Stones

Friday!!!!!!

Ok so I just experienced what 10 weeks feels like condensed into 2 weeks. It is a little nuts. Luckily for me my next two-week session doesn’t start till Wednesday (pending getting an email) so I have time to work through some stuff, but there really is only one thing: The group presentation project that we had to do for class, and the naivety that I have about the church.

Our project description was to present a bible study for seminary students that would go beyond what a normal bible study did and to push the people in the crowd to make a decision to actually do something about it. We did John 8:1-11 … The Stoning of the Adulterous Woman. Not something easy to do, but we felt very strongly about it. So we went for it, and our goal was to make the class look at the woman as the adulterous church rather than just a sinner. The link was drawn from the OT idea that Israel was called an adulterous bride in that they had turned away from God.

Rewind to Thursday: So we passed out rocks to everyone in the class … and then said this:

Sin exists in the church, sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Sometimes it is a person, sometimes it is a doctrine, and sometimes it is ‘the way things are.’ Some of us have heard of churches that have fallen because of sin. Rory spoke two days ago about picking your battles within a church. Think about the battles that you want to fight, but just are not able to with the resources you have. Do they get under your skin? Do they keep you awake at night? Do you clench your fists till your knuckles turn white? Do you sit in your car yelling at God?

Perhaps the church has done something that has hurt you. I have a scar on my arm from when I broke my arm but this scar might be on your heart. Do you see it from time to time as you look inward? Has the wound healed? Is it still open? Is it festering with infection?

Lets come back to the passage, and put yourself in the place of the crowd (if you have difficultly doing that just pick your rock up.) Your standing there getting a good grip. Maybe picking a sharp side that you want to end up hitting her. Now that you have your grip, your eyes rise up off the rock and look up to see the woman. But is not the woman you see but the church that has hurt you, or drives you nuts. That something or someone embodied there. What do you see? The accusers are talking to someone on the side, but there it is, helpless, cant move, point blank, it’s a free shot.

After some more discussion we changed the point of view from the crowd to that of Christ. We had everyone look at their rocks and give a name to the rock in the form of the hurt or the thing. We went on to point out that Jesus acknowledge the woman's sin, and while the crowd had every right to throw stones, Jesus showed grace. We put a bucket up in the front and let people come up and drop their rocks if they wanted too, and gave them room to state what it was. I cried at some of the responses I heard

- I need to let God judge his own church
- The church that wasn’t there for me
- The church that sucked the life out of my family
- The church that destroyed the pastor’s marriage
- Fake Christians

- We have to be whole before we can make others whole.

If it were not for the fact that I had to catch up with some homework I would have done this yesterday. There were a few people who slammed their rocks down, others who just went up and were barely able to hold themselves together.

I do not claim that this short summary can even come close to the atmosphere of the room, but the hurts that were there were real.

Come back to Friday: I saw one of the rocks in class. It brought me hope. After the last of the presentations our professor got up and lost it, all the presentations hit very close to home in so many lives of the class that the class was for the better. Beyond just our presentation the Holy Spirit showed up each day in the sense that the groups that were on the same day, set up and complemented each other. We did not have a time for presentations but we had a teaching by the Holy Spirit. Our professor had to stop slight and collect herself some, and then she blessed us.

From this issues we discussed, we will need it.

Post Finals Sanity

If such a thing exists… Mostly I am just tired of seeing my cynical blog up when I really don’t feel like that anymore. That and the more and more I look at it was a combination of final’s stress and paper writing. After I got my head screwed back on straight everything was fine. I has been a long, busy, but rewarding weekend.

Friday

This was the last day of paper writing, but I was done by around noon and had the rest of the afternoon to take a nap and then I got to go to my introduction to working commencement on Saturday. I had my first night where I was not worried about anything except getting a good chunk of rest. The guitar was out and I was very very very thankful and I probably could have sung for hours, if not for being exhausted, and having to get up at 5:15...

Saturday

To be at commencement by 6:15, looking shaven and pretty like. In the end I think I got the easy job doing student line up. I saw some of the ushers, they were having ‘fun’ and making sure others were sharing in the ‘fun’ More than anything I learned how not to screw up my on graduation some years ahead of me. By 1:30pm we were done both mentally and physically. I came home had some munchies, got a second shower, and just staggered around my apartment. By about 4 I finally figured out that I could actually enjoy my evening, so I decided to pick up a book I bought at the beginning of summer to read at some point, but never did: Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game.

Now I wasn’t always a seminary student, in fact I have the driver’s license to prove I was a nerd (In the nicest sense of the word). Stopping 30 minutes for dinner, and an hour when two buddies showed up, I went to bed at midnight having read the book cover to cover. I look at my iTunes and I went through 5 Caedmon’s Call Albums, 2 Casting Crowns Albums, and 2 Chris Tomlin Albums, with timestamps to show for my marathon reading. Ender’s Game resonated with me on so many different levels I am still working through some of the relationships and deceptions that are in that book. On some levels it reminds me of seminary, on another the idea of relationships. The book is basically a wartime strategy type of book and the one exchange that stuck out early in the book and then emphasized the point throughout was this:

“Individual human beings are all tools, that the others use to help us all survive”
“That’s a lie.”
“No. It’s just a half-truth. You can worry about the other half after we win this war.”

The more I try to process through this concept, the more and more I see the truth in it. In a sense it frightens me as well when I slowly begin to grasp the full measure of it’s worth. I had been told by many that I needed to read this book, and after doing so, it will be one of the few books that I will read again.

