Enter the KaGe.

Death of the Matriarch?

2011-12-24T16:02:00.001-06:00

It was the winter of 2011. I was atwork. I saw that I had received a phone call from my dad. Themessage was, “Hey, why don't you give me a call.”

I was pretty sure this was the call Ihad been dreading to get ever since my mom's mom had been diagnosedwith Lou Gehrig's disease two years prior.

I sheepishly called him back, fullyexpecting to get the news.

I call, and get my mom, “Hey, what'sup?”

“Grandma died this afternoon.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Oh I have my moments,” my mom saidthrough the tears, “She asked Aaron to get her in her chair thismorning because she wanted to look out the window. She hasn't beenin her chair in three weeks, she's been too weak.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, Aaron then went to check onher and she was breathing real hard. He got her back to her roomwhere she passed shortly after.”

“How's Aunt Cheryl doing? Is she abasket case?”

“Oh, she's doing alright. Grandmadid a good job of preparing all of us before she left.”

“When are the services?”

“All of us kids are getting togethertomorrow and I'll let you know after that.”

“Ok, I love you mom.”

“Love you too.”

I had two days of work before startingmy bereavement leave. I guess it was just business as usual at work,must not have exuded a state of mourning. I was actuallyback-handedly accused of abusing the bereavement policy when I toldmy boss I was going to take the full three days even though weweren't leaving until Thursday morning. Oh well, next time I'll cometo work with tears in my eyes, or act depressed, or maybe I'll justwear all black for a month so that people know I'm still mourningthe loss of a loved one.

The truth of the matter is that Grandmawould have never wanted people moping about over her. The verythought that someone would shed a tear over her passing would havebeen enough to make her live forever. Even so, I knew that thedistance between home and Grandma had maybe dampened the impact ofthe news of her passing. And that as we got closer and closer to thewake and funeral, it would become real.

The services were the end of the nextweek in Grand Forks, ND. A short six hour drive on interstate fromour place. It's amazing how much you can process in the span of asix hour drive. Especially a drive of that magnitude through theflat plains of eastern South Dakota and North Dakota. There's notmuch to look at, and if there's no ice, you can pretty much set thecruise and go. This is what we did. As Corrine and the kids sleptthrough the drive, I did think a lot about Grandma. I thought abouther and my grandpa, and how they had been married 40 years before Iwas even born, 46 in total before Grandpa passed in the late 80's. And then I thought about how Grandma had lived so independently forover twenty years. I thought about a woman that came from a smallfamily in rural North Dakota. How she married my grandpa and went onto have six kids, 14 grandchildren, and a whole slew of greatgrandchildren. I thought about how she had to endure my uncle Jeff'ssickness and passing in 2003. I thought about how hard it would be tohave to bury one of my kids. I thought about when she was diagnosedwith ALS and how her charisma and passion for life didn't change. Ithought about how an 86 year old woman that has been diagnosed withALS could be the strongest person I've ever known. And it's thatstrength and passion for life that wasn't there when I looked intothe coffin at the wake.

When we got to town, we quickly changedand went over to the funeral home. I was greeted with many familiarfaces, relatives I hadn't seen since the summer of 2002 at our lastfamily reunion at the lake. Many I hadn't seen since well beforethat. It is unfortunate that an event like this is what brings ustogether, but that's life I guess.

Corrine and I took the kids up front tosee Grandma. It's an interesting thing, a Raymond family wake. Thefamily member who has passed sits in the front of the funeral homewhile everyone else stands in the back catching up. There's alwaysbig stories, big laughs, and big characters. As I was saying helloto everyone, I wondered if Grandma was lonely up in the front of thebuilding. Either way, Corrine and I made our way to the front.

We saw Grandma, she was all done up. Idon't know if it was the rigamortis or what, but she looked as if shewas made. Her jaw looked clenched, lips a little pursed. It's likeshe was getting ready to raise her crooked pointer finger and givesomeone the business. She did look good though. But she wasn'tthere. It was the same feeling I felt when uncle Jeff died. Herewas a person that looked like someone I knew, but was void of alllife, love, laughter, and everything that made them who they were. The sparkle in their eye, the tenderness of their embrace, all gone.

It saddened me to see my grandma layingthere. The choke started trickling up into my throat. I held thetears back and started to the back. As I was walking back, I startedobserving the rest of my family. Here were aunts and uncles that hadalso lost a mother and grandmother. You could tell they had sorrowin their eyes, but it was tempered with the relief that Grandma wasnot longer suffering. And it was through that relief that led themso quickly back to the joy and happiness that Grandma was known for. As I talked with my relatives, it was as if Grandma were theresaying, “It's alright, I'm ok, now quit fussing and go on living.” It was in this moment that I realized that my Grandmother hadn'tdied, that she does live on. Her spirit is one of compassion, love,and joy. It's because of the foundations that she laid by living howshe did, that her family can laugh at her wake and funeral.

I wonder if this is how it was in thefinal days before Jesus' death? And I wonder if this is the reasonthat Jesus came back for so long after he died? And I wonder if thisis the ultimate testament to a person's life, are people crying orlaughing at their funeral?

I know all of our time is limited onthis planet, some more than others. But when my final day comes, Iknow I want people laughing.

-KaGe

Grandma Peaches and family.

Book Review: Love Wins by Rob Bell

2011-09-14T06:47:00.001-05:00

About a month ago I picked up a copy of Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins. The book has unleashed a torrent of reactions ranging from celebrated praise to down right outrage at the message contained within. Bell has been through the meat grinder of interviews being accused of "Rewriting the Gospel," "Preaching only what people want to hear," and of course being judged to hell in all the fanciful ways that we Christians like to do it.

First off, let me say that I'm not a Calvinist. That being the case, I enjoyed this book. But I can definitely see why Calvinists (i.e. John Piper) would have a big problem with this book. And the conflict that Calvinists will have with the book are the topics of "salvation" and "choice". It's easy to see why Calvinists would have an issue in these areas because he talks about how we have Free Will, and that salvation may be for more than what the Calvinists think. Just the thought of something maybe being a little more gray-area-ish, would be enough to nudge any black-and-white thinking Calvinist to condemn this book and Bell. But that's the core of the conflict, some people only want answers and Bell asks some tough questions that the answer people don't have. And it's the uncertainty that drives the answer people crazy. So if you hate tough questions, don't read this book.

Now because of this book, Bell has been called everything from a heretic (again) to a universalist. All of which, I believe, is due to the accusers not grasping the scope of Bell's intent. Bell spends a fair amount of time writing about the Christian Universalist view on salvation. Which people have taken and made their accusations. But that is all preceded by Bell stating that everything we stand on for life after death is a guess. (Which I will tell you made me think, "Then why should I care?" And made it tough for me to finish the book...AKA why it took me so long to finish.) Which is just pure honesty in regards to the afterlife. But a Universalist doesn't believe in Hell, right? So if this is the case, Bell is NOT a Universalist because in many of his sermons and his previous books he talks, and sometimes precisely states, that he believes in heaven and hell.

Bell continues on in his book laying out Christian Universalism and how it might be possible. He uses scripture and logic to come to the conclusions that Christian Universalists hold. But he never says, "THIS is how it will be." If he did this, he would contradict what he lead with. But throughout the book, he poses tough questions based on the "accepted" stances within Christianity. Questions that I've had, questions that you've had, basically he delves into the questionable areas of our faith where there are no fantastic answers.

But the climax to the book, and I fear the part of the book that most negative reviewers never made it to or they were too mad to understand, was the last two chapters. In the last two chapters Bell brings it all together by describing how God's grace and love are greater than all views we hold of the afterlife, free will, and salvation. These two chapters really saved the book for me.

Bell discusses how since we can't be absolutely positive how the afterlife will play out, we can be absolutely positive that there are people in this world that are currently living in hell. He talks about a woman in his church that, for some time now, brings him a little slip of paper with a number written on it up to him after church. He says that the number is sometimes large and sometimes small. And what the number means is how many days it's been since she last cut herself. He talks about how the message she needs to hear is that she is unconditionally loved by a god that can help her overcome the addiction to self harm. But even more so that God loves her now, no matter how high or how low that number is, God's love and grace is never unattainable.

Now, the questions I have for us as Christians. Are we willing to actually believe that God's love is greater than all theologies and doctrines of salvation? Are we willing to believe that when John writes, "God is love," that this statement is one of the most profound statements in the Bible? Are we willing to believe that only through love, not judgement or condemnation, can we bring true glory to God? Or are we going to continue to live within the stereotype that Christians are stuck up, arrogant, hypocrites that don't practice what they preach? Maybe the better testament to Christ is not how our devotions or prayer lives are going, rather, how have you loved one another today?

My $.02.
-KaGe

Moving...

2011-08-22T07:15:00.001-05:00

The past few months Corrine and I have been looking for a place to live in Worthington. It's been a tough road since the housing market in Worthington is absolutely ridiculous. If it's not overpriced, it's terribly neglected, and a lot of times it's both.

Well we finally found a rental in Worthington that's within our price range. We heard about the place last Sunday and hadn't even seen it a week ago. So within two days we had to see it and decide if we wanted it. It is a lot smaller than our current house. But our current house is way to big for a family of three. So after we get done downsizing and moving, we'll finally be living in Worthington. And THAT is good news.

There are many different reasons why moving to Worthington is going to be good for us. There's the $300/month that we'll save in driving to work. There's the extra hour each day we'll have at home and not commuting to work. There's the savings in utilities that we're anticipating in a house half the size of our current one. But one of the huge changes that we're excited about is that it will allow me to get back into youth ministry as a volunteer.

Our church, Journey, doesn't have a formal youth ministry. And I think a lot of people wouldn't like having such a huge program driven ministry. One of the big credits to Journey is that we are very relational based in our ministry. And having a big youth ministry program would seem to go against some of the key aspects that makes Journey such an impacting community.

Over the last couple months, Pastor John and I have been discussing how I can get involved in leading a growth group. Growth groups are what really fuel the discipleship at Journey, they're what strengthens our community. When Pastor John first asked me to lead one I was a little hesitant. I was still dealing with past betrayals and very potent emotions. It took a few months to heal those wounds and with God's help, endless patience, and overflowing love, my heart feels healed. Scarred, but healed.

I think the scars that we endure are, a lot of times, marks of wisdom. There's the saying, "Hindsight is 20/20." I believe it's through these scars that we get shaped into a stronger and wiser person.

I truly believe it when Paul says in Corinthians that God will never put too much on our plate, but rather gives a way out in everything. Even though I didn't know if I would be back in a place where my heart could handle youth ministry again. I believe that in this past year I have become stronger, wiser, and have fallen more in love with God than ever before.

Love Wins

2011-08-07T11:04:00.001-05:00

Rob Bell's book Love Wins has sparked a huge response in the church. A couple weeks ago I picked up this book and decided to delve into the conflict. This post isn't going to be a review of the book. It's not going to be a theological discourse on why Rob Bell is right or wrong. Rather it's going to be a quick note on an idea that Rob Bell brings up in the book, almost in passing, and the importance of this idea.

Christianity as seen by the secular world seems to be a people group that has some wild beliefs about the world, creation, and living with a strong emphasis on judgmental legalism. They are a pious group that are more concerned with the do's and don't's within the scripture than the actual message of the bible. They are politically very conservative, willing to ban abortion, but unfortunately have little to no concern for the poor. When in doubt, the default to the "tough love" mentality in which a person should be self made and just has to tighten down his boot straps to succeed. They look to be given answers and will stand on the answers given to them even though the answers seem to contradict each other. They are a black and white people, they don't like questions that may have more than one answer and therefore hate it when people ask questions they don't have answers to. THIS is why evangelical christianity thinks that Rob Bell is a heretic. He asks tough questions and isn't content with the old standard Sunday School answers.

From what I've read so far, Rob Bell is presenting ideas that are no less supported by scripture than other more prominently held beliefs.

A big question Bell asks in the book is, what if Christians actually lives out the two great commandments? What if Christians were actually serious about the power of love? What if people actually loved their neighbor? What would the world be like if you loved, not only your geographical neighbor, but your neighbors in mankind? What if Christians were actually concerned about the poor and needy, not because it's something nice to do, but rather because it's a mandate from God, delivered by Jesus himself? It's right there in the bible. Matthew 22:36-40. The Pharisees ask Jesus which is the greatest commandment. Jesus responds, "Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul. This is the first and greatest. The second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments."
Doesn't it seem a little silly that Jesus is asked for one great commandment and he gives two? Love God. First, greatest. Love your neighbor. Second. They are two different things, but aren't they actually inseparable? Is it possible to love God without loving your neighbor? I don't think it is. If you attempt to love God without a concern for your fellow man, you get a dogmatic list of dos and don't's to live by. You get religion, but no life. You get tradition, but it's dead. You die without ever knowing what love is. The simple truth is that God is love. How do we show our love to our neighbor? By going to church? By singing upbeat songs? By raising our hands during public prayer? By having a "come and join us" mentality? No. It's by going and entering in to the garbage that life gives our neighbors and saying, "I don't have all the answers, but I'm here so we can find them together."

The fact is that after the Greatest Commandments there is also the Great Commission in which the first word is "go". We were made to be relational beings. How do we live out the greatest commandments? By going out into the world and loving other people the way Jesus loved us. By being angry and injustice in the world, our country, our city, and our neighborhood. Tough love is tough, but it's not love. It's not good enough to exist under the Christian label. If we are unconcerned about injustice, how can we claim to be a people of love? How can we claim Jesus if we reject his purpose?

My challenge is to find ways, international or local, where we can confront injustice and pour love into it. Find says in which we can go and love. This is our greatest mandate. Are you willing?

Not Good Enough Gospel

2011-06-26T11:30:00.001-05:00

Corrine and I have been part of a great Christian community for the past six or seven months called Journey. One aspect of Journey is that we utilize sermon series by either Andy Stanley or Erwin McManus. We alternate between the two. Stanley's sermons are more practical in nature. Whereas McManus tends to be less practical in that he seems to lead you to the answer instead of just blatantly stating the point of the lesson. That said, I get WAY more out of the Erwin messages.

Well today we heard the last in a series from Andy Stanley. His message was about not putting Jesus in a box and trying to abuse your "relationship" with him. I get this. It makes sense. God is way bigger than a simple genie in a bottle. But Stanley seemed to be really heavy handed in pushing the "You're not doing this good enough" aspect of the message. Which I believe may be stated and preached on too much.

My concern with this message is that it's only preaching to those that are lukewarm in their faith. I personally believe that many people are hurting and suffering and searching. My question is, where is the hope? Where is the love? Why wouldn't you.continue on in the message and say, "We're all screwed if we rely on Jesus in a can. But Jesus is bigger than this and is begging for a deeper relationship. We all fall short, but we all have access to a love, life, and relationship greater than anything we could.ever imagine."

My question is, are you willing to dive deeper? Are you willing to allow.God to fill your life with what you're lacking? Are you willing to fill the gaps and transform yourself? If not, that's ok, Jesus is patient...and still loves you through whatever you're dealing.with.

BRING BACK THE BLOG!!!

2011-06-26T11:04:00.001-05:00

So the past few months I haven't posted anything due to lack of internet connection/no computer. But alas, the world of Android has given me renewed access to the world of the blog. It will take me longer to write and the posts may be shorter and my thumbs will probably cramp up and I will have more and more typos, but I will be back.

Lots or stuff has happened over the past couple months, and I look forward to writing once again!

On Judgement

2010-12-10T20:43:00.000-06:00

It seems to me that I have a new gauge for myself. It’s unfortunate, but it still runs through my mind.

I have written volumes on “Legalism,” and I don’t think anyone that’s a regular reader will be surprised by me saying that I hate it. It goes against all things ‘love’. There is no grace, there is no mercy, there is no forgiveness, and all things judgement when we fall into the realm of legalism. But enough about that, and onto the topic at hand...my gauge.

Recently I’ve been working a job with men and women that would probably be considered rough around the edges. Just to give you an idea of my job; most use the F-word as a noun, adjective, and verb...some all in the same sentence. No joke is funny unless it’s either racist, sexist, or both. Most smoke like a chimney. And our annual Christmas party consists of an open bar and karaoke with many poor renditions of ‘Friends in Low Places’. But I love these guys and gals. It makes me happy to see these people make light of a dirty, hard job. It’s not easy to tear down a burnt, four wheel drive John Deere in under a week. But the man that can and still end the week with a smile on their face (even if he’s smiling because of the last off-color joke just said) and still punch in on time Monday morning is more a man than most. It takes a lot of commitment and humility to work at a place like Ag Parts. It’s not a pretty job, it’s not a clean job, there’s no parade or ceremony if we make budget, but these guys have worked hard for more years than most, and can go home and enjoy their families. This is what I like. These people I don’t feel judged by, these people I’d call on a weekend to hang out with.

Now the gauge.

This past weekend my roommate from college and close friend, Garrett, held his bachelor party. Seven of us were in attendance. We visited the Leinenkugel’s Brewery in Chippewa Falls, WI. It was a great time. Last year Garrett, two other friends, and I toured the Schell’s Brewery in New Ulm, MN. It’s become a good reason for us to spend a weekend together in brotherhood and learn a little bit more about something we enjoy...beer. Many times through college we’d have our beer and Bible study nights drinking our favorite brews while engaging in study and Christian fellowship. Basically it was what kept us accountable through our massive hormonal and maturing process that takes place in college.

This last weekend was a great weekend. We caught up on what was happening in each other’s lives. We spent long hours talking through different things we were worried about, struggling with, and anything in between. We did this of course while drinking nice brews, sipping fine whiskeys and enjoying some great cigars. All the while we were growing deeper in what I would consider Christian brotherhood. And here’s where the gauge falls in. The whole time I was wondering, “Is this what I got fired at the church for?” or, “The church would fire me for sure if they knew I was doing this,” and the most frequent thought was, “If they knew about this, for sure they wouldn’t think of me as a Christian.”

My question is: in our world of progressive Christianity, Christian conservatism, and general immorality throughout, why do we still feel it necessary to judge others? Now I’m no saint in this either. I’ll be honest, there are times where I’ll hear about someone, see how someone’s dressed, or just a general first impression that basically amounts to me looking for the speck in their eye. And this isn’t a rare occurrence either. Maybe some of you saints will think me a dirty sinner, but that’s kind of been par for the course. Maybe we’re just preprogrammed to think of ourselves better than others? Or maybe we see ourselves as sacrificing so much for the church and therefore when we think of somebody that may not be as holy as us, we look down upon them? Or maybe it’s just a big barrel of hog wash and we should get over ourselves. We’ll tell the world that our lives should revolve around Christ. So why do we still think that everyone needs to live up to our standards? Why do we still compare ourselves to everyone? Do we not truly believe it when we talk about living sacrifices and the continual pursuit of righteousness? Or maybe we believe too much that righteousness is a destination and not the journey that it actually is. If righteousness were a destination in this world, then we’d have those that have achieved it and those that haven’t, and either/or situation. If this were the case, then there would definitely be a place in this world for judgement. But if this were the case, it’d just boil down to our silly illegal immigration debate that we seem to never get through in our country.

So what’s the answer? We need to truly look at ourselves, judge ourselves properly first. Do exactly what Christ did with the men who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery. Those that are blameless, cast the first stone. If you’re not blameless, drop your stone and come join the rest of us.

-Kage

Thus ends the drought...

2010-11-30T20:01:00.000-06:00

It's been weeks, and darn near three months. But today, I end my writing drought.

First off, a couple updates on me personally.

The past three months have been busy. I was hired back at Worthington Ag Parts at the beginning of September, right at the beginning of harvest season. Therefore it was a two month sprinted marathon at the store. The weeks were full of long days, short nights, and a lot of Ibuprofen. The last month has been spent doing various inventory stuff. Not quite as tiring, but it still wears on a guy. Now there's white stuff on the ground which dictates many layers. This is honestly the first time I've ever worn Long Johns in the winter time. Hooray for new experiences!

Now, I understand a lot of you, if you're still out there, may be thinking, "I bet he's miserable, is he going to go back into ministry, what's this have to do with spirituality/ministry/youth/life/etc.?" Well, actually, it has everything to do with all of those things. Over the past three months God has slowly been patching the wounds left by the fallout of my previous position. Sure there are times when memories of those two months swell up and I feel overwhelmed with negative feelings. But those times are fewer and further between. I never knew how hard true forgiveness would be. I always use to think that people should just buck up and get over it. But I didn't really know what it was like to be scarred in the very place you hold dear. I hold my faith and my relationship with Christ at the very core of my heart. What I was told by a parent were things like, "We need a man of God, and you're not it," and, "You ruined our youth," and, "You are obviously not cut out for ministry," and, "You're using our kids to make yourself look better," and, "You obviously have no idea what you're doing," and, "You have made this youth program all about you," I was obviously wounded. (And this was all in one phone call which defined Proverbs 29:20 and 22 to a T.) These are the worst scars I have to overcome. But God turns all things for good, right? So what do I have to worry about?

Now, on to the ministry question. Currently, Corrine and I are still "shopping". I know I've written many times on confronting conflict within a church instead of just leaving for another church. But in this extreme case, it seems a must to find our church community elsewhere. Wherever we land, I assure you we will look for ways to contribute to the community instead of just being seat warmers.

One of the churches that we're looking into, Journey, seems pretty promising. It's a far cry from the place where we were. Journey holds their worship service in a local coffee shop, BenLee's (by the way, if you're ever in town, stop and get a Mocha...wonderful!). Journey has a very informal, fellowship focused service. It seems that their focus is not so much in the preaching and teaching from the pulpit, but rather through interaction and community outreach. Corrine and I are going to meet with the pastor sometime in the next couple weeks to talk more on the mission of Journey.

There are a couple other places we're going to check out. But since churches only have a weekly services, it takes time to actually check them out. Hopefully by mid-January we'll know where we'll be going.

