I watched 'The Fountain' (that artistic, “semi-hit” from a year or two ago) the other day. I'm pretty sure it was poignant, well-shot and very deserving of the critical praise that it received. It was also probably an allegory and a metaphor and I’m sure it must have profound implications for us right now, in this very moment. In fact, it’s probably telling me something about eternity, and about how I probably wasted too much time on the couch today. To be honest though I didn't really enjoy the movie, I didn't get it, I think I could have, but I honestly didn't care that much. And it was one of those movies where you have to care to get it (unlike Harold and Kumar, not that you
would care or should care about Harold and Kumar, I'm just saying.) to understand it.

Its how I sometimes feel about church. I see the same exact things that everyone else is seeing but for some reason, it just seems boring, life-less, irrelevant, and I won't use the word unnecessary because I know that sounds terrible and that “Biblically” its on-tap with saying that Paris Hilton is a virgin, but to be honest, it sometimes seems like it.

I did pick up a few things though watching the movie, and so without further introduction, heres my list of what I discovered during my viewing of the 'The Fountain.'

1. That guy, the one who was the fat guy on 'Remember the Titans' and I think 'Varsity
Blues,' and now is on that show that a lot of people find funny but that I've never really watched called 'My name is Earl' was in it.

2. They operated on the monkey of a brain. That was cool. It looked very sweet. It looked exactly how I thought it would look to see a monkey having his brain operated on.

3. Rachel Weise is just beautiful, I mean absolutely gorgeous. She could seriously have fur and I would still be attracted to her (?).

4. I put too much butter on my pop corn.

5. I'd rather watch 3 Ben Afleck movies back to back to back (not including Pearl Harbor or the onewith Matt Damon where he says, "how u like them apples!" but whose title I currently am blanking on) before I watch this movie again.

Speaking of movies, Why do we continue watching-why do we “stick out” movies-that don’t seem to make any sense? Why do we keep watching them even though we can’t see where their going or how all the scenes we’ve seen so far are going to fit together?

We keep watching because we believe it’s going somewhere. At least I suppose. Because we believe-with good evidence, that a creator-a director-has pieced these scenes together-indeed actually chosen them to unfold the very way they are happening. The creator has made a trajectory.

And so even though we don’t like that that one jerk has gotten the girl. And that the nice guy with red hair got killed for some reason, and that the cute blond girl is being blamed for something she obviously didn’t-we keep watching the movie. Because, it’s going somewhere.

Now, I’m not trying to make light of, or wrap a cute bow on what we face in this life-but I do feel the need to encourage and remind us that the lives we live do have trajectories whether they seem very random or not. They are not pieces of a story held together by nothing.

This doesn’t meant that if we walk super close to God that we will be able to fit all we go through together, into some nice puzzle of God’s proved faithfullnes. In short, it doesen’t mean that it will all “make sense” to us as we live our lives. Because often times it simply will not.

The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous and God’s ways are higher than ours (aka the jerk will get the girl, the nice red-headed guy will get killed, and the cute blond who did nothing wrong will get blamed).

Life can really hurt and cause our minds to wander when we don’t recognize the inherent story within. The earthly redemption….BUT, central to our faith is the abiding conviction that not only is history going somewhere-but we are too. Our lives (our excitement, our pain, our joy, our outbursts, our relapses, our victories, our transitions yadayada!). Our faiths. Our souls. I need to know that. I need to believe that.

-kevin j.

David's Winter 2008 Snow Guide

Snow days were always the best when we were kids. No School. No Homework. No Teachers.

And if it was a real snow day - where the snow kept-a-comin' in big flakes and medium flakes and little flakes too - snow fun abounded.

Especially if the conditions were right - snow men...snow balls..snow forts...sledding etc...

My friend Steve, who lived across from me, we would build snow barricades in the middle of the street to block cars from driving down it...but also dared them to try and crash through our impenetrable snowy wall (little did they know we enjoyed watching metal tear through packed snow with tires crunching the boulders we rolled...that's what you call a win win baby).

Basically I've grown up around snow my whole life - I'm a Midwesterner through and through - So here's my guide to snow:

White & Light & Slow Falling

Pros: Great to walk in, think about life, and sip hot-chocolate. Also good for a romantic walk. Easy to shovel. Can eat if fresh. If enough accumulation - great for sledding.

Cons: Bad packing snow which = no snow balls, forts etc... :( Bummer.

White & Light & Windy

Pros: Blizzards are cool :-) Sledding in blizzards are even cooler (PUN intended...hah!)

Cons: Low Visibility = Car crashes. Could lose a child if you go somewhere outside.

White & Heavy

Pros: Packing Snow! Build forts. Snow ball fights. Snow men. Snow Barricades. Chance of school closing. Aliright for sledding. Can eat if fresh - more moisture in each bite. Alright!

Cons: Clothes get wet fast, gloves especially. Hard to shovel. Often turns to ice-snow which leads to more moto crashes.

Yellow & Wet (Probably a dog pee'd here)

Pros: Can use to throw at enemey...be sure to have protective layer of white snow around it before packing into snow ball.