Sunday

I went to morning service at Cornerstone Bible Church in Glendora, where my roommate from college works as the worship pastor and youth director. It was a well-rewarded trip of worship, and fellowship. One of my older high school students from Santa Barbara was in town and we had a good talk before we parted ways, but an afternoon among believers and sharing a meal was a much-needed rest. I left my apartment roughly at 10:30, attended 11am service and got home around quarter to 4, and then promptly took a nap. I was reminded again of the importance of fellowship, and the power that it has to relax me and remind me of why I am paying as much money as I am to get an education that will drive me nuts. This trip was refreshing, renewing, and a reminder.

The rest of the day was relaxing as I got to see some other friends that were now done with finals, I get to watch the US world cup game in the morning, and I have a whole week to recover from this quarter before diving back in to the books. I think I might need it.

Cynical

I don't know what has gotten into me, I'm posting daily on Finals week ....

I’m not alright/I’m broken inside/Broken inside

Sanctus Real came out with a new CD recently and it has been my theme music for the day, I have spent most of the day in a rather poor state of mind, dealing with things that I should have to. I spent 20 minutes basically yelling (typing) at a blank MS word document getting all the junk in my brain out before sitting down and writing my short paper and figuring out what I wanted to say for my long one. I am quickly remembering that writing is a good way for me to work my thoughts out and lets me focus on the tasks at hand.

My brain is a tacticians brain, so when I run into a problem my brain likes to look at all the wrong ways of solving the problem and getting it out of my system so I can make the right choice in a course of action. I have tried to work the wrong choices out through prayer, focus on God, music, but it isn’t until I put it to paper it comes back and haunts me. Think of typing it as writing a draft that you don’t like and then crumple up and add to the pile of paper balls by the trashcan. The rest of the stuff you see up here on the blog.

To day I learned that I am quite broken right now, when dealing with finals and life issues at the same time. Most of the day was trying to calm myself down, and I’m glad that I really didn’t see to many of my friends today or I very likely would have put my foot so far in my mouth it would have gotten stuck in my throat. I was angry with them for reasons that they wouldn’t have known which wouldn’t have helped me explain myself. My problem is that I was only singing the first line of the chorus and missing out on the second

And all I’ve been through/leads me to you/it leads me to you.

So I pull out my guitar having stopped the song in the middle of the chorus, and go sit down playing some minor chord combinations, just feeling like a miserable waste of biomass. Some how I start playing Jars of Clay: The Valley Song:

I will sing of your mercy,
Which leads me through
Valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy

Broken again only a slightly different type of broken. I looked back at my day and realized the fractures, the one toward friends and the one toward my God. This was roughly about the same time that I started typing this. Those of you who I was angry with, I’m sorry, I might let you know someday, but with finals looming there will be no added stress. And for the record I do have an evil side, it just normally stays in check.

Time Wasters

Strangely enough my serious side isn’t the first side that shows up when I meet someone. It is much easier to engage someone with humor and popular culture than a deep theological conversation. It is much easier to goof off instead of studying. If you are studying read no further unless you are willing to accept the loss of multiple hours of your time. Please note that if you are reading this you are already wasting time or need something that isn’t a book or paper to fill your time. I just finished my tests this morning and haven’t done anything productive all day, neither should you.

www.askaninja.com - Just start from about question 13 and go forward, one of my new favorite sites to visit.
www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html - What not to do if you plan on taking over the world.
www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html - If you don’t know what this is … I’m sorry
www.albinoblacksheep.com - About half the stuff is good, just go to the best of sections under flash. Language and content warning.

There are more, but these are the general knowledge ones, I have comics that I read that center around video games from my life before seminary. If you get through these I might have more later.

The John 15:13 Protocol

There is a part of me that would follow this down to the very letter. I can picture the faces of those individuals who I would do this for with out second though or regret. (If I had a moment to regret the finality of the ‘to the letter’ execution) Some people might be surprised to be on that list of people, others know that they are there and in the end we would probably fight each other on who gets to lay down and who gets spared and both go down, then look at each other on the far side of death and roll our eyes at each other.

There is a lesser form of this Protocol, that doesn’t involve pain and suffering, but rather a commitment of time. Today I took 4 hours out of my day (5 if you count lunch) to pick up one of my old youth group kids about 1hr south of where I live and transport her 1hr north of where I live. (Santa Ana to Ventura) This was after I found out on Friday that she was stuck in Santa Ana after a miscommunication with one of her rides. So I call her up late and I am pretty sure she is shocked to hear me on the other line, but in the end she is thankful. I had planned on going to Glendora for the day to worship in the morning at my old college roommate’s church and then crawl into a Starbucks and hide from the rest of the world for the day and get the outline for my Old Testament essay final done.

No hesitation, no thinking, my left and right hand were in agreement as they worked together to call her. She was blessed by the ride and I was one of the cool people who got to hang out with her on her 2.5-week trip to California (from Florida). I gave up hanging out with my friend and getting a good morning with God to bless a wayward traveler, all I got in return was a hug, which was all that was needed. There are more details by which I would explain myself, but she may read this and she isn’t ready to hear the rest them. The simple part of me hopes that she simply understands that she is loved, and that there are good people in the world.

Carly Hudson: If you are lost, stuck, or in need of help; I will be there for you if it is within my power to do so, but you already know that ...

This goes for everyone else too.