Best of 2006/Bob.Blog... May:
So, a bit of processing on this week.
I have a daughter.
Whoa.
How did that happen? (No smart remarks, please...!)
Our Jane Elizabeth was born at 11:18am on Tuesday, May 2nd. She doesn't look it, but she was 8lbs, 1 ounce.
What a Week
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If theologicial debates make your eyes roll into the back of your head or are otherwise distasteful to you, please, please skip this post. Also, there's probably some heresy somewhere in this post, so if you're sensitive to that kind of thing...
Stretching the old Calvin muscles...
That's what I've been doing for a bit yesterday/last night/this morning... The Calvin muscles, for the unitiated, are located somewhere in the forearm area and are generally used pugilistically... that is, to hit people.
Our good buddy Jason actually had a comment posted over at Slice (will wonders never cease?) and this led to a whole article on Old Truth about this Emerging Church punk (this was amended to "Postmodern Catholic" after an unpublished comment from me) who was getting uppity and actually questioning whether knowledge must preceed salvation. It must say the Slicers and Old Truthers).
Well, one of my favorite things in life is to use what I know of someone's position/theology/beliefs/whatever to argue against what they are currently arguing for.
So when good Calvinists start arguing that some level of knowledge about Jesus is necessary for salvation (a generally reasonable claim) I see my opportunity...
Could Calvinism Actually Lead to A More Inclusive View of Salvation?
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Life...
is really getting in the way of blogging!
New baby Jane is now 2 weeks old, we've really only had 2 bad nights with her and life is... settling down a bit? I'm tired. Amy's tired. But the sun is out, and when I stop to think about life, any complaints seem pretty silly, really.
Some thoughts though...
I don't know how to hold enough emotional energy in reserve so as to provide for any contingency.
I don't know if that makes sense, so let me 'splain.
In college, I briefly dated/hung out with the daughter of a pretty well-known preacher. It was cool to hang at his house. Felt like a big deal at the time.
But one of the things I remember vividly from that time was being in his living rom when he came home one night, looking dog-tired and beat, and watching as he grunted to his family and slumped on the couch, tie askew, grabbed the remote and started flipping around.
His son came in and tried to engage him (he wanted to show his dad some sports cards), only to be met with a fairly half-hearted response.
I remember thinking- I never want to be that guy.
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Awhile ago I asked Rich to write a song centered on a frequent theme in the Psalms... "Where are You God?"
Here's the result- great song... One of my favorites. I hope to get a better recording one of these days- I love Seth's percussion and Dan's background guitar/mandolin- you can't hear quite enough of them in this one...
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Up at 5 this morning, just sitting in my chair in front of an open window, listening to the rain. The house is very quiet right now (momentarily!). Jack has been sleeping in later, which is wonderful, and our new daughter Jane really settles in for the night sometime between 4 and 6, so... :)
I love Oregon- the green trees, even the summer rains. The winter rain can be madness inducing, but after days of sun and hot weather, it's nice to have some rain come and wash all the dust away. It's especially nice when it stays warm enough that you can leave the windows open and just listen...
So yesterday was odd...
The Monday After an Odd Sunday
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You know, it's been interesting to go back through posts and articles and try to pull out some things for a best of bob blog series. So much that was written a year, two years ago feels very different now, and seemingly contradictory to more recent stuff.
I guess we change.
But with a lot of this (like the "I Can't Pray For You") article, while I may not agree with it any longer or think I'd say what I said in the same way, I think there's value in going back, re-examining, looking again, talking it through.
So- please take "Best of bob.blog" with a grain of salt. Especially when I repost things from many, many months ago or even a couple of years ago. The place I was at that lead me to church planting (disillusionment, hurt, etc) is no longer where I am today, because of church planting and the grace of God.
I'm not going to run from what I wrote, however...
Anyway, in the spirit of all that, and of the last few posts, here's one I wrote that made it around a bit on Allelon, Next Wave, the Ooze, etc...
I Repent
I hesitate to write these words in such a public space...
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"If you are a coward by nature, don't worry. We can still use you. You can get down behind the biblical text. You can peek out from behind the text saying, 'I don't know if I would say this, but I do think the text does.'"- Walter Brueggemann (as quoted by Will Willimon)
This has been a go-to concept for me. The longer I have been doing this preaching thing, the more I see in the text that is at odds with modern sensibilities- things so outsized and seemingly indefensible.. commands to kill, commonly accepted actions declared as heinous sin (seafood anyone?), descriptions of awful, awful actions held up as praiseworthy (Psalm 137)... So many texts I’d just rather not preach...