Now, since this is where Corrine and I are at, as far as finding a church goes, it's going to be some time before I can get back into ministry. And even when I do, it will almost assuredly not be professional ministry. And honestly, I dont' know if that's such a bad thing. Here's why. Before I got the job at First UMC here in Worthington, I was working at Ag Parts and volunteering with another local youth group. The connections made with the youth and Corrine and I were amazing. It was awe-inspiring watching God work. We still have close relationships with a lot of the youth (now college students). When I started at FUMC, there was a noticeable shift in how the new youth responded to me. At first I thought it was just that they were new kids and new relationships had to be formed. But as time progressed, I noticed that it was something more than that. It was more like there was an expectation for me to build these relationships, and as such, they were more willing to keep their distance. It was harder and harder to build authentic relationship since building relationships was my job. Whether it was blatant or not, the youth didn't respond. If I look back on my ministry as a volunteer, there was no expectation of a guy working at a tractor salvage to have any interest in the lives of youth. They saw this, and therefore relational barriers fell earlier. It seemed that at FUMC, the very fact that my job title was Youth Director sabotaged my ministry.

So will I go back into full time ministry? Maybe...someday...who knows? Not right now though. If I can be more effective and not be a "minister", then I think that's the route to take. As far as working at the tractor salvage goes, I'm loving it. I like the work, I like the camaraderie with the co-workers, I like being outside and not trapped indoors for 40 hours a week. The pay could be better, but that's what raises are for.

As for me: I am Kyle, I am a youth minister, and I work at Worthington Ag Parts.

Just an update

2010-09-05T18:13:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't had anything to post in the last month. It's not that there's been any lack of writing. Just a lack of good writing with good points. Mostly just rants about trivial items that no one would find interesting.

So here's the update:

Back in June I upset a parent from my church. Well, as per the request of my church board, I have resigned as of August 31. It's been an ugly past couple of months, but God is still on the move. I just finished two weeks of uber-stress trying to find a new job, any job, that will pay the bills. For the next couple months I will be working with a friend laying dranage tile in some fields in SE South Dakota and SW Minnesota.

I do believe that God has set this time aside for me and my wife to heal from the events of the last couple months. That healing being both emotional and spiritual. I've never had someone out to get me like this and without close friends and family with good advice and mentoring, I don't think I'd know where to start.

Up until the board asked for my resignation, I thought forgiveness was simple. I could not understand people that held life long grudges against people over one simple event in their lifetimes. I don't think I've ever really known true anger and hate up until now either. Let me tell you, these are scary emotions to deal with. And forgiveness is turning out to be one obstacle that I will be focusing on in the coming months. I do think that I will be able to come to a place of forgiveness, but the only way I will is through time spent with my Savior.

I will write more on my journey to forgiveness over the next couple months. Who knows, maybe I'll write so much on the subject that you'll get bored with it. One thing I do know is that forgiveness is my goal, and as a goal it is yet to be acheived. Pray for me and my family and close friends that have been in the thick of the muck we call "Anger", the mire we call "Hate", and the ashes we call "Division".

-Kyle

Chapter 5 - Studying the Bible

2010-08-04T14:35:00.001-05:00

I’ve always shied away from the term devotions. I’m the one that gets uncomfortable when people talk about their devotional life and how God’s been uncovering massive, life-changing things through their 16-hour morning bible study marathons. I’ve always felt like a failure when people say things like, “I’ve been struggling with my morning devos. I missed two days this week!” All the while I’m thinking if you have to have your devotions in the morning and every day, then I’m a total failure. I’ve never felt quite up to snuff when comparing myself to my best friend Brian. His Bible is always worn out and full of highlights. He reads his Bible so much, pages are falling out. Just the sight of his rugged, falling apart Bible is enough to remind me how little I measure up to his devotional life.

I became a Christian in high school. Sure I attended Sunday School, church, and even the prayer meetings my pastor would hold with us. The times that I would read my Bible I was usually left confused and not fully understanding what the passages really meant. I mean sure passages like “Love your neighbor” were easy. But then when you get to when Paul is talking about being able to do “All things through Christ…” what does the world “all” entail?

I remember one time when I was a senior in high school I was leading the Junior High Sunday School class. Being the “Real” Christian and one of elevated biblical knowledge, I decided to let the class decide which passage they wanted to talk about. I had convinced myself that any passage could be fully understood by what’s in the text. I said, “Pick any verse that you want to talk about, and we’ll discuss it.” One of the class members jumped at the opportunity. “Ok.” He flipped his Bible open to one of the books of Kings and blindly pointed at a verse like he was picking who to prank call in a phone book. Here’s how it went down.

                “Kings?” I don’t know anything about Kings. I don’t think I’ve ever even read anything from the books of Kings. Well, we’ll see how it goes.
   Student, “Yep, you said anything!”
                “Ok, we’ll let’s look at it.” Oh thank God it’s just talking about genealogy. This will be easier. “Well, right here it’s just talking about the different Kings during this time in the Bible. There’s not a real big lesson in here to speak of but follow God’s commands. Ok, how about this, let’s flip to Philippians 4:13. This is a verse that’s really helped me through different things.” Good save Kyle. Now I’ve read Philippians like a thousand times, it’s going to be easy to build a lesson around this verse. It’s so easy to understand and the lesson is right there on the top! “Ok, the text says, ‘I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.’ As you can see, this is Paul telling us that if we depend on Jesus, he’ll allow us to make it through everything. We’ll be able to do all things.”
                Student, “ALL things?”
                “Yep, all things.”
                “You’re telling me that if I believe in Jesus, I’ll be able to fly?”
                I’ve never thought of that. If I believe in Jesus, can I fly? Well, I believe in Jesus but I’ve not been able to fly yet. Maybe it’s just a matter of faith. Maybe if I have more faith, then I’d be able to fly. But now I’m stuck and the room’s silent. They’re looking to me for an answer that I don’t have. Let’s see if the answer is here in the text or the study notes…hmm…nope, it just says ‘all’. Well, they need an answer and I don’t want to question the scripture’s authority or the truth therein. So here goes.
                “Well…I guess if you believe in Jesus enough, you’ll be able to. The scriptures say ‘all’, so I’m assuming ‘all’ means all things.”

That’s right. I told a student that if he believed in Jesus enough, that he’d be able to fly! Needless to say the student didn’t really buy it. I didn’t really buy it. But in the name of preserving the inerrancy of the scriptures I had to answer the way I did. I don’t really believe that we can fly if we believe enough. It’s just my view of scripture and my failure in looking at any sort of context led me to that belief. Maybe that’s why many Christians and non-Christians think that Paul hates women. Or the same reason that many churches think drinking and smoking are sins, or the reason the same was believed about dancing and playing cards. Maybe all these legalistic claims of sin are just a broad misinterpretation from poorly informed church leaders…well, wouldn’t that be unfortunate. The result might be a liberal use of the word ‘heathen’ or a broad condemnation of a people group that’s already marginalized in our American society. Nothing screams ‘love’ like ‘HEATHEN!’ or ‘SINNERS!’ or ‘YOU’RE GOING TO HELL!’ Hmm…I’m feeling more warm and fuzzy as we speak.

After this Sunday School experience I felt skeptical about what I actually knew about the Bible. Then I went off to Northwestern College in St. Paul. Surely I was going to find a unity of thought and spirit at a Christian College. There were a bunch of Christians that went to the school. I even had to discuss my testimony on the application. You can’t fake a testimony.

Brian and I arrived at NWC the same day. We were able to room together with another guy from Illinois. Brian and I were convinced that our roommate was going to be black. First, his last name was Watts. Second, when Brian talked to him on the phone, he had an ‘urban’ sound to his voice. And finally, and this was the kicker, he was from Illinois, which had Chicago, which had an exponentially higher African American population than Southwestern Minnesota.

So Brian and I were at the dorm room first. We moved all of our stuff into the room and claimed the bunk beds. Brian got top bunk, which I wasn’t too upset about. We were all prepared for Sam to come and make bestest friends with our new, African American roommate. So we were a little shocked when Sam walked in and he was as blazing white as the snow in the middle of January! He didn’t even have a tan, he had blonde hair, AND he was from a town in Illinois that was even more rural than Southwest MN. So there went Brian and my hopes of entering into diversity.

At NWC I learned a few things about Bible study and prayer. They can become stale. Really stale. When my first fall semester began, I was excited about the opportunity to go deeper in the Bible. I made a point to attend our hall’s weekly bible study. It was fun, but I didn’t know anybody there and felt out of place and so my attendance became irregular. Then when my Old Testament class began I stopped going all together.

In my Old Testament class we’d talk about the history behind the books, the meaning underneath the text, and different ways we can interpret different passages. To say the least, the scriptures became an intricate ball of string that couldn’t be undone within the confines of a semester. I remember thinking that it was a never ending puzzle of ancient history. And if it had this much depth and confusion within it, how can we think we can gain any sort of understanding within the confines of a half hour in my RA’s dorm room? I thought my RA was vastly under qualified to be teaching anything from the Bible. But even though I had a class where reading the Bible was a homework assignment, I still couldn’t bring myself to sit and read it.

It was a week before Final’s Week and I had a lot of reading to catch up on. Sure there was only one question to answer on the final regarding your reading, “What percentage of the OT have you read?” And it would have been really easy to just forget about reading the whole thing and mark 100% down on the final. But I had my integrity to think about. Is an extra few points on the final worth lying for? Could I look the professor in the eye afterwards? He’d know, and even if he didn’t, I’d know. So I had about ten days to read three fourths of the Old Testament so I could hold together my personal integrity. It’s lucky I didn’t have a whole lot of other homework, otherwise I would have never gotten through it. But I read, and read, and read. I’d sit on our couch with my Bible, which was a NASB and not easy to read, and plow through it. I’d wake up in the morning and read. I’d eat lunch and read. I’d come home after class and read. I’d read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open at night. And then, two days before the final, I finally finished it. I read every last word in that testament. I read through Numbers, through Psalms, even through all of the Minor Prophets.

I went to take my final and was able to write, ‘100%’ down on my test. But something didn’t feel right. I should have been able to proudly write my accomplishment down. It should have been a crowning achievement to acknowledge that I had completed that work. But something wasn’t right. It might have been that as I looked around the lecture hall I knew that there were probably any number of students that would lie about their reading, probably just like they more than likely lied about their testimony on their college application. Or it might have been that I had let the reading drag and was embarrassed that I had to catch up so much at the end of the semester. But what I think the biggest reason is that even though I had read every single verse in the Old Testament, I didn’t recall any of it. I couldn’t tell you anything about the book of Job, or what the Psalmists were writing about, or what any of the prophets had done. I had spent the better part of two weeks pushing through the Old Testament and even though I had read the words, I didn’t read the scriptures. This was the first time that I had realized that simply reading your Bible isn’t good enough.

When I realized that my reading of the Bible was futile, and that it took a deeper, more in-depth approach to learning what it said, I lost heart for it. Not to say that I renounced my Christian beliefs. Far from it. But I stopped reading the Bible altogether. Sure I’d read it if I had to for class, and I read all sorts of books about the bible through my various classes. But as far as searching out meaning within the scriptures goes, I was done. That is, until Racine.

After my second year at NWC, I decided that I should probably get a job at a summer camp. Corrine and I were pretty steady at that time and I didn’t want to be far from her for the summer, so I settled on Camp Shetek only about a half hour from her place.

Camp Shetek is a small Lutheran camp that sits on an island linked to the mainland by a series of dikes. I had a lot of friends that went there while I was growing up. I was Methodist, so I couldn’t go. But I’d heard many good things about Shetek and thought it’d be a good source of summer fun and income. I was hired that May and arrived for the most life-changing summer that I’ve had apart from the summer I got married and the summer that I had my first child. This summer would change my motivation for everything.

Life at Shetek was a blast. There were a bunch of people that worked there that were attending Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD. So many of them knew each other. I had convinced Sam to come work at Shetek also, so I wasn’t flying solo. It was easy to make friends at Shetek. The camp director, Chad, was also a big movie buff, so that also helped.

The summer started. The kids flooded in and organized chaos ensued. It was a very spiritual time for me. This was the first time that I’d been in full time ministry. Sure I had volunteered at my church and helped with various youth groups. But this was the first time that I was, as a counselor, in charge of the spiritual formation of young kids. It was a pretty daunting task when you think of it. You have one week to befriend, relate to, and then nurture this child’s faith. And then at the end of the week, you get to do it all over again. It was fun, but it definitely went by at lightning speed.

For one week of camp, I was chosen to help lead one of the mission trips out to Racine, WI. Two other counselors and I took fifteen youth out for a week of working with the Lighthouse ministry in Racine. It was an inner-city mission organization that was centered in the very worst of the city. It was the first time that I’d done any sort of urban mission trip. I had gone to Crow Creek, SD for a week. But Crow Creek is far from urban.

What we experienced in Racine was life changing. One of the aspects of the Lighthouse ministry was to help rebuild a historical building that had been abandoned and subsequently purchased for pennies. I know it seems weird, but in this particular part of Racine, there is nothing for the people to take any community pride in. Here was a building that was on the verge of being demolished. Years prior, Pastor Ron had come in and decided that rebuilding this place would provide a sense of community pride. And on the plus side, it would be used as a community center and also housed his ministry called Wrap Kidz.

Wrap Kidz was a summer afternoon program for kids in first through fifth grade. Pastor Ron’s intent was to educate the kids of the community and show them that there was a different way to life than just drugs and gangs. Many of the kids lived in various drug houses in the community. Pastor Ron could walk down the street and point out the different houses that were being used to sell drugs. On one block there were three or four in a row! To say the least, this was a community that was far from my rural, middle-class upbringing.

At the house, we’d work all morning doing various tasks around the building. Sometimes pounding nails out of boards, sometimes sweeping and mopping. There was a wall that had to come down that our team was able to take out. Then in the afternoons we’d split up in groups and canvas the community picking up kids. The community wasn’t safe enough for the kids to walk to the Lighthouse on their own, but we were never messed with in our groups. When asked about if we’d be questioned, Pastor Ron replied, “If you announce you’re from Wrap Kidz, you’ll be fine. Wrap Kidz is respected in the neighborhood. The people can see the good it’s doing and if anyone tries to mess with you, you’ll have many angry relatives flood the streets to protect you.” On one occasion, Pastor Ron told us that after him and his wife had been working in the community for a year, someone had vandalized his car. He didn’t have the money to fix it, but when the community caught wind of what had happened, the neighborhood came together to root out the vandal and forced them to pay for the repairs.

Now you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with studying the Bible? Well, up until this time, my faith had never been stretched. I had a nice little faith that kept me safe and made me feel good. I did the right things, said the right things, and went to church on Sunday. I didn’t have any money to give to the church, so I helped out where I could. But up until now, my faith had been very convenient. Up until now, ‘sacrifice’ was a word I would have used to describe giving up pop for Lent, ‘gospel’ was a word I used to describe the four books in the Bible, and ‘faith’ was a word I thought could maybe give you the power of flight. Not until this week in Racine did I realize that Sacrifice, Gospel, and Faith were words to be lived out in life. Like I said, up until this week my faith was convenient. But after this week I would come to realize that our faith cannot be convenient. A convenient faith is no faith at all. A faith that doesn’t lead you to hard conversations, short funds, and an appreciation for the simple things in life like shelter, food, and sanctuary, that faith is no faith at all. That faith is holding up words in a book as idols. A faith that leads you into the hell of this world is a living faith. The gospel that begs to be brought into the living hell of a teenage girl that is contemplating suicide, that’s a living gospel. The sacrifice of all things convenient, all things ‘success’, that’s a living sacrifice.

Before my week in Racine, sacrifice, faith, and the gospel were all things that I could learn in a book. And I’m a pretty good student, so I thought I was doing alright. But if we boil our faith down to book work, then it’s no faith at all. Before my week in Racine, James 2 was a nice concept, but I hadn’t seen it lived out. But working with Pastor Ron and the Lighthouse ministry taught me that the concepts that many people with many degrees that have written exhaustively over the years, cannot be understood until they’re put into practice. Studying the Bible makes no sense unless you’re living out the messages contained within the pages. It’s not ancient history, it’s not a compilation of fairy tales. It’s a book that rich with life changing stories and themes. Can we fully understand the love and romance written about in Song of Solomon if we fail to engage in love and romance in our lives? Can we fully understand the betrayal of Adam and Eve if we don’t relate it to a time when we were betrayed? Can we fully understand the faith that is written about in Hebrews if we refuse to have the same faith?

Have you ever wondered what it means when someone says that the scriptures are alive today? Nothing has changed since the time of Abraham, David, or even Jesus. Suffering is still suffering. Pain is still pain. But thankfully, love is still love, compassion is still compassion, and faith is still faith. Never before have I believed more fully in James 2:

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” James 2:14-18 (NIV)

Chapter 4 – Becoming a Man

2010-07-26T16:31:00.000-05:00

I have two brothers. One two years older than I and one six years younger. On my dad’s side of the family I have four cousins, three male and one female. One my mother’s side I have 7 cousins with only two being female and the rest male. My dad has one sister and my mom has one sister. So as you can see the Y-chromosome is strong in my family. So to say that there’s a bit of testosterone floating around family get-togethers is an understatement. At family reunions there have been things such as arm wrestling tournaments, regular wrestling matches, foot races, and of course many, many hands of cards played. I even remember a top spinning contest at one family reunion. Tops…you know, the gentile version of the dradel.

I grew up playing all sorts of sports. Baseball, basketball, football, golf, racquetball, whatever. Basically if there was a ball involved and played by men, I played it. I never got into soccer. My town was a farming town after all, and we didn’t want our football to be mistaken by that poser of a game called futbol. I was never really good at any of these sports. Sure I played, and started on the varsity football team in high school. But I never really felt like I was an athlete. I had way more fun in the school plays and pep band. Oh, pep band was amazing! I am a drummer. As drummers in pep band, our goal was to blast the competition out with our awesome drum beats. As if we could beat the opponent into submission through the rhythmic beatings of the “Hey Song” or “Centerfold”. You got that visiting team? Fear our drums of war. If we allow you to leave our gladiators’ ring, you’ll be bleeding from the ears. Cower below us…na-na na-na na-na na-na…HEY!

I was also a young cub scout. I started out as a Tiger Cub and made it all the way to Wolf Scout before everybody else had too much going on to lead our pack. I had a lot of fun being a Cub Scout. We’d get to play with cool things like our Swiss Army knives, learn to tie cool knots, and of course build cool fires in either the cabin or tee-pee form. When I first became a Tiger Cub, my grandpa Galle challenged me. He said, “Kyle, if you stay in scouts and make it all the way to being an Eagle Scout, I’ll give you $100.” One hundred dollars? Are you kidding me? I was 7 years old and the prospect of a hundred dollar bill was enough to keep me in the pack. If I could earn those hundred dollars I’d be set for life. Who gets one hundred dollars? A rich person, that’s who, and that’s what motivated me to be a scout. Until I got to the backwards roll. Part of progressing through scouts is being physically fit. Well I was a big kid. I’m still big. But then, my Achilles heel was the backwards roll. I remember spending full evenings trying to roll backwards. I could go forward, do a cartwheel, even a head stand. But the backward roll was too much. I’d stand in our living room; start rolling backwards and then BAM! I’d hit the back of my head on the floor. I guess I was anticipating the roll to come naturally, that if I could get enough momentum moving backwards, I’d just roll over. What I failed to realize, and others failed to tell me, is that I had to keep my knees tucked and bring my legs over myself. Many, many failed rolls, headaches, and probably a concussion or two, I finally rolled backwards. I did it, twice and earned the achievement. Later that year the pack folded due to lack of leadership.

I always enjoyed fishing and hunting. Hunting not as much as fishing, but I still enjoyed it. I like the idea of carrying a gun around the wilderness and shooting animals to eat for supper. I didn’t like all the walking through tall grass that it usually entailed. But I still really liked it. I liked the time spent with my dad and brothers. I like duck hunting the best. I think this stems from one of the first times I went duck hunting with my dad and older brother. It was somewhat of a wet year and all the wetlands close to town were full of ducks. We were able to sneak up on a small flock of ducks in the pot-holes. For about a half hour there were ducks flying, guns shooting, and hoots and hollering. We weren’t able to stay out as long as we wanted, but it was a good hunt. In fact, even though we shot as much as we did, we didn’t connect as much as we should have. We each only brought home one duck. JJ’s was the biggest, and my dad’s had had its head severed somehow. But it was a good hunt either way.

I enjoy fishing even more. My dad used to take us fishing quite a bit. When we would take family vacations, we’d always bring the boat and all the fishing gear. I remember one trip to a Minnesota State Park by Mille Lacs. The week before, Brian and I had gone out to a local small lake to try our hand at fishing. My dad had given me permission to take his tackle box. His tackle box may as well have been filled with gold, and his putting it in my trust was a huge step of faith on his part. Well, when my family got up to the campground, almost the first thing we did was get the boat in the water. Before we could launch the boat, we always did a check to make sure all the fishing gear was in place. Fishing poles…check. Life jackets…check. Tackle box… Uh-oh. I soon found myself being questioned by my dad about where his tackle box was. In all the years that I’ve known my dad, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him more disappointed in me than that moment.

“Kyle, where’s my tackle box? Did you put it back in the boat?”

“I thought I did…I don’t know where it is.”

“KYLE, I TOLD YOU TO PUT IT BACK! I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS.”

I very quickly hid under a rock as waves of sadness and disappointment flooded through me. I had let my dad down. Luckily his tackle box had been packed in the Suburban instead of in the boat. So I was off the hook. Even through this though, we still had a lot of fun fishing. We’d have fishing tournaments at family reunions; I’d go ice fishing with Brian and his brothers during the school year. Imagine my joy when my parents decided to move to Northern Minnesota where the lakes are clear and stuffed at the brim with walleyes.

