Everything is Backwards

Definition of a Christian Hipster:

Christian hipsters like music, movies, and books that are well-respected by their respective artistic communities–Christian or not. They love books like Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider, God’s Politics by Jim Wallis, and The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. They tend to be fans of any number of the following authors: Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton, John Howard Yoder, Walter Brueggemann, N.T. Wright, Brennan Manning, Eugene Peterson, Anne Lamott, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Henri Nouwen, Soren Kierkegaard, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Annie Dillard, Marilynne Robison, Chuck Klosterman, David Sedaris, or anything ancient and/or philosophically important.

Christian hipsters love thinking and acting Catholic, even if they are thoroughly Protestant. They love the Pope, liturgy, incense, lectio divina, Lent, and timeless phrases like “Thanks be to God” or “Peace of Christ be with you.” They enjoy Eastern Orthodox churches and mysterious iconography, and they love the elaborate cathedrals of Europe (even if they are too museum-like for hipster tastes). Christian hipsters also love taking communion with real Port, and they don’t mind common cups. They love poetry readings, worshipping with candles, and smoking pipes while talking about God. Some of them like smoking a lot of different things.

Christian hipsters love breaking the taboos that used to be taboo for Christians. …

HT: Josh Reitano

Justin Buzzard offers some funny prayer starters based on the Myers-Briggs personality typing. I am an INTJ, last time I checked. According to this description, I share personality traits with C. S. Lewis, Gandalf the Grey and Hannibal Lecter. God help me!

ISTJ: Lord help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 11:41.23 am e.s.t.

ISTP: God help me to consider people’s feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive.

ESTP: God help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they’re usually NOT my fault.

ESTJ: God, help me to not try to RUN everything. But, if You need some help, just ask.

ISFJ: Lord, help me to be more laid back and help me to do it EXACTLY right.

ISFP: Lord, help me to stand up for my rights (if you don’t mind my asking).

ESFP: God help me to take things more seriously, especially parties and dancing.

ESFJ: God give me patience, and I mean right NOW.

INFJ: Lord help me not be a perfectionist. (did I spell that correctly?)

INFP: God, help me to finish everything I sta

ENFP: God,help me to keep my mind on one th-Look a bird-ing at a time.

ENFJ: God help me to do only what I can and trust you for the rest. Do you mind putting that in writing?

INTJ: Lord keep me open to others’ ideas, WRONG though they may be.

INTP: Lord help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.

ENTP: Lord help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I’ll settle for a few minutes.

ENTJ: Lord, help me slow downandnotrushthroughwatIdo.

Things have been crazy for us! We are trying to get settled in to our new home and get everything unpacked and put in the right place. Our basement couch wouldn’t fit in the basement, our desk wouldn’t fit up the stairs, and so we’ve had to perform a total furniture reorientation.

Next week I have a team of young people from Georgia coming to Cincinnati to help me do pretty much whatever I tell them to do to help me get a church going. They will spend the week doing survey work and “decoding,” which pretty much means learning everything they can to help me become more of a Cincinnati insider.

Priority one is to locate and develop a core group. I’m not a lone ranger. But since God didn’t send me here with a team, I have to trust him to provide the team for me here.

So my first step is to try to meet with as many people as possible over the next couple of months and share with them the vision for this new church and challenge them to be a part of a core group. At the same time, I want to be sharing my faith with neighbors and other people I meet along the way as well, and trying to make friends in the city.

The second step will be to gather the people together that seem interested into some type of a core group. We can dream together about the needs of the city and how to best bring the gospel to bear on those needs. Hopefully, the core group will continue to grow as the core group networks with their friends and so forth. We will meet monthly to discuss what a church is and probably work through a book together on understanding racial issues.

Before we can start hosting people in our home, however, we need to finish getting the house ready. I think I’ll get back to work on that right now.

I don’t like using this blog for personal updates, but I have a couple of updates worth publishing.

First: Our house is now under contract. We’re praying that there aren’t any problems with this and everything will go smoothly through the process.

