What's That?

Yesterday I was at the store and saw a full size pickup truck raised on its suspension with large mudder tires. It was a drab color of green, but what caught my attention was the detail across the bottom third of the chassis.

The bottom of the truck was wrapped in camouflage decals.

What good is this? What is the deer supposed to think anyway?

"Golly! It looks like a pickup truck, but it's... it's floating! It's floating above the grass and brush! How is this happe..."

Then Bambi is mesmerized until Bubba gets off a clean shot.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

So, What Are You Giving This Christmas?

This is the opposite of the normal way this question is asked, but it does deserve asking, what are you giving this Christmas? One of the things Marie and I are giving this Christmas is this Christmas card.

We received this card last year from Denis and Jenny Greene and their lovely family in Kansas City. (Thanks Denis! Thanks Jenny!) As it says on the back of the card:

The "Bus Stop Nativity" (2007) was designed by St. James Youth Group Member Osa Eke. Here Christ, along with Mary and Joseph, are waiting at the bus stop at the corner of 39th and Troost Ave., just outside St. James Catholic Church. (Personal note: If you are unfamiliar with navigating KC, MO, you would not know that this isn't one of the city's "Visitor Brochure" neighborhoods. Sure, there are worse neighborhoods, but no one is going to confuse this area with the Country Club strip of Ward Parkway.)

To learn more about St. James Catholic Church and its ministries, visit http://www.stjkc.org/

The card itself was created by a youth group member and printed by the Student Press @ DeLaSalle with assists the Parish with all printing needs. In this way it is a mission arm of the Parish and helps support people who need printing and people who need to learn a skill. I imagined when I got some of these cards last year, I was helping support this part of the Parish mission.

Unfortunately the card is no longer available. But it returns us to the question, what are you giving this Christmas?

If you can make one gift, just one gift, something that helps give to others too, it is a gift that gives twice. I hope all who receive the card are as blessed as I was when we got it. I pray the kids working with the Student Press @ DeLaSalle are blessed too with what they receive from the mission.

Can we all do this at least once this Christmas season? A little can go a long, long way.

The PC (USA) New Form of Government

This weekend Grace Presbytery, the organization of PC (USA) churches in northeast Texas, voted on the PC (USA) New Form of Government. It passed at about a 4-1 margin. The questions and discussion on the matter generally took one of two paths.

The first was whether this new form of government would maintain the ordination restrictions (fidelity and chastity to those who know the restrictions by those terms) found in the current Form of Government. The answer to that question is "yes." This question was asked four times by three persons and each time the answer was "yes." (People, pay attention!) Along this line was also a question about whether the definition of marriage would change. The answer is "no" because the definition of marriage is not found in the form of government, either in the current or proposed forms. This is found in the Directory for Worship, which is a part of the Book of Order but not a part of the Form of Government.

The second path dealt with something far different and in my opinion more important. This path seems to me to be the matter of trust.

To me, one of the things the new Form of Government will force Presbyterians to do is move from a starting point of function in our governance to one of formation, spiritual formation and congregational/denominational formation. It will force us to ask who we are before settling on how we do it. I believe this is a good thing.

As long as I have been an active member of the church, it has seemed that the upper governing bodies, from the Session to the General Assembly, have had more to do with how than who.

One speaker said that this new form was based on trust, a trust that he did not find in any of the four Presbyteries in which he has served, so he was speaking against the amendment. I agree with him, it is a matter of trust and that's the crux of the matter. The general line of this path seemed to be how can we trust others to follow the rules if we our new form of government doesn't have hard and fast rules? Because of this, there is a basic mistrust and fear that there are a significant number of people trying to "skirt the rules" and "get away with something."

As much as I would like to join hands and sing Kum-ba-Yah, I must say that he has a point. Trust must be developed. But honestly, let us look at what we share. We completely and absolutely share vocation and ordination. For those who say "no they don't" I ask you who "they" are. When you decide, then I say talk to them and find out. I believe that if we are called to be about formation, if we are to be about something more than a book of rules, if we are to be the children of the living God, the God who became man and walked among us, we have to do what he did--we have to get to know one another.

This fear of mistrust is real, but as with all holy fear it must be dealt with in the holiest way possible. Maybe we should do it like Jesus did in Luke, over a good meal. Let's get to know each other, let trust and grace take hold of our relationships, and then we just might discover that a book of rules is silly in the life of Christ.

I Pray This Is My Last Kanye/Today Show Update

UPDATE: The Today Show has announced that Kanye will not be performing in The Today Show Concert Series as scheduled. They evidently even used the phrase "as contracted" with all of its legal implications.

In fairness, Kanye tweeted that he would not be performing on the Today Show on November 12.

Welcome to the lamest celebrity feud ever. The good news is that this feud can go on forever because the reputations of both The Today Show and Kanye West will only be enhanced by this war of words so it can go on forever and ever. Wait, that's not good news at all.

Next on Kanye's World

Kanye West is back in the TwitterVerse revealing that life is unfair and people aren't nice.


Kanye posted this tweet this morning in response to the Matt Lauer response to their prior day's interview. Gee, everybody has an agenda, who knew?

Kanye says he can't be everything to everybody anymore. Anymore? I believe this line from "Fight the Power"said it best Chuck D. sings, "But he never meant shit to me."

