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Kill the Christians!

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:45:00 +0000

My wife and I have been fairly strict about Malachi's exposure to weaponry and the concept of death. The latter is of course more difficult to hide. Death introduced itself to Malachi through the quick and untimely demise of Sammy the Fish, a goldfish of course, which had a half-life of 30 seconds. We buried it under a tree and for a couple of weeks Malachi asked repeatedly to go see it. Finally I told him that Sammy the Fish was dead and that his body became dirt, but that since we buried him under a tree, Sammy the Fish's dirt became part of the tree. Now we will always know where Sammy the Fish is. Beautiful, right? When I related this story to Angela, she balked. I think her exact words were "Holy crap!" My mom bought Malachi a new fish, a hearty fish, a fish you hardly have to clean or feed, a Betta. Malachi named him Sammy the Fish.

About this time, Malachi started preschool. It wasn't long before he picked up a stick, pointed it at me, and said, "Pew pew!"
"What is that, Mo'?"
"It's my Pewing Thing," he said proudly. "Pew pew!"
"Oh, those are dangerous. They kill things. That means their dead."
"Dead?"
"Yeah. Like the first Sammy the Fish."
"Sammy the Fish is in the tree, Daddy."
"Yeah, well, he's also dead. He's not alive anymore."
"I can go see him whenever I want."
"Hmmm. Well just don't point that thing at people, ok?"
"Ok, daddy. Pew pew!"

I finally had mercy on the poor kid and gave him the language he needed to talk about these things--guns, bullets, destruction, Armageddon, the wrath of God. At the family ranch, I found a BB gun and gave him a little lesson in gun safety and then proceeded to shoot the crap out of a Coke can. Turns out I'm a crack sharpshooter. Then I had him practice my safety lessons with the Buck Roger's ray gun he found buried in the toy closet.

Months pass and Malachi still has yet to see The Incredibles, Spider-Man, Batman, Transformers and other adult shit marketed to our kiddies. We capitulated in our weaponry rule a little though by buying him a knight costume complete with sword. He and Micah (the boy of the family we live with) run around slaying dragons and monsters, the roles of whom their sisters often play. Another game they enjoy involves Micah, dressed in one of his papa's oversized T-shirts, playing Jesus and Malachi invariably is God. Most of the time, the sword and battle axe are missing from this game.

One set of movies that we have let him watch is an animated series produced by Focus on the Family called the Story Keepers. It's about the early Christians who met secretly under Nero's rule and told each other stories about Jesus and his teachings. Nero is portrayed as this evil, spoiled brat--a thin, temper-tantrum throwing wimp with hordes of burly Roman soldiers at his command who chase the Christians around, burn down the Christian ghetto, throw them to the lions and gladiators, etc. Nothing shouts Kids Show! more than flaming human torches at parties and walls made of twisted naked people. Malachi sies enraptured by these videos, though his sisters now refer to them as "Maochi's Scary Show." We don't let them watch anymore.

One night, Malachi was in his armor chasing the other kids around yelling, "Kill the Christians! Kill the Christians!" I didn't know whether to cheer him on or take the opportunity to give another object lesson. So I tried to ignore it. Then things got quiet. A few minutes later I heard him tell Angela, "I killed Jesus."
"OH?"
"Yeah, he's died. But don't worry, mommy, he will be alive again in 3 days."

I'm not sure whether he was God or a Roman soldier at the time, but apparently Malachi knows the Gospel story quite well--the facts of it anyway. Even though he doesn't quite understand love as the back story, he has the Gospel message down about as well as many people I know. But a half-story is really a whole...whatever, and as far as I can tell, from what I hear, you either have sin and judgment and salvation from those or Jesus and love and roses. But, put them together and you have...um...

Pruder Than God

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:57:00 +0000

When I first began to attend my church, one of the pastors was ultra-reformed of MacArthurian proportions. Let's say that he and I didn't quite agree on a number of theological, and consequently behavioral, ideas. But one of the great questions he did ask to kick off his sermon was this: "What do menstrual rags, dog s**t, gratuitous descriptions of desire, and graphic violence all have in common? Right. With all of these things and more contained within God's inerrant and inspired Word, why do His people continue to maintain higher expectations of taboo language, imagery, and content than He does Himself? Why do we try so hard to be more prude than God?"

There is of course the Pauline injunction to not cause your weaker brother or sister to stumble--to abstain from things that you feel free to do when someone else feels it is a sin. I grew up being strictly taught to avoid the APPEARANCE of evil; whether or not I was actually doing evil was moot. Same goes for saying only what is edifying, in everything giving thanks, etc. There is so much wisdom and grace in these teachings and it provides a good heart check to agitators like me.

But, on the other hand, we focus so much on the Gospel of Paul that we forget that Jesus himself did not follow these behavioral rules to the letter. Sure you can argue that Jesus really did only say edifying things and that he did only things that weren't evil, but tell that to the religious leaders of the day who considered much of what he did sin. Or to the poor Canaanite woman who he called a dog and refused at first to help.

Paul too used common and crass language--even the "s-bomb" of the day--to convey his more intense thoughts. I love to envision Paul getting all riled up as he addressed each congregation. Some say that the thorn in his side wasn't anything physical at all--it was probably his obnoxious personality. You can hear it spewing forth in his letters.

And yet the vulgarity, the commonness, the gratuitousness--all of it is still Pneuma-tic.

This is a tired issue but it remains a hot one for those choosing to follow Christ, especially from the more conservative part of the subculture, because at its core is the question of grace and love--to each other and to a hurting world.

Live(d) from Soularize--Stripping Down with N.T. Wright

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:02:00 +0000

There are a few things in life that level the playing field among human beings. One of them is peeing together at urinals. This is so true that some executives have their own pissoirs so that they don't have to be brought down to the common animal level. Another is also animal in nature, or spiritual, and that is nakedness. I rode a boat, sitting with a portly British guy in shorts and red pinstripes, his delightful wife Maggie (Mags) skillfully, humourously, bolstering and pruning her husband's fame and pride. I recounted my now favorite public health sign that we pass everyday in downtown Nassau: "Protect ya Tings. Use a RUBBER everytime" and we all laughed, able to identify with something as animal as sex and the diseases that can plague it. At our island destination, we all ran down the beach, childlike, stripping, and grabbing snorkel gear. Tom and Mags. Caleb and Angela. Spencer. Frank and Theresa. Ian and Ann. Taking pleasure in small colorful fish and bright blue fronds. Laughing, splashing, rain soaking the parts of us not already submurged.

Bishop Tom whipped through the book of Acts in just under an hour. Here it is in parts:

"The whole book is really another day, another riot on the surface. People don't tune in to what the Kingdom meant in the 1st century, but that is the main theme throughout Acts--this is the story of how the Kingdom gets out in the world--the reign of Jesus on earth as in heaven."

"The method has to embody the message-so the gospel wasn't spread with swords."

"Jesus body was thoroughly renewed and at home in both heaven and on earth—they were made for each other and Jesus brought them finally back together and this is the basis for everything that follows. To the Jews, this intersection occurred only in the temple. The entire Christian claim says that this truly and everlastingly happens in Jesus—and he is now in the place where is true for the whole world. The whole world is now God’s holy land. The place of Israel was the signpost for this—don’t mistake the signpost for the reality to which it points."

"Resurrection is life after life after death."

And one of my favorite quotes of Bishop Tom's from this evening in response someone's challenge that Luke purposefully rearranged facts to fit the story of Acts within his predetermined framework (i.e. to directly parallel the structure for the Gospel of Luke:

"You can't tell a story fact by fact without first deciding what it is you want to say. If you’re listening to a narrative without massive selection or arrangement, then you are listening to either a small child or someone who is very drunk."

Evangelicalism in Sheep's Clothing?

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:53:00 +0000

The term "Missional" has become the new buzz word in churchdom. Everyone wants to be missional even more than everyone wanted to be "emergent"--many eschewed the emergent movement, but only a rare few cast asparagus upon the missional movement. But I fear much of the language used to describe what it means to be "missional" sounds awfully famliar.

Wendell Berry writes: "I have had with my friend Wes Jackson a number of useful conversations about the necessity of getting out of movements — even movements that have seemed necessary and dear to us — when they have lapsed into self-righteousness and self-betrayal, as movements seem almost invariably to do. People in movements too readily learn to deny to others the rights and privileges they demand for themselves...The worst danger may be that a movement will lose its language either to its own confusion about meaning and practice, or to pre-emption by its enemies."