My dad and I have had many adventures fishing. There was one time when my dad and I were taking my younger brother and two younger cousins fishing on Lake of the Woods. We launched the boat and got halfway out to the spot my dad was planning on fishing when the steering cable broke on the boat. I remember my dad stopping the boat and saying, “Well, we’re halfway to where we’re going. The steering cable has broken. Do we keep going or do we turn around and call the day a bust?” Of course we all voted to continue on. I held the motor straight while my dad was slow on the throttle. We made it out to our spot and had a great day fishing. On the way back we were able to wedge an oar alongside the motor as a tiller and made and easier way back to shore.

There was also the time that my dad and I spent 8 hours on the lake without being able to coax a nibble on the line. The day was dry and calm. We tried a half a dozen different areas of the lake. We’d drift, we anchored and used bobbers, we’d bottom bounce, we’d cast, we did everything to seduce the fish into biting our lines. I think my dad missed one hit. Otherwise there was nothing all day. It was coming up close to supper time and we decided to make one last pass over the reef before calling it a day. Right as we were going over the rockiest part of the reef my line snagged. Great, not only have we not caught any fish, but now I’m more than likely going to lose my lure and leader too.

“Hey Dad, I’m snagged, turn the boat around.”
                “You’re snagged? Ok, let me get my line in…”
All of a sudden my line runs and my reel starts zipping like I’ve never heard.
                “Holy…uh Dad, I’m not snagged…I got a whale on here!”
                “What?”
                “I’m not snagged! Either that rock grew fins or I’ve got a hog of a fish on the line.”

As I was reeling my line in, and while my dad was trying to figure out whether he should cast his line again or grab the net, the fish surfaced. Now if you know anything about fishing, you know that you never want a fish to surface. Fish will surface and jump to try and get slack in the line and thus throw the hook loose. Well, this fish didn’t surface like any I’d seen before. This fish poked his nose up above the water, and then the rest of his head, like a massive whale would do to take a breath. My jaw dropped, my dad said something like, “Holy shit!” Well, eventually I was able to get the leviathan up to the boat. My dad made a comment about how he wasn’t sure his net was big enough, but we were able to wrangle the monster into the boat. The Northern Pike measured out at 41 inches and just less than 20 lbs. That whole day of boring suffering on the lake proved to be well worth it in the end. I think I won a $20 gas card at a local gas station because of that honker.

One of my best friends is a mixed martial artist. I’ll admit, I’ve never been a fighter and the closest I’ve ever been to actually being in a fight is when JJ and I would wrestle on the floor while watching the WWF’s Monday Night Raw. It was all staged of course. Both on the TV and in our living room. But when my friend Nick started fighting I was kind of shocked. It didn’t really surprise me, he’s always been the aggressive type, and he had the mentality. But he’d never done any sort of wrestling or boxing of any sort. When I heard he was fighting, I wondered how much his style would resemble that of the ancient and perfected Bar Room Brawl style made popular in small rural municipal bars.

Nick turned out to be a pretty good fighter. He went undefeated in his first few fights. With each win I could sense myself becoming more and more interested in the sport. Nick even gave me a heavy bag bought some gloves for my basement. Corrine had informed me that I’d never be allowed in a ring, but I told her it was for the exercise.

Every month or so we’d get the UFC pay-per view and cheer for our favorite fighters. When Nick’s favorite fighter won the title, Nick tore of his shirt and went running down his apartment building hallway screaming. I don’t think the rest of the building was as excited as he was since it was well past midnight. With every fight we’d watch, we’d both get more and more into the fighting. I never fought anyone, but I sure taught that heavy bag a thing or two. I’d get done hitting the bag and be dripping with sweat feeling like a gladiator champion ready to be adorned with gold and jewels and a night with my gladiator wife. Of course Corrine generally had other ideas. I don’t think gladiators ever had to do the dishes or vacuum the living room.

Nick was unstoppable in the octagon. He’d train tirelessly. He’d run for an hour on his treadmill, go through a full boxing workout and then hop right back on the treadmill. He’d only eat healthy food and dropped enough weight to be in a lower weight class. He’d work on his grappling with his twin brother. He was invincible…until he met a guy named Storm.

On one fine fight night, Nick had drawn a guy in his weight class. As would usually happen, Nick was able to get the guy in a hold in the first round and won without even touching the guy. Nick was a bit bummed even though he won. He wanted to lay that perfect punch, get that Rocky knockout that had been so elusive. He wanted to feel challenged. Enter Storm Soto.

Storm Soto was a big guy. Storm fought in the heavy weight division. He was in the area playing football for the local college. I think he was a fullback or something. Well, at age 21 Storm Soto was the defending amateur heavyweight boxing champ in his hometown. The two problems that Nick ran into were: one, Storm’s hometown wasn’t anywhere close; and two, Nick didn’t know any of this.

After Nick got out of the hospital with a concussion and a broken toe, he decided to rethink fighting. He figured out that he’s not invincible, and also that a night in a local hospital can be a little more than one thinks. Being KO’d in the first round by a guy that bigger and scarier than you can really bring things into question. Things like: should I be fighting? Should I fight this guy? Do I have to fight? How can I best improve my fighting in light of this KO? Are my motivations and mindset really what they should be going into the fight? And of course, did someone open a window? Because there’s been these birdies swooping my head since I woke up.

All of these things have made me feel like a man. They’ve made me feel macho and in charge. Who doesn’t like hearing a good fishing story? But none of them have affirmed my masculinity. None of them have left me reassured that yes, I’m a man. There’s only one time that I’ve known that I’ve arrived at manhood. It was at our rehearsal dinner for Corrine and my wedding. As is customary, we ate, and then were handing out gifts to those that are closest to us. We made our way through our siblings and close friends and then saved the parents for last.

Corrine and I are both some of the lucky few that have had great examples of parental love. Both sets of our parents are still married and desperately in love with each other. We didn’t have to deal with the hardship of loss and separation that so many young people have to deal with as their parents fight and eventually separate. Sure we saw our parents have the occasional dispute, but in the end they always made up.

Corrine and I wanted to make sure that our parents knew just how much we appreciated and envied our parents’ devotion to each other. We explained that they have been huge influences and models for how we want to be when our kids get married and move out. We thanked them for the true example of loving one another. We thanked them for all the support through school and our upbringing. We thanked them for being everything that we wanted to be as a married couple.

The tears were flowing from our parents and Corrine. I was able to hold it down. I have only seen my dad cry on a few occasions. The instances when I’ve seen him cry have been during moments of extreme pride and happiness, like during our graduations and weddings. He’s not a blubbering fool, don’t get me wrong. But when his emotions overtake him, he can clear a Kleenex box with the best of them.

Now the moment that I knew I had made it to manhood wasn’t when my brother JJ and I were living on our own, paying our own bills, and earning a good wage. It wasn’t even when I was engaged; it wasn’t when I completed college. The moment I knew that I was a man was that moment at the rehearsal dinner. After the tear-jerking speeches I went in to hug my mom, she squeezed me really hard. Then I hugged my dad and he leaned in close and through tears whispered, “You’ve done it. Thank you.” It may seem a little inconsequential and petty. But these few words had affirmed me as a man. They meant, as simple as they may have been, that I was no longer a child. It meant in no uncertain terms that I was a man, an adult, and most important that he was proud of me.

I feel blessed to have a father that is not only still with my mom, but is as involved and important in my life as my mom. The distant-father brand of fatherhood never made sense to me. I see those playing that part and wonder why they play it. Is it because raising kids is, “Women’s work,” or is it because they don’t know if they’ve made it? Are they distant because they’re not sure if they’re good enough? Are they trying to teach their kids that Daddy is distant to keep their kids from finding out that Daddy is just as vulnerable as they are?

I’m not saying that manhood has to be given through marriage or even through having children. But a man needs to find his masculinity. It’s the core of who he is. The problem is that he doesn’t know that he is a man unless he’s told by another man in a father-figure role. I was lucky enough to have an involved father. Many men aren’t as lucky as I am. But I think that every man has, within himself, the wherewithal to be a man. We were created to be a man, to be masculine but also to love endlessly. To be able to scale large mountains, but also to appreciate the wild flowers along the way. We were created to fight for the beauty, but also to love that beauty passionately, intimately, and unceasingly.

Manhood isn’t about climbing the bigger mountain; it’s about the mountain period. It’s about overcoming adversity and fighting against injustice. It’s about chivalry and all the good things we read in the old stories of the High King Peter, Beowulf, and Aragorn. It’s about fighting for your family, loving them endlessly, and rejoicing in making memories. It’s about loving your God, loving your woman, and loving your children. Anything short of this is not manhood; it’s just some silly old guy on a horse’s back.

Inner Demons and Other Freaky Stuff

2010-07-20T15:52:00.000-05:00

Service is heavy on my heart these days. Just today I read an article in Relevant magazine that talked about the continuing struggles in Haiti, their needs, the church’s role in the matter, and the continued perseverance of a population that has dealt with hardship and despair throughout the last 300 years. (You can read the article HERE. It’s long, so print it off if you have to)

I also started reading Richard Stearns’ book, The Hole in our Gospel. Stearns is the president of World Vision and so far in the book has talked about his coming into his current position and how as the American church, we miss the idea of reaching out. He discussed the idea in the Lord’s Prayer of, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Couple that with two books that I’ve just ordered, The Wisdom of Stability and AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church. Both books deal with being a Christian to the fullest extent of the word within you current community.

So to say the least, service is heavy on my mind.

But then enters the conflict: Are you even qualified to attempt what you’re thinking? Do you think that you have what it takes to actually be the person that you want to be?

At the end of June I took my youth group to Thunder Bay, ON for a mission trip. It was a great trip, we accomplished a lot. Like each summer missions trip I take the youth on, I saw growth and determination in their character. I saw great things that we were doing for the community of Thunder Bay.

On the way home from Thunder Bay, we were going through Duluth, MN. I have a close friend that is a piercer, and I decided it was time to get my lobes pierced. It was something that I’ve wanted to do since my friend and I were roommates in college. Well, long story short we had to do it in his house…which was the straw that broke the pony’s back. You see, in my weariness and exhaustion of the previous week (and really previous three months of a full schedule) I let my guard down, my character down and my responsibilities down.

The parents of some of the youth didn’t think this was something that I should have done, and spared no words in describing their anger and disapproval. For the past three weeks, I’ve been doing nothing but spewing humble apologies and words of regret. With each conversation I have with a parent about the event, I get to relive my weak moments of guilty selfishness that lead to a month of hot tempers, sleepless nights, and utter disappointment.

Silently the voices start whispering more and more, “See? You’re a failure! You can’t lead a mission trip; you think that you’ll be able to minister to these kids? They’ll see right through you! You’re a joke, a liar, and a selfish piece of crap!” The longer I dwell on the whispers and the more I relive the painful parent meetings and phone calls, the angrier I get. The longer I let it go on, the more justified I feel. It becomes an issue of me against them. Do you know who wins in a fight between parents and a youth pastor? The parents, each and every time. The more hopeless I feel, the more helpless I become. Because of pierced ears I start rethinking my entire call and career. Do I really think that I can do this forever?

I know I’m not the only one that has a moment of failure. In fact, I don’t believe this little thing is going to be the last from me either. But the question remains: why do some things hurt so badly?

I used to not be able to comprehend people that had lifelong disputes with friends and family. Someone said something to their brother/sister/whatever 50 years ago and they still haven’t forgiven each other. Chances are they don’t even remember who said what to make each other so mad at each other. But yet here they are, divided. And that’s why I think some things hurt so much. They cause division.

Through this whole thing with the ears, there were times where I was considering resigning and moving on to something else. What would this accomplish? It would get me out of a lot of hurt feelings and hard conversations. But for the furthering of the Kingdom of God, what would it accomplish? Nothing. It’d be a hindrance. It’d be a division. Where in the Bible is division an ordained plan? It seems to me that almost exclusively Jesus talks about unity within the church and between each other. It seems to me that he says “Love your neighbor” and not “Love your neighbor until they really piss you off, then move or stop talking to them.”

The main theme of the Bible seems to be reconciliation. Reconciliation between us and God. It seems to be about us sinning and God paying for that sin so that we can be reunited. If in the Greatest Commandments loving God entails reuniting and unifying ourselves with God, then wouldn’t loving your neighbor consist of reuniting and unifying ourselves with others? And since these are the famed, “Greatest” Commandments, shouldn’t they be numbers one and two when it comes to how we live our lives? I don’t read anywhere in there to “Love your God and Judge your Neighbor.” I don’t read anywhere in there, “Say what you want and ask for forgiveness later.” Or, “Judgment is acceptable under the guise of ‘I’m concerned for their souls!’” Or maybe even worse, “I hate that people suffer and live in poverty, and I’d help fight it, but really I can’t fit it into my schedule.”

Now this isn’t me saying we all need to drop everything, move to Africa and care for orphans. Some are called there. Some are not. This is me saying that in every area, there are people suffering. It may be from outward abuses of poverty and hunger. Or it may be from inward demons of depression, isolation, loneliness, abandonment. This is me saying that we all suffer. There’s nothing we can do about it, we started suffering when Adam and Eve ate the fruit. We nailed a dividing stake between us and God by going against his perfect will for us in the Garden of Eden.

But there is hope. There is hope in the unifying love of Christ. There is hope that comes through loving God and loving others. There is hope through grabbing onto Christ’s tassels like the lady in Matthew 9. There is hope that comes from Christ, through Christians that are concerned for others. There is hope if when we decide to touch Christ’s cloak, fully embracing his redemptive and healing power through his love. But then, from the feet of Jesus, living as a beacon to those still hurting, those still suffering. We won’t achieve perfect unity this side of heaven. But maybe, just maybe, if we work together, we can bring small slices of heaven to those that need it most, both down the street and around the world.

My 2¢

-Kyle

On Community

2010-06-18T10:52:00.000-05:00

A little less than a year ago Corrine and I joined a bible study group. A couple of our friends had an idea to start a small, in-home bible study group with us and a few other close friends of ours. We thought it was a great idea. We started our bi-weekly, child free, bible study shortly after.

When we first started it was a bit awkward. This is mostly because nobody really knew where we were going to start, what we were going to be studying, and how deep we were going to go. So our first meeting was pretty much setting the foundational ground rules for our group. We hummed and hawed about how we’d like it to be this or that, all surface level stuff. Finally someone said, “I want this to be deep. I’ve been in a lot of surface level bible studies that I get bored with. I want this to be life changing.”

Why is it that we feel that we have to be over protective of ourselves? And is this healthy? Is it healthy to hide our emotions, our thoughts, our ambitions with others? Is it healthy to hide our pain and fears from others? I think to a certain level. But I think we need to really rethink why we’re doing it. We each have a past; we each have things that we feel guilty about, things that we’re embarrassed about. But what is it that keeps us from sharing ourselves, and more so, what is this hiding keeping us from?

I transferred to Oak Hills halfway through my junior year. Now transferring so late isn’t recommended. It added another year onto my education, which meant more school loans. When I transferred, Corrine and I were six months into what turned out to be a two year engagement. It was very hard for me to enter into the community at Oak Hills. I figured I’d be out of there soon enough, I didn’t have to try and make friendships that were going to dissipate after two years.

The first couple months were tough for me. I had a dink as a roommate (who flunked out after only a month), everybody had their own cliques already, and I was the new guy. I could see how everyone else was relating to each other. My semester at BSU I had a dorm room all to myself and an Xbox, so I didn’t make any friends there. I grew to be content with living alone, it was comfortable, I didn’t have to watch what I said or who I said it to. I was the King of my domain, which was a 12’ x 12’ room across the hall from the bathrooms. So when I moved out to Oak Hills, and they had different things set up to encourage community, I grew into a wall flower. It was the loneliest I have ever felt. Luckily one of the community building programs they have at Oak Hills is a small group program.

Once a month during chapel time we’d split off into small groups. The small groups had a wide variety. There was trail hiking to playing Rook to poetry to cooking. The small group I chose was the Men’s small group. The OHCC Director of Men, John Weir, was leading a small group. Some of the guys that I had started to befriend were joining this group, and like the tag-a-long I was, I went with them. What I didn’t know is how this small group was going to change me.

I attended the small group thinking it was going to be a bunch of guys burping, farting, talking sports and hunting, and maybe even tearing a wall down just to rebuild it again. Well, I was wrong. We met in John’s office on couches. We’d talk about feelings, emotions, why we feel we have to be macho. We’d talk about how we validate ourselves as men. I was hit by a ton of bricks. Never before had I entered into this sort of personal evaluation.

I didn’t say as much as some of the other guys. Both my parents were still married and loved each other. My father was a huge part of my life and I didn’t have to deal with the idea of fatherlessness like some of the other guys. When that semester ended, I walked away a new, contemplative and emotionally healthy man.

I tell you this story because if it weren’t for the community that I lived in at Oak Hills, I don’t think I’d be the same today. Community is set up to be life changing. It’s set up to improve us, help us grow, and better us as people. The question we need to ask ourselves is, do we feel that same community in church? And if not, why not? And the biggest question is how to we change the way we’re doing things to better improve our church community? The answer is not to leave our church and find something different. The answer lies within each of us; it’s the blessed spirit of unity that comes through the gospel. That’s why the Bible talks so much about marriages between men and women, God and his people, Christ and the church, etc. It’s the same reason that the Bible talks against division. Christ calls us into unity as a community. It’s through this community that we grow individually and change lives. And if we don’t change lives, then we’re just another meeting on the calendar. And that could be the furthest thing from Christ as anything.

Chapter 3 – Rest and Legalism

2010-06-14T16:15:00.000-05:00

I have a hard time being content. In everything I’m involved with, I’m always thinking that I should improve the way it’s currently operating. I do this in my marriage, as a father, in my faith, with my youth, in my church; the list goes on and on. Right now Corrine and I are driving two cars with 220k+ miles on them. Of course they’re Buicks with the 3800 motor in them which means that they’ll probably run until Jesus returns. At which point Jesus will climb off his white horse and hop in the Buick because it’ll last longer than some silly Mr. Ed. But even though we have two reliable cars I’m still thinking that we need to get something better. Now there are a lot of cars out there that are better than 21 and 13 year old cars with close to a quarter million miles each. And if Corrine and I really buckled down, we could probably replace one of the cars within a matter of months. But I still can’t help but look at all the nice cars that pass me on the highway. I’m still looking, thinking, “Hey, it wouldn’t be bad to drive one of those,” or, “I wouldn’t get one of those, I hear they break down pretty easily.” So being content is tough for me.

I used to tell myself that there’s never a time that I should be content in my faith. Because there’s always something that I could be working on. I could be praying more, reading my Bible more, and serving others more. I can remember times where I’ve had a pretty good devotional time, spending time praying on my way to work, AND in the midst of a large service project with the youth and I’m STILL not content. Isn’t the reason Christ came was to bring peace? If I’m doing all these things and still not feeling peace is my heart in the right place? And if not, how do I get it to the right place?

Last night our lesson in youth group was about Spiritual Practices and Legalism. We were discussing various spiritual practices such as prayer, Bible study, and fasting. Then the question came up, “How do we differentiate between practicing spiritual disciplines to enter into deeper relationship with God and legalism?” The youth were having a difficult time explaining it, some were clueless. And then it hit me, I don’t know. I stumbled over my words and came up with some sort of answer like, “When we go through the day marking them off a list, then it’s more likely it’s legalism.” After thinking through my explanation later that night I came to the conclusion that even though I despise legalism, my faith and lack of contentment is largely due to legalism. I have grabbed onto the verse in James that talks about showing our faith by what we do. But instead of doing those things because of my faith, I’ve been doing those things to show that I have faith, to prove to everyone else that I have a deeply seated faith. But the only problem is that I haven’t proven to myself that my faith is that deep. I look at everything that I’ve done and see that it’s only because of my selfish desires to prove myself “Uber-Christian” that I have done these things. So how do I turn things around? Do I drop everything and start from new? Or do I refocus and start seeking deep, intimate relationship with Christ amidst the practices?

I’ve never been good at being consistent in my Bible study. From time to time I’ve tried to read a chapter or two each day. But what eventually happens is that I get to the book of Numbers or Deuteronomy and I lose interest. It usually takes a week to figure out that I’m reading the words, but not reading the words. I’ll get through my reading for the day and find that I don’t remember anything of what I just read. So what do I do? I stop reading. My “Through the Bible in a Year” always stalls out before I’m even out of the Pentateuch. It’s pretty sad that I’m working in the church, helping to disciple the youth, and I can’t finish reading the book of Deuteronomy because it becomes too old-hat.

But what is the biggest crime of this legalism? Why is legalism so bad? The first response is always something to the effect of, “You’re trying to earn your way into heaven.” Well that’s true, but I think there’s something even worse that legalism and the lacking contentment keeps us from.

I once had a crush on a girl in high school. Her name was Lacey. She was a townie like me. My mom used to sell Mary Kay make-up and Lacey’s mom was my mom’s advisor. We used to go to each other’s birthday parties each year when we were young. Throughout school we were always close to the top of our class. We were pretty good friends, but she cared about grades way more than I did and so we didn’t hang out. The day I realized that Lacey and I would never work out was sometime in our sophomore or junior year. I was walking back from class to my locker. We had just gotten our grades back from the previous semester and I was pleased with my grades, nothing too serious that my parents would be upset with. I made it through another semester unscathed. To be perfectly honest, I was more concerned about what my parents thought of my grades than what my grades actually were.

