Where is the Gospel in Your Neighborhood?

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(This is adapted from my first post at Rethink Bishop.  You should follow that blog, too.  It has smarter people than me.)

“We could use zoning laws to force the state’s hand.  You know, you can’t have more than three unrelated adults in one house.  These transitional homes have at least eight men in them!”

“That’s a good idea.  How did they even get into our neighborhood in the first   place?  Did they use some rental loophole?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s talk to the city commission about this – I bet we can use zoning to get them out.”

So went the conversation at my first meeting of the local neighborhood association.  The topic was:  How can we (wealthy homeowners) get rid of them (residents who are recovering from addiction or homelessness in a transitional housing program).  Or, as community activist Bill Barnes puts it, NIMBYism: “Not In My Back Yard.” Continue reading →

I Love, Therefore I Am. Or: It’s All An Act

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Do you ever take a step back from the reality of day-to-day obligations and just let your mind run amok?  Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend it.  I was in just such a zone of self-indulgent mental prancing the other day, and I thought myself into the worst dilemma.  I began to wonder if everything in my life – what I do, who I am to the rest of society – if it is all an act.  If the people who I surround myself with would run in fear and disgust if they actually knew “the real me.”  If I am something wholly other than what I convince everyone else (and myself) that I am.

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The War on Sanity, Part 2

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In a small town somewhere in Midwest America, a little girl used to like to play on the merry-go-round with a little boy from a few streets over.  Their parents would bring them by the park on Saturdays, and the two would play for hours until it was time for dinner.  As the children’s friendship grew (based on nothing more than a shared love of dizziness), the parents likewise began to strike up a casual relationship. Continue reading →

The War on Sanity

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CHOCOLATE-COVERED STRAWBERRIES!

I had an English teacher who told me that most writers lose their reader within the first paragraph, so you need to start off with a good hook.  Did it work?

Anyway, an issue that began two years ago at my alma mater has begun to dominate public discourse at the school (and even in national news).  I want to talk about that particular case, but I also hope to address the deeper societal illness of which this issue is but one symptom.  As a culture, we are quickly arriving at a state in which our identity as progressive or conservative defines not only our worldview, but also our relationships, our religion, and our ability to function in community.  And I don’t like it.

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What I Learned from Megamind

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…that cartoon Jonah Hill with super powers is incredibly disturbing.

A lot has happened since my last post.  Quite a lot.  We can get to that in a second.  First, I want to talk about that lovably goof-tastic alien with the big blue head: Megamind. Continue reading →

The Day I Met Jesus in a Bar

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His name wasn’t really Jesus, it was Jerry.  And I didn’t meet him in a bar; he just took me there after he fed several dozen homeless people in the park, offered them Communion, and then healed a sick man.  Ok, he didn’t really heal him, but he got the police to contact a medic who came and took care of the guy.  When he’s not passing out sandwiches in the park, he is hanging out with the marginalized of society, those who have been burned or disillusioned by the church, the homeless and the bartenders.  You can understand why I got the two mixed up at first.

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Mile High and Knee Deep in Service

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Denver.  The Mile-High City, the Queen City of the Plains, Wall Street of the West.  There is something profound about looking to the West no matter where you are and seeing the snow-spattered Front Range steadfastly defying the flatness of the plains.

I have already been here for over a month, and it feels like a second home.  The air is crisp, the views are breathtaking, and the peer pressure to exercise is working.  I don’t know if it’s the lack of oxygen making me think it’s a good idea to run in 2 degree weather or the way the outdoors seem to call to you every spare moment, but I have never found sticking to a running plan so easy.

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