Has "being missional" already been coopted? Is it evangelicalism's last ditch effort at survival? Or is it a true and good pattern of spiritual thought and behavior?

Bad Poetry and Short Short Story Contest--For My Birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:39:00 +0000

I really can't take credit for this idea--a talented agent I work with, Chip McGregor, has the twisted mind that came up with a Bad Poetry contest to celebrate his birthday. What a fabulous idea, but since I write more short stories than poetry, I thought I'd expand the concept a little.

So, to enter the contest, leave your short short story or bad poem as a comment to this blog post. Everyone who comes to my birthday party on August 26 will have a chance to judge the entries. I will be the final judge since I'm the birthday boy.

The Grand Prize is a rare and most valuable copy of The Message called "Jesus Loves Porn Stars." All entries must be in by August 26 at 1:37 p.m.

Good luck!

Cars In Our Hearts

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 05:47:00 +0000

If you want to sound like an idiot, try explaining what a spirit is to a 4-year old. If you want to really plumb your own moronic depths, throw some basic Christian theology on top of that. Talking theology makes my cranial cavity feel stuffed with chloroform-soaked cotton balls as it is.

It has been about a month since Malachi and I have had a late-night bedtime chat and I've missed them. Finally, tonight, we stumbled on an old connection and picked it up again.

He has never, ever, liked being alone. Especially while going to sleep. I have taken the opportunity to instill in him the reality of God's presence and that this keeps Malachi from being ever truly alone. A tough trick to pull off, but I guess a 4-year old probably could believe it more sincerely than someone my age, or, plainly, than me. A few weeks ago, I drew our townhouse on his chalkboard and then drew a stick figure Jesus bestraddling our rounded gable. He thought this was perverse then and I discovered tonight that his opinion had not changed.

"Daddy, I don't want God on the roof of our house."

"Ok, buddy, I'll take him off. But you know I drew him there because he's always around. So you're never alone, ok? He's always with you and you can talk to him whenever you want."

"Oh. That's Jesus on the roof, remember?"

"You're right, that was Jesus I drew."

"He's in our hearts too?"

"Well, yeah, if we want him to, he comes in our hearts. Then he helps us live the way he wants us to."

"When will he get out?"

"Well, I guess he doesn't. He's always there because he loves us."

"How does he get in there?"

"It's his spirit that goes in. You know what a spirit is? You know when you think things but you don't say them?"

Mo' shakes his head and frowns.

"You think things...in your head...and...you don't say them..."

He shakes his head again.

"Well, when you do, that's your spirit--that's really you in your body. And that's what Jesus puts in your heart too--his spirit."

"But, when does he come out?"

"He doesn't, buddy, when you ask him to be there. And you can talk to him anytime so you're never alone."

"Jesus is with God, though."

"Yeah, but his spirit's in our hearts."

"Is Mary in our heart too? Can we talk to her?"

"I don't really know."

"There were two Marys. One was by herself and one was with Jesus."

"You're right! How did you know?"

"I saw a video. One was crying. But the other one looked for him after he was gone and then she found him."

"You're right again."

"When was Jesus in Mary's belly?"

"Oh, a long long long time ago. Before there were cars or airplanes. They didn't even know how to make cars way back then."

"Really?"

"Really."

"But God knew how to make cars."

"That's true, I suppose he did. Hey, should we talk to him?"

"You do it, daddy. You talk to him."

"Alright, um...Dear Lord. Thank you for Malachi and for how wonderful he is..."

In a loud whisper--"No, daddy. Don't say that. Ask him to put cars in our heart."

"Um, ok...uh, Lord, thank you for Malachi's great imagination..."

"No no, daddy, ask him for cars in our hearts!"

"Uuhhh, Lord? Thank you for cars and, if you can, would you put cars in our hearts? Thank you for our cars and our house and please take care of people who don't have cars or houses. Use us to help the people you want us to..."

Loud whisper still--"Tell God that everybody needs a house."

"Yeah, you're right. Lord, Malachi is right, everyone needs a house. Would you please give everyone a house to live in? Amen."

I kissed him goodnight, descended the bunkbed ladder, went to the chalkboard and rubbed Jesus out.

I AM A WEED

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Wed, 23 May 2007 04:18:00 +0000

I was digging through my old writings and found this one that I wrote for a church newsletter back in 2001 -- it made me laugh and remember my old more activist days. Thought I'd post it - the message is still good even if it is a little preachy and strident!

Let me tell you a story of when I failed. I finished my 3 hour long class about how to “do therapy” with someone suffering from an “Axis 2 diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder,” and I walked out of the School of Social Work building, blinking against the sun. I was bored and a little lonely, so I decided to engage in a little economic therapy. This is a coping mechanism that is easily rationalized: “I'm feeling lonely and sad,” I say to myself. “I think I'll wander into a book store and look at all the books I'd like to read someday.” “But you always buy something—lots of things—whenever you do that, and you don’t have much money,” I sternly remind myself. “True, but that’s why I’m going to go to a used bookstore this time. Besides, I'll be smarter after I've read them and that’s a good thing.” So, I headed across campus toward the Dawn Treader Used Book Store. The stately red-brick library and science buildings I passed were bedecked with ivy that waved cheerfully, the American flag fluttered and snapped coolly, the fluffy white clouds lazily dissipated into the empty blue. The four coffee shops competing on the same block were delightfully empty of the undergrad riff-raff that crowded noisily into them during the school year. I smiled smugly to myself, already smelling the hot cup of Caribou coffee that I would sip as I perused my soon-to-be new purchases.

I turned a corner and triumphantly walked past Ann Arbor’s two-story flagship Borders bookstore and crossed the street. On the corner was a man with a dirt smudged face and rough hands dressed in obviously second hand clothes. His shoelaces were untied. “Hey, man, you got any change?”

Let me interrupt the story for a second because you have to understand something about me. First, not only was I training to become a social worker (do-er of good deeds, caretaker and friend of all), but I was also doing an internship in Detroit’s inner city where I was organizing churches to battle the social and economic inequities that Detroit is most known for. Second, I was a Bible study leader for Intervarsity’s graduate chapter in Ann Arbor. I had on the previous evening taken my group through 30 Bible passages that talked about the special place in God’s heart for the oppressed and the poor and I told my group that if we Christians were at all interested in God’s kingdom, then we had better get with it and make these people a top priority on our agenda as well.

And then I met this man. He looked at me and he said six words. I walked past and mumbled something like “I can’t” or “Sorry.” Are you kidding me? I had visions of John Updike, C.S. Lewis and Frederick Buechner dancing in my head. My nostrils were flaring in anticipation of that first waft of coffee beans ground especially for me. I swung open the door to the Dawn Treader and the first thing my eyes beheld was a rare, U.K. printed 1967 hardback edition of the Fellowship of the Rings trilogy—all three for a mere $150. I knew I was in the right place.

Forty-five minutes later, I was 10 dollars poorer and 5 books richer. I took the bulky Dawn Treader plastic bag from the cashier and turned toward the door. That’s when I realized that in order to get to my Caribou coffee I would have to go back with my now full hands past that man who had asked me for money. I peeked through the window to make sure he was turned away and then slipped out of the store and down the street away from him. I went all the way around 2 blocks to get back to the coffee house without passing him.

“But what else could I have done?” I asked myself. “I'm a student with limited income. Ann Arbor has tons of homeless people--they all flock here because it is 100 times better to be homeless here than in Detroit, and there's no way I can help them all.” I was not enjoying my coffee. “Am I supposed to feel guilty about buying books and drinking coffee whenever I want? Am I supposed to live in poverty too?”

These are tough questions with no clear answer. We have the blessings of resources, freedom, education, and an environment conducive to our health and progress. We know that God has given all these things to us and that they are good. We also know that as Christians we are supposed to serve and to “do good” in the world with what we are given, to be “light and salt.” But when we look at the disparities that surround us, we often feel guilty. We sit in the turn lane on the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Colfax where that poor obese man with severe congestive heart failure sits in a wheelchair with a sign that asks for mercy and money. The pulmonary edema from his condition makes his feet so swollen that they look more like hoofs than anything else, and four thoughts speed through our minds—1)“Holy Mackerel! Look at him!” 2)“That poor guy is probably not going to live much longer.” 3)“Ok, so what should I do about it?” 4)“When is that stupid arrow going to turn green?”