We’re set to close on June the 27th, which means that we will be moving to Cincinnati at that time.

Second: We’re having another baby boy! Laura was convinced it was a girl all along, but I thought it was a boy. Reese is very disappointed.

You can track with our family and kids stuff at Laura’s blog.

I did some calculations. My car gets around 22 MPG in the city, or less. If gas is $3.79 per gallon, that means I’m paying roughly 17 cents for each mile I drive.

[Rant on]

I fill up at a station three miles from my house; that’ll be 51 cents.

When I drive to class (11 miles away), that’s another $1.87. If I want to come home that evening, I shell out another $1.87.

I went to a pre-wedding party (aka wedding showers where boys are invited and nobody gives away sexy underwear) tonight and it cost me $4.59 for the trip.

When we think of price per trip instead of price per gallon, the pain takes on a whole new perspective.

Going to the grocery? Add $3 to your bill. To the movies, add $1.50 per ticket. Not to mention the fact that grocery stores are adding in “fuel surcharges” to your tomatoes.

With the price of gasoline skyrocketing, you would think that when you pump gas the price digits would quickly escalate, but they don’t. The time it takes you to pump $10 worth of gas now takes about the same amount of time it took months ago when the price was under $3 per gallon.

How can this be?

The only explanation is that gas stations slow down how much gas you pump so that the price you pay still increases at about the same rate. Perhaps this is done so you can make sure to stop right on time at $20 rather than spewing over to $20.02.

But I think another reason is this. When you are standing at the pump watching the numbers go so fast all the digits look like “8,” its just infuriating. You know you’re getting ripped off because stories like this reveal that oil companies are taking us all to the cleaners.

For crying out loud, the NYTimes said Exxon’s profit last year was a “blowout.” Well, look in the mirror to see who’s getting blown out.

Its not just Exxon that’s paying out billion dollar bonuses to CEO’s. If you want to see something that will really make your blood boil, check out what else you’re gas dollars are paying for.

<- Is paying for this –>

I guess Western Rich White Oil Executives are not all that different from the Eastern Rich Muslim Oil Executives in Dubai. This black-gold plaything puts to shame all of the supposed “American Excesses” that the Iranians and Saudis are so weary of.

Most of these record profits can be attributed to the fact that profit markups are determined on percentages, not a set markup amount. Gas providers don’t charge their “9 cents per gallon” or something like that. That’s how gasoline sales tax works; so many cents per gallon.

Oil companies, on the other hand, make their money by charging a percentage of the total. So the more it costs to produce gasoline, the higher percentage of markup they can enjoy.

[Rant intensifying]

One thing that I really can’t stand is the gasoline mind games played on us. Here’s the script:

1. Gas starts out at a certain price.

2. Something happens somewhere in the world that is an excuse for the price to “spike.”

3. The price starts to drop, ever so slowly over the ensuing couple of weeks.

4. The rest of us drive by the fill station every day like desperate stock brokers wondering if the price has bottomed out yet and we can go ahead and fill up.

5. We lose the gamble. The very morning where we determine we’re going to fill up again is the morning after some pipeline somewhere had a leak or something and the price had to “spike” again.

Whew, now I feel better. (Until I drive by Speedway tomorrow and get angry all over again!)

[Rant off]

Nancy Gibbs published this article in Time Magazine called “Affirmative Action for Boys.” She ackowledges the problems that college admissions departments face in trying to maintain a balanced boy/girl ratio in their freshmen classes. In an effort to achieve this, some “colleges are quietly stripping the pastels from brochures and launching Xbox tournaments to try to close the gap in the quality and quantity of boys applying.”

The unintended and unfortunate consequence of progress regarding women in society has led to men more and more finding themselves somewhat useless and unmotivated.

C. Michael Patton has done it again. He has shown me that there is hope for those of us who don’t fit in well in the Christian subculture.

To see how well you fit in, go here.

By the way, Michael and I are good friends.