Cons: Tastes horrible. Can get you made fun of if you think somone dropped Mountain Dew and you dive right in...

Grey to Black & Wet or Frozen

Pros: Makes the white snow so much whiter.

Cons: Contains cancerous agents...eat at own risk. Detracts from beautiful snowy scenary. Stays around for a looong time.

Stained different colors & Wet to Frozen

Red - Probably blood. Check for bodies, objects that look like weapons. If any found, call 911.

Brown - If shaped like a turd, its probably a frozen turd, or melting. No treasure here. Move On.

Green - Could be a leaf, pine needles, a fern etc... If it is an emerald, pick it up. Could also be dog vomit.

Blue - Probably some spit out Powerade or Gaterade, taste to make sure. If not, probably windshield wiper fluid.

Purple - Take as much as possible!!! Put it in your pockets, your pants, your shirt. Consider yourself lucky - this is the stuff dreams are made of...literally. Eat before you go to bed.

Sweet Dreams,

David J Ruess

1. I have a deep-seated affinity for numbered lists.

2. I heard someone say the other day: “That guy always messes up my order. He’s such an idiot!” It got me thinking. Y’know when Jesus says, “Anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell”? I wondered to myself if this would be the modern equivalent of that statement.

The thing is, I say stuff like that all the time. I say things like, “Get this n00b out of my way!” when I’m driving, or “I can’t believe we both went to Moody. He’s such an idiot,” or, “This preacher is an awful. Why is he condescending to his audience like that?” So maybe I’m guilty of the same sin.

I think the issue here is hardly one of vocabulary, but rather one of opinion of our fellow men and women. When we scorn another person and demean them in our hearts, we violate God’s command to love one another. “Love…is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” In that moment I have judged another person to have less worth than myself and reminded myself (and maybe those around me) of their inferiority and my superiority.

Although certain words are not sure-fire indicators of my motives, maybe examining their use in my everyday vocabulary can serve as a good place to start…

3. We talk a lot about pornography in the church. I was wondering the other day if maybe watching people have sex is a secondary issue to watching other people be naked. Right before God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, he made them clothes. That seems to me to imply that God was affirming that it’s shameful to look at another person’s nakedness. It doesn’t seem like nakedness was shameful before the fall, but sin messes everything up.

Of course there’s a place for nudity between husband and wife in a sexual way, and for parents and children when the children are too young to take care of themselves. But overall, it seems like when sin entered the human race, our nakedness became something that is unholy to display in everyday life.

This makes the issue bigger than pornography. This reaches into media and advertising, especially. Sometimes we evaluate movies with sex scenes by asking, “Am I mature enough to handle this?” But maybe maturity has little to do with it. Maybe there’s something inherently shameful about looking at someone else’s nakedness. The story of Noah and his nakedness and the responses of his sons (Genesis 9 – I had to Bible Gateway it) seems to affirm that.

“Jesus could watch this sex scene and not think about having sex.” I have no doubt that’s true. I just wonder if he would have avoided it for other reasons.

4. I was talking to a friend last week, and she mentioned her disappointment with God after becoming a Christian. Where was her holiness? Where was her life change? She didn’t feel much different than before she was a Christian. Won’t “the tree be known by its fruit”? She realizes that there’s lots of bad stuff in the church, but she questioned whether, overall, the church was actually any different than society at large.

Without answering those questions, my conversation with her reminded me again how unfamiliar I am with Jesus’ teaching. How much did Jesus talk about ethics? How much did he talk about salvation? I have no answers to those questions. I could look them up, but really? Everything Jesus said is recorded in, like, 50 pages, and I still don’t have a handle on it? I’ve been spending too much time studying Jesus’ disciples (modern and ancient) and not enough time studying Jesus himself.

5. This final item only applies to those who love video games. Any and everyone else may skip it.

Have you watched the new Starcraft II trailer? “Battle Report Episode 1” – it’s on gametrailers.com. It’s everything a good teaser should be: expert play, extended and consecutive in-game footage, and developer analysis to help me understand exactly what I’m seeing. Bravo. Why don’t more games do this sort of thing? Make video game trailers, not movie trailers featuring video games…

-tim

1 mile to exit 92

There are very few moments in life which take my breath away.

I don’t mean the cliché kind you find mentioned in greeting cards or Facebook bumper-stickers. But the moments where unsurpassed beauty unexpectedly surprises you and all you can do is inhale a breath of complete awe.

Those moments…are few.

My index, middle, and ring finger can count even rarer moments. These are moments which take my breath away every…single…time. One is a girl who loves someone else. The second is a green reflective road sign which shouts to drivers “1 mile to exit 92.” And the third is found in realizing love. The reason these moments are so few is because they are found in the midst of excessively repeated ordinary moments.

For example, I find the world to contain a massive quantity of unattractive females. I can’t go anywhere without seeing unattractive women, they’re everywhere. And then Bam! In the midst of all this common ugliness appears the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on…and all I can do is inhale in complete awe. I might hang out with her for a few hours, and then its over. I’m back to seeing hundreds of unattractive women for days on end until Bam! There she is again…a rainbow in the middle of an endless sky of grey.