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the immense needs that poke at us through the dense atmosphere surrounding our little worlds. We haven’t the first clue about where to begin to help, but we feel like we ought to do something, if at the very least to make the poking stop. And then we sit staring at the traffic light, waiting for the green arrow. It's easy to sit and wait, because urges often die down after a while. It's also easy to go oversees, dig a ditch for Jesus, and pat the grateful little native on the head because his gratefulness makes us feel like we did a job well done. We have served, we have been a light in a dark land, and now we can go home happy, drive our SUVs, and blissfully complain about how busy we are.

Can you see a pattern yet? The language of the self: all-pervasive, all-consuming. It is unsatisfying, the nagging and poking always return, frustration sets in and we become graceless in our self-defense (“Don’t bother me—there’s nothing I can do”).

The 16th century priest and poet George Herbert wrote a marvelous psalm called Employment:

If as a flower doth spread and die,
Thou wouldst extend me to some good,
Before I were by frost’s extremity
Nipped in the bud;

The sweetness and the praise were thine;
But the extension and the room,
Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine
At thy great doom.

For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glory be.
The measure of our joys is in this place,
The stuff with thee.

Let me not languish then, and spend
A life as barren to thy praise,
As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delays.

All things are busy; only I
Neither bring honey with the bees,
Nor flow’rs to make that, nor the husbandry
To water these.

I am no link of thy great chain,
But all my company is a weed.
Lord place me in thy consort; give one strain
To my poor reed.

Herbert recognizes his use of self-language. He begins by thinking of himself as a flower in God’s great garland. He has much to offer and he wants God to use it quickly before he dies. He is anxious to experience the glory that will accompany his work. It is the shortness of life that is the turning point for him—life is meaningless if he uses his blessings and gifts to make himself feel good. Herbert then wonders what in the world is he good for anyway. Humbled, he finally admits that he is not a flower in God’s great garland after all, but a weed, and his only use is the weak and broken monotone of a hollow reed if only God would blow on him.

We are hollow reeds that make horrible music, and we can’t even do that on our own. We can’t toot our own reeds. If any good comes out of us, it is because someone else is doing the work. John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress and contemporary to George Herbert, writes “Christ can use gifted people to affect the souls of the people in his Church, yet when he has finished using them, he can hang them up without life…I perceived that although gifts are good to accomplish the task they are designed for—the edification of others—yet they are empty and without power to save the soul unless God is using them. And having gifts is no sign of a person’s relationship to God. This also made me see that gifts are dangerous things, not in themselves, but because of those evils of pride and vainglory that attend them.”

I am a weed, and the good news is that so are you and so is that man on Colorado and Colfax. We are not that different from each other. This is the foundation upon which we can silence our small, demanding selves and be honest about who is really at work.

Now when I walk past someone homeless who asks me for money, at the very least I look him in the eye and acknowledge his presence. We are both humans after all. If I have some money, I give some of it to him. If I am carrying food, I offer that. None of these acts of giving will help him longer than a couple of hours. But I have learned that it is the connection you make, the gift of yourself, to the person you are helping that makes the difference. Imagine yourself homeless—you are there because of a terrible tragedy or a serious mental illness. You are ignored, sneered at, and patronized by “well-meaning” helpers who are really out to make themselves feel better. Imagine the effect this has on you. If you are treated like you are worthless for long enough, you begin to believe that you are in fact worthless. Then someone comes along and acknowledges your presence, they are not afraid to look or smile at you, and if they don’t have anything to give, they say so honestly and directly. They have shown that you are worth talking to and being honest with—they have expressed their human commonality with you. What is more, they are active icons, or images, of Immanuel—God with Us who did the same thing a long time ago.

I believe that it is not wrong to be able to afford an SUV, or to enjoy a cup of coffee. It is not wrong to feel good when you give someone money or build a village outhouse in Nepal—God knows we need a lot of positive reinforcement when we do something right. But remember that the line of circumstance dividing you from the one you are helping is only certain from moment to moment, because you are in the hands of an unpredictable, unsafe Diety who thankfully has extended his mercy to you.

So, let us praise God for his blessings. Let us praise him for the summer times in life. Let us praise him when those we serve express their gratitude, because it means they have heard the weak, monotone music being blown out of us. And let us fervently pray that God will take another life-breath to blow another strain.

DECONSTRUCTION AND CONSTRUCTION

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Wed, 16 May 2007 04:53:00 +0000

First off, thanks to all who expressed concern for our water problem. Our friend who finished our basement is going to help us figure out what to do next, my sister Brigitte came over to help Angela, and my mom also showed up for dinner.

I had burned myself out that day of flooding and conference. The next day I felt drained and didn't have the energy for hardcore networking or listening to speakers that I needed. I drifted in and out of the talks but found myself hanging around the "Green Room" just being. I decided to flow with whatever/whoever God brought to me - I didn't have the energy to make things happen myself.

The first person I talked with the vice-president of the National Evangelical Association, Richard Cizik, and we agreed to stay in touch. Kevin Kelly, the founder of Wired, abandoned me for lunch so I turned to the guy standing next to me and invited him out. Turns out he organizes a huge event that attracts between 2500 to 3000 college students every year. I wasn't the best lunch buddy though, and wasn't all that excited about meeting him and his loud friends--i was feeling too tired and didn't want to eat the fast food they dragged me to. So we parted quickly.
I returned to the "Green Room" and sat with a group of guys who were laughing and telling some great stories. I was drawn into the conversation and began talking with the pastor of New Providence church in the Bahamas, the church that is hosting this year's Soularize which Angela and I are planning to attend. This guy's name is Clint and turns out he was also a speaker at the conference I was currently at. He told me the story of his doing the exact same thing as I was today and God was making him the motivational force behind a growing revitalizing effort in the Bahamas involving the Prime Minister and the CEO of the multi-billion dollar Atlantis resort. Then a friend of his, Chris, joined us and he and I also talked and found we had similar visions and interests. We parted with the agreement to keep talking and see what happens in the near future.

Long story short, I found myself with a new friend who introduced himself to me and who works with Makoto Fujimura in New York. He invited me to have dinner with him and a guy who had a Ph.D. in Physics, was an expert on the Shroud of Turin, and was bringing innovation to businesses, churches, and social support systems. Brilliant man.

Then I met the designer of Paste magazine who invited me to a whiskey tasting party at the Paste offices. When we got there, almost everyone I met that day was there - and only they were there. The guys I had lunch with, Chris, Rusty, and another guy who also works with Makoto, along with all the Paste staff I had also met.

Amazing day. The lesson is one that Clint told me he was also learning - that walking with God involves one foot taking a step that deconstructs something in your life and then the next step is one that builds something new, and then the next step deconstructs something else, and the next step builds something new. But you only take one step at a time and you have to be willing to stand there as everything crumbles around you, not knowing what will happen next, but trusting that God is about to build something else. "The only thing I know at any moment," he said, "is that I love Jesus and that he loves me. And that has to be enough, even if your life is crumbling around you."

A BRIEF REVIEW OF "CHILDREN OF MEN"

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Tue, 01 May 2007 18:57:00 +0000

This is one of my favorite films of last year and has quickly moved into one of my all time favorites. The cinematography was incredible and many of the action sequences are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Politically, it doesn’t condone a particular party or philosophy - indeed, any party structure is absent, replaced instead by “the government” and an activist group “the fishes.” Both of these parties are seriously indicted, though the fishes are treated fairly as trying to do the right thing exactly the wrong way (which of course inevitably turns them into the main antagonists of the film). What we are faced with then, is an examination of individual and group responsibility. Our choices as individuals, and the values underlying these choices, make as much difference in the world as do the choices of groups (governmental or otherwise). This is a serious message that Christians need to think seriously about and we must move away from self-interested religious propoganda and sacrifice everything, including our lives as Clive Owen’s protagonist did, to protect and spread beauty, wonder, and life in a world torn by war, hate, paranoia, misplaced patriotism, and self-interested religious propoganda.

THE SPIDER AND THE FLY

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 04:10:00 +0000

Fifteen minutes before I left for the Q conference in Georgia, I discovered that our newly finished basement was flooding. The rain should have been Denver's April blizzard, except that it was about 15 days too late and winter had already turned to spring. The grass was green, the trees were blooming and budding, it had been warm. I was enjoying the rain for the first time in almost 2 years--it had been that long since our last flooding. I thought I had fixed the problem and so we finished the basement. God provided us exactly the right amount of money to pay for it and a friend to do it quickly and in time for a good potential renter to look at our townhouse. It all seemed in the bag and we would move in to a communal house with another family. We want to be good stewards of our resources, spend only what we have to take care of our house, share resources with another family, keep downsizing and living as un-consumer lives as we possible.