So I was walking back to my locker. Lacey’s locker was only a couple down from mine and as I walked past I noticed Lacey had her head stuck in her locker. I thought it was somewhat weird to stick your head in the locker. Especially if you’ve had gym class the hour before and your stinky gym clothes were in there making your history book smell like a jock strap. As I walked by I said hi to her. She did some sort of acknowledging wave while continuing with her head in her locker. I thought this was a little weirder than normal, so I thought I’d see if everything was alright. So as any decent gentleman would do, I asked, “What’s up?” What turned to me was the face of a woman that seemed as though she’d been crying for days over the loss of a husband or family member. Her face was red like a stop sign and I’m sure there was a pool of tears in the bottom of her locker. And do you know why she was crying? Do you know what was causing this life-ending pain that brought her to the brink of depression? She said to me in a small, squeak of a voice as if her vocal chords were as swollen as her eyes, “I *sniff sniff* got a *sniff* B in History…*sniff sniff*.” I said something to the effect of, “That’s ok, I got three B’s this semester. It’s no big deal.” That didn’t help the matter. She replied, “It’s NOT ok. This ruins EVERYTHING!” and she stormed off down the hallway.

What was going on here? Well, a long time before this, Lacey had made a commitment to get a perfect 4.0 through high school. The thing about a 4.0 is that a B does generally throw that out the window. She had put this heavy load on her shoulders, and she dropped it. It wasn’t that she was a bad student. She’s the best student I’ve ever known. She got countless scholarships for college, earned many academic awards through high school and college and even with that one B she was still the Valedictorian. So what did that B do to her? It made all the work preceding it seem to be done in vain. It screamed at her telling her she was a failure. Every time that she thought of it, it would tell her that no matter how hard she tried she was not as good as what she should be. It told her that all of those late nights and hard work she had put into her education was worthless. It showed her that as tired as she was, no amount of work is enough. It proved to her that there would be no rest because she’d always have to work harder to live up to her own standards. And isn’t this what legalism does to us?

The greater crime that legalism commits is not that it tells us we can earn our way into heaven. But rather it steals our Sabbath rest from us. Legalism promotes and encourages us to never rest, always try harder, and never stop. There’s always something to be improved and you cannot rest until it is so. Some people will say, “I’ll rest when I’m dead.” Well, that’ll probably be sooner rather than later, because stress causes heart disease, and heart disease causes death. There’s no contention that legalism is the perverted replacement for relationship with Christ. Legalism robs any sort of relationship of the deep intimate connection with Christ. And how are we supposed to have true Sabbath rest when our relationship is a list on a legal pad? Do we run our other relationship in this way? Do we relate to our spouses by going through the list? Maybe some of us do, maybe that’s why the divorce rate is so high in the U.S. Do we relate to our best friends this way? Probably not. But if so, how deep is our relationship with our closest friends? Do you ever wonder why it’s so hard to actually talk with them about what’s going on in your head or heart?

So why is Sabbath rest so important? The ancient Hebrews practiced a pretty orthodox Sabbath and Jesus called them out on it. Jesus would go out alone to rest and his disciples would call him back to minister to the people. Is Sabbath rest as important as we make it out to be? Yes. In Psalm 46 the Psalmist says, “Be still and know that I am God.” In Psalm 23, David writes, “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.” And in 1 Kings the author talks about a meeting between Elijah and God:

The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:11-13)

Even in Genesis it says that God rested on the seventh day. What comes after this in Chapter 2? It’s the account of God creating Adam and Eve. But I think what’s more important is that once he’s done creating he walks in the garden with them. You see God was there during the creation, but he was walking with them, relating with them after he was done creating and when he was resting. This is the most important part of the Sabbath. Not that we get a breather from all of our work. Rather the Sabbath rest is where we can best relate to God. It almost seems like taking a family vacation to help reconnect with your spouse or kids. Sure they’re there during the work week, but you’re working and going through the day. You might talk a little bit here or there, but how much are we actually working on our relationships during the work week? It’s not the stories of how mom and dad worked through the week that I remember from my childhood. Rather it’s the times where we’d go on vacation, to the Black Hills, to Cass Lake, camping, whatever. It’s the times playing catch in the backyard with my dad. It’s the weekends we’d take the boat to the lake and go tubing and fishing for the day. It’s these times spent alone with my mom and dad that are the foundations of our relationship. Not just the fun things, but the intimate conversations and growth that comes with it. And if it’s this way with good friends and family, wouldn’t it be the same with God? Sure we can try and see God in the everyday. And some of us are moderately successful at it. But if we’re not taking a day for Sabbath rest each week or an extended Sabbath weekend once a month, or both, how are we supposed to grow deeper with God?

I absolutely love family get togethers. This past month I’ve been able to see my family every couple of weeks. I have a new niece that was born and baptized and my younger brother graduated from college. Since my parents live 10 hours away and my brothers each live three and four hours away from me, getting together can be fairly difficult for us. But when we are able to get together, there’s nothing short of rest for each of us. My mom and dad get to enjoy their grandchildren, my brothers and I get to goof off and everyone enjoys their choice of fine brew and fine cigars around the bonfire at night. But if we didn’t take the time to get together and relax and relate to one another, how would be keep our relationships close? Isn’t it the same with relating to God? If we’re not taking the time to rest with God, how are we supposed to keep close to him? How are we supposed to depend on him when we don’t know him? It’s through these times of resting with God, listening for the still small voice of God that we grow deeper with him.

Now I’ve stated before that I’m not good at my spiritual disciplines and that they are currently pretty legalistic. But over the course of writing this chapter I’ve found myself opening up to truths and emotions that I haven’t felt since I worked at camp and would take long walks in the woods and along the lakeshore alone. Of course I wasn’t alone, but rather walking with God. I do long for the time to take those walks again. But maybe it’s my job to seek out those times. Or maybe the best advice comes from the famed Red Green, “I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess”

What I Learned As a Townie: Chapter 2

2010-06-10T10:18:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been a few days since chapter 1. I'll have to rewrite it a bit with some more accurate info that my mom gave me about my Grandpa. But here's chapter 2.

Chapter 2 – The Beginning: Part Deux

It was a late wintery night in January, my junior year in high school. It was your typical run of the mill evening. My older brother was away to college the preceding fall so it was quite a bit quieter in the house. My younger brother then moved down the hall so we both had our own bedrooms. On this seemingly ordinary evening, things unseen were working through my head. First a little back story.

The previous summer I had my first girlfriend. Being your typical high school boy my desires were less than noble. Our infatuation started that May. I’d always been overly nervous around good looking girls, and when I had heard that the girl that I was interested was also interested in me, I did the only manly thing and had a friend ask her out for me. I know…Casanova! Corrine’s mother and father were quite a bit stricter than my parents. The beginning of the summer was a summer filled with rainbows and blooming flowers as we shared our first kiss, went to romantic movies, and learned so much about each other. As young teenagers our passions raged for each other. It was a passion that paralleled Romeo and Juliet or the young couple in the Song of Solomon. Physically we became closer and closer. Our love seemed to be blossoming at an exponential rate, until Corrine put the brakes on. If it weren’t for Corrine’s foundational moral compass, we would have spiraled into actions and outcomes that we were nowhere near mature enough to handle. In a nice, well written, honest letter, Corrine explained to me that she wasn’t comfortable where we were at and what we were doing. She didn’t break it off then, but being the mature and honest man that I was, I did what every teenage dog would do, I quit talking to her.

After Corrine broke up with me I felt like a new man. I had braved the girlfriend world and was now wiser and more attuned to the world of women. I went to more parties and hung out with more friends. I started drinking at the ripe old age of 16. It wasn’t that I really cared for the taste of it, but rather it was what the people I was hanging out with were doing, and therefore I thought it’d be fun. And it WAS fun. We’d go out, I’d get plowed, crawl home after my folks were in bed and then start it all over again next week. In Rural America it seems easy to binge drink for teens. There’s usually someone that willing to buy for teens and there’s nothing else to do. So what did we do? We drank. I had some friends that were into the drug scene, it wasn’t for me. About the time that the fall semester was wrapping up during my junior year, I decided I should start looking at colleges.

My brother was attending a private university in the Twin Cities. I decided to take a “college tour” to where my brother was attending. The silly thing was that my school’s college counselor knew I wasn’t going to visit the college, but as long as I did the college tour and looked at the school she couldn’t do anything. My birthday conveniently landed close to a weekend that year, so that’s when I decided to go visit.

After the college tour was over, and well after I knew that I wasn’t going to attend the college, my brother decided it was time we went out to some parties. It was a Friday night in the big city, it was time to party.

Through some strange sort of coincidence, we managed to hit each party we went to well after everybody had finished all the spirits at the particular venues. We hopped from place to place, all of which were out of any sort of brew. We had a good time, don’t get me wrong, but we were more sober than we were anticipating.

Now I’ve always been somewhat of a people watcher. The only thing I ever enjoy in a mall is sitting on the benches and watching the people walk by, watching the people interact with each other, and just trying to see everything that everybody’s too busy to notice. What I noticed at all of the parties that my brother and I went to were the vast majority of people that were severely intoxicated. Not only that, but they didn’t seem to be having a good time at all. That and the people that were passed out on the couches with vomit dripping from their mouths and piles on the floor. Now I’ve had my fair share of flu bugs, and I can tell you one of the least fun things in this world is throwing up. But yet it seemed to be a common outcome at all of the parties.

Some serious decisions were made after that birthday weekend. The three hour drive home allowed me to think through the weekend’s events. The conclusion that I came to from that weekend is that drinking and partying are not worth it. I made the decision that partying isn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t worth it. I had been drunk before, I had been hung-over before, and I decided that I didn’t want that anymore. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

After the previous summer and my adventures and eventual break-up with Corrine, and then the weekends partying and subsequent decision to stop, I had a lot of time to think. I stopped going out on weekends, I stopped drinking, and I stopped trying to hook a girlfriend. I just stopped everything that I thought I was interested in. It was some sort of funk that came over me and filled me with indifference. It’s amazing what you can get figured out when you don’t allow the pressures of life to fill your mind.

My best friend grew up a block away from me. His name is Brian. We were in the same grade and his mom ran an in-home daycare, so he had all the coolest toys. Growing up we’d spend pretty much every free moment together riding bikes, playing baseball, or starting things on fire. His dad would take him across the Minnesota/South Dakota border to buy some fireworks that Brian would then sell to me. We’d spend full days blowing up little green army men and shooting off sparkling fountains in his sandbox. When his mom was busy with the kids inside and his dad was at work we’d sneak some of the lawnmower’s gas and make the sandbox a flaming hell for those army men. In larger cities I’m sure the Fire Department would have been called many times over. But we grew up in a small town that has a volunteer fire department. It’s not that we were any safer, but people in our town had bigger things to worry about. Like who was in church on Sunday and who wasn’t at the café for coffee last week.

Brian is the youngest of three boys in his family. His older brothers are twins so he’d always play the tag-a-long and also the peace maker. In high school, Brian had dealt with the death of a really close uncle. Through it all his faith came alive. Through the turbulence and with an ever vigilantly praying godmother, Brian came through the loss with a new faith and a new outlook on life. It was a faith that was so palpable that it eventually spread through his whole family and even his friends.

When Brian became a Christian, I was still on my drinking/girl binge. I knew what I wanted and that was to have as much fun as possible. The girl thing never really worked out for me. I’d think a girl was cute and try and get to know them only to shy away from ever taking the steps to ask her out. In one rather embarrassing exchange I had been flirting with a girl for weeks, we sat at the same table in science so it was easy. Finally I had decided to set a time and place where I was going to ask her out. There was a basketball game later that evening. I asked her if she was going to the game. She said she was. I told her that I’d talk to her that night and that I had a question to ask her. When I had told her this I was expecting the bell to ring and be forced to rush out of there before actually asking the question. Well, as it played out there was more time before the bell than I thought. She responded, “Well, why don’t you just ask the question now?”
“Because. Don’t worry, I’ll ask you tonight. Just be sure to be at the basketball game.”
“What’s the question?”
I was feeling super nervous; my palms were sweating and my hands shaking. Instead of just manning up and getting it over with, I terrifyingly wrote it on a little scrap of paper, “Will you go out with me?” I handed it to her. She opened it up, read it, and chuckled a little. That little chuckle, as innocent as it might have been, was enough for me to know how childish and uninterested she probably was in me. She sheepishly asked me, “Really?” And do you know what I did? Weeks of flirting. Trying to get this girl to notice me. Trying to solidify a spot higher than “the nice guy” spot when I finally probably had her on the line. Do you know what I did? I said, “No, it’s just a joke. I’ll see you tonight.” I ended up not going to the game that night.

Returning to that January night, lying in bed. The girl thing didn’t work out for me. I was way too nervous around them. The drinking and partying thing didn’t work out. Its funny how little you enjoy something when throwing up is the goal. That’s probably why I was never bulimic too. Add in my best friend’s faith that he wasn’t shy to share. All that together leads a guy to do some serious thinking. I have dabbled and tested the things of this world and they all seemed to disappoint. It was that night and largely because of Brian that I decided to make my faith real. Don’t get me wrong, I was a church going kid growing up. My mom and dad had us in church every weekend. There was no reason aside from sickness or death that would allow us to stay home. And even sickness was iffy.

One Sunday morning when I was just old enough to stay home alone I was feeling sick. It was more than likely just the regular morning yuck, but I was for sure not feeling good. I told my mom I wasn’t feeling good and she said I could stay home from church. My family all sang in the choir; so on a normal Sunday morning we’d have to be there at 8:30 for 10am church. So I stayed home and slept in. About 9:30 or so I woke up and was feeling quite a bit better. So I decided that staying in bed would just waste some daylight and decided to get up. It’s really boring on a Sunday morning when everyone’s at church and there’s nothing but televised church services on the TV. So I decided that a game or two of football on our Sega Genesis would help pass the time.

It’s an amazing thing how things can all work against you when you have the most honest intentions. I was just trying to pass the time until my family got home so I could tell my mom I was feeling better. Well it turns out that that particular morning was overly stressful for my mother. She was the choir director/organist/church secretary and things just didn’t work out for her that morning. When they got home and she found me playing video games instead of being sick in bed, well let’s just say it was a week of being grounded.

It wasn’t until that January evening that I had given serious thought to faith and Jesus. I had gone through the motions like so many before me and so many after. But that night, lying in bed I knew I wanted something real, something lasting. What I found was God. Only after tasting everything that life had to offer me at that time did I finally find something worth holding onto. And isn’t that just how it is? It seems to take us years and years to finally acknowledge our faith. Even those of us that grow up in the church have a hard time believing. I think it’s almost harder for us that grew up in the church to have a real faith. It’s all so familiar to us and has never really required anything of us accept being in attendance on Sunday mornings. But true faith requires more than that. Real faith requires us to put away the things of the past. True faith asks us to make Jesus a priority. True faith invites us into relationship. I think maybe that’s why so many people are afraid of becoming a Christian. It has nothing to do with the church that they see; rather it has everything to do with what they don’t want to give up. In all reality, Jesus doesn’t require us to give up anything. Generally speaking we don’t forfeit any one thing. When it comes to girls, I’m married now to Corrine. When it comes to drinking, some of the best times I’ve had are with my favorite brew with family and friends. The key is that Jesus asks us to quit trying to find fulfillment in these things. Quit trying to become complete through these things. Before, I was trying to find meaning in life by having fun. When I finally embraced the partying lifestyle I found it didn’t have much to offer.

I think this is the true meaning of the gospel and the salvation that comes with it. I’m not sure if we’ll find complete fulfillment on this side of heaven. But we can get a glimpse of peace and fulfillment with our relationship with Christ. This doesn’t mean that if we accept Christ, all things will be fine and dandy. I think it’s rather the opposite. When we finally take a stand and say, “Jesus, I know you love me, I know you died for me, please help me learn to love you,” that’s when the enemy will try the hardest to intercede. The easiest time to uproot a tree is when it’s small and the roots are shallow. Isn’t it the same with faith? But it’s the people that we surround ourselves with that are going to make the difference. No wonder “Love your neighbor” is so important in the Bible. It wasn’t only by my effort that I was there that January night. It was because of the people that were praying for me, it was because of Brian, it was because of my parents’ efforts to get me to church. It was because of these people and many others and a large dose of the power of God that I was in my bed that night contemplating eternity and faith.

I'm not a writer but I'm trying to be.

2010-06-03T12:28:00.000-05:00

So last week I got the crazy idea to try and write a book. Now I'm not a writer and haven't had more than one grammar class in all of my schooling (although I loved the class, Dr. Johnson was a cool guy). I've thrown around the idea to various close friends and family and they have all asked the same question, "What's it going to be about?" And I answer, "Uh...not really sure. Things in my life and what I've learned from them." My wife's response was the best, "Why? Your life's boring!" Thanks honey, love you too. The second biggest question I get is, "What's it going to be called?" Well, I don't know that either. The working title is, let's just say, What I Learned As a Townie. Mostly it's going to be a lot like my blog posts, but longer and hopefully more in depth. So if you get bored, I apologize.

So I think I'll post a new chapter every couple of days, or when I get them done...or initially written. Obviously I'm not a writer, so I don't know what all goes into writing a book, but if it sucks, let me know.

So here it goes...

A great author I read quoted some guy that I can’t remember his name said, “A writer needs to write every day.” Well, this is my attempt at growing into being a writer. This is going to be my everyday trials and struggles with life, faith, and family. I don’t claim to be a writer at all. I just hope that sometime in the future, the words that I write down have some sort of lasting effect on somebody. Maybe that person will be me, maybe it’ll be my kids that read it, and maybe someone will stumble along these words with their poor grammar and think it’s important that the masses read them. Then I’ll sleep on money bags and drink mimosas every morning while I watch my cleaning lady sweep off my patio made of gold. One can only hope. So where do I start? Where does a non-writer start his story? I guess I’ll have to start at the beginning.

Chapter 1: The Beginning.

I’ve always had a pretty strong conscience. As far back as I can remember I’ve known right from wrong. Now that doesn’t mean that I’ve always been able to act the right way. I’ve done my fair share of stupid things.

There was the time when I was no more than five. It was summer time, my older brother JJ, our friend Ellen from down the road and I were in our living room playing. To be better stated I could probably say that JJ and Ellen were playing and I was tagging along. It was a common theme growing up. Being a “townie” in town of 700 doesn’t leave many friends that are your same age. My class was full of “farmies” that lived outside of town and way more fun shooting guns, riding three-wheelers, and doing things the city cop would tell your parents about.

So I was tagging along with JJ and Ellen. We were probably watching Nickelodeon or playing Lego’s or something. My mom, at the time, was a stay at home mom. She had asked us to do some small chore. Now I love my mom, I’ve always been a sort of momma’s boy. And somewhere along the lines of my short life I’d probably seen people worshipping someone (maybe in an Indiana Jones movie). I apparently thought that my mom was well worth the worship. She was great, she was my hero, she made the best mac and cheese, and no one could tuck me in quite like her. So here’s how it all played out.

My mom asked, “Can you guys take the clothes hamper and go take the clothes off the clothes line?”
                JJ, “Aw, do we have to?”
                Mom, “Yes, now go do it before I make you do the dishes too!”
                Me, kneeling down prostrate to my mother, bending at the waist with arms reaching towards the ceiling, bowing over and over again. “Yes Mom! We will! We WILL!”
                Mom, “YOU GO TO YOUR ROOM! YOU’RE GROUNDED!”
                Me, “But Mom, I’m serious, I didn’t mean…I’m sorry…I was…” Grounded.

As you can see, not the smartest move in the book. I was sure I loved my mom. And I was sure that I was going to go out and take the clothes off the line. But I just missed the mark in complying with my mom’s request. Needless to say, I didn’t prostrate myself before her ever again.

This wasn’t the last time I’d make an idiot in front of my mom. Just to be clear, my mom’s a saint. She’s always had her priorities revolving around our family. She worked hard corralling me and my two brothers into adulthood. She was a stay-at-home mom until I was eight or so, then she went to work at the bank. It was different not having my mom home after school. We had to find our own snacks and entertain ourselves (maybe better stated as I had to entertain JJ because I could always find something to do on my own, JJ couldn’t). Which pretty much led to us eating too many Doritos and watching too much TV. But it was only a couple of years of that before we were into Junior High where after school sports and activities kept us busy until five thirty.

I remember when my mom went to work at the bank. It was a big deal. She had worked in a couple banks when JJ and I were younger. I distinctly remember thinking that my mom was the most important person at the bank. I’d go up there after school got out, take a mouthful of free gumballs, and sit in awe of my mom, the banker. We never had a ton of money, but my mom worked at the bank and therefore we might as well have been the kings of the town. And then when the new bank was built and my mom got her own desk, what’s more kingly than a king? I don’t know, but that’s how I looked at it. I’d throw it around the playground like I was bragging about how strong my dad was. “Oh yeah? Well my mom works at the BANK!”

But my mom wasn’t invincible. I remember when we got the call about Grandpa Raymond, her father. It was late one night. Bryce was still an infant. My dad was off at some school meeting. It was dark out and we were upstairs getting ready for bed.

The phone rang and I ran to pick up the receiver. It was always sort of exciting answering the phone. It was hardly ever for me, and at this time of the day it was never for me. But I still rushed to pick up the phone. I answered with all the pep a young seven year old could, “Hello?”
                “Is this Kyle?”
                “Yeah.”
                “Is your mother home?”
                “Yeah, hold on a second…MOOOOOOOM! Phone’s for you!”
My mom came into the room and grabbed the phone. She too was a little confused as to the call, this late at night. She quietly answered the phone, “Hello?”

Instantly I could see her body fall. Not literally, but figuratively, where it seems as the life is slowly draining out of a person and the body shakes as if to keep itself upright. Her head slouched down as if to brace for the impact. She finished the call and slowly hung up the phone. I knew something bad had happened. I knew something wasn’t wrong. I knew that my indestructible mom was now at her weakest moment. She turned to face me and my brothers, her eyes all welled up, tears streaming down her face. And yet, even in this moment of absolute, utter weakness, she was still a rock. She calmly asked me and my brothers to go downstairs to the living room; she had something to tell us.