I guess beauty has always fascinated me. Especially the saying “beauty is in the eye of its beholder…” I think it’s true. I mean that’s why your best friend can tell you about their ‘totally’ hot date and when you see a picture think to yourself, “ughh.” It’s why your waiter or waitress will recommend the clam-chowder soup saying, “it is my absolute favorite and the only thing I recommend!” but you end up politely taking it home to your trashcan.

I realize that plays a role too – opinion, taste etc… But it’s not just my perspective that “causes” my breath to be taken away. It’s much more how repetitive the mundane is in our lives. We get used to it and submerse ourselves into it – our jobs, our schools, the same pizza we like to eat, the clothes we wear….it’s the rhythm of our life. And there’s nothing wrong with this. I think the mundane is actually very beautiful and it’s what we should cherish…for it is our lives. But O’ how I thank God for unexpected beauty. It helps me keep on living. And it reminds me how beautiful my life really is…even if there is a lot of repetition.

This is why the mile before 92 always surprises to me. I’ve only seen the sight for less than a minute my whole life and when I do get to see it, it’s only for 3 seconds at most. But do you know what it’s like to drive 230 miles only seeing the highway, cars, trees, semis, grass, more trees, gravel, exit signs, and random houses? It’s like spending 4 hours in a car only seeing highway, cars, trees, semis, grass, more trees, gravel, exit signs, and random houses. Mundane repetition. Then 1 mile before exit 92 in Wisconsin on 90/94 going east, the evergreens on the right side of the road stop…only for about 100 feet. And when you look through the break in those trees you see off in the distance the most beautiful lake sparkling in the sunlight. After hours of the same sights, its refreshing and breathtaking every...single...time.

At the risk of sounding too spiritual the same is true of me and love, God’s love that is. Too often Jesus, salvation, and that God loves me is simply knowledge. And they’re stories and truths I’ve heard over and over and over again in my life. But sometimes, sometimes I realize that God really does love me (that’s frickin general, I know) but I realize that He loves me like one of your best friends loves you. How they care about what happens in your life, He does too. When they are sympathetic with you when life goes in the crapper, He understands like they do. I guess its also realizing that He loves like a person.

And when this happens, I don’t know what to do.
It always completely surprises me. It blows me away and leaves me in awe.

I hope this happens to you too.

David

I took a class that I hated in college called ‘Ethnic Literature.’

Part of my venom stemmed from the fact that I thought that I was going to absolutley love the class. This seemed logical because I love literature and I love, uh, “ethnicities.” Now I’m not go and say that I have 87 black friends, 281 Asian friends, and 98 Hispanic friends like most people say when they want to prove that their not racist and are perhaps even a white version of Will Smith (Will Smith who is of course the black guy all the white guys can agree on). All this to say I didn’t hate the class for two reasons you may have initially thought of. I didn’t like the class because I didn’t really learn, well anything…except this one thing.

There was a quote from one of the few memorable stories selected that I’ll never forget. The words came from a Jewish Rabbi (Jewish Rabbi’s are the ones that look sort of Amish, OK, reeeally Amish. But they’re not. Their Jewish, Rabbis. They also look like like Tommy and Will from ‘Men In Black’-only with beards and a bit less slick). Anywho, the Rabbi said, “How can you love me-if you don’t know what hurts me?”

Whenever I read it, that statement cuts me. It prods me to open my eyes and go beyond what I see and actually attempt to understand and empathize.

Do we know what hurts those we say we love? Do we know what hurts those who consider us “leaders?” Do we know what hurts our families and friends? Maybe it doubt, depression or anxiety. Maybe it’s discontentment, confusion, apathy, or lust. But let’s try to find out-because before we can carry each other’s burdens, we need to know what they are.
-kevin j.

I sat in on a pastoral walk-in counseling session today. A semi-regular counselee had come to the church, seeking $10 worth of food stamps. The pastor asked the man questions about his living arrangements and employment. After discussing the necessary topics, the pastor began to ask “spiritual” questions. A part of their exchange went something like this:

“This may be out of the blue, but if you died today, and went to heaven, and God asked you why he should let you in, what would you say?”

“I’d say because you’ve always been with me, and I’ve been with you. I would say what he said: ‘Remain in me, and I will remain in you.’”

“Would you say something like ‘Because Jesus Christ died for me to atone for my sins, and none can come to the father but through him, and his death is my righteousness’?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

The pastor leaned back, satisfied. But I wasn’t. What was good enough about the second answer that wasn’t good enough about the first? I know it’s not a particularly (read: at all) novel observation to note that we often equate salvation with simple regurgitation of our theological formulations. But to see it in a pastoral setting, like today, was especially jarring.

What, exactly, was this pastor trying to accomplish? Did he imagine he’d just had some measure of success in saving this counselee from damnation? Did it cross his mind that assent can have little correlation with comprehension?

On another level, would he have refused to give the counselee stamps if the counselee had refused to agree with the pastor’s salvation-statement?

-tim