Two days after the basement was done and 2 days before the potential renters would look at our house, the rains came down and the floods came up; the rains came down and the floods came up; the rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the sand went SPLAT!

So 15 minutes after I discovered the water and the wet spot on the carpet, I kissed my wife and kids good-bye, drove to the airport, and flew to sunny Atlanta for an exciting and potentially edifying (not to mention profitable time of networking) conference.

On the plane, I was trying my hardest not to be bitter about the flooding that had started at home. I read about the Jesus Prayer in the Eastern Orthodox tradition--you pray it over and over to train yourself to "pray without ceasing." The prayer goes - "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." I also read a couple of Fred Buechner's old sermons about watching for the wonder and work of God to show up in your life, in the humdrum, amazing, ridiculousness of it. So I tried it. I prayed the Jesus prayer. I told God that I was sorry about being bitter about the water and that I knew that if it was his will that he could move a few grains of dirt to block the water from coming in the basement and that I would really appreciate it if he would do that. I imagined seeing a thumbprint squashing dirt next to our foundation and was sure he would if he wanted to. Maybe.

I went to dinner with a potential author and had some of the best tapas I've had in ages...actually since I last had tapas, which was about 7 years ago. I also had a pretty decent mojito and half a carafe of sangria.

When I got back to my hotel, I talked with Angela again. Her anxiety was rising in direct proportion to the amount of water that was doing the same - that is to say, by the gallons. She was also trying to get the kids to bed. We talked about every 30 minutes trying to figure out where the water was coming from and what to do about it. The answer was "who knows?" on both counts, except for Angela to shopvac up the water every half hour through the night while trying to keep the kids nursed and asleep.

The next day, I sat through about 8 presentations and shook hands with Andy Crouch and Rick Warren. Then I talked with my tearful and exhausted wife about how the rain stopped but the flooding hadn't. Then I sat through 5 more presentations, joked around with Chris Seay, made lunch plans for the following day with the founder of Wired magazine, and had lunch with the business consultant for Sam's Club, Meijer, and other megastores. Then I talked with Angela some more about who to call to swing by and figure out what to do with an increasingly soaked basement. I made a few phone calls to our construction expert friends, but had to leave frantic messages with them. I was feeling completely helpless about the flooding, angry at God and the previous owners, and more than a little guilty about leaving my wife to clean the house, show it to the possible renters, manage the flood, take care of the kids, and plan a birthday bash for the weekend--all by herself.

Then, I sat through 5 more sessions, learned about how slavery is alive and well in the world (including in the United States, even in some churches), how sex trafficking works, and about people doing something about it. I talked with an executive producer from Lionsgate Films (Saw 1-3, Hostel, Pride, The U.S. vs. John Lennon) and we agreed to keep in touch in order to trade book/movie ideas and leads. I heard from Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOM's Shoes, and his passion to put shoes on the feet of at least a million kids in third world countries by this time next year (and it looks like he just might pull it off). Then Jeff Johnson, a producer at BET, raked the good-intentioned but still racist-minded white and multi-ethnic churches over the coals.

I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed and torn. Angela called and said that the office was now wet too and that the water was coming in faster, even though it was a nice sunny day. She also said that she just got an email from the potential renters saying that they found some other place, thanks anyway. We now had no leads for renters, our newly finished basement was being destroyed by flooding we thought we had prevented by an unseasonal, highly unusual, and long rain storm. The kids were cranky, my wife was going crazy, no one who could help was calling back. Meanwhile, I was having tremendous success at networking, I was learning a lot about this new movement of culture and social justice creators in the Church, and eating well. I was also bitter about the flooding and despairing about being able to afford the repairs.

I went to the conference's "Quiet Space" to take a time out. Gazing at the Atlanta skyline, I tried the Jesus Prayer again, but it quickly turned into a plea and a diatribe. God gave us exactly the right amount we needed to finish the basement--he needed to give us what we needed to fix it up again. Then I sat on a hard bench and tried to ignore this yahoo yelling into his cell phone.

A fly buzzed loudly in the window behind me and I turned around to see that it was trying to escape from a spider's web. I have never seen a frantic, panicked fly before. It's hindquarters were already cocooned and its legs seemed paralyzed. It did have full use of its wings, though, and they were beating the air with all the desparation a doomed being could have. The spider had a firm grip on the fly and was pulling it back into the crack of the window and out of sight. The fly gave a good struggle, but the force of its wings could not prevail over the spider's eight powerful legs. The fly was yanked back into the crack where I could still hear its wings beating against the wood of the pane until they stopped and I swore I could hear a munching noise. Sickened, I left the room.

DELIBERATE: BECOME WHAT YOU BELIEVE

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 13:54:00 +0000

Beginning this September, a new line of books from NavPress--Deliberate: Become What You Believe--will hit the streets. Deliberate books explore the mystery of faith and how to actively live it out. As we plumb the mystery, we use Jesus as our guide—a man who, after spending 40 days of solitary contemplation in the desert, announced:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and the regaining of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
— Luke 4:18-19

So began a career that is a study of profound faith in action, a perfect blend of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. He broke firm Jewish mores when he talked to the Samaritan woman alone at the well. He upset the unholy money making in the temple. He left everyone speechless when he defended the woman who slept around. He helped everyone he came across on his way to visit a dying friend. He taught through stories and riddles. He told his followers to love their enemies. He treated party-goers at a wedding reception to the best wine late in the evening.

Jesus told us to live like he did and to do even greater things. He told us to live deliberately, combining faith and action.

Deliberate about global Christianity
Deliberate embraces the “whole world” aspect of God’s love. The world’s cultures and economics are globalizing—distances between people are shrinking. We must listen to the experiences of other cultures and learn about God’s work in them. We must embrace a global Christianity without losing the specificity of God’s work within our own context. Deliberate explores voices from around the world, and from other worlds within America, as they tell their tales of God’s grace in the harsh light of real life. We need to hear from African-Americans struggling in “post-movement” urban America, indigenous pastors living in Muslim Asia, European female artists, and Sudanese countrymen struggling with “post-colonialism” and the continued effects of civil war and genocide.

Deliberate about art and culture
Deliberate explores the confluence of art and faith. Art has held a key place in the expression of faith through the centuries and its role in this new century, in all its forms, is more crucial than ever. It has the ability to communicate the truth about this world in profound ways that printed or spoken words cannot match—truth about injustice, beauty, hate, love, and the human condition. Art can also communicate God’s grace and love for the world in equally profound ways and often can bridge cultures and people better than any other form of communication. It can even bypass the unconscious autopilot many of us live by and promote conscious living and deliberate action. So it is important to acknowledge the expression of faith through art and to develop its role in God’s work in the world.

Deliberate about theology
Deliberate is theologically grounded. While exploring the mystery, it is important to be mindful of the signposts God already has placed for us through Biblical doctrine and Church tradition. This grounding is not wholly limiting, however—it pulls from many traditions, readings, and expressions of Scripture, but it will also “test the spirits” to remain as faithful to God’s Word (both written and incarnated) as possible (1 John 4:1). Deliberate follows Saint Augustine’s guiding principle:
“In essentials, unity;
in non-essentials, liberty;
in all things, charity.”

Deliberate about God’s Kingdom work
Deliberate follows Jesus’ example and explores the timeless nature of God’s work, such as loving the whole world (John 3:16); caring for the poor, orphan, widow, prisoner and foreigner (Micah 6:8, Matthew 25:31-46, Isaiah 58); and redeeming the world—everyone and everything in it—through reconciliation of people and a renewal of nature (Colossians 1:19-20 and Romans 8:19-23).

Deliberate about holistic, active faith
Deliberate encourages readers to embrace a holistic and vibrant Christian faith that is both contemplative and active. It bridges the mystery-embracing, active faith of emerging churches with theological rootedness. It breaks down the sacred/secular divide and explores all aspects of creation and culture and our role in doing God’s work through them. It dialogues with other faiths and worldviews and embraces God’s truth found there. It explores art and culture and uses them to unflinchingly tell the truth about this life and God’s redemption of it. It fosters a faith bold enough to incarnate the gospel in a shrinking and diverse world. There is something here for everyone on a spiritual pilgrimage to know God and live like Christ—Christian and non-Christian alike.