We all grabbed a spot on the couch, my mom sat across from us on the chair. She sat crying, but through her tears she was still able to lay the news on us, “Boys, it’s about Grandpa Raymond. He passed away tonight…” That was as far as she got before the pain made her swallow her words. We sat for moments that seemed like an eternity. We were young boys; we didn’t fully grasp the gravity of the situation. But we knew that our mom was hurting, and the only thing we could do was cuddle in close and let her squeeze. It’s amazing the amount of security and peace you feel in your darkest time when there are people you love that are there to hold tight.

My mom held us close until my dad came home from his meeting. She let us go and told my dad what had happened. My dad hugged and kissed my mom and comforted her through the pain. A short while later he put us in bed. It was the most silent night I remember growing up. The mood was so somber and sad one can only tolerate it so many times through their lifetime. This was the first for me, an unforgettable moment for sure.
-----
I don’t remember a lot about Grandpa Raymond. I was young. What I do remember is that he always had a smile on his face and always cared about you. And he could blow O’s with his cigar smoke. We’d always ask him to do it.

We went to his funeral later that week. He and my grandma weren’t church going people. He was Protestant and married a Catholic woman and his family had somewhat outcast him because of it. He was scarred by the church and the hypocrisy within. So his funeral was in a funeral home and not a church. Sure I was young, but I remember it vividly. The funeral was quiet and somber during the ceremony. I remember being sad, but I didn’t cry. I remember looking down the pew and seeing my cousin crying as if someone was cutting his leg off. He is four or five years older than I. That’s an extra four or five years of memories with my grandpa. His family also lived closer to my grandpa and grandma, so I’m sure they saw them more and had a closer relationship. But I remember not crying and trying to cry, and then trying to figure out why it was I didn’t feel the need to cry. For some reason the quiet, sad funeral didn’t seem real. It didn’t seem right for my family. It seemed like this was something out of the norm, it seemed like it wasn’t MY family here being quiet and sad. My family doesn’t do that.

Then there came the reception. All the tears had been cried that needed to be cried and my family, the Raymond’s, woke up again. Sure everybody was sad; my grandpa was a good man. He loved people without ceasing. He loved people because they were people. His co-workers loved him, his family loved him, and I loved him. And now he was gone and our memories are what we have of him.
------
My first lesson in loving your neighbor came from him. Years after the fact, when theology and faith issues became important to me I would look back on this event in my life. It is the first major memory for me. It’s been twenty years since he passed and this lesson is still at the core of my faith. Love without ceasing, love your neighbor. He taught me (unbeknownst to me) at a very young age that it doesn’t matter who it is, they deserve your love. Isn’t this the core of who we are as Christians? As my Bible reads, it’s number two in the two most important things in the Bible. First there’s love your God, next is love your neighbor.

The bigger lesson that he’s taught me is to love no matter what. Like I said before, his family kept him at an arm’s distance because he married a Catholic woman. It’s a concept that seems so foreign to us in our society. Marrying or not based on denominational ties? And then if one would go against those social stigmas, social and familial casting out? Really? But yet through all of this, Grandpa Raymond still loved. There are many today that would blame their upbringing and family life for their current situation. There are many that would say that they were never taught how to love, therefore how should anyone expect them to love? Well, Grandpa Raymond proved that moving beyond your life scars is possible. Not just moving beyond them, but being a better person because of them. He proved to me that no matter how crappy someone’s life can be, there’s always something better coming. Call me a silly optimist if you want, but isn’t it true that when we dwell on the garbage of our lives, it consumes us? So what if we don’t dwell on it anymore? What Grandpa Raymond taught me was that no matter what life lays in front of us, there is a right way to deal with, get through, and get passed it, and there’s a wrong way. He found that right way. I’m sure he had a hard time dealing with the separation from his mom, dad, and siblings. But that only made him embrace his own family even more.
Isn’t this what Paul is talking about in Romans?

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28)

I’m not sure if God called my grandpa to familial separation because of some silly denominational discrimination. But what I do know is that because his relationship with his parents and siblings was fractured, he was not going to let his family be the same.
-----
Back to the funeral, I still wonder why I didn’t feel like crying. I can’t tell you why my cousin was torn at the seams bawling and I couldn’t muster up the tiniest tear. I remember trying to cry, trying to get myself to shed some sort of outward, physical sign of the inward sorrow I was feeling. But I just couldn’t. For a time I thought that I was incapable of crying, I’d hold it back and swallow it. I felt guilty for a long time because I couldn’t cry at Grandpa Raymond’s funeral. But I wonder if he’d want anybody to cry at his funeral. Sure, funerals are sad, but what are we crying about? Aren’t we really crying because we don’t have them anymore? I know it sounds cold, and at age seven I could not have put this together; but I think we’re sad at funerals for slightly selfish reasons. When in all reality we should celebrate the life that was lived and the continued life they’re living.

I think this is really what Grandpa Raymond would have wanted. He would have wanted to come together as a family and rejoice in life. He would have wanted us to continue loving as he had showed us. If there’s a better example of love, outside of the Bible, I haven’t seen one. Sure there’s a time for sorrow and mourning. But I think Grandpa Raymond would have wanted it to be a very short time, followed by a feast. Or maybe not, he was a picky eater. If he wanted a feast in his honor, he would eat beforehand and then take a half bowl of soup at the banquet. Then he’d sit and tell stories, making people laugh, all the while swirling his soup so it seemed like he was actually eating it. He’d do this and no one would care, but everyone would have a great time. It’d be a joyous feast, like the ones we read about in the Bible and old stories like Beowulf. Everyone would come, be stuffed to the brim, laugh, share stories, and have a great time. This would be the banquet that Grandpa Raymond would want. It’s pretty close to how it was at the reception. Only my grandpa wasn’t there telling the stories. Everyone else was there to tell stories. Stories about how, “Grandpa Raymond did this,” “He helped there,” and, “I can’t believe that he was able to pull off that.”

I’m not sure where Grandpa Raymond sat with God. I know he loved people like few in this world do. I know that he went to the Catholic Church with my grandma but never became a Catholic. I know that there were a lot of tears shed at his funeral. I know that he was a good man. I do hope that when I finally get up to the pearly gates that Grandpa Raymond is up there, smoking a big cigar blowing O’s in the smoke. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if when I get to heaven, Grandpa Raymond is there with a cigar, telling stories and playing cards with Saint Peter. Saint Peter would be about busting at his seams and distracted enough for my grandpa to not so subtly table talk with Jesus.

But I won’t know this for some time now. What I do know now is that Grandpa Raymond would want me to love without ceasing. Keep friends close, keep family closer. It’s the family that’s going to be there for you in the long run. Sure we’ll have disagreements, but we’re family, we have to be able to look past the troubles. My mom has never held any of my missteps against me. It’s not in her blood to keep grudges. I’ve said some really stupid things to her, all of which I still feel guilty about when I think back on them. But I think she also learned the same lessons from my grandparents. When we got the news about Grandpa Raymond, all she wanted to do was to bring us close and hold us tight. I think maybe that the through the time that she held us tight, she was physically remembering the lessons of Grandpa Raymond. She lost her father, a good man, but she still had us. She would hold on tight to us through our upbringing. Even now that my brothers and I have families of our own, she still hugs tighter than anyone else. My wife and her may hug with the same tightness, but you’d need scientific instruments to tell for sure and I don’t have the money or know-how to figure something like that out.

So what’s the lesson of this beginning chapter? Love without ceasing, love your neighbor, and always hold on to your family.

This Memorial Day

2010-05-30T23:36:00.000-05:00

Over the past few weeks I’ve been getting my fair share of emails from family and friends that are in the service all reminding me to remember the real reason for the holiday. I’ve gotten everything from military histories to heart warming prayers for soldiers. It’s a very important holiday to say the least. Especially now since we are currently in two wars and a natural disaster that have troops deployed. Not to mention the men and women deployed within our country and throughout the world.

There is one particularly popular photo that I’ve received the most over the past few weeks. That being of the old veteran at the parade that’s standing for the flags that go through during a parade. What’s interesting is that he’s the only one on the block that’s standing. What’s even more interesting is that he’s also standing up from a wheel chair.

Now I’m not writing this to be a heavy-handed attempt to coerce anyone into uber-patriotism. But rather I’m writing to remember those men and women that have sacrificed themselves for the sake of our freedom. To each and every one of them, regardless of how you feel about our current international conflicts, deserve a warm handshake and a heart felt thank you at the very least.

But what’s even more striking in this season is the dark state that some veterans come back in. There are many soldiers that go to war and never seem to come home psychologically. I went to college with a US Army sniper that was deployed with a Marine Recon unit in Afghanistan. He told stories of when he came home he’d have nightmares where he’d physically react. One evening his wife had to strike him in the head with her fist to wake him up because he had her in a headlock.

But there are others that never seem to adjust back into “normal” life. This story here is an example of this sort of case. This happened in the small town that my brother and his wife live in. It’s a town with no more than 300 people in it. Apparently the man who had built the pipe bombs was a real nice man. He had gone away to fight in Desert Storm in the 90’s and when he returned he was just “off”. Did something happen over there that scarred him? If he never had gone to war, would he still have felt the need to build these bombs? I’m not sure. I have to think that it had something to do with it.

One of the podcasts that I listen to somewhat regularly is the Ransomed Heart podcast by John Eldredge. The past couple podcasts he has interviewed a guy that does soldier counseling. I don’t remember all the specifics because I was working on something while I was listening to it. But basically what he does is he brings in the soldiers that are the worst off, men and women that are on the verge of suicide because of what they’ve had to do or witness during the war. They counsel them back into functioning by teaching them how to forgive again. They teach them not only to forgive their enemies, but also the bigger hurdle of forgiving themselves. These are men and women that have been on multiple tours and have lost the will to fight and protect themselves and brothers in arms, and the hinge issue that they’re dealing with is forgiveness.

So this Memorial Day, remember the men and women that are putting their lives on the line. These are the men and women that are willing to go into the horrors of horrors in this world and confront it face to face. These are the men that are in the most popular war movies, in the muck, the hamburger grinder, and fighting their way through it. Remember that the men and women overseas have families at home. And remember, a smile, a hug, and a “thank you” go a long way in the lives of people living in the hell we call war.

My 2¢.

-KaGe

Conversations with D

2010-05-25T10:16:00.001-05:00

I was able to catch up with some close friends from my not so distant past last weekend. We spent the day being old friends, telling old stories, laughing to tears and remembering when. One of my friends I hadn’t seen or really talked to for the better part of three years. Before time and distance separated us, he (I’ll call him D) was a good man, but a lady’s man. D always had a new gal on his arm and didn’t care much about his personal purity. The last few months he was in a relationship with another good friend of mine (I’ll call her S). This relationship challenged him because S was definitely not one of “those” girls and he knew it.

The relationship ended horribly. Months of his unfaithfulness led to a volcanic eruption of emotion and a chasm that has yet to be bridged. It was through this final falling apart and subsequent separation that D came to realize how much he actually loved S. The only problem is that she still wants nothing to do with the guy. There are scars that are yet to heal for S and a longing that cannot be quenched for D.

My friends and I went out to get something to eat one evening. Low and behold S was there. She greeted the rest of us, but still gave the obligatory wave and “Hello,” to D; but her eyes were as cold as a January night towards D. D saw it, I saw it, we all saw it. It was one of those “elephant in the room” moments that leave everyone sitting awkwardly in silence longer than anyone would hope to sit in silence. S hugged the rest of us and was off with her friends. That’s when the previously rowdy mood turned somber. The rest of the evening was filled with us trying to lift our guilt ridden comrade from the depths of his worst moments in life.

The evening continued back at the house into the wee hours of the night. D and I sat up late talking about S and their past and the past couple of years. D explained that since the end of his and S’s relationship, he hasn’t been able to date another woman without comparing them to S. He explained that the liberal way he was with women in the past doesn’t even appeal to him anymore. Don Miller would call this an ‘inciting incident’ that puts a person in a place so miserable that they’re forced to change. Well, D had changed.

He would ask me if I’ve noticed a change. I would say I have. I’d talk about faith issues and how I think he should find a mentor. He’d counter with some ‘Yeah, but,’ excuses that I couldn’t counter (mostly because D’s in Omaha becoming a doctor for the Air Force and frankly I’m not familiar with the doctor/Air Force/Omaha psyche). We talked round and round until I thought maybe the sun was coming up. We finally said all the words we both wanted to and retreated to our rooms. The next morning D was back to his normal self. He slept off the depression and sadness from the previous evening. We all enjoyed the day as if we hadn’t run into S the night before.

I’ve been thinking about that night since it happened. I keep thinking, “I should have said this, or that, and if I would have said this for sure he would have been better…” But in all reality, I’m not sure I should have said anything. Sure I think what I said was good and valid. But is that what he actually needed? I don’t think so. He needed validation that he was not who he was three years ago. He needed me to encourage him in his endeavor, and he needed a friend to grieve with. This is what he needed, and I’m sure it’s what he needed because ultimately he wasn’t afraid that he would never be able to live without S. He wasn’t even afraid of what S still thought of him. Rather he was afraid that what S thought of him was actually true. He was afraid that he still was the worst person that he’s ever been. And it’s that fear that has him frozen. And isn’t it the same with us all? We’re all afraid that we’re actually the worst person that we’ve ever been. But why do we give certain people the greatest voice in our lives? Because there are some people that we love the most that know us best. In D’s case, it was S that was supposed to know him the best. So isn’t it only natural that he’d give her the greatest voice in his life? I know he was reaching out to us, asking for validation of his personal change. But in all honesty, I’m not sure that anything we said would have been enough to convince him that he’s changed. D hadn’t given us the place of superiority (not that we should have it anyways, that’s Jesus’ place), he was still allowing himself to be judged based on S’s view of him.

Is this the same garbage that we all fall into? Don’t we allow ourselves to be validated by people and things that have no actual bearing in our lives? If we truly believe that Jesus is the perfect Prophet, Priest, King, and Judge, then why do we still allow other people to have the biggest voice? Many times we allow other people to tell us that we are the worst person we have ever been. Even though it is probable that they are dealing with the same lies that we are. The thing to remember is that it is an opinion from someone; it is not the end all word on our character. One spec on a timeline doesn’t indicate the virtue of a person. It’s the accumulation of the whole. So keep your head up and confront the worst. Because after the worst, the best is to come. As the band Remedy Drive says, “Hold on…daylight is coming to break the dawn.”

My 2¢.

-KaGe

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2010-04-21T11:07:00.000-05:00

I’m a bit of a Narnia Fanboy. I’ll admit it; I love reading the novels and am currently going through the series…again. As some of you may know, the next installment of Narnia is in production right now. 20^th Century Fox is now filming (or possibly editing) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. You have no idea how excited I am. First off, this is one of my two favorites from the book (the other being The Last Battle). So to say I’m excited is a bit of an understatement.

The buzz around the interwebs seems to be a little lackluster. I’m kind of bummed about this. I know the Narnia movies weren’t the blockbuster successes that the Lord of the Rings trilogy was. But in all reality, they are excellent adaptations. I do think that the LOTR’s success kind of trumped Narnia and set it up for less than stellar ticket sales. If you look at how the two films were presented, LOTR was shown for the adult world, Narnia was for the family. You can clearly see this when comparing the battle scenes between LOTR’s The Return of the King, and Narnia’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. LOTR’s was dirty, gritty, in your face. Narnia’s was like a nice shiny tag match in the playground. But film critics shouldn’t see this as a negative. It’s actually more true to the books being that they were shot that way. LOTR was written more as an adult fantasy land, Narnia was written for younger audiences. Either way, I still really enjoyed both Narnia movies and the LOTR trilogy.

So, some quick information, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is slated to be released December 10, 2010 (just after my birthday for those wondering). It has the same actors playing Lucy, Edmund, and Prince Caspian as previously in the series. I assume they’ll stay on for The Silver Chair to finish out the Caspian triad.

Now all over the internet there are nay-sayers claiming they probably won’t make all the Narnia movies because they aren’t making them in order. Also, they claim that the children will be too old to keep playing Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan in future movies, therefore they’ll have to replace them and it’ll suck. Well, first off, they ARE making them in order. They are making them in the order that they were written. It was only in the 80’s that the publisher decided to “re-order” the series to be more chronologically correct. Second point, since they are making them in literary order, the ages of the actors will not matter because after The Silver Chair, when the children are seen in The Boy and His Horse and The Last Battle they are adults. So when they finally get to making these movies, the children will probably be the correct age.

So, after this long barrage of nerd-dom what should we do? GO…SEE…THIS…MOVIE. Even if you don’t care about this, I want to share Narnia with my kids via books AND movies. So for the sake of my children, buy tickets to this movie. You don’t even have to go to the movie, just buy tickets.

So you might be thinking, where is this coming from? I thought KaGe was a level-headed thinker that has deep thoughts that are sometimes crazy and incorrect. Well, my nerdiness is just another layer in the onion my friends. Next time I get in a nerdtastic mood we’ll discuss Star Wars, how the entire series is about Vader, and how it’s a perfect tale of redemption.

My 2¢.
-KaGe

National News Propaganda and the Destruction of the USA

2010-04-14T15:12:00.000-05:00

I don’t like to play politics. In fact I hate political banter. Sure if friends of mine start laying it on thick to a view that I oppose, I’ll state my opinion. And on occasion my friends and I have had some fairly heated discussions about certain hot topic government decisions. But all in all, I hate politics. I’m sure you’ve heard the joke, “What’s the true meaning of ‘Politics’? Well, Poly means many, and ticks are blood sucking insects. So there you go, Politics: Many blood sucking insects.” Honestly there are times when I wonder. So when all is said I have my views, you have yours, let’s not discuss them because it’s going to end in tears.

But this isn’t about politics and my distain for them. Rather this is about how we, as a country, have let the political punditry of national news networks like Fox News, CNN, et al, systematically divide and create the great chasm between us.

I will admit, at one point in time, I was a Fox News-aholic. It’s how I was brought up; it’s where I got my news. In recent years I have started watching CNN more. And up until probably the last three months, I don’t watch either. It’s not that I don’t want to be informed. In fact I believe that knowing what’s going on in the world is vital to being a Christian. How are we supposed to know where we are needed if we don’t know what’s going on in the world? If we didn’t watch the news, would we have known about the earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and Turkey? Would we have been able to be so swift in the assisting of digging out and rebuilding these countries? Would millions of people still donate millions of dollars to the efforts? Probably not. In fact I think that without being informed and knowing what’s going on in the world, the Christian aid organizations would have a very minimal impact on the world compared to what they’re doing today.

All that said I still don’t watch the news. Here’s why. Let me ask you a question: What are Fox News’, CNN’s and other new networks’ main goal? Is it informing the world? No. Is it painting an accurate picture of what’s going on? No. Does it have ANYTHING to do with ANY sort of information education? Absolutely not. The ONLY goal of national news networks is to…drum roll please…sell advertising time. That’s right; you may think that CNN and Fox News have noble intentions on reporting. But in fact they are selling advertising space. Why else do you think that two bit hacks like Glen Beck and Keith Olbermann (although Olbermann was HILARIOUS on Sportscenter) have air time? Fox News is known to be more conservative in their reporting. So they’re going to draw the conservative crowds to watch. CNN is more the liberal side. It has nothing to do with news. Both of these networks play their political cards all under the veil of honest, news reporting. I remember during the last election, CNN ran the tagline, “CNN is Politics”. Wow, I didn’t know. So if CNN is politics, then Fox News must not be. But then Fox News was (and still is) billed as, “Fox News: Fair and Balanced”. Really? So that must mean that CNN isn’t fair OR balanced. But quite often these two networks report completely different news. While President Bush was in office, the poor guy couldn’t get a thing right according to CNN. According to CNN his entire two terms were faux pas. But according to Fox News he was doing alright. The things he was promoting and pushing forward might seem risky, but eventually will benefit our country and the world. But now with President Obama in office, it seems that the roles have switched. Fox News reports that President Obama is running this country into the ground, but CNN seems to paint a different, more optimistic view of the president. So who’s right? Neither. Both “report” the news with a heavy handed traditional or southpaw slant to it. The only news that they actually report is usually found in the headlines that come up as graphics on the bottom of the page, “So and so did such and such”. That’s all the actual news they report. Then they take 30-60 minutes of everyone’s time explaining how it’s a terrible or a great addition to our country. Both of these news networks have taken the credibility from the early days when they’d actually report news, and have drug it through the political hog trough to form the current news networks we call Fox News and CNN. All in the name of ratings; and the higher the ratings, the more companies will want to buy advertising time.

So what can we do with this mess? Where can we get our news? Well, I’ve devised a formula that can guide anyone through the political muck. It’s simply this: take the number of letters in the U.S.-based news network name (CNN would be 16, Cable News Network, Fox News Channel would be 14), multiply that by the year the network was founded (CNN:1980, FNC:1996), taken to the power of how many political pundits they employ (I don’t know this number, but I’m guessing it’s high), all divided by the number of minutes during the day they report opinion instead of news (there are only 1440 minutes in a day, but I’m guess both of these channels hover right around the 1300 range, maybe a little more for MSNBC). Take that total, write it on a piece of paper, crumple it up and throw it in a fire. Then turn the television to the BBC to get your news…or better yet watch the local news at 6 and 10 and mute it if there’s any political punditry.

So what can we do? How can we mend the chasm that Network News propaganda has cut? In the words of the late Johnny Cash from his song The One on the Right is on the Left, “Now this should be a lesson if you plan to start a folk group, Don’t go mixing politics with the folk songs of our land, Just work on harmony and diction, Play your banjo well, And if you have political convictions keep them to yourself.”

My 2¢.

