertained, even at the cost of true rest, growth, and positive exertion?

Why is the music I am listening to right now making me feel depressed? Thanks for the Sigur Ros CD's, Shawn...

I have developed small, quaint answers to most of these questions, but recognize them to be knee-jerk, pre-programmed responses. So I won't share those. If, in my searching, I find an answer that I feel is constructive, I might pass it on. Or maybe you have a word to pass onto me (which I would always welcome).

For now, I would like to share an excerpt from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity:

If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all. But fortunately, it works the other way around. Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence being sharpened: one of the reasons why it takes no special education to be a Christian is that Christianity is an education itself.

I am thankful that this is true.

Lord Come Quickly

2009-06-24T21:24:00.002-05:00

In Time

2009-06-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

This past Wednesday night, everyone met together at church for a time of worship. For the first quarter of the hour, all the kids stayed in with their parents for some good ol’ accapella singing. During the chorus of one song, some in our midst began to clap. I honestly was thinking about something else at the time, and did not notice that our little man, Elijah, was clapping away until I heard Kristen laugh. This impressed me, because he is so rarely in “big service” for corporate worship.

So at this point, I began to clap too, just to support Elijah in his beat keeping initiative. Now, Elijah, bless his heart, has not developed perfect rhythm yet, and was all over the place with his claps (which is completely fine with me…I couldn’t help but smile with wonder and gratitude that our son was joining in the worship of The One).

I noticed something as I watched him, though. When he looked up at me and watched my clapping, he clapped in perfect time. When he looked away, his clapped went all sporadic again. This happened on and off for the rest of the song, and it sparked a thought in my mind, which is no original thought of mine, just a reminder of a truth I had been taught before, but had faded over the passage of time.

I believe that life has a rhythm; a beat. In other words, life has truths- forever truths. They have always been true and they always will be. And like clapping to a rhythm, we can live in time with those truths.

I often think of conforming to someone else’s beat to be a serious downer on my own intellect, desires, and habits. Surely I am not alone in this way. But I have found that when we do adjust our rhythm to a truer one, what we find is not a restrictive cage, but a dance floor! Could it be that when Jesus said that He was “the way, the truth, and the life”, that He wasn’t necessarily talking about getting to heaven when you die, but about his modeling a way of clapping so that we can look at him and keep in time with the Divine Song which is ever playing in heaven (and can be heard on earth through those following His lead)?

In an attempt to be practical and specific, let me share one example of a truth to which I am currently trying to follow:

I have a tendency to want to hoard my stuff- my wealth. I see in my all too recent history that when I have held my wealth tightly in my hands for comfort from fear of financial struggles, the pursuit of status, or the Gollum complex (aka greed), I have become enslaved to it. In some way, it owned me (my feelings toward it), not the other way around. What I have found in Christ is a way of living that is generous to all and that thankfully holds material blessings loosely in our hands, not fearing its loss. Surely this is a different kind of beat than I have become accustomed to clapping to. Do you know that by God's grace, Kristen and I have been dancing to a new song in this area, living according to a truth that is really true, and have experienced great joy and freedom in it?!

Praise be to God, who created life, crafting its truths, and who still teaches all who crave a life lived in time!

Time together

2009-05-27T21:48:00.004-05:00

Like most kids I know, Elijah has a bedtime routine. His routine has changed several times over the first two years of his life, and I confess that I have not always cherished that time of the day. I have sometimes been slow to accept that what worked at one time in his young life is now not working well at all. Kristen has been so good to help me see that as our son changes, so we must change our approaches to bedtime and life in general.

As a side note, I used to approach bedtime like this:

1) Take baby into his room
2) Tell baby I love him
3) Put baby in the crib
4) Immediately turn and run out as quickly and quietly as possible
5) Hear baby cry
6 )Hear baby cry some more
7) Become frustrated that he is crying still
8) After some 10, 15, or 20 minutes of crying, go in there and start it all over again

Please don’t call the authorities on me.

Anyways, I want to share how our routine goes nowadays, because I love it. Elijah now wants to sit in my (or Kristen’s) lap after we say our prayer together. So he and I sit together in the dark. Sometimes Elijah sings to me. He makes up lyrics, usually about sleep or Jesus or both. It is beautiful to hear my son sing. Sometimes he says “There something in there” or “something happened to me” over and over, which makes me crack up. When I crack up, he always laughs too and sometimes our laughter carries on for minutes. Sometimes we talk about being together, and how we love being a family. Sometimes we just sit in silence.

What strikes me is that he would sit in my lap for an hour if I let him. He won’t fall asleep on my lap. He just wants to sit with me holding him close. Surely this is not unique to our family, but I am so thankful for this bedtime routine. It is a precious time for me.

A sacred time.