NOT REALLY UPSIDE DOWN

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:37:00 +0000

Seven-thirty marks the beginning of bedtime in the Seeling home - all three kids protest the announcement that the time has come to get ready for bed. The girls are easily talked into it with the promise of nursing and their tearful whining is replaced by big smiles, waves, and "Nah nah! Nah nah!" Sometimes I get hugs - Ameena always more willing to dispense these than Acacia who usually runs away until she sees Ameena giving hugs. Malachi however always gets his hugs and he happily gives them back in good brotherly form.

After the girls disappear with Angela upstairs, Malachi usually plays another quarter hour before I insist that he brushes his teeth. He has a motorized toothbrush in the shape of a car that he likes to use these days (he has three others to choose from). When Angela first gave it to him as a present, he was excited until we turned it on and stuck it in his mouth. Malachi hates loud noises and has always been a little skittish when it comes to new, strange things. He pulled back immediately and refused to use the new toothbrush, prefering his old, reliable, manual green Oral brush. He finally realized how cool his car toothbrush was when Isabella came over to spend the night. She had a motorized pink Disney Princesses toothbrush over which she globbed toothpaste, turned the noisy motor on, and nonchalantly stuck it in her mouth - a stubbornly confident Princess of Cool. Malachi wanted to show her how cool he was with his own motorized car toothbrush and followed her lead. The deal was clinched when she spit into the sink, a line of goopy white dripping from her lips, down her chin, barely making it into the sink before creeping down the white bowl. If there is anything more built into the Y chromosome it is the need to spit, and here Malachi saw an opportunity to spit in the house in an approved way. Toothbrushing before bed has never been an issue since.

Once in bed, if it's not too late, Malachi and I read The Next Chapter in whatever "Chapter book" we're reading at the time. Our first book was one of my favorites The House at Pooh Corner. Our second was The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Malachi loved both, so then followed the adventures of Ralph the mouse in the sequel Runaway Ralph, a theme I thought twice about introducing to my three year old. It is decidedly slower than the first book and deals with older themes, but Malachi still seems interested in listening to it. When we're done reading, I turn off the lights and lay next to him to chat and doze until he finally drops off to sleep.

I usually take this time of chatting and dozing to reaffirm my love to Malachi, to apologize for anything mean I did or for the time we didn't get to play that day, and to tell him what I am proud of him for. He sometimes responds with a simple "thanks, daddy" and sometimes he engages and provides thoughts of his own. The last few nights have been full of the latter.

A couple nights ago, Malachi was singing softly to himself a song about a volcano under the ocean that "blows and blows and blows." I had never heard that song before and I had no idea Malachi knew anything about volcanos, much less submarine ones that blow and blow and blow. After a few rounds of this chorus, Mo' turned to me and said, "Daddy, there are volcanos under the ocean."

"You're right, buddy."

"And sleeping volcanos are called 'dormance.'"

I propped my head up on my hand and looked at him through the red glow of the string of chili pepper lights we use for a nightlight. I still have no idea where he learned about this - maybe from school, or maybe from a show he watched on NickJr.com - the volcano song he has associated with Diego, but I've never heard a preschool show talk about dormant volcanos. The next day during dinner, we munched on sandwiches and watched "blowing" volcanos on Google video and saw what sleeping, dormant volcanos looked like (he was a little disappointed in the dormant ones: "But those have snow on them").

The next night I told Malachi how proud I was of him and how big he was getting. "Yeah, I can ride my bike now," he said.

"Yup, and you're a good bike rider too."

"Yeah. And I can climb good...because I'm not little anymore," he said thoughtfully.

"Yup."

"And...I can run...and I can ride my scooter..." He paused and thought a little longer. "And I am almost good at driving."

Last night, in his final quarter hour of playing before bed, I was checking email and listening to him play and sing to himself. He was playing with one of those bead rollercoasters - he had it on its side and was making up a story full of danger and adventure for the beads. At the same time he sang:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are great
You'll never know dear (giggle) how much I love you
... when skies are great
You'll never know dear...never know I love you
When skies are great...
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
When skies are great...

He was silent for a moment and then he said, "Daddy, sometimes people kill."

I swiveled around in my office chair to face him. "Yes they do, buddy. Sometimes people do kill."

"And sometimes animals die."

"Yes, sometimes they do. "

He turned back to his toy and ran the beads around their metal tracks. "What do you think about that?" I asked him.

He waved at his toy, still on its side and said, "The world is upside down. But not really upside down, just a little."

ORPHAN OF GOD

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 14:41:00 +0000

I will rise from my bed with a question again

As I work to inherit the restless wind

The view from my window is cold and obscene

I want to touch what my eyes haven't seen

But they have packaged our virtue in cellulose dreams
And sold us the remnants 'til our pockets are clean
Til our hopes fall 'round our feet
Like the dust and dead leaves
And we end up looking like what we believe

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins and make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

Like bees in a bottle we are flying at fate
Beating our wings against the walls of this place
Unaware that the struggle is the blood of the proof
In choosing to believe the unbelievable truth

But they have captured our siblings and rendered them mute
They've disputed our lineage and poisoned our roots
We have bought from the brokers who have broken their oaths
And we're out on the streets with a lump in our throats

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins
And make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

-Mark Heard

PAYING DEBTS OF GRATITUDE

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:07:00 +0000

As I continue to reflect on the events of my life that have led to last week's nexus, I realize that I have some debts of gratitude that are overdue. So, let the acceptance speech begin:

Angela - my wonderful wife who has believed in my writing and creativity from the start. She has always believed in my taking jobs for which I am passionate about - and she has been willing to pay the price the search for such jobs cost us. Her support and willingness to head in the new direction NavPress will take our family makes it all possible. To her I owe everything.

Keven Winder - one of my closest friends and greatest confidante. He has been pushing me and pushing me in this direction for almost as long as Angela has. We were going to write a book together, which I got lost in the idea of, but he went on to write one of his own just to needle me (well, ok, he also had a book concept that he thought needed to be written).

Bill O'Brien and the M.O.S.E.S. Project in Detroit - Bill taught me everything I know about networking, professional relationship building, and organizing. He and the churches of the M.O.S.E.S. Project instilled in me a passion for social justice and for the Biblical mandate to care for the poor and oppressed.

Getabecha Mekonnen and Tracy Smith at Northeast Denver Housing Center - I was given complete freedom to practice everything I learned in Detroit and in graduate school at NDHC. Gete and Tracy supported every hair-brained idea I had and many of those ideas are still being used with the homeless and impoverished people I worked with. I also began my graphic design training here.

Connie Ferguson at Kaiser Permanente - Connie believed in me from the first day we met while I was at the American Heart Association. She also gave me complete freedom to develop my creativity and graphic design skills. She also provided the flexibility I needed to have our twins "at home" in Utah by letting me work long-distance for a month and to develop my personal network of artists and writers in Denver. If it wasn't for her and for the other leaders in the Kaiser Prevention Department, I am certain that I would not have been prepared for this vocational shift - without my current position at Kaiser, I would not have gotten this job at NavPress.

All 20 medical schools I applied to in college - If it hadn't been for their rigorous and well-conceived application and interviewing process, I would have made the biggest mistake of my career at it's very beginning - I would have gone through medical school to become a doctor. Without their foresight, I would not have met my wife, had my wonderful kids, developed my writing and creativity, and I would have withered on the vine in a job I would have hated.

University of Michigan School of Social Work - They accepted my application when I had no prior social work experience or course work, a fact that caused the other 2 schools of social work to which I applied to deny my application. The Michigan school accepted talent and life experience over previous skill, a worthy approach infrequently followed.

D.J. Turner and Jared Mackey - These two have been my biggest fans and supporters, second only to my wife, and have provided never-ending encouragement. My personal and creative development would have been greatly stunted if it weren't for these two. My time at TNL was highly formative and the artisan's gathering Entersection engineered by D.J. and John Miller gave me a shove in the right direction.

Russ McKendry and Mike McGirk at L2 Church - These two have also been highly influential in my recent development, encouraging my spiritual and doctrinal growth and giving me the opportunity to marry both with my creativity. The freedom and latitude they have provided over the last year has been incredible, from allowing me to help reformulate and repackage their church to taking big political risks by letting me hold the State of Our Values party and the Dekalog discussion at the church, and largely funding both! Without these experiences and their solid teaching, I would not have been in a position to even apply for the position at NavPress.