-Kage

What I Learned...

2010-04-06T11:29:00.000-05:00

Over the course of Lent, I decided to do an “Internet as entertainment” fast. I decided that over the course of Lent I was going to give up the internet for all forms of entertainment. This meant that I didn’t do any sort of Facebook, blogging, forums, YouTube, etc. It was an interesting time to say the least, but it was good.

The first week of Lent I was in Costa Rica on a short term mission trip. I did blog about each day on the trip, so the fast wasn’t fully in place. But I felt it was necessary to use the internet here because it was the main form of communication with some people that donated to the trip. I do think it was a little easier starting the fast coming back to business as usual being that I had very minimal internet access for two weeks before.

The first week back in my office after Costa Rica was an interesting time. It was pretty easy to leave Facebook and the forums alone. Not blogging was a little tougher to handle, although I did write a bit during this time. There will be a few posts that I have written over Lent that you will see in the coming weeks. But the first week was good. The first thing I noticed was that all of a sudden I had an hour at the end of the day that was free. Now you may be thinking, “An hour? Really?!?! Holy crap man, you’re addicted!” Well, I don’t really think so. If you do the math, that’s only 12 short 5 minute stops at Facebook throughout the day. It adds up. As I’m in and out of my office, I would often sit and open Facebook quick, check a couple things, post a silly status, make a funny comment on a friend’s status, all of a sudden….BAM, five minutes gone. So in the absence of these little five minute spurts, all of a sudden I have an hour to do…whatever! As I said in a previous post, I was going to spend this time in prayer and Bible reading, etc. I first started to catch up on my Bible reading. I cruised through Exodus and started Deuteronomy. I also picked up my guitar for the first time in months and played through some worship songs in my office. I had small, intimate worship times in my office, alone. It was a great time to reflect, especially since it’s Lent, on what Christ did for us.

On top of my new found hour at the end of the day, I was motivated to get back into the gym. I didn’t want to lose what the work in Costa Rica did to my body. So I decided to take an hour at lunch and hit the gym. Those that know me know that I’m not in any sort of Men’s Health shape. I’ve been a big guy my whole life and I’ve decided it’s time to not be. The idea of getting back into the gym was partially trying to get healthy, but also (with all the open time/reading I’ve been doing) I needed to get out of my office more.

The really cool thing that I experienced through Lent was a deeper understanding of the Passion. I’ve been a church kid my whole life, I’ve heard the Passion story A LOT! The issue we run into when we hear something over and over again is that it begins to feel stale. But this year it seemed fresh. I think it was because of my extra time in the Word, worship, and with God. Also, on top of this, I’ve been taking my Middle Schoolers through a great curriculum called Old Skool Jesus (youth pastors, find it HERE). It’s a 12 week study on the person of Jesus. It’s been great because it leads middle schoolers into deep conversations about who Jesus was, what he did, was he fully God, was he fully human, how does Jesus’ claim of salvation compare to other religions, etc. The week before Holy Week we went through the physical effects of crucifixion on a person’s body and then talked about our physical, emotional, and spiritual reactions to this. It was very impacting and for the first time in years and years, reading the Passion story, alone in my office, brought me to tears. And somehow this silly little experiment we call fasting for Lent made total sense. It’s not supposed to be a time of suffering. Lent and fasting are supposed to be preparation times that we put away something that keeps us from seeing the true meaning of the season. It’s a form of repentance, a type of turning away from the comforts we have placed in our lives and turning towards Jesus. It’s not legalism, it’s not feel-good Jesus, it’s simply and purely relationship. It’s this relationship that makes it all real, makes it all true. It’s this relationship and the absence of it that makes Christianity unbelievable to the unbeliever. It’s this relationship that cannot be fully known by reading the Bible, going to church on Sundays and youth group on Wednesdays. It’s this relationship that has to be experienced by the believer, trusted in during the dry times, and rejoiced in during the high times. As the late and great Johnny Cash sings, “Your own…personal…Jesus…”

My 2¢.
-Kyle

Day #14: The Final Day and the trip back.

2010-02-28T12:01:00.000-06:00

Sorry, it's been a few days since I've had a chance to write this final day. Tuesday I was going to post the final post, but then found out that I had already packed my camera and wouldn't have any pictures to go along with the text. And we all know how BORING those are. So I waited until I had internet access, which is today.

Tuesday we finished a lot of our projects. No, we didn't get the wall built, but we got as far as we could. I don't think that we could have gotten any more done on the wall than we did. The only way would have been if we didn't have the half day of re-digging the trench, but still, that equates to about another ten rows of block maybe?

So the final post is this. I don't want to finish this thing only talking about The Pits and not mentioning any of the other projects. Between our two groups, there were roughly 60 of us that went down to work. There were just over 30 in our group and 30 in the first group. Between the two groups we represented 28 churches.

Here are some of the other projects that were completed while we were there.

The cabinets that Jim, Bernie, and Steve built.

One section that was repainted by the painting crew.

The wall and ceiling that was sheet rocked. Before we started there was no ceiling and particle board for walls. Now it's a classroom.

Some of the sewing crew that made aprons for the cooks and drapes for all the windows in the houses we were staying in.

The wall right outside our houses that was first scrubbed down, painted white, then beautified by Vicki and one of the Sue's.

Here's where we left the wall. As you can see there's only about nine rows laid. But like I said, we couldn't get any farther than this.

And here's the crew of Group II.

We flew out of San Jose at around 3 pm. Connected in Charlotte and made it back to MSP right after midnight. We pulled into Heron Lake at 4:15am. I've been worthless for the past couple days, but am now rested up.

Final thoughts on Costa Rica:

The mission trip was phenomenal. It was very well planned and organized. We had a great crew that worked well together. We completed many projects and left the wall at a good place to be finished for the next crew.

It was a great learning experience for me. I've never been out of the country (save for Canada, and then it was only to Winnepeg). It was very educational to be put into a place where I didn't speak the language and had to make due. Sure we had interpreters for some of the time, but there were other times where we had to figure out how to communicate. Also, we saw a fair amount of poverty, especially when we went to Los Guidos. The discussions that evening were largely about how people couldn't believe the poverty they saw and that it struck a deep chord and desire to help these people. The point was brought up that even though the poverty in Los Guidos is so evident, it's not too far from what we see in our home towns. No, there's no tun roof shanty neighborhoods in Worthington. But there are still families that have no income, live in questionable housing and go to bed each night on the floor wondering when and where their next meal is going to come from. Sure we have a better social system set up to try and provide for these people, but it's still here. There are still families in Worthington that are searching each and every day for any sliver of security in their homes. Poverty and injustice may have different faces and people in Costa Rica as opposed to Worthington, but the problems are still there. At the very least, the mission trip to Costa Rica reignited my call to service within Worthington. No, I don't think that we will ever be able to cure poverty. But there's still a need for people to feed the hungry their fish to put at bay their hunger now. And also there's a need to teach the hungry how to fish, so they can eliminate their hunger for the future. Are we willing to take the first steps against poverty? Well that's a question we each need to answer for ourselves.

-Kyle

Day #13: Call me Bender

2010-02-22T20:59:00.000-06:00

Today was a good day. It kind of sucked that my arms were sunburnt. The morning was close to unbearable. It was warmer than normal, sunny, and not an ounce of breeze. We finished pouring the foundation that we had blocked out.

Barb and Dennis looking at our morning work.

When we were gone on Friday, Wegner and Wilber put a finish coat on the wall that was done. Only problem was that no one was around to water the wall to keep it from drying too fast. So what happened was that there were some areas that didn't stick like they were supposed to. So today, some of the guys got to knock off the unstuck finish coat. But it wasn't all for loss because they were then able to get two of the sections completely finished. It looks pretty good. I'm excited to see the finished wall. Unfortunately we're not going to be around when it is finished.

Wilber, Dan, and Wegner finishing the wall.

This afternoon we were lucky enough to get some cloud cover blown in and the wind picked up so it wasn't AS miserable in the pits. I spent the afternoon bending rebar to make yet another form for the wall. I got done with that and went to see what the rest of the crew was working on over at the wall. Where the footer was dried they started laying a couple rows of block. It was kind of cool to see the wall actually coming to fruition after days of digging and pouring in the trench. Tomorrow we'll probably be laying block all day (unless Wilber has other ideas, which oftentimes is the case).

I know it doesn't seem like much, but a lot of us were hoping to see this point. Wegner and Dan laying the first row of block.

Most of the other projects that our team has been working on are coming to a close. The ceiling team (which if you remember, I was on for all of one day) has gotten as far as they can go. They got the ceiling up, mudded, and sanded.

The painting team is done with the areas that were alotted them at the beginning of the trip. Now they're on to "bonus" painting.

Clyde and Dennis put up the metal basketball nets that we brought down.

Jim Hvistendal and Steve are finishing up with their storage cabinets that they've been building. They're also going to get the First Aid cabinet and a recycle bin built before tomorrow, noon.

Vicki only has about an hour's worth of painting to finish her mural that's right outside our houses.

The sewing group has made drapes for all the windows in our houses and are in the process of fixing three sewing machines from Los Guidos. Los Guidos Methodist Church has a sewing ministry that they're just starting. Only thing is is that three of the four sewing machines are broken. So they brought them over and we're going through them.

Overall, we're accomplishing as much as we can in our short two week trip. No we're not going to see the completion of the wall. But we never came in thinking that we could get that far. We just wanted to be able to lay some block. And tomorrow that's what we're doing.

We're all starting the beginning processes of packing and getting organized. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get everything packed again. Either way, I'm going to miss Costa Rica, but I really miss being home. Maybe in the future my family will be able to come down with me. And then we'll see the finished playground.

The Southern Prairie District Crew in front of the Wall.

-Kyle

Day #12: Burnt to a crisp.

2010-02-21T23:01:00.001-06:00

Well, it was going to happen...it might as well have been today. I finally got miserably sun burnt today. We were up in Monteverde this morning yet. About ten of us went out or a horse back tour of an area farm that had sugar cane, coffee trees, herbs, and other things. It was family operated and a family farm. Only thing was is that it's been hovering in the low 70's the whole time we were up in Monteverde that sunscreen wasn't even on the radar. Of course I've been out of sunscreen since about day 5 and have been mooching off of Gordon for the past week. Well, today I didn't think of it and of course it was hot and sunny all day. We were less than halfway done with the horse ride and I knew that I was going to get burnt. Luckily I had a hat on, so my face didn't get burnt. Only my arms and my neck a little.

So about the horse ride. Now I've been on a couple of horse rides in my day. Mostly before I graduated high school. So it's been a while since I've saddled up. But one thing I vividly remember about the horse rides is that one, we ALWAYS wore helmets, and two, we went so slow that snails would pass us flicking the bird. So when I signed up for the horseback coffee tour I wasn't too worried about Ole Seabiscuit.

So we get out to the farm, there's a bunch of saddled horses standing around, nothing out of the ordinary. We get in the building and they ask us to sign a "I promise not to sue" waiver, again it didn't surprise me. So now into the helmet line...oh wait. There were no helmets. No worries we'll probably be going super slow, I don't need a helmet anyways. So we're outside waiting to saddle up. While we were waiting, a rather ambitious horse (who later I find out is named Humilde) starts trotting away and the workers have to go run down. I made some quick joke to Clyde that that was his horse. Hardy har har. So the worker walks Humilde back up to the group and guess what...yep, he signale me over to mount up. Oh great, I've signed a waiver, no helmet, and I'm riding a barely tame rodeo horse that's going to buc me three ways from Friday. I love you babe, but it doesn't look like Daddy's comin' home!

I get saddled up, no poblem. Humilde turns out to be a great follower, once saddled up we're standing with the crowd. No the leader is getting saddled up and will probably give us about five or ten minutes of pointers as to how to control this monster I'm sitting on...oh...nope, he just makes a "Follow Me!" gesture and we're OFF! It's okay, I'm sure the trail is no big deal...probably really flat, we'll be going slow...I'll be fine. Well we come around the first corner and start heading down a hill that litterally looks like this \. Not good, but me and Humilde made it. It was a pretty shaky start, but I'm still on top and the train is going slow. Well, remember when I said my trusty steed was a good follower? It turns out that when the horse he's following starts galloping, Humilde decides it'll be fun to see if this unequipped, untrained, newbie of a handler can hang on for dear life. Sure enough, without warning, Huimilde takes off after the horse she's following. It wasn't too far, but it was up a hill like this / and when it was over my eyes went from this oo to this OO. Luckily the lead handler's daughter (probably no more than 14) rode up beside me and explained in spanish, "I'm terribly sorry for our inadequate equipment and training. But I will not let our downfall as an entertainment company deminish your capacity to be entertained on this ride. I will do everything in my power to make it right. Including, but not limited to, riding slowly in front of your fare steed to ensure his speed is agreeable to your level of comfort. And yes there are going to be some very difficult hills and passes, but through my expert experience and ability to lead, we will make it out the other side without you feeling like your life has been endangered any more than it already has." I'm sure that's what she said. I mean I don't speak spanish...very little spanish. And I can't put more than three words together to form a sentance in spanish. But I'm positive it's what she said.

Well anyways, with the young godsend of a horse handler limiting Humilde's speed, we made it to the top of the mountain that overlooks Monteverde. AND we even made it back in one piece. Final word on the horseback ride? It was AMAZING!!! It's always an amazing thing to feel like you're putting your life out there. I mean there were some parts of the trails that had a sharp grade off the edge that if you would have fallen off that side, you'd be rolling down quite a ways. But how else do you get to see the grand views and landscapes? Sometimes beauty just requires a moderate about of risk.

Before getting on the horses.

Up one of the easy sections of the trail.

At the top of the mountain overlooking Monteverde.

So the horses were cool, but after we got back the family fed us. We weren't expecting it. But we got some traditional Costa Rican rice and chicken served with fresh pineapple, watermelon, and cabbage salad. It was great. Then it was to the back to see their family farm operations.

Sugar cane one the left and the foreground right. Herbs further back.

This farm was cool. The family owns about 100 Hectares (which is just under 2.5 acres per hectare). Of which we saw about 60% of it on the horse's back. When we walked back behind the house we saw more of what they did. Their little family has a small sugra cane and coffee tree operation. They also grow a fair amount of herbs and some rooted vegetables like radishes. When we got back to the shed, the farmer's wife was back there roasting beans on an open flame, then grinding them in a small hand grinder, then boiling water and using an old coffee maker. It was a pretty cool thing to see the whole process. And the coffee was one of the best cups I've ever had! It just tasted to clean.

Roasting the beans, boiling the water. The grinder is right in the middle. The coffee maker is to the left on the table.

Making coffee. To the left is sugar that was made from this farm's sugar cane.

Also in the shed, they had an old sugar cane press and an old distiller. The sugar cane press took two people to run it and it operated just like an old clothing ringer, put them through and ring them out. The amazing thing is that in each piece of sugar cane, there is about 1 liter of water. They ran two canes through the press together, five times and each time the same amount of water came out. Then they served it to us as pure sugar cane juice and wow. It tasted like pure sugar with the aftertaste of fresh vegetables picked directly from the garden.

Getting the juice out of the cane using a machine that's 60 years old.

THEN, they showed us how the distiller worked and served us up some of that. What they do with the distiller is juice some sugar cane, take the juice in a canister and place it in the shade for 8 days. Then they bring it inside and start a small fire underneath it and let it slowly cook. It takes about 3 or 4 hours to finish, but eventually the newly made liqour drips out the spout like a coffee maker. And talk about feeling the burn. They served us just a small swallow, but it burned all the way down...and then kept burning. We asked what the usual alcohol content was and the farmer said roughly 70%...yep, it sure tasted like it.

The cane juicer in the foreground, the distiller in the aft.

Overall our tour today was very interesting. It was cool to see two major parts of Costa Rican agriculture in the coffee and sugar cane. Also, it was neat to learn about how they were doing things more than 50 years ago. A little history never hurt anywone.

The rest of the day was spent on the bus coming home. We got back to our houses around 6pm, ate, had devos, and we were left to do what we do. Tomorrow we're back in The Pits to nock off day 6 of 7 work days. Tehn Tuesday we work, then pack, and Wednesday we hop on the steel bird to come back to our darlings.

-Kyle

ps-I've update Day 11 with pictures. I didn't have any pics from Day 10...we were driving all day.

Day 11: Living in a cloud forest

2010-02-20T15:51:00.002-06:00

Today´s been pretty cool. It started early this morning, we were on the bus from our hotel to get into Monteverde for breakfast. It was the normal scrambled eggs, toast, and of course rice and beans. It wasn´t bad. After that a group of us went up to take the Sky tour. We went on the Sky Tram which is like an enclosed ski lift. Only thing was is that we were about 400 feet off the ground at the highest point. It was kind of a bummer because it was cloudy at the top of the mountain today. So we couldn´t see very far, but it was still quite the experience. I´m not too afraid of heights, but when were were at the precipice there was a big gust of wind of about 30 mph that hit us from the side. When you´re that high up and the thing starts swinging side to side...your hearts starts beating and you grab onto anything that´s solid. When we got to the top we found out that in order to build the tram, they hauled everything up on the backs of men. They would strap pieces on and hike up the mountain. It took almost two years to build the thing because of this. They didn´t want to disrupt the cloud forest around it by building a ATV path or truck path, so the backs of men was the only thing left.

The Worthington Crew at the top of the Sky Tram. It started pulling away right as we were taking the picture. That's why Gordon looks kind of wierd.

Up the mountain and into a cloud on the Sky Tram.

Then we were on to the Sky Walk that took us over five suspension bridges that went through the cloud forest. You might be asking, why it is called a cloud forest. Two reasons, one the elevation. We were at about 5000 ft above sea level. Second the precipitation. This cloud forest gets about 12 ft of rain a year, the Costa Rican rain forest gets 24 ft a year. It was a cool hike. We learned a lot about tarzan swings, the ecosystem, and we even saw some monkeys. The highest bridge that we went across was 150 ft. above the ground. And when the wind blew, you held on.

One of the monkeys we saw in the Cloud Forest.

Then we were off to Salvatura which is another 2 km up the mountain. When we got up there we went into the butterfly garden. It was pretty amazing seeing the different varieties of Costa Rican butterflies. They had hatcheries, and our guide was really good.

Butterfly garden hatchery.

Then we were off to the humming bird garden. I tried to get close to them and got about 18 inches away. I took some blurry pictures. There wasn´t a guide this time, so it was just us there, watching, getting dive-bombed by humming birds.

If you look close you can see some humming birds close to the feeders. Clyde was about 18 inches from it and getting dive bombed in the process.

Tonight some people are going in to the Children´s Eternal Rain Forest. I decided against it since tomorrow we´re going on a coffee plantation tour and horseback riding. The Children´s Eternal Rain Forest is a section of about 50,000 acres of rain forest that was bought and made into a preserve. Dr. Hedstrom does a lot of work out of there.

Today was a great day, I´ll try and post pics tomorrow night when we get back to Carrillos.

Day 10: Trucker´s burn and a Fearless Carlos.

2010-02-20T15:50:00.001-06:00

Friday was a LONG day in the bus. We spent the better part of the day driving up to Monteverde. The thing with driving in Costa Rica isn´t that it´s long distances between town or locations. It´s just that the roads are so windy and the speed limit is no more than 60 km an hour. So it takes a LOT of time getting from A to B. Also the trip up to Monteverde is a one way in and one way out type of deal. And once you get to the mountains it turns into gravel...and a lot of switchbacks and long drops. And then when you think you´ve gotten to the top...you go higher and higher and higher. The view of the bay only gets better and better the higher you go up becase you´re getting a better and better viewpoint. When we finally got to the top of the hill and into Monteverde we all breathed a sigh of releif as we were back on hard top roads.

Monteverde was founded in the 1950´s by a group of about 50 Quakers that came from Alabama. They left Alabama to avoid the peace-time draft. They pretty much found a piece of land that no one claimed or owned and said, ¨This is ours.¨¨ and now there´s Monteverde. There are some families that basically claimed over 500 acres of land just by saying so. Still today there is a good population of Quakers that live on the land.

First we went to eat, then we made a couple of stops. The first was to the CASEM Co-op. CASEM is an organization formed to give Costa Rican women a way to utilize their craftmanship skills and gain financial independence. Everything that they sell at the Co-op is hand made by Costa Rican women. It´s not like a sweat shop or anything. There´s everything from beadwork jewelry, to hand sewn table clothes, to hand painted portraits. It´s a very interesting place to be.

Next we were off the to Monteverde Cheese Factory. Unfortunately we came in at the end of the day and couldn´t get a tour. BUT there was a tour ending when we got there an I got in on some juicy facts. One is that they do just over $15 million worth of sales each year...and less than 1% of that is to the U.S. Almost all of it is to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. Not bad for a cheese factory tucked into the back 40 of Costa Rica.

After that we checked in to our hotel, then grabbed a good lunch at a hole in the wall restaraunt. Then I took two games of three handed Cribbage from Clyde and Steve M. It was a long day, but a good day.

-Kyle

Day #9: Meeting Hank Hill and throwing cement.

2010-02-18T21:00:00.000-06:00

First off...I met Hank Hill today. The only difference is that the real Hank Hill was from Arlen, Tx. The Hank Hill I met today was not. Ok, so here's what happened. This morning I woke up a little bit earlier (6:30 instead of 6:55). I was sitting out at the table in my morning grog, waiting for the IB to kick in when this man and lady walk down to our house. He introduces himself as Don from Texas. Honest to God, this guy talks like Hank, walks like Hank, stands like Hank...he's Hank Hill. He talked about things that happened in "Jew-Lie" and said stuff like, "Hawsit goan?" Not to make fun of his accent...but there's no doubt he's from Texas. So Hank and Peggy are here until we leave. Down to help out on their own dime. Taking a week of their life and helping us out. It's good, we've adopted them into our team just like we adopted Stan at the beginning of our trip (he left Monday).