Fish swim in the water unaware of the fact that they are wet. In certain segments of the Christian sub-culture, we have accepted certain norms and expectations beyond what the bible commands us and often do them only to keep up with the “real Christians.” I have given in to this rat-race many times, and seminary is a breeding ground for such spiritual competitiveness.

All it takes is a guy to say, “this morning during my quiet time I noticed how this Greek verb… [brilliant insight]… and I’m just thankful for that.” I don’t know everyone’s heart, but my own heart is pretty wicked (Jer 16:9). Now there’s a standard set of what the real Christians do and everyone else needs to measure up.

There’s spiritual in-group and an out-group. And those who don’t play along are misfits.

Evangelicalism has its own liturgy and conformity standards. We have our own music, our own movies, our own publications and websites, our own t-shirts and bumper stickers. Its a designer life for evangelicals.

I have often thought to myself that I’m Baptist in doctrine but Presbyterian in culture and personality. There’s not many of us, but I often finding myself not totally fitting in with either world.

I recently discovered that I’m not alone.

C. Michael Patton described his experience like this:

I remember being at a Christian retreat. It was a couples’ weekend retreat in the Pine woods of Texas. When me and Kristie got up the first morning, I walked outside of my cabin into the cool light fog ready to get the day going. But everyone else was starting their day differently than me. They were all doing reading their Bibles and praying. I found out this routine is called “morning devotionals.” Its what Christians do. One person was sitting on the dock of the lake, their Bible opened before them. Another sat on a park bench in prayer. Some were in the grass with their well worn Bibles looking toward heaven in contemplation. I felt an immediate sense of guilt not only because I was not in my own private place with the Lord, but because I never do “morning devotionals,” at least not like that. Neither was I compelled to do so (other than a sense of guilt for non-conformity). What was wrong with me?

We are all different kinds of Christians.

Experiencing a feeling of alienation from the “normal” Christian life is not at all uncommon. In fact, if you don’t experience this from time to time, then there might be something wrong with you! You probably have become the type of Christian who simply seeks to conform your Christianity to mirror the “standard” which has been set by your immediate Christian community. In this, you lose your individualism.

We should seek inspiration from those who do things differently, not necessarily conformation. You have a distinctness about you. Distinct problems, joys, passions, hopes, habits, hurts, intellect, spirituality, and temperament. You have a distinct Christian gait about you. All of these are your strengths and weaknesses. This is the way God made you.

It is true, your passions, for example, might cause you to neglect something that is important for Christianity (e.g. prayer for others). We need to be careful that this neglect is not absolute. But we also need to recognize that this passion of yours, when used of God, contributes to the total body of Christ.

We are all not going to be balanced in the same way. We need to understand this and give grace to each other to let each other be, knowing that God did not make cookie-cutter Christianity. If we all seek to conform to the “norm,”—whatever that is—then we can actually weaken the Body of Christ.

Amen, Michael! I’m glad I’m not alone…

You know you’re a geeky family when husband and wife keep separate blogs.

My daughter, Reese, had a hemangianoma (that’s med-speak for big ugly birthmark) removed on Monday. She did great and is back to her normal self now.

If you’re interested, you can see before and after pictures on Laura’s blog.

Do you remember that song from 1993 by Donald Fagen (circa Steely Dan) called “Snowbound”? Don’t worry, no one else does either. But I woke up and saw the snow and couldn’t resist the I-tunes $.99 it cost me to ride my magic carpet back to an earlier decade.

Here’s some of the lyrics to accompany pics of my backyard.

Snowbound
Let’s sleep in today
Wake me up
When the wolves come out to play
Heat up
These white nights
We’re gonna turn this town
Into a city of lights

At Nervous Time
We roll downtown
We’ve got scenes to crash
We’re gonna trick and trash
We’re gonna find some fun
We hit the street
With visors down
With our thermasuits
Sealed up tight
We can beat the freeze
And get saved tonight…

Snowbound
Let’s sleep in today
Wake me up
When the wolves come out to play
Heat up
These white nights

We sail our icecats on the frozen river
Some loser fires off a flare, amen
For seven seconds it’s like Christmas day
And then it’s dark again
And then it’s dark again