The rest of my family and friends - there are of course more people I haven't mentioned who have made me who I am and to them I also owe a great deal.

I am very excited to see where my family and I are taken next and we covet your prayers and continued support and encouragement.

THE NEXUS

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:36:00 +0000

Three months. Three life-course directing decisions. And no clear direction until it all came down last week. Even then we had to proceed by faith.

Several weeks ago, I called my mentor and Big Brother Jim Kimbriel in anguish. Almost everyone was telling me that we needed to forgo the Philippines because of the ministry work that Angela and I were doing here - that we were needed here more than anywhere else. I had a very difficult time buying that when I knew that people in the Philippines were living in squalor and dying - that the skills that Angela and I both have were greatly needed. Sure, people here live in poverty too, but the difference in my mind was the great gulf between relative poverty and absolute poverty. Jim has known me since my college days and he has known us as a couple from its inception. He instilled in us back then the passion to use our complementary skills where they were needed most - namely in developing countries.

But the choice to go or to stay seemed to be the choice between MY "ministry" in Denver (bridging the sacred/secular chasm) and ANGELA's dream of training to become a midwife, especially a missionary midwife. I so believed that Angela's path was to become a midwife, and in response to my long held belief that I was cut out to do international work, I was willing to do whatever it took to get us there. But Jim was one of the only people in our lives who supported this decision. Our other wise friends said we needed to stay because my influence was just beginning to bud and leaving now would be a drastic mistake; likewise, Xylem was poised to take off as an organization and Angela leaving it now might kill it.

To stay for me would have meant staying at Kaiser Permanente, either in my current job (which was far from stimulating, but provides all the flexibility and buying power I needed) or in a new job for which I had been waiting over a year and was about 95% sure I would get. There was also the outside chance that I would work for NavPress as Developmental Editor of a new line of books they were publishing. This job sounded fantastic, but my performance during the interview was mixed at best and I was far from certain that I was a real contender.

To stay for Angela meant continuing with Xylem, raising the kids, and most likely putting midwifery training off indefinitely. The possibility of her training in Denver was real, but actually pulling it off with Xylem and family responsibilities seemed unreal. And if I was to get the NavPress job, my absence from the family another 2 hours a day made midwifery training seem completely unrealistic.

Given my belief that God wanted Angela to become a midwife, I placed realizing her dream and training as my top priority - even if it meant placing everything else on hold for the next two-and-a-half years. And yet, we both still felt greatly conflicted about leaving and the director of the missionary midwifery school/clinic was being strangely incommunicado.

So, I called Jim and asked him if my priorities were in the right place. I believed my wife comes before everything else, including whatever I thought my "ministry" should be, but I was beginning to doubt. Jim said that I would never regret choosing Angela above everything else and he challenged anyone who loved his wife to say otherwise. After all, our marriage vows specifically state that we would forgo all others for each other. But, the dilemma was clear and he also pointed out that God wants us to walk by faith and not by sight. Right now, he said, you can't see anything. But the great thing is that there is not a bad choice among them - any of the three options would be good. But to choose which was the best path to take requires faith. He encouraged us to make a list of all the blessings God has given us and the good work he's done in and through us and then sit down together for an hour and thank him for it. He also told me to pray for courage.

I looked up the "walk by faith" scripture in 2 Corinthians 5 and here's the passage en toto:

5:1 For we know that if our earthly house, the tent we live in, 1 is dismantled, 2 we have a building from God, a house not built by human hands, that is eternal in the heavens. 5:2 For in this earthly house 3 we groan, because we desire to put on 4 our heavenly dwelling, 5:3 if indeed, after we have put on 5 our heavenly house, 6 we will not be found naked. 5:4 For we groan while we are in this tent, 7 since we are weighed down, 8 because we do not want to be unclothed, but clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5:5 Now the one who prepared us for this very purpose 9 is God, who gave us the Spirit as a down payment. 10 5:6 Therefore we are always full of courage, and we know that as long as we are alive here on earth 11 we are absent from the Lord – 5:7 for we live 12 by faith, not by sight. 5:8 Thus we are full of courage and would prefer to be away 13 from the body and at home with the Lord. 5:9 So then whether we are alive 14 or away, we make it our ambition to please him. 15 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, 16 so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil. 17

Truly, a wonderful passage. And after fasting and praying for a day, I felt more at ease.

The end of the story is this: I received a call from Kent at NavPress less than a week after my interview and a full week before when he had told me he'd let me know. I thought he was going to put me out of my misery. What he did instead has me reeling still - he not only offered me a job at NavPress, but he wanted me to oversee BOTH new lines of books and so he wanted me to be a Senior Editor. He said that he wanted me to stay in Denver and NOT move to Colorado Springs because of the network I've already built, and so to help out with the commute I could work from home once a week in addition to holding flexible hours. When I told him that I was concerned about losing my "edge" if I came to work for a Christian institution, he agreed that was a concern of his too - and so to make sure I stay sharp, he expects me to not only continue to stay connected with the front lines in the inner city, but also to travel around to other communities to see what they are doing - all on The Navigator's nickel. I would have the title power, budget, and flexilibity to take what I've been doing on the side in Denver and raise it to an entirely new level.

I was astonished. "Are you kidding me?" I asked. "Did any of you actually read my blogs? Do you realize who you're offering this too?" Kent laughed and said that they did and yes they do - in fact, my blogs were a selling point. "Well then," I said, "I guess I'll have to clean up my language a little bit, or at least keep it from getting any worse."

Two days later, I interviewed for the new job at Kaiser and was reminded why I was willing to wait for so long for it. It was a sweet job - unique, complicated, and influential. But, in the end, I'd be in a tougher part of the corporate culture and it would STILL be a stepping stone job. Senior Editor, on the other hand, fits me very very well.

That night, I called Kent back and accepted the job. An hour later, Angela received an email from the director of the Philippine school requesting a second phone interview with us. Two days later, I was informed that I was one of the top two finalists for the Kaiser position and that they wanted a second interview with me that afternoon.

It wasn't difficult to turn down the Kaiser job, but crafting a letter to the Philippines was very difficult indeed. We both still very much wanted to go, especially Angela. She was very excited for me and agreed that she didn't see how I could turn down the NavPress job, but she was also grieving the loss of an amazing opportunity and the potential loss of training at all - something she had been planning to do for around 8 years. I too felt the loss because I had been planning to do a trip like the one to the Philippines for around 7 years.

But wonderful things are beginning to take shape. We have always wanted to share resources with other Christian families, realizing Andy Crouch's wonderful question, "How many T.V's does a church need to have? How many lawn mowers, kitchens, and cars?" In February, we are seriously considering moving with another family, good friends of ours Jeff and Brenda, into a house on West Colfax and Sheridan. Ideally, we will rent our townhouse to another family we are friends with who need a bigger, but affordable place on our side of town. Not only will we be sharing resources all around, but Angela will be strategically located between the birth center and her midwife friend and mentor - both of which are crucial to her training here. She will be able to share babysitting with Brenda who is also in school - combined with my being home an extra day per week, she will have the flexibility and support she needs to do her training. We will pay half what we do in our current mortgage, and the savings will pay for Angela's equipment and tuition. Xylem's continuation will be assured as Angela moves into a more directorial role, which will also free up her time and energy.

Finally, we have kept the doors open for the Philippines and are planning to make a trip over there the summer of 2008. I asked Kent what he thought of this and he said that he already has short term missions built into the NavPress culture and that he encourages his staff to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the international branch of The Navigators. How much time I can take will depend on what is going on then, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

Walk by faith indeed. The past three months have been an incredible ride and it is clear that God is orchestrating events in the Seeling family. Last week was a nexus, one of those rare points in life where events that were set in motion at least 12 years ago, if not from birth, came together. For me, if I had not been rejected by 20 medical schools 12 years ago in order to go to, almost on a whim, attend one school of social work, I would not now be here. We'll see what happens from here...God willing, we'll keep walking by faith.

HOW TO STOP A GANGRENE INFECTION

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 21:44:00 +0000

One of the pastors in my church, Mike McGirk, left a comment on my most recent post. In it he refers to 2 Timothy 2:24 and 25. It turns out that Paul gave Timothy an answer to the problem I have been railing against lately. In fact, this passage is so apropos to my current thinking that I wanted to post these verses and a few around it. (This comes from my favorite translation, the NetBible found at www.bible.org.)