Wow we got a lot done today. All morning we were cutting, forming, and tying rebar for the slab in the bottom of the trench. By lunch we were able to get the final pieces tied in to where we wanted to pour. This afternoon we were able to pour, pour, and pour cement. We got almost done with what we had blocked out. For a short while we were down to only one mixer because Jim and Scott were taking a different formula of cement up to a clinic on a hill behind the school to fill in a damaged handicap ramp. So I guess if there are people that will now get into the clinic that couldn't before, it's okay that we didn't get the slab exactly where we wanted it. BUT, we still got a LOT done. I was talking with Bernie and Dennis (trip assistant and leader, respectively) later this afternoon and they both said that we don't usually get that much done in one day on any one project. I think even Wilber and Wagner were surprised we got that far. We did have about 20 minutes left at the end of the day to do another mix, but everyone was gassed and we didn't have any more bags of cement close to the mixers. It's not that they weren't on site, but they're each 50 kgs and extremely awkward to lift. Usually we load three bags in a wheel barrow and wheel them up to the mixers. But it'll all be waiting for us Monday morning.

Gordon watering the wall. It gets so hot in the sun that the concrete and wall have to be watered down each day (sometimes multiple times a day) to keep it from drying too fast and becoming brittle.

Tanya tying the rebar in the trench. The verticle ones are threaded through the cinder blocks and sure up the wall. The flat mesh are for the foundation for the wall.

Pouring concrete. What do you do when you don't have a chute? Improvise.

Two mixers going full bore again. Clyde filling Scott's barrow.

Today was probably the least humid day since we've been down here. Here's a good shot from the pool. You could see the distant mountains really well today.

Tomorrow we're off to Monteverde. It's going to be a sort of break for three days for us. But it's also going to be highly educational for us. We'll be right in the rain forest at Monteverde. Costa Rica used to be almost entirely covered in rain forests. At the beginning of the 20th century the country still had 67% of its rain forests. By the latter part of the 20th century they were down to 17%. So to go into the rain forest is to get a good feel of Costa Rican history and landscape. Also, ecotourism is the biggest money maker for the country, so our trip up there also helps out the Costa Rican economy. In fact, when we go anywhere from our houses and work sites, we always take the same bus with the same driver. On the side there's the word "Tourismo". Basically it's a tourist bus. Everywhere we go people are waving at the bus, welcoming us.

I'll have more to report tomorrow. Since the work today was kind of redundant and the same thing that we've done in the past, I don't feel the need to go into any more detail.

Good news! Ron got his stitches out today. We have two nurses and a physical therapist on this trip, and they've had their work cut out for them. If you want to pray for us, pray for healing and endurance. We have Ron with his head (and later leg), Phyllis hurt her thumb and has it wrapped, one of the Susans (there's three) has a bum shoulder, one of the Jims is sick, Jill is better now but still not 100%...it's been a world of hurt the past couple days. So pray for us to make it through our trip to Monteverde and then the last two work days in good shape.

More tomorrow.

-Kyle

Day #8: Los Guidos Methodist Church

2010-02-17T21:16:00.000-06:00

Wow today was fun. We went to Los Guidos which is SW or San Jose. Los Guidos is a shante town made up of mostly undocumented people from Nicaragua and other countries. To give you an idea of the town, Los Guidos is made up of 13 sectors. Each sector is about 3 blocks squared. Within each sector there is roughly 1,000 children. Los Guidos is just under 4,000 square meters and holds over 20,000 people. So, over population is a huge issue. Also, with the decline in the world's economy, unemployment has run rampant. The people that live in Los Guidos are usually workers that do the undesirable jobs of Costa Rica (sound familiar?) like harvesting sugar cane, working long hours for little pay. Along with the huge issue of poverty, there is a large gang population in Los Guidos which brings into play: drugs, violence, prostitution, etc.

We were working with the Los Guidos Methodist Church. I originally had stated that we were working with an orphanage, but rather it was only a feeding program started and operated by the pastor at the church. When we showed up, the pastor sat with us and explained what they did there. He also explained that this morning, people from the government showed up and decided that one of the buildings that they use are topographically dangerous. Meaning, they were worried it was going to fall down the hill. Later Charlie explained to us that more than likely it was the work of a lady that has wanted to shut the church down. The issue with this house and where it was, is that in Los Guidos there is such a problem with over population that almost all of their population is comprised of squatters. So, if someone wants to make waves in the community, they just have to call into question the ownership of the land. And if those people don't have the deeds to the land they're living on, their houses get dismantled and they have to leave. As it was with this house that the church was using for its children's program, there was no deed to the land. So they took the house down. The same person that had the house dismantled, for some reason, wants to shut down the church. But the church has the deed to their land, so she can't do anything. Either way, the pastor was full of grief today, but you could tell that he was fully relying on God.

We helped feed the kids today, serving them their food. Right now Pastor Ponce has about 100 kids on his roles that he usually feeds breakfast and lunch. They were back in school last week so we only fed the younger ones. He would like to eventually be able to feed 120, but as it is his budget is already stretched to the max. Even when he feeds 100 there's barely much more than some rice and beans for the kids. BUT, that's more than what they would get at home.

After the meal the kids came into the church and did a short program. It was tons of fun.

Tomorrow we're back in The Pits. We'll probably going to be pouring cement all day...w00t...I guess.

Here's some pictures from Los Guidos:

Los Guidos Methodist Church

The Worthington crew with Pastor Edgar Ponce.

Barb and Dennis Glad serving kids lunch.

And now the kids...

More tomorrow!

-Kyle

Day #7: An education and a sun tan.

2010-02-16T22:03:00.000-06:00

First off...we baked today. There wasn't any breeze until about 11 am...so that meant we sizzled in the sun. Second off, Corrine asked me a good question in an email today: Do you have a guess as to what God really wanted you to see on this trip?

To answer your question. I'm not sure exactly why God wanted me down here. The biggest thing that I've noticed since being here is how egocentric we are as Americans. Living in a world other than the States has opened my eyes to the rest of the world. It bothers me how in our news we don't hear anything unless it pertains to our country. Why? Is there nothing else happening in the world? No, but we don't think it applies to us. I feel vastly under-educated while being here because I'm not bilingual. It seems there are more and more people willing to learn english in the world than Americans willing to learn other languages. I've already seriously considered trying to teach myself more spanish if we come back next year. I mean they are teaching kids in 1st grade down here some basic phrases in english. We didn't get any spanish until high school. So basically, I'm as bilingual as a 1st grader in Costa Rica...kinda sad. Another thing that I've really been opened up to is all the vanity that we have in America. When we flew in we flew over rusted tin roofs. And I remember thinking to myself, "These poor (as in poor in spirit, not wealth) people, they have nothing." But since we've been working with them and interacting with them, it's not like that. It's just how it is down here. And it's not bad that maybe their roofs are rusted (which is more likely because they get 14 feet of rain each year) or that the cement isn't as perfect as we see in the states. It's just how their society is. They don't have the "Poor me poor me" attitude, they're content with what they have. And actually they are VERY family oriented. The other day in church there were a few small children that were literally being passed around from mother to mother. Older mothers to younger mothers. Younger mothers to old mothers. And the kids embraced each mother as their own. I truly think that their community is stronger than most of America's because the neighborhoods are so closely connected with each other.

Ok, today's events...simply put...I poured cement...all day. I did a little of the re-rod work later this afternoon, but only for about a half hour before the day was over. Tomorrow we're to the orphanage. I'm really looking forward to it.

A shot of the finished wall cap. They pulled the forms off this morning.

They did finally finish digging the trench today. You can kind of see the small trench within the trench. About halfway up in this picture they have a form that we were filling concrete on the outsides of. The brown concrete we were using was just a leveller so we can lay a good slab maybe Thursday or Monday.

Barry, Phyllis, Ron and Clyde working on more wall cap rebar. On the left is the rebar mesh we're going to put in the bottom of the trench. There are vertical pieces of rebar that will be tied in once we get it in the trench. But eventually it'll make it into the trench and be covered with concrete.

This is what I'll most likely be looking at our last three work days...cement mixer.

We had Dr. Ingemar Hedstrom and his daughter come and give a short presentation on their work. Dr. Hedstrom is an ecobiologist working in the rain forrests in Costa Rica. He talked breifly about the dangers of losing the rain forrests. But for me the more interesting part of the whole ordeal was his daughter's work. She's an anthropologist that works with the Cabecar Indians in Costa Rica. She has been here for 15 years, from Sweden, trying to educate the Cabecar tribes. The problem is that the tribes are not modernized. They are very isolated from the rest of Costa Rica and live in the rain forrests. It's not that they don't want anything to do with education. But to get a teacher from the state school to come out and teach takes about two days of travel through the forrests. BUT, Dr. Hedstrom's daughter (and I refer to her as that because I forgot her name...Mirian or something) has finished (with help) writing reading and writing books for the Cabecans for grades 1 through 4. The problems that she's had through the years is that the Cabecans are very much an oral history tribe. They have never had the need for writing and reading because all of their stories and history has been passed down through storytelling. So finally they're starting to get educated on reading and writing.

The most interesting part is how both Dr. Hedstrom and his daughter were very adamant about bringing up good, uncorrupted leaders in Costa Rica. And how in order to do that they're going to have to come from the Costa Rican church. The problem is that because of different politics, the leaders have been coming up from outside of the church and have been corrupted by outside influences. And when they were saying corrupted and non-corrupted, they were talking about the current leaders in Costa Rica have many special interests that fulfill their needs. But good, uncorrupted leadership that leads to better the country as a whole instead of just for a certain people group. It was interesting some of the parallels we can make with our own country.

-Kyle

Day #6: The Pits or The Trenches

2010-02-15T20:41:00.000-06:00

Well, as expected I was moved back to the playground (or as what's been commonly called "The Pits" or "The Trenches" by our team). We had two cement mixers going and we got the cap to the wall poured to the corner. Dan Hurley and I mixed the cement, we'd then get about five wheel barrows full our of each mixer, barrow it over to the wall where it would then be shovelled into buckets and lifted to the top of the wall. The two guys at the top of the wall would pour it and make sure all the air bubbles were out. We got it poured rather quickly and were able to get all the concrete equipment cleaned up and finish backfilling with rock by lunch. After lunch five of us were back into the trench to finish digging the narrower trench within the trench. It only had to go down about 4-6 inches and was 12 inches across. With the pick axes, shovels and buckets we made pretty good progress. We were about halfway to the end when Wilber pulled me off the trench team to mix more cement. We started laying the subfoundation for the first two sections in the trench. Tomorrow it sounds like it's going to be more trencing and mixing and pouring. It should move pretty quick. That's the one thing with concrete in hot sunny weather, you have to move fast or it dries before it's in place. Overall it was a great day. We got a lot done.

Dan Hurley and Gordon waiting for th concrete to mix up.

Filling up buckets to be lifted up to the cap.

Dumping the extra concrete into the trench.

Finished wall cap. No it's not pretty, but that's how the do it down here.

Tomorrow we'll probably be able to take the forms off of the wall cap sections we poured today. I'll be sure to get pictures of that.

For lunch tomorrow we're going to have Dr. Hedstrom, an ecobiologist and professor whose focus is on eco-theology, come in to talk with us. It should be very interesting.

Well that's all that happened today. It's shorter, but today flew by. Tomorrow is the one week mark. Then Wednesday we're going to southern San Jose to feed some children at an orphanage.

Day #5: Rest on Sunday

2010-02-14T22:06:00.000-06:00

This morning we went to the local Methodist church. It's a church that doesn't have a building quite yet, but they have a metal skeleton structure to worship in. It was pretty nice...outdoor church! The service reminded me a lot of the services at Christ's Gospel in Bemidji. VERY charismatic. VERY energetic. There was some people that walked up to the front and prostrated themsleves in the front. There were others that were slain in the spirit. There was a bunch of worship dancing. It was pretty cool. For the sermon they had someone translate it so we could understand. No translator for the worship, but honestly the message and experience was beyond language.

The sign over the front gate.

The metal frame chruch building.

The Sunday School building next to the church.

Inside the sanctuary.

The entrance to the sanctuary. Yes, all of these seats are pretty well filled when the service starts.

Later tonight we had a discussion about the service after supper. Like expected, there were people that were very uncomfortable with the people that were slain in the spirit. A lot of people didn't like how loud the music was (and it was on the loud side...but I didn't think it was too loud). We started a discussion about the authenticity or not with those that were slain (and I only saw two, so it wasn't like people were falling all over the place). There were a lot of people that were skeptical and thought it was too much of a distraction. But they also thought that the people that were dancing were too distracting. A quote from one person, "I guess I'm just too German to worship like that." My thought is, sure it may make one uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean it's not authentic. In all honesty, we will never no how authentic it was, and it's none of our business. It's one very personal experience that is between the person and the Holy Spirit. Do I think that being slain or speaking in tongues brings salvation? No. But it IS one aspect of worship that cannot be denied if led by God to do so.
What was also frustrating was how there was a lot of people that enjoyed the energy that was running through the service and the church. They liked the freedom of worship that was there. But then they said something to the effect of, "But that'll never happen in my church." Basically, "I love what I experienced, but I'm not going to do anything to change things back home." When will people wake up? Does all worship have to be like this? No. But worship should always be as free as it was today. No matter what form it takes, we are called to worship freely.
Other than that, I played cribbage with Clyde and the Steves all afternoon. It was a good day of rest. Tomorrow we're back at it. I'm starting out in the classroom to see how far we can get with the sheet rock. Then we'll probably be ready to pour the cap for the wall in the afternoon where i'll move to the cement mixer. Hopefully it's not unbearable. But we'll make due.

Day #4 Volcan Poas et al

2010-02-13T21:59:00.001-06:00

First things first. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!! Ron Hume is okay! He got back from the hospital last night around 11pm. They did a CAT scan and said there wasn't any internal damage. He got about 10-15 stitches, Vida was super stressed, but at the end of it...'twas merely a flesh wound.

Wow was today tiring. We got started at 7:30 this morning. We got on the bus and drove and drove and drove and drove...and then we were there. We went to see Volcan Poas and Laguna Botos (Poas Volcano and Botos Lagoon). I got some pretty good pics of it. Luckily we were the first ones there. The clouds came in a little for a while, but then they cleared off and we were able to get good pictures. While we were hiking back from Laguna Botos a lot of other tourists started showing up. So it was good that we were there first. The hike up to the volcano wasn't so bad...about a mile of a slight upward grade. But then the mile hike from the volcano to the lagoon was quite a bit harder...then the hike from the lagoon back to the tourist center started out like this / and ended like this \. My legs were jelly when we got back.

The walk up to the Volcano

The Worthington crew in front of the volcano.

Laguna Botos.

After the volcano we were back on the bus and drove and drove and drove and drove to a small snack shop out in the middle of nowhere. It was good stuff. I didn't buy anything, but Gordon shared with me a little of what he got.
Then we were back on the bus and drove and drove and drove and drove until we were finally at the restaraunt in Sarchi. It was pretty good food for pretty cheap. We did a little shopping there at the shopping center. It was pretty cool to see all their stuff. They had a lot of wooden statuary.
From Sarchi we drove and drove and drove and drove to Grecia. Grecia was pretty cool. We stopped to see the Cathedral de la Marcedes in the town center. It was pretty neat because the church is made out of metal. The whole thing is wrapped in metal. I'm not sure why they chose to do that, but they did. I would have gotten some pics of the inside but there was a wedding going on and I didn't feel right going into the sanctuary while that was going on. They did have the front doors open so I got to look in.

The metal Cathedral de la Marcedes.

From there we came home. It was my night for devotions, which went well.
I know it seems a little silly to have a sight seeing day on a mission trip. But Dennis and Barbara Glad's foundation of puting a trip together is that people shouldn't feel run over when they leave. They say that people should feel as good when they leave as when they came. So we work two days and then a day off. We worked Thursday and Friday, Saturday off, Sunday off, Monday and Tuesday are work days. Then Wednesday we're going to the south side of San Jose to serve lunch to some kids at an orphanage. Then the pattern starts again. But to be perfectly honest, I was more tired today than after digging ditch for three hours. So I don't know if a day of sight seeing and shopping is really rest...oh well, it was good.

-Kyle

ps-Check out Day #3. I updated it with pictures.

Day #3: Chain Gang Practice

2010-02-12T21:11:00.001-06:00

HOLA! WOWIE WOWIE WOWIE It was HOTTTTTTT today! It actually felt hotter today than yesterday because today there was the same heat and sun...no wind. Boooo...thumbs DOWN! We started the day thinking that we were going to finish the rock behind the wall...but then Wagner (not sure if it's his real name...probably not) and Wilber (again...real name? don't know) had other ideas. The dirt wall behind where the trench was getting to the point where it might cave in. So what'd we do? Caved it in...then got the great opportunity to play chain gang and dig the trench again. So not only was it hot, but any and all wind that would blow was shielded by the dirt wall and the dirt piles. So yeah, it was sweat fest in the trench. But by only the grace of God we got that dang trench dug out again by lunch.

Wagner knocking down dirt in the trench.

Dirt in the trench.

Steve breaking up the big clay clumps with a pick axe.

After lunch I took my (apparently customary) half hour nap before getting back at it. I was chosen (because of past sheet rock experience) to head up to the school and help hang a ceiling in a small class room. I didn't get any pictures of it though because I forgot my camera on my bunk. BUT, it was WAAAYY more pleasant working inside where there was a great breeze than in the trench. Two of he five morning trenchmen got reassigned, so they didn't get too far down there with the wall trench. But there's two weeks to get that thing dug.

Tonight I found out I might get reassigned again because I'm the only one that's ever run a cement mixer on the team. Thank you Steve Bornhoft! Monday I believe we're going to be pouring the wall cap over the four sections of the wall that they finished framing today.

Tomorrow we're heading to a volcano! Should be a good day. It'll be a great day to rest and see the country a little. Don't worry, this volcano is dormant, has been for years. There IS an active volcano in Costa Rica, but we're not going to that one.

Keep Ron Hume in your prayers. He's a member of our team. He's a retired pastor that lives in Park Rapids, used to work in the Methodist church in Pipestone. When we went to the pool today, he was getting into the shower to rinse off before swimming and he slipped and fell. He's got about a 3 inch gash on the back of his head. They took him to the hospital and he's not back yet. Also, be praying for his wife Vida. She's been waiting patiently for word from the hospital or Ron...but there hasn't been any word. He WAS awake and cracking jokes before they took him, so we don't think it's serious. But all the same, Vida's pretty stressed.

That's all from down south. Oh, that reminds me. On our way to the pool, there's a guy that has a big white semi truck parked in front of his house. The funny thing is that there's Confederate flags and bald eagle heads all over it. Apparently the guy bought it in North Carolina and drove it all the way down here. I honestly don't know how he navigates the Costa Rican roads with it. But that's his ordeal I guess. I'll try and get a picture of it tomorrow.

No pics today...computer's not letting my upload them.

-Kyle

Day #2...you may as well call me Bobcat!

2010-02-11T21:28:00.000-06:00

Hola! Today it was HOT. We had a pretty good day working on the playground. We pobably won't see anywhere close to the completion of the playground. Hopefully we'll get closer to seeing more of the wall done. Today, my duties included picking up rock buckets, carrying rock buckets, lifting rock buckets, then carrying empty rock buckets back to get filled. We made it almost to the end of the wall that's up. We were back filling the wall with rock and laying a drainage pipe at the base. We should be to the end tomorrow. Then Monday we'll probably pour the top of the wall.

Here are some pics of our days events.

This is the playground. As you can see we're weeks from any sort of slide or swings going up. We won't see any fun on this playground...but that's not why we're here. The green building at the top of the hill is the school that half the team is working on various painting projects.

The wall that we lift the bucket up to.

Ron working on tying the rerod together so we can lift it up to the top of the wall.

Dennis and Clyde "inspecting" the work. You can see our buckets on the left that we filled and carried.

The walk to the lift area. Walked it hundreds of times today.

Our valiant rock throwers. They'd take the full buckets and spread the rock behind the wall. We did 8" below the pipe, layed the pipe, then another 4" above.

This is the view from the pool. The buildings you see are little luncheon areas that have charcoal grates for cooking. I'll get a picture of the pool tomorrow. It just so happened there were some not-so-modestly dressed ladies tanning on the hill behind me here...so I couldn't very well turn around and take a pic.

Overall it's been an eye opening experience. I was talking with another guy on the trip and we were talking about our hometowns and th hispanic populations therein. We both noticed (me more than him since he speaks some spanish) that when we were in our home towns, there are some first generation spanish speaking people that go into stores, don't speak a word, pay and leave. They don't speak any english. I always thought they just kept to themselves. But today I went into a store to buy something to drink, the lady at the till knew I didn't speak spanish, was gracious and typed on a calculator what I owed. It was 650 calones. I paid with a large enough bill, she gave me my change, and I was off. I didn't say a word the whole time I was there. It wasn't that I didn't want to talk with them. I do know a minimal amount of spanish. But it was more of an intimidation factor.

What really got me thinking was the minority representation in my hometown vs the "They live in America, they should speak english" camp. I know we try and accomodate non-english speaking people in Worthington. But I wonder how much we're missing out on because there's this huge language gap. It's not that they want to keep to themselves, they want to interact and have conversations. But they can't, just like I can't down here. I wonder if more people in Worthington learned spanish, would there still be the cultural barriers wthin our community? Would we be able to better approach the road blocks we encounter? Would we be better able to unite as a city, county, state, and country if we bridged th language gap?

Being on the other side of the coin is an eye opening experience...but it's been good.

More tomorrow.

-Kyle

I'm in Costa Rica!