You say you don't trust anyone but yourself. Trust yourself? Good luck with that.

Kanye, W, and Matt Lauer

This would have been a good week to watch The Today Show. I am guessing that this clip was The Today Show's response to the W and Kanye interviews earlier this week.

The Tom Cruise Pantheon now has two new members. What is it about Matt that makes people want to fight and then say stupid things? I got a big laugh at Meridith's "Doesn't sound like much, but..." comment at the end. What's much adoo about nothing to Meridith is the world to someone else. Oh well, go get 'em Matt.

This would have been a good week to watch The Today Show.

Not Cheating Per Se

Again, I love football coaches. This morning's entry into the love fest comes from Connecticut where the coach of the Southington High School football team took advantage of a little situation caused one careless player from Manchester High.

You can read the full story here, but for me it all comes down to this: A Manchester player dropped a wristband with the team's play codes into the box that had the video sent to Southington and the Southington coach used it in the game.

With the wristband, the Southington team could know the Manchester plays as the Quarterback was calling them. According to the Southington coach, he used it during just one drive, but that's the damage and the damage is done.

The Southington High School principal said, "The administration's investigation determined that [the coach's] actions did not adhere to the district's high expectations for all Southington Public School coaches."

The Manchester High School said that he has sent a protest letter to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which governor high school sports in Connecticut.

But these are the words of Larry Williams, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Football committee chair (spoken before he saw the Manchester protest), "It's what we call ethics between coaches and good sportsmanship. I don't think it's cheating per se." He goes on, "We need to make sure we produce good citizens, and that's what this game is all about. These are all teaching moments."

This is what I like, "these are teaching moments." There are those who say that "If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying." and "It's only cheating when you get caught." I agree with Mr. Williams, it probably isn't cheating, but it's not good sportsmanship. There is more to being a good citizen and a good sportsman than following the rules.

Living in a society that pushes all of the rules to their most extreme and one tick more is one that becomes an overfilled balloon, one slight misstep and the whole thing will explode in our faces. (Banking scandals? Enron?)

Was the Southington coach's actions unsportsmanlike? I think so. Was it cheating? We'll see.

It's the motion toward citizenship and faithful stewardship that makes life worth living. A life in good citizenship tends not just itself, but for the neighbor as well. The life of a good steward is not just concerned with the individual but with all God creates.

So three cheers for Larry Williams, three cheers for citizenship, three cheers for sportsmanship, three cheers for stewardship.

Conflicting Priorities

When I was a Student Pastor Intern at Central Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas there was a problem the church continuously faced, campers. No, this isn't people parking huge RV's on the street and in the parking lot, it wasn't even the circus of film crews and star trailers all around a citywide movie set. It's homeless people camping on the church grounds.

I find two edges to this sword.

The First: Three of the six Great Ends of the Church are "the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the people of God," "the promotion of social righteousness" and, "the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world." Alone and in combination, this tells us that caring weak and deposed in this society (including the homeless) is a work the Church (capital "C" the church universal as well as individual congregations).

The Second: At Central, they eventually had to post "No Trespassing" signs because of the damage left by the campers. Everyday the Sexton (Custodian) had to pick up the trash from the night before. He even had to rake the playground to remove the human feces from the sand. Another problem beyond this is that the church was broken into several times by the campers and others who would target the church. The church secretary and I figured the church spent well over $50,000 per year (in 2003) to clean up and repair the damage.

The Crux of the Matter: There are campers at First Presbyterian Church in Marshall. With these campers is a trail of trash and laundry that looks awful. We haven't found human feces on site, nor have we had a robbery. Not yet.

So, I don't want people rousted and taken to jail, but I surely don't want people camping on the grounds of the church.

There are more places and better care for people in Marshall than the grounds of the church. Several of these services are supported by the tithes and offerings of the First Presbyterian Church.

So that's my conundrum, not care but the shape of care. We want people to take advantage of what the church helps support without inviting people to use the grounds like a personal KOA. It's the fine lines between being faithful people to the needy, faithful stewards of the gifts of God, and not being hardened to the needs of the needy.

Can you help?

Suffering in Dallas

God I love football, and I love it when coaches and owners speak, because they say some of the funniest things I've ever heard. ESPN reports that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is not happy with his teams fifth straight loss which drops the 'Boys to 1-7 overall. Jerry says...

"There are a lot of people here who are certainly going to suffer and suffer consequences." I guess that's good because I wouldn't want them to suffer from dandruff or something like that.

"I'm talking about within the team -- players, coaches who have got careers." I guess Jerry decided that the fans, the media, and the people of Indonesia have suffered enough.

"I think unquestionably that our expectations were thinking we're something we were not, possibly looking at what might be relative to a Super Bowl." First, is there a verb in this sentence? Considering the sentence structure "think" doesn't count. Second, what is the relative to "a Super Bowl?" The way the 'Boys have been playing I'm not going to go to that joke, it's just too mean and way too easy.

"I've got a lot of work to do, got a lot of decisions to make. And it's not just one, two, three or four. There are several decisions." and later "I can't put my finger on it because I don't have enough fingers." I guess that to Jerry "several" is a number greater than ten.

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry... Nice melt down.