2:14 Remind people of these things and solemnly charge them before the Lord not to wrangle over words. This is of no benefit; it just brings ruin on those who listen. 2:15 Make every effort to present yourself before God as a proven worker who does not need to be ashamed, teaching the message of truth accurately. 2:16 But avoid profane chatter, because those occupied with it will stray further and further into ungodliness, 2:17 and their message will spread its infection like gangrene.

2:22 But keep away from youthful passions, and pursue righteousness, faithfulness, love, and peace, in company with others who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 2:23 But reject foolish and ignorant controversies, because you know they breed infighting. 2:24 And the Lord’s slave must not engage in heated disputes but be kind toward all, an apt teacher, patient, 2:25 correcting opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance and then knowledge of the truth 2:26 and they will come to their senses and escape the devil’s trap where they are held captive to do his will.

SO YOU WANT A SCRAPPY NON-REVOLUTION?

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 15:52:00 +0000

I was asked to respond recently to the "lowlights" of the "You Say You Want A Revolution" conference as summarized by Gary Shavey, a pastor in Mark Driscoll's Acts 29 leadership network. The conference was put on by the good folks at "Off The Map" (part of the Emergent Village network - to which you might call Acts 29 the antithesis) and headlined by Brian McLaren, George Barna, and Spencer Burke (from TheOoze.com and author of The Heretics Guide to the Bible).

You can read Gary Shavey's article at Driscoll's The Resurgence site. Here is my response:

I think that Gary Shavey went to the You Say You Want A Revolution conference skeptical and looking to pick a fight - so right off the bat his "summary" is suspect. However, most of his comments were fairly measured, and as he says, "all over the map." I do heartly agree with his "What the...?" about the $2.50 drip coffee - what the crap is that?! What a rip!

Honestly, these days what I am most interested in is helpful contributions to the overall conversation about the church and living in a way that pleases and serves God. I saw the ads for this conference and what the topics were and frankly I immediately pushed the delete button.
It's the same conversation I've heard over and over and over, not really contributing anything. If Shavey's experience is to be trusted, then my sense of the conference was right on. Shavey's summary doesn't really contribute anything either. It went from a "based on what I was looking for, here's what I agree with" to a "I knew it, these heretics are a bunch of freaks who are revolutionizing the "conversation" into a money-making Christianese venture." Not a particularly helpful position.

To be honest, I've grown tired of Jim Wallis and the "Sojourners" line too. I can't remember who it was that said this (it might be my current writer hero David James Duncan), but whoever it was said that anyone who claims to speak for God is missing it and basically more interested in propaganda than the whole truth, that Wallis is making the same mistake that "Evangelicalism" and the "Religious Right" has made, namely speaking for God (e.g. the title of his book God's Politics - or, on the other end of the spectrum, the ever popular "Growing Kids God's Way" by Gary Ezzo). Only Wallis comes at it from the "Religious Left" while trying to position himself as a centrist, something he is only partially successful at doing. Both he and McLaren have a tendency to let the more questionable aspects of liberation theology to serve as the backbone of their 3-second sound byte message (or the "Robin Hood" message as Shavey puts it). If I can wax prophetic, I think that Wallis' position will cause the decline of "Sojourners" influence to next to nothing over the next 5 to 7 years as their base of support grows older.

I have the same problem with the secularists who also criticize the Church and Christianity, like in that book Kingdom Coming. It tries to raise the alarm and serve as an expose of Christianity in exactly the same way that Dobson (and Driscoll and his crew) raises the alarm and exposes the evil secular/pseudo-religious feminist left. But, rather than a helpful contribution toward something better, we get instead the message that women need to support their husband's "ministry" by staying home and that the men had better start acting like men, gird up their loins, enter the fray, and come home to pork their wives whenever they want. These perspectives help to get us nowhere and they do exactly the same thing that the most recent round of political advertisements did - fling shit and piss people off. The language of war and battle can only get us so far. What we need now is to find more helpful language before Christianity gets to the same place that that language and perspective got the world in 1945 (and, for that matter, in 2006).

So, as I survey the land, I once again see that everyone is fighting and clawing away at each other as American Chrisitianity goes to Hell in a Starbucks holiday giftpack. I continue to see the "twilight of the saints" (as I wrote about earlier) and I'm not seeing anyone filling the vacuum that is forming.

THE COUNTRY, THE CHURCH, HER PREACHER, AND HIS LOVER

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 22:27:00 +0000

"All I'm hearing is, 'blah blah gay sex blah blah congress.'" - Granddad Freeman in The Boondocks, after half-hearing his grandson's explanation of the true roots of the Christmas holiday.

Once again America's obsession with sex strikes again. Nothing gets the nation's ire (and privates) up more than headlines splashed with the latest sex scandal. We are quick to hang up the stained undies for all to see and then raise our fists in consternation at the betrayal of our public trust. We can hardly speak without breathing heavily about gay sex (made appropriate for polite conversation by the gay marriage issue and priestly robes), pornography, white house interns and pubic hair on Coke cans. We are titillated beyond measure and we are addicted to being turned on by the news, music, movies, TV, and every day conversation.

Not long ago, folks on the political and religious right shouted with righteous indignation at Bill Clinton's indiscretion with an intern. Clinton unwisely tried to cover it up, which only led to the unveiling of more unsavory secrets ("Sure I smoked a dube, but I never inhaled."). Those on the left kept asking, "What's the big deal? Who cares what he does in private?" The mantra I heard repeatedly was, "Private life has nothing to do with public life." Clinton ended up impeached but not kicked out of office, an official handslap.

Now the tables have been overturned. Mel Gibson kicked off the whole recent shebang with his drunken anti-Semitic rant for which he apologized profusely and admitted to a lifelong struggle with alcoholism, which should have surprised exactly no one after watching the first couple "Lethal Weapon" movies. His apology, it turns out, is a model of public humility and honesty that most of us should aspire to even privately. Nothing to yank your panties off with this one, but it certainly shot the first arrow into the bruised heart of Christian morality. Even after the Anti-Defamation League accepted Gibson's apology, leftists kept twisting the knife.

Then Republican Congressman Mark Foley, a.k.a. Maf54, got busted for instant messaging sexual flirtations to underaged congressional pages. Disgusting stuff to read. You can see the wild desperation in his eyes as his wild bouffant flops around. Nothing like handing Bush-haters a canister of napalm and asking if they would kindly drop it on you. And yet, our collective voyeurism is delighted and we want to know every detail. Exactly what did those IM's say? Well, fellow quidnunc, you can satisfy your curiosity at as benign a place as Wikipedia. Don't worry, it is just objective information so no one will blame you for looking it up.

Meanwhile the gay sex debate rages on. One state approves it, then retracts. Then another state approves it and another, like Colorado, my home, tries to solidify its disapproval in its constitution, even though the constitution already defines marriage as the union of "one man and one woman" (not to mention the double standard of allowing heterosexual couples to live and copulate together with benefits while homosexual couples don't get the same benefits, even though no one on either side is married - maybe it's just me that sees the problem?). My leftist hetero friends are as adamant about supporting gay marriage as my right-wing hetero friends are about abolishing it forever. They go back and forth, thrusting and parrying each other, and then make the trip from their cubes down the hall to the bathroom to clean up.

Then, rising to a dramatic climax, Ted Haggard, devoted husband and father of five beautiful children, pastor of 14,000 and co-leader (with James Dobson) of the so-called "Evangelical," right-wing world is caught with his pants down in front of a young man named Mike, all this a week before the November elections in which the official state of gay sex would be decided. Ted, an adamant opponent to gay marriage, admitted this past Lord's Day that he was "a deceiver and a liar," and stepped down from his formidable pedestal before he was shoved off.

I can hear the righteous indignation spewing forth from my brethren and sistern now, from the left this time: "Hypocrite!" "That's why I don't go to church! Hateful hypocrites, every one!"

Too bad private life has nothing to do with public life. (Besides, Haggard only possessed the meth, he didn't INGEST it. And what's wrong with gay sex again?)
Too bad cheap political ploys like this work so well, on both sides of the aisle.
As Jesus said, "If you've never done anything wrong in your life, then have at him!"

What breaks my heart is the impact this will have on the rest of the Haggard family. Can you imagine growing up in that family from this point on? The thousands of people under his pastoral leadership will also suffer. For all of my distaste of mainstream evangelicalism, I know most of them are good people and well-intentioned, now thrown into great confusion.