2010-02-10T20:13:00.000-06:00

Well, we made it to Costa Rica today about 3pm. The long flight from Charlotte to San Jose wasn't too bad. The landing at Charlotte was pretty exciting though. 35-45 mph winds that were throwing us around on our approach. The plane would dip enough to throw your stomach into your throat and force you to impulsively reach for the non-existent "Oh Crap!" bar. After about the third time you realize that other people have seen you reach for this mystery bar and know that you're just a little scared as you scream towards the runway. The closer you get to the pavement, the more you're convinced that the pilot has forgotten to put the landing gear down and you're going to end up a sparking ball of flame that comes to a stop in exactly the same spot that the emergency vehicles are going to end up at....BUT then in the end you wait 20 minutes to exit the plane and board the next...unharmed in the successful landing.

Here are some pictures of our arrival in San Jose and the houses we're staying at for the next two weeks. I'll post more later.

Waiting for our bus outside the San Jose airport.

My bunk...it really felt like camp all over again.

This is our eating/devo area...outside...ROXORS.

I'm going to be working on the playground for the next two weeks. It's what I wanted to do. I DIDN'T want to be stuck painting. I know "Everything for the glory of God." But I don't think Paul ever had to wash out paint brushes in the name of Christ...and therefore probably doesn't understand how easily it is to HATE painting.

There'll be more tomorrow or the next day...probably more pictures too!

-Kyle

Fatherhood...and the next two weeks.

2010-02-07T22:10:00.000-06:00

"I have never seen two fathers that are sooo good with their babies as you two." This was said to me and a close friend today. It came from a grandmother from my church. Now it was a really nice thing to hear, and it was a compliment very well received. But as I was driving home from church today, I started thinking about this comment. Not so much that I deserved this compliment, or that it made me proud to be a father. But rather that here is a lady that has seen her fair share of fathers in her lifetime. And she has pegged my close friend and I as two of the best dads she's seen (she said this in front of her husband too!). What really struck me is what this really says about our society.

Now I know that this is one grandmother's opinion, but why isn't it common place for fathers to be fully active and involved with their infants? Why is it so strange to see fathers coddling, feeding (obviously not breastfeeding), and playing with their infants? Is it some sort of stigma that keeps fathers from engaging their newborns? Is there some sort of natural instinct that keeps fathers at bay until the little girls can play dress up, or the little boys can throw a pigskin? Is it that fathers are more than likely afraid of "breaking" their newborns?

I honestly don't know what it is. I don't know what I'm doing different. I don't know if I'm doing anything different at all. I'm just fathering the way I feel I should father. We've seen many different studies that show the importance of a father in the development of a child. We've seen studies that show emotional and psychological instability in people (not all) without any sort of present father.

So my question is, how do we change this trend? How do we, as men, change the stereotype of the absent, sports addicted, beer drinking simpleton as a father? Like in most things, the only way we can even start to change is to change ourselves first. I'm going to continue to be a different kind of father. I'm not going to be the Ray Romano or the Jim Belushi. I'm not going to be the father that works 80 hours a week to provide things to my kids. I refuse to be. Sure I like football and golf, and I love my job. But that doesn't give me an excuse to be an absent father. Once you become a father, you no longer are entitled to time away from your kids. Sure your gracious wife may give you permission to take a fishing trip with the guys (and you may give her time to go away with the gals). But once you decide to have a baby (and even though it wasn't a preferred choice, once you have unprotected sex, you're deciding on having a baby), you are a father, a daddy, a man among men. So let's strap up the steel toes, tighten the belt and start acting like one.

My 2¢.
-Kyle

PS- This week is a big week for me. First I'm going to Costa Rica on a mission trip on Wednesday. I will try and post some things about the trip while I'm down there. I'm hoping to bring my old digital camera to take some pics of the work we're doing and the people we're working with.

Also this week I start my 40 days sans internet. Sure I'm going to be posting blogs about my trip, but that along with emailing my wife are the only things I'm going to be using the internet for. You can see my blog on my fast here.

So now I will be on my way, ¡Hasta luego!

Bot Comments

2010-01-24T09:18:00.002-06:00

Sorry to everyone that hates Word Verifications for comments like I do. But I've gotten a sudden influx of bot comments that I'd rather avoid.

You Say Christmas, I say Lent

2010-01-04T09:57:00.000-06:00

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been seriously considering my use of internet. It’s not that I feel addicted to the internet or deem its use irresponsible, but it’s more along the lines of, “What am I missing because of how much I use the internet?”

I am part of the Internet Generation. I remember in the early 90’s when my elementary school first taught us how to use those fabled sites called Search Engines, and how they were the portal to anything we needed to find on the internet. I’m not sure if “Webcrawler” or “Excite” even exist anymore. But if you think of it, these were the first few steps towards knowing what a “Google” is or how to “Wiki” something (by the way, it’s ironic that Google and Wiki aren’t even picked up on my spell checker). The internet has grown to be so integrated in our lives that many younger people don’t even know what a rolodex is, and if you asked them how you use one, they’d look at you with a blank stare.

I mean when’s the last time you used a phone book to look up a phone number? Need an address? Google it. Need directions? Google it. Need a recipe? Google it. We’ve even gotten to the point where we can have any book, magazine, or album instantly. If I want to read a book I have two options, iTunes audio book or Amazon’s Kindle. If I want to listen to the new Project 86 album, I can buy it on iTunes, order it through any number of websites, or listen song-by-song on YouTube (again, YouTube isn’t picked up by spell check either). I no longer have to drive down to the music store and buy the CD/tape/record, I can instantly access it via the internet (which raises other questions as to what that’s doing to our mom-and-pop shops and our small towns’ main streets, but I won’t go into that now). So my question is, do I really need the internet that much?

There are many different positive aspects to the internet. I’m sure for every negative aspect of the internet you can find a correlating positive, but that’s beside the point. During this Christmas season I’ve been thinking a lot about Christ (as I should be). And to be perfectly honest, you shouldn’t think about Christ’s birth without also thinking about his death (you know, the reason he came in the first place). I REALLY got in the Lent/Easter mood when I was asked by our youth’s Compassion Child about how we celebrate Easter. Now my family never really gave up anything for Lent. It was in the back of our minds, and it usually ended with me not drinking pop (also known as soda or soda pop for my non-Minnesotan readers, Coke for my southern readers) for a few weeks And the purpose of the fasting was never even a blip on the radar when The Great Pop Famines were happening. So I decided this year, I’m going to take Lent seriously.

I thought about the biggest luxury in my life that could be reevaluated. And as you probably guessed, I’ve decided that the internet has to go. What I’m planning and committing to is a “Great Internet Fast” for Lent. I know a lot of people use the internet for work, as do I. So if it’s work-related, it’s okay. But I’m committing to (and hopefully some of you too) 40 days of no internet as entertainment. This means, no blogging, no Facebook, no Wikipedia games, no Podcasts, and no CNN.com (God forbid we might have to actually buy one of those—what do you call them?—oh yeah, newspapers).

But instead of just cutting out the internet, we have to include something else. All of a sudden we’re going to have a bunch of free time that can be devoted to other things. If we just leave it at cutting the internet out, more than likely we’re going to insert some other form of filler, and we will miss out on the purpose of the fast. So what could we add? How about committing to prayer, worship, family time, or any other form of personal investment into the life of others in lieu of the internet time? Remember the purpose of fasting is to cut out the distractions of life so that we can concentrate on prayer and worship.

So this is my commitment, 40 Days sans Internet.

My 2¢
-Kyle

Hey Man…wanna get high?

2009-12-16T20:04:00.001-06:00

I was talking with a friend the other day. We were catching up about various things God was doing in our lives, places God was sending us, and the really big changes God was putting us through. I talked about my job and how we’ve made a shift in our church’s youth ministry. I talked about the mission trips to Costa Rica and Canada with my church in the coming year. I talked about the birth of Melody and everything that goes along with being a dad and how it’s the best job ever. He talked about some big Christian event that he’d been to this past year. He talked about a pilgrimage he’s thinking about doing in the next year. He talked about possibly moving to another state because of the “Big Things” God was doing in that area. When our coffee cups were dry, we’d talked for a couple hours and, to be perfectly honest, I was a little jealous of the things he was doing or wanted to do. Now I know that going to Costa Rica isn’t anything to shake a stick at, but still—it seemed like he was going to do “Big Things” with God, and I felt a little left out.

Well, a couple days passed and our conversation ran through my head over and over and over again. I finally asked God, “Why can’t you let me do big things like him? Why am I stuck here in Southwestern Minnesota? Nothing’s going on here except potlucks and lutefisk.”

And that’s when God said something to the effect of, “Aren’t I here also? Isn’t my church here in Minnesota? Can’t I do big things here?”

Mark one up for the big guy—he’s right…again.

So I started thinking more about the big things that my friend was going to do. Each different thing that he had talked about would cause him to travel. Each event was in a different state at a different time. Each different thing promised “Big Things” from God. And they did sound pretty sweet. But why did my friend feel the need to do each of these things? He would need to go to an event that claimed, “God is moving in (insert state here)!” in State A. Then he’d have to go to State B that was claiming that God was doing the exact same thing there. And then during the summer go on the pilgrimage in State C that promised that you’d find God over there. All the while I was thinking, “If God is moving so much, God must be sponsored by U-Haul but doesn’t own a map since he ends up alone in the foothills of Appalachian Mountains.”

So why did my friend decide to try and find God all over the country? My best guess is because he’s addicted. That’s right—he’s addicted to the high he receives when he goes to these big events. Now I’ve been to a few of these big events - they are cool and you do feel a huge emotional connection to God in the sea of Christians all worshipping together - but I believe that it’s this massive rush of emotion, that is largely addictive.

You may be thinking, “But doesn’t God call us to worship as one? Weren’t we created to worship?” Well, yes. But we were also created to love, serve, and disciple. The issue of going to all of these places to find the next best thing is that while you’re on the road, going from place to place, where’s your ministry? Sure God might be doing big things with you, but what about the big things God could have been doing through you if you’d stayed home? They’re not there. The Big Things never happen. And because they never happen, something else has been allowed to creep in.

This “Next Big Thing” trend is really coming down to Christian Consumerism. Instead of approaching church as a community we can contribute to, church has become a large event that is going to give us something, but eventually, the high will wane. Due to the Law of Diminishing Returns, eventually you won’t be able to even FEEL like you’re worshipping anymore. And where does that leave your faith? Picture yourself at the end of the road called life after spending the entire time growing to BE something, but never DOING anything. If I remember correctly, Jesus tells us to BE love and also to DO love.

Do I think that things like the “One Thing” or “Dare 2 Share” are wrong? No, they have great ministries. But when your faith revolves around these big events, there is no relationship, no intimacy, no charity. If we truly want to worship freely and see God do Big Things, we should stay put. Take up residence. See what you can do for your town. BECOME part of your community. If you want to truly see the face of God, you need to invest yourself into your church instead of searching for your next big emotional high.

My 2¢.

-Kyle

The Greatest Anti Depressant

2009-12-01T09:55:00.000-06:00

The other day I was bummed. I think it was the combination of a long, busy weekend, short nights and many other life happenings. Things that, when confronted, are easily dissipated, but emotionally taxing when combined into one weekend. The weekend was one I'd known would be busy. I'd know there would be a lot responsibilities, but other things happened that pushed my stress level to the max. So there I was, lugging myself into work: tired, worn out, and slight depressed. Since I’d gotten through the long, dreaded weekend, I could finally take a breather. Well, I looked at my schedule and found it somewhat full of planning, rescheduling, odd jobs, and of course…Meals on Wheels.

It’s not that I didn’t want to do Meals on Wheels. Rather I wish I hadn’t volunteered for it THAT week with everything that’s on my schedule. When you sign up, it’s a full week of delivering meals. I thought to myself, “How am I supposed to drop everything and go do these meals now?” Well, to get to the point, I will never ever try and get out of Meals on Wheel again.

I’d had a bummer of a week ahead of me, but after the first day of delivering meals had brightened everything up. You see, delivering meals to the elderly gets you out of your office and with people. And these people aren’t sluffs that waste your time. No, these people are the gems of God’s kingdom. I love delivering meals to the elderly. It was just the thing to get me out of my beginning-of-the-week funk and refocus my goals for the week. AND, it only takes roughly a half an hour.

So I wonder, why did delivering meals turn my week around? What makes life so much better now as opposed to an hour ago? The only conclusion I can come to is this: we were meant to be relational beings. Sitting in my office, getting the “work” done, doesn’t necessarily accomplish anything. Especially as youth pastors, it’s easy to get lost in the planning of programs or trips or whatever else we fill our schedule with. Without taking time to get out of your office and meet with people, you’re driving yourself further away from what ministry really is. No, I’m not the best at this, and yes I spend way too much time in my office. But I think it’s something that we almost have to plan for…to get out of our offices. And if you’re going to get out of your office, why not volunteer somewhere?

My advice is this: get out of your office and volunteer. I know not everybody has the luxury of a Youth Pastor’s flexible schedule, but if you’re in a job where you can take a little longer lunch breaks, maybe Meals on Wheels would be a good addition to your week. And it will get the grumps out.

-Kyle

Why Do Fundamentalists Hate Rob Bell?

2009-11-23T16:09:00.000-06:00

From the title of this post, I probably have alienated all of my Fundamentalist reader(s), but that wasn’t my intension. If you’re a Fundamentalist and still read my stuff, you must really hate me. I imagine you are taking notes on everything that I’m wrong about, and you are waiting for the perfect time to spew many comments of disapproval all over my blog. Or perhaps you are a Fundamentalist with an open mind and, therefore, a walking contradiction. And so, if you are still reading this post, let’s get onto the meat of the subject: Rob Bell…the heretic?

What you shouldn’t expect from this post: the equivalent to a Rob Bell TeenMag article stating, “Rob Bell is SOOO dreamy… and available! XOXOXO”; statements why he is theologically superior to everyone else; or any claims of “Modern Day Prophet” or the equivalent.

I like Rob Bell, I like Nooma, I like Rob Bell’s books, and, Lord willing, I hope to someday attend a service at Mars Hill Church in Michigan. Now I’ve liked Bell for a while. I was first exposed to the Nooma videos at the National Youth Workers Convention in Anaheim in 2006. What was presented was Nooma Video 14, “Breathe”. What struck me were the compelling implications of such a simple idea. It’s like the message was there the entire time and was just waiting to jump out and grab me.

Since I’ve been working in the church, I have used a few Nooma videos on occasion. What follows are deep conversations about aspects of faith, what it means to love, what it means to serve, and other topics that sometimes get swept under the carpet or not fully explored. I’ve had youth ask when we’re going to do more Nooma videos. So not only do I enjoy the videos, but the youth enjoy them AND the deep conversations that follow.

Enter Nooma video #9, “Bullhorn”. I was screening the video before youth group sometime last year. I liked it; Bell made some good points. Just for fun, I decided to do a YouTube search for Rob Bell videos. What I found was a bunch of copycat videos done to look like Nooma videos, but they were avidly against Bell’s videos. No problem—everyone that “creates” is due some critics. But then I got reading the comments—some funny, others disturbing, and yet others made you wonder how they figured out how to use a computer... Upon further research, I noticed more and more people exclaiming their dislike of Bell’s teachings, even going as far as to say he’s a heretic. One particularly funny comment I noticed on an iTunes audio book review for Bell’s book, Sex God, went on to say, “Rob Bell is a heretic. He takes away and adds to the truth of scripture to make his point…” But yet the reviewer still must have liked the book enough to give it three out of five stars. So he absolutely hated the message; but it was still an above average book?

My question is this: Is it really that easy to throw around the H-word in Christianity? Just because someone disagrees with your theology (but probably not so much your theology as your implementation of your faith), you feel obligated to drop the H-bomb on someone? Really? My question is what gives you the right? Where in anyone’s understanding of Christianity is arrogance and pride-filled name-calling acceptable? Is calling someone a heretic really focusing on the things above? Is getting the courage to write a poor review of his work really working towards the Kingdom of God? Have you ever wondered how even the Evangelical Champions haven’t called Bell a heretic? Do you ever think that maybe, just maybe, calling someone a heretic isn’t the best first step? Moreover, perhaps there’s a small possibility that you misunderstood their words? Do you think that possibly the reason that you have no credibility is because you’ve allowed yourself to fall into the 3^rd grader-mentality of name-calling?

Doing a short Google search, I found a small quotation that will sum up probably 90% of the arguments against Bell. I found it here. And I quote:

Here’s a sample of Rob Bell’s heretical theology taken from his book, Velvet Elvis:

Heaven is full of forgiven people.
Hell is full of forgiven people.

Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for.
Hell is full of forgiven people God loves, whom Jesus died for.

The difference is how we choose to live, which story we choose to live in, which version of reality we trust. Ours or God’s.

So there you have it, everyone is forgiven! All you have to do to go to heaven is live in God’s story (whatever that means).

See? Do you see it? You have decided to take an active stand against something when you don’t fully understand it. You have decided to pick a side without fully knowing what the opposing side stands for. But I would argue that there IS NO opposing side. I ask you to do this: Desperately seek out the meaning of the message before you make your judgment.

So there it is—the answer…whatever that means…

My 2¢.

-Kyle

Narcissism In the Church and Other Ways to Be a Hypocrite

2009-11-11T12:15:00.000-06:00

*SLAP* Did you feel that? *SLAP SLAP* How about that one? *KICK SLAP* Hello? You there? *PUNCH PUNCH SLAP PINCH KICK ELBOW PUNCH* There you’re coming around. I can see the life coming back into your eyes, the thought processes starting to compute, and a realization that you’re not the only one on this planet. Welcome back to the real world…or is it?

Recently I submitted an article to our church newsletter. And as usual, I didn’t have an article ready, so I did what I usually do in this type of situation and submitted a blog entry. When I’m in a pinch and getting a death glare from our Office Manager Duane, I usually find the most relevant, non-ranty post that I’ve done and send that to him. Well, I picked the article about the first week of youth group this year. It chronicled the events and my inner struggles that surrounded that evening. Also, it talked about how I was going to refocus my group to be more of a service oriented youth group. I thought, “Hey, this is good stuff. I’ll submit this so the congregation knows what’s going on.” Seems innocent enough, right?

Monday morning I come into my office later than usual. Then Pastor Gordon comes in to my office. Usually when Gordon comes in, it’s no big deal. He usually just needs to blow off some steam, chat a little bit, or he needs help with his computer at home (I know, I didn’t see that one in the job description eitherJ). So Gordon sits on my couch, we talk a little small talk. Then he says something to the effect of, “Your letter in the Key has had a BIG response.” Now realize, what I submitted was written about two months earlier, having quickly gone through and attaching it to an email. I haven’t actually read it in almost two months. So I’m trying my hardest to remember what he’s talking about, coming up blank. Gordon continues to talk about this response to my Key entry and I’m slowly gaining insight. Turns out that some parents, whose kids don’t come to youth group, read the article. Whoops! Forgot about them. But I’m not too worried. The parents were talking about how there are two teachers that hand out loads and loads of homework for Wednesday nights. Ok, I can understand that, no problem.

Now here’s the part that hit me. I went back and read what I had written and my intent in writing it. It was an encouraging post meant to discourage people from playing the numbers game (bigger is better) and encourage people to do great things with what they have. It was a post about my reaction to what happened when I bought into the numbers game, and my subsequent revitalization and refocus to do big things with the youth that come. What the post wasn’t, was a post complaining about youth not coming. What it wasn’t, was a post complaining about parents not encouraging their kids to come. What it wasn’t, was me lamenting about the yesteryears of youth ministry when everyone in town would come. And because it wasn’t these things, I got kind of annoyed at the parents’ response. The article wasn’t about them. It wasn’t intended to be about them. And it continues to not be about them. So why did they think it was?

The answer: because Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Yep that’s right, narcissism is almost as old as the world and mankind. You may be asking, “How so?” Well, take a look at why Adam and Eve ate the fruit. It wasn’t because it was better than everything else. It wasn’t because the serpent tricked them. It wasn’t even because Adam was a passive man and Eve wasn’t barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. It was because (Genesis 3:5-7) ““For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. “

You see the very first sin was that of selfishness. Adam and Eve made it all about them. They wanted to be like God and therefore ate the fruit. Isn’t this what we continue to do? Isn’t every fight you’ve ever had been because of some selfish act? What about church splits? What about Bible translations? The Crusades? Aren’t selfishness and narcissism the foundation of political parties? Both sides think that they’re right and the other is wrong. Both sides think that they have all the answers. Both sides think that if they were in charge we’d somehow live in a utopian society. On the far left you have people who want everything handed to them. They have a certain sense of entitlement, due to their possibly less-than-desirable circumstances. They think that because they weren’t given the same opportunities as the others, they deserve everything. On the right you have exactly the same thing, but instead of wanting hand-outs, they want to hold on to everything. They “worked hard” for what they got and it shouldn’t be taken from them. It’s theirs and no one else has any right to it.

So now we’re left with the great divide that is tearing our country and our church apart. It’s a great battle of will between those that have none and those that have some. So what are we to do? Do we vote against any tax increase? Do we vote for every tax increase?

To those playing the entitled victim, read Matthew 25:14-30. To those playing the entitled hoarder, read Matthew 19:16-30. I say neither side, left nor right, are correct. God commands us to “Love your neighbor.” How is focusing on ourselves anywhere close to loving our neighbor? If we truly loved our neighbors as ourselves, we’d buy them the nice car, clothes, house, and food. We would fight for their rights, and battle injustice against them. We’d make sure that they’re taken care of no matter what. If we truly loved our neighbor, instead of being people of entitlement, we’d be people of charity. Maybe, just maybe, if we as a church were people of charity instead of making every little thing about us we wouldn’t be looked on as hypocrites. Think of it, a world where people are helping people because they are simply…people…well that sounds like heaven.

My 2¢.

-Kyle