Though God can never be pinned down with just one metaphor, surely He is Father to His children. When I am holding Elijah close, I can’t help but ponder how Father God rejoices when His children rest in Him; when they desire to find a dark, quiet time to be silent, to talk, to sing, to laugh, and to enjoy shared time and space. Irregardless of how disobedient and knuckleheaded Elijah (or I) was during the day, we both know our night-time is coming, and we cherish it. Surely God shares (authored?) this sentiment, that no matter how wayward or stiff-necked we have been and no matter how long we have been that way, He desires that we come to Him and have a restful sit with Him. He will always welcome us.

Thy Will Be Done

2009-05-24T15:17:00.007-05:00

A dear friend of mine, Shawn Brown, lent me a copy of a short book called The Will of God, which I have still not returned to him (for shame!). It was written by Leslie D. Weatherhead, an English Christian theologian, during the 1940's. This relatively tiny book is very insightful, and I recommend it to you.

What do we mean when we say "Thy will be done."? Can we attribute the untimely death of someone we love to God's will? How about a timely windfall? The collapse of a house or of a relationship? It has seemed a great challenge to me to decide what happenings I can attribute definitely to the will of God and what happenings I should not, and why He lets the latter things happen nonetheless.

I just wanted to share a little excerpt of the book which, for me, has provided a good framework of God's will:

"And when you see His glory reflected in this lovely earth, in nature around us so full of His beauty, in poem and song, in picture, in music, in great architecture and in lowly service, in the lives of lovely people, in the happiness of a home, in the health of the body and the resilience of the mind and the saintliness of the soul, then, looking up to your Father in heaven, say, 'Thy will be done'; and let us so dedicate ourselves that we may be made one in the glorious harmony of all things and all people who carry out His will, that it may be done in earth as the angels do in heaven."

My friends call me grandpa

2009-05-23T20:19:00.003-05:00

If you didn’t already know, I really like to sleep. I think it started with the teaching that everyone needs 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night. But my sleepology spun out of control from there. I have often thought that sleep can fix pretty much anything: headaches, dry skin, bad moods, arguments, marital dysfunction, even tooth decay. Surely sleep has been my cure-all. But I am realizing that this is simply not a truth to live by. Though obviously beneficial, it has its limits.

As with all uses of time, sleep comes with an opportunity cost. What could all that time be used towards, anyway. This thinking has exposed a dark side to my sleeping habits that I had not pondered before.

There are times and occasions in life that you simply should not sleep through. Meaningful conversations with those you love, opportunities to give of your means through time and service, moments for reconciliation of damaged relationships, and designated times of devotion with our Sustainer- just to name a few.

For many years now, I have taken a good thing like a full night’s sleep and twisted it into something that is not beneficial to the whole. There have been many nights where my insistent desire for sleep cut short a conversation between Kristen and I or precluded a conversation altogether. Other times, I have insisted on going to sleep angry, not caring if she was angry as well or even why. I have slept many nights away and later thought to myself: “I have so little time for quiet, solitude, and service to the poor.” Hogwash.

I have also hidden myself away in my slumber. It is easier to sleep than to confess secret sin. It is easier to sleep than to actually consider what a “little Christ” should do in response to the rampant suffering, violence, and injustice inflicted on God’s children. It is easier to sleep than to be a student of one’s self and one’s Lord.

Surely there is an appropriate balance. I believe I am on my way to finding it.

Thanks be to God that, in Him, we can continually see ourselves with new eyes.

Introduction

2009-05-17T16:09:00.004-05:00

I am now entering in to the blogging world, though with much trepidation. The last thing I ever want to do is to be some talking head pontificating about virtues and religiosity. I believe that Kristen ( my super-great wife) and I are in a season of change and growth into a fuller measure of the image of Jesus. So I blog to document the journey for myself and for my family, and to share with those who care about us what is going on in the minds and hearts of our family.

Please feel free to give me feedback about anything on this blog. I would honestly love to hear if you think my thoughts are off base in some manner. Though debating is not my thing, dialogue about the truths of life in Christ with those who follow His Way and those who don't is right up my alley.

I want to give you just a quick taste of what's been on my mind as of late.

I feel that I have only recently begun take Jesus seriously. That is, to study Him, to become His apprentice, His follower. Surely I have admired Him for many years, loving what He said and did, but doubting that I could lead a life in His likeness. But Kristen has recently helped me to approach scripture with the senses of a scientist and the curiosity of a child. Stripping away much of what I thought I already "knew" about Jesus, I have found a Jesus who is creative, unpredictable, powerful, deeply compassionate, revolutionary, and full of wisdom. He is captivating because His life and teachings show the heart of the Living God.

The trick now for me is to understand what it means to follow Him. I confess that I have shaped Christ to look like my life more than I have let Christ shape my life. So what does it look like to follow after Him?

My first attempted answer is to live a life of deep, stubborn love that manifests itself through sacrificial service to all of God's children, especially the poor, marginalized, sick, hungry, and children of our world. Namely, the people that I have generally ignored and neglected so far in my life.

This is an undeniably general answer, but I am excited about how the Spirit is leading our family as we attempt to work out some specifics.

May God give me (and us all) His grace, that we might be "little Christ's" in this world- loving, serving, sharing, and living out the Kingdom of God that Jesus came to proclaim.