Thursday, June 29, 2006

90 by 50 update

This week marks six weeks into my effort to lose 90 pounds by my 50th birthday--10 percent "down the road." My goal was to lose nine (9) pounds. My weigh-in today indicated I had lost eleven (11). I'm very excited. I have been at church camp for the last 10 days. The camp's high carb cuisine usually does me in--I never lose weight while I'm there. But this time I kept track of my diet and walked every other day and viola! My next six week benchmark is August 10. This will be an even more challenging segment as it includes our youth mission trip and my usual two vacation to visit family relatives in Minnesota. Lot's of opportunity to "backslide." However, my mental approach is different this time. What has, in the past, looked like such a formidable undertaking seems much more do-able now. This initial success brings much encouragement. Many of you have been sharing words of support or serving as accountability partners--I am grateful.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Roofer's haiku

I've been away at church camp for a week. . . a very good week. Perhaps more about that later.

A couple of months ago, our humble community experienced two major hailstorms in the span of one week. Since then the air as been alive with the sound of roofing nails being driven. Almost every home has a sign from some roofing company out front, staking its claim. In a moment of inspiration, the following haiku came to me:

Hail pounds rhythmically
in the morning roofers come
the sound of money


So much for that bit of culture. I'm off to another church camp--second and third graders, of which my son will be participating. Should be fun. I'll have a "90 by 50" update later in the week.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

A sobering discovery

I was watching one of my favorite episodes of Magnum, PI yesterday entitled "Basket Case." It's basically a version of Oliver Twist. A young girl, played by actress Dana Hill, lives in a foster home where she is taught how to scam and steal. Magnum has a big charity basketball game, but his team stinks. Willie (Dana Hill) is a basketball whiz kid, it's what she does, along with hanging out at the library, that helps her escape her home environment. Well, naturally, the foster parents figure out that Magnum lives at the Robin's Nest and they set up a plan to burglarize the mansion of several priceless antiques. And, as you might have guessed, Willie is so touched by the love she has been shown by Magnum and Higgins that she exposes the plot. She learns a valuable lesson about her own inner morality and strength.

The story is totally beside the point. I decided to check on the biography of Dana Hill. It turns out that she was a diabetic who died at the age of 32 from severe complications of her diabetes.

It seems that since my son Jesse's diagnosis of diabetes in 2005 I am coming across many stories of the severe consequences of the disease. Couple that with his developmental delays and cognitive problems and I become very worried about his future. Right now, we are managing his diabetes pretty well. But I am very conscious of the fact that Ronda and I won't be around forever to help him with it. He struggles to take greater responsibility for the management of his condition. It's hard not to be anxious about his future and our future together.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

How Church can transform culture

In my devotional reading I ran across this great quote from Howard A. Snyder this morning. It comes from his book, The Community of the King:
. . . when the Church is taken merely as a means to transform society, very little is accomplished. For in that case the uniqueness of the Church is denied and we enter battle on the same terms as secular and godless forces. We assume the battle for right and justice can be won by force, by technique, by doing. It can't. These very clearly are not the weapons of Christian warfare (Eph. 6:10-20). Truly Christian transformation of culture comes through Christlike (and henceforth sacrificial) love, community and being.

Snyder has put into words what I have felt for many years, particularly when Christians enter into the arena of politics and social justice. We have become very adept at threatening and manipulating to achieve our "righteous" ends. But it looks a lot like the world and not like the Christlike community and spirit I yearn to see revealed in the effort to confront the world with the values of God's kingdom. (See, I said "confront." Power language is very hard to get beyond.)

Many believe Christians are called to speak truth to power . . . but do we speak in the language of love or in the language of power? Power may understand the language of power when we speak it. Power is also very skilled in neutralizing the language of power when we use it. Sacrificial love, on the other hand, presents problems to power. They can crush it, thus exposing power for what it is. Or power can give in to it, thus transforming it and bringing it in line with the values of God's kingdom. Power can try to ignore love, but I believe, as Snyder does, that the love of Christ is a compelling force that ultimately cannot be denied.