What also bothers me a great deal about this affair is the same thing that has bothered me about the Church as a whole - and that is the bruises and flesh wounds Jesus continues to suffer at the hand of his "followers." As Roger the Shrubber so aptly put it in Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail, "There is a pestilence upon this land...nothing is sacred." I would add, "Neither within the Kingdom nor without it."

The thing that religio-political leaders like Ted Haggard and Jim Dobson, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton seem to forget is that they are all of them in fact still human and not merely an establishment trapped in a man's body. They are all of them sinners like the rest of us, and like the rest of us do things for which they must repent. The double-whammy for them is that they are also held to a higher standard, as Jesus' brother James says in his book. Haggard and Clinton became less than human by becoming an embodiment, and in so doing, bought into the legend of themselves written by and for them.

But everyone loves a good story about the downfall of a legend and multitudes clamor to play a part. Evangelicalism is wavering on the brink of the same abyss that swallowed the Catholic Church and secularists are shoving as hard as they can with books like Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg (who, for example, shows that the language of the Religious Right is frighteningly similar to the language of the Third Reich). Stories are cropping up in papers all over the country about inappropriate sexual encounters and child molestations by unknown pastors of small churches. And now, little unknown Mike comes out of the closet with the aplomb of a smart bomb and with the spontaneity of Rosa Park's refusal to move to the back of the bus. The Evangelical power structure is consumed by all the drama and violence of a meth lab explosion. Just in time for the November elections.

Jonathan Edwards would be proud. I can see him waving his prodigious finger in the air and yelling to a sweaty crowd, "See? See? I TOLD you, didn't I?"

And that really is the hope in this situation, isn't it? That there is a God out there who does indeed keep score. A God who requires repentance more than he does a happy face. His Church is full of unrepentant believers and make-believers who cripple His efforts to make the world what he intended it to be. I don't pretend to pass judgment on the state of Haggard's soul, but I suspect that these late events might be the best thing to ever happen to the man - God's merciful unveiling of the truth. It might have been less painful had he talked to his wife about it 3 years ago and, if he had continued to struggle, to talk to his Board of Elders. But, it seems God has finally yanked the demon institution out of his body and left him sitting naked on a bed of ashes, requiring a savior again. God, I believe, is remaking Haggard.

In exactly the same way, I pray that God is remaking the Evangelical church - crushing the plastic Coke bottles and cardboard pizza boxes, mixing in all the used Starbucks coffee grounds, and recycling the whole mess into something green and sustainable. Because Jesus is not a brand name, he is not an institution, he is not a political party, and apparently he will have words with anyone who says otherwise. Thankfully.

MAGNATUDE 6.7

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 05:24:00 +0000

The epicenter is Davao City on Mindanao Island in the southern Philippines. It is the place where our lives will be shaken beyond current recognition. In fact, re-cognition is exactly what will happen if we move there - indeed, it has already begun. My wife's blog tells the story best and I invite you to read it here.

THE TWILIGHT OF THE SAINTS

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 18:50:00 +0000

Last week, Newsweek did a cover story on Billy Graham. I thought it was an excellent treatment of one of the most influential men in the last 2000 years. You can read the full article here.

I came away from the story with two thoughts. The first thing that struck me was the arc of Billy's story. The picture above shows his youthful fire. He was friend and confidante to presidents and world business leaders. He was on a nickname basis with Martin Luther King, Jr., "Mike" to Billy. He got involved in the political scene and became a type of spokesman for political figureheads - a career move that got him written off by most of the press and social critics, something that he eventually was able to reverse. He preached the gospel to more people in the world than anyone else in the history of Christianity.

Now, he is consistently lionized by the press. Time did a story about him 13 years ago:

Then he made the top 100 most influential people of the 20th Century list. Now it's Newsweek's turn. "When's he going to die?" seems to be the underlying question. And the one that is even deeper is, "Is there anyone in the current generations who can fill the void he will leave?" That is the second thought I had and the one that leaves me troubled.

Compare the two pictures. Look at the eyes. He's been tempered over the years. That gives me some hope for our present. There are lots of firey young folk (by young I mean 50 years and younger) around who are in the process of being tempered. But I'm not sure I see any really cut from the same stock as Billy or Mother Theresa. Most likely there are a lot of saints like them - perhaps they're just diluted in the over publicized era we live in. Perhaps they aren't recognized as such because of our post-Christian society.

But the case doesn't seem much different in other religions. We are witnessing the twilight of other "saints" - His Holiness The Dalai Lama is no young buck, Thich Nhat Hanh is also in his latter years. Have there been any recent Buddhas? Not to my knowledge. Certainly Imams and Clerics all have black marks by their names, whether they deserve it or not. Maybe what we're really living in is not just a post-Christian society, but a post-religious world - a world of "spirituality" and secularism. A world where atheism is passe, if not anachronistic.

And yet, it is a world that still loves a good redemption story. The romance of healing, peace, and love still grips the hearts of most everyone. Humans still long to "be complete," to be at peace with ourselves, each other, and the material world. Now that "Man is dead," as Foucault declared, now that the idol of human potential and accomplishment has been consumed in a mushroom cloud, maybe now we see that there is still hope in something more. We can almost glimpse the "white shores" and the "far green land" that Tolkein talks about. Will there be anyone in the present and near-future generations who can serve as beacons for the rest of us? Will all God's children please stand up?

THE "DEKALOG" IN THE AGE OF TERROR -- SAVE THE DATE

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:25:00 +0000

I have always wanted to host a discussion on the Dekalog and now my chance has come! We're going to start, rather aptly, on September 11 and show a film each Monday night through November 20. I can't think of a better series to go through as we as a country heal enough to re-examine the tragedy that happened five years ago. On the societal and world stage, we are faced with moral situations that require a depth we haven't fostered. The Dekalog examines dilemmas that are at once particular and universal and asks how an ancient moral code, the Ten Commandments, informs the choices that must be made.

Here's the spiel I wrote for YourHub.com:

The Dekalog has been often hailed as Krzysztof Kieslowski's (director of Blue, White, Red and The Double Life of Veronique) masterpiece. Dekalog is a series of 10 one-hour films based loosely on the Ten Commandments. It was made for Polish television in 1988, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union.

Stanley Kubrick wrote in his introduction to the published script that Kieslowski and [co-writer] Piesiewicz "have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talk about them. By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what's really going on rather than being told....You never see the ideas coming."

Andrew Sarris from the New Yorker said, "Ostensibly based on the Ten Commandments, the 10 only slightly interlocking stories are neither religious nor political parables, but rather, slow-starting but ultimately absorbing character studies, often climaxed by ironic twists of fate and choice, filmed in a style that emphasizes the randomness and complexity of existence."

Variety.com hails the Dekalog as "one of the most sublime mega-films of the late 20th century."

Kieslowski describes his own effort as "an attempt to return to elementary values destroyed by communism...The relationship between the films and the individual Commandments is a tentative one. The films should be influenced by the individual Commandments to the same degree that the Commandments influence our daily lives."

Join us in the historic building of the L2 Church (formerly known as The Master's Church) next door to the Tattered Cover on East Colfax. Each night will be hosted by Lighthouse Writer's Workshop faculty member Scotty Sawyer (local author, music critic, and film buff) who will introduce each film and facilitate the post-film conversations. Organic, fair-trade coffee will be served. For an outline of the plot and more information on Kieslowski, visit the Facets website.

Where:
L2 Church (formerly known as The Master's Church) located next to the Tattered Cover on East Colfax and Columbine

When:
7 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Event Dates:
This event takes place every Monday from 9/11/2006 through 11/20/2006.

PETRA'S WORDS - REQUIRED READING

noreply@blogger.com (caleb j seeling) — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:17:00 +0000

I have had some wonderful discussions recently that have been sparked by my recent blog on women in church leadership. The most insightful discussions, not surprisingly, have come from the women in my life -- my wife Angela, my good friend DJ (you can read the conversation I had with her at the end of my recent blog), and my wise sister Brigitte. You must read Brigitte's comment on her blog - it is so jam packed with insight that she had to turn it into an article, rather than a blog comment. It is far and away better than anything else I've read in the blogosphere so far, including Grace Driscoll's (important to know she's Mark's wife) article on the Acts 29 website (she does a pretty good job of going through the Book of Ruth, but her conclusions don't do it justice).

So, take a minute or two, grab an eye-opening shot of homemade Russian vodka, and dive into the solid words of Petra.

(In case you don't follow links, her address is iampetra.blogspot.com.)