There's Moonlight in our Cocktail Sauce

Today I am trying to get my soul to catch up to my body. I am in the middle of a wild six week span in which I am traveling all over the place. I love to travel, meet new people, experience new places, serve in new ways. But I feel so disconnected from home and students and staff that it almost drives me crazy. And so far, all my experiences have had their ups and downs...

New Orleans - Final seminary class ever, good. Insomnia from trying to get too much work done while I'm away from home, bad.

Chattanooga - Church staff bonding over Sticky Fingers BBQ, good. Student ministry staff bonding over Panera Bread, even better. Chattanooga Choo-Choo and all related experiences, not so much.

Destin - Youth Minister's Metro Conference (4 days of relational interaction with 50 guys I respect and love with no cheesy speakers and no bad seminars), good. A perfect spring Sunday with my wife by the pool and dinner on the beach and relaxed conversation with great friends, even better. My wife has to come home after 2 days to get a root canal, bad. A great friend gets news that his childhood buddy and ministry partner is killed in a motorcycle accident and I spend the next 4 hours doing grief counseling, worse.

So what will Chicago and St. John, USVI hold in the next two weeks? Stay tuned...

"Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen

A New Hope

Last night I'm sitting there, totally distracted, tired and barely conscious...when I hear the music. The Imperial Death March from Star Wars to be exact. And while I'm extremely skeptical after the debacles of Episodes I and II, I was caught off guard and for a moment I was five again as I watch the first trailer I've seen for Episode III...

I loved Star Wars. Han was my hero, Leia my first crush and Wookies were just plain cool. I talked about it, I dreamed about it, my dad and I even made a movie about it using an old 8mm movie camera. My best friend Chuck had the Imperial AT-ST Walker and we would spend hours in the field behind my house pretending that the Evil Empire was taking over my hometown and only we could stop them. Before I knew anything about themes like revenge, spirituality or redemption I loved Star Wars. It had heroes I could relate to (Luke really just a farmboy), villians who wore the blackest of black (my mom threatened to take away my toys because I kept have nightmares that Darth Vader was in my room) and stuff that blew up. Some kids grew up playing cowboys and indians - I grew up playing galatic cowboys and storm troopers - take that for cool, the Lone (Loser) Ranger!

And so at the young age of five I proclaimed myself the world's foremost authority on all things Star Wars. I would unleash my encyclpedic knowledge on anyone who would sit still long enough to listen. My parents, in a clever ploy to embarass me as a teenager years later, decided to pull out the old reel-to-reel cassette tape recorder from Radio Shack and record my litany of praise for a parallel universe and my commitment to someday run off to the stars, train with Yoda, and join the rebellion as a young X-Wing pilot. I still have that tape - although I say "actually" 324 times in 30 minutes, I am confident and convincing - especially when I declare with the zeal of an evangelist that "The 'Lineum Falcon is the fastest ship in the entire, actually, universe, actually."

David Crowder's "Praise Habit" reintroduced this idea to me, actually (old habits die hard). That as a child, we don't have to be told to praise things, that we just do it. We don't worry about what others think, we aren't inhibited by our desire to conform, we just simply proclaim: "Look, Dad, Look!"

I want to praise like that again. I want my teaching and my ministry to be full of that kind of authenticity. I long for spontaneous moments that are not contrived. I want to sing a song I made up unhindered by my own ridiculous expectations and the critical eye of others. I think that's the way God intended it from the beginning. But then we, fallen fools that we are, fill up words and concepts and ideas (even holy ones) with so much baggage that we can't even decide what they mean anymore, let alone just let go and praise.

I want to praise God like Eliza and Lexi dance. "Turn up the music Dad!" they cry out with an urgency that would make you think this was the most important thing in the world. Then they dance and laugh and giggle in their most lavish dress-up costumes, twirling and singing and doing plies and holding hands until they collapse in a pile of smiles on the floor.