I know it's late (2:43 am) but this time of day is my most productive it seems. After a week back of driving the Metro, I can say that I am glad to be back in the driver's seat- literally. After this summer's break, I welcomed the necessary distraction of driving a 36,000 pound, 36 foot long behemoth around in circles all day. And that, despite the fact that I may as well have been sitting in the flaming garbage pits of Gehenna, circa, Jesus' day. It would have to wait until this past week to soar into the 90's because it sure wasn't enough to have the searing heat of a sun baked pavement underneath you PLUS astronomical humidity levels PLUS soupy dewpoints in the 70's PLUS the fact that I am virtually sitting on top of a 220 degree oven (well, it's actually a diesel engine). Did I mention that there's no air conditioning?

Hung out with Dave tonight at Three Trees and was reminded that the students are back and Oxford is a circus again. Regardless, I do like it better when they are here. Was also reminded again of the dead end train ride that the bar circuit is as I observed what appeared to be (under normal circumstances) otherwise salient and composed young adults stripped of their God-given inhibitions. In the ever-present pursuit of the never-ending buzz and tawdry sexual conquests, our youth impale themselves on the altar-sword of relational meaninglessness. Perched and somewhat removed in our corner booth and downing our coffees, we could fathom the depth of the interaction at the bar from our distance.......the gestures, the comings and goings and the body language mostly pointed to hopes of "hooking up." Players hoping to score and would-be scorers getting played. I can imagine that for some poor souls, the experience of human community in their tenure in Oxford will be limited to who it was who held one's head up over the toilet. That may mark the depth of what it means to know and be known as our town continues to contribute to the creation of our future alcoholics. Good ol' alkyhol is god (one of many) here in O-Town and it charts the course of our local uptown economy. But it's not just us I know.

It's a crying shame to be compelled to rely on alcohol and other chemicals as the relational bridge that gets some people where they think they want to go. I got that ticket punched starting in 7th grade but the ride ended my freshman year in high school when I met the real Conductor. I didn't even like the effect of the speed or the marijuana or taste of the cheap beer and Malt Duck I was downing, but it got me "in" with some people. And I sure as crap didn't like having to clandestinely rescue my mother and my 4 year old brother in Atlanta with my Granny and Pap from my drug-crazed step-father while he was out selling some more of their furniture in order to support an alcohol and coke habit. And what's good about my brother now on the tracks of following in his footsteps as I speak? And what of the alcoholics to whom we presently minister in our house church? And what of my friend who came blasting through my door, weeping, falling on his knees seeking and coming to Christ and confessing to me that he was addicted to alcohol and other drugs- this only six months after arriving here in Oxford? What of the hellish isolation from his family that he experienced during his month-long detox? For the grace of God, this guy came out and hasn't used since then, (over three years ago).

I am not talking about people who can, in responsibility, take a drink and not rely on it's ability to alter their consciousness in order to enjoy the company of others. I am not talking about those who can consume and yet not need to chemically bolster their existential significance while isolating others via their drunkenness. And I don't care about toting any denominational positions on the vices of alcohol. All I need is my experience with my own and other's brokenness. I assume no esteemed pedestal for this rant either because my own folks supplied me with the booze when I was a kid.

We cannot do ministry here without confronting the false god of Budweiser from time to time. We're seeing enough to know that we need to continue to pray that, should there be a showdown, God would ignite with fire from heaven the booze-soaked altar to his glory. That's just life here in Oxford and I'm sure elsewhere too.

"Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg."

-Henri J.M. Nouwen, In The Name of Jesus



So what happens when you step out onto the wire, drop your balancing pole-ma-thingy (or whatever it's called) and then notice the shame of your vulnerability like being naked in a dream? Instead of the applause you might have been straining to hear for so long, you finally determine they're not even looking. Or caring. Why'd you step out on that wire, you fool? You have neither the name recognition of a Walenda nor the credentials to match. Besides, most everyone's crossed over or they bait you from the other side........ and who do you think put the wire up in the first place? It's the heart that precedes the leg and the break before the fall.

Getting ready to take my 6,897 pound King James Authorized Church Altar Version and ad-minister the elements to my rather behemoth and furry peons, a.k.a., FITE KLUBB. I'll learn these jobs a thing or two. And I don't care if they all are bigger than I am..........I GOT THE WORD O GOD TO TAKE TO THEIR DAWDLY NOGGINS!

The freekin' Brownhouse rocks! Well, actually, the cats that live and hang there make it that way. What a privelege it is to be witness to the construction of the Kingdom in the way that He is doing. I know we just have a glimpse of what this is or could be and based on our time together Friday night, it's going to be something really nice and refreshingly new (at least in my experience of the Kingdom).

This is joy: that you can be about the Kingdom work, have fun, provoke one another to laughter (with the help of the fiesty Maple-Dawg) and mutually encourage one another while fathoming the immensity of what we're called to do. Thank God we've got folks who've been down the road a bit further than we. In many ways, Veritas is still sucking its ecclesiastical thumb, often rounding the corner bewildered like a wide-eyed child on X-mas morn. Am I to expect that kind of excitement will abate? Heaven forbid it.

As replenishing as this is for me and others, I relinquish the tendency toward hoarding just for me what God is doing in all of this. I know it isn't for me alone. Perhaps we are just forerunners for those who will follow. Could it be we are laying the foundation for the only authentic expression of the Church to come in a world hell-bent on neutering and sanctioning their own version of Jesus?

Short of that and short of digressing into an "us-only" mentality that serves no one, I nevertheless risk to err on the side of a prophetic unction roused within, having been stoked by what I see going on a decaying world and a lifeless Churchianity around me. While I shudder when so many fall by the wayside on this journey and the wolves infiltrate with destruction dripping from their lips, I see and know nothing compared to what God endures. But for the life of me and despite myself, he invites me to tread this way. My toes are stubbed from the rocky path and my back is studded with fiery darts (many fueled by the flames of my own captivating passions).

This is the Dance of my life that I have been invited to and I am a wallflower no more. And forgive me if I step on your feet during your favorite song.

no words

just remembrance and a hope for that coming Day

IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN HERE

Veritas Pastoral Intern Struck By Lightning
August 10, 2003

by Glenn Johnson


(Dissociated Press) I have been known to bemoan the lack of significant weather events around here this season. Ne'er more my friend.

I finally got to report a 60 mph wind gust on July 4th. Even before then, there was flooding in Oxford. A few weeks ago, some more storms dismantled a barn roof next to where my wife was teaching summer school and left debris strewn for hundreds of yards into the school parking lot. Though I do not revel in the misfortune of others, as a weather junkie, I can finally heave a sigh of "at last."

But I could have never dreamed of what happened here at 6251 Hester Road on Saturday, August 9th.

At around noon, a slow-moving thunderstorm formed rapidly over Oxford. This storm would start popping lightning and dropping heavy rain and basically park right over us. The lightning was so intense and close that we didn't often hear the rumble of thunder but only concussive explosions. At a time when this writer was rather indisposed in the lavatory, the power had even gone out three times in rapid succession because of these bolts. If I had only known that my intern was a weak conductor for the massive power surge during the second outage....

At one point, Jason had stepped into his room on the second floor to peer out his window at the storm (which is warned against during a thunderstorm but I admit to doing it as well). In mere thousandths of a second before he could become consciously aware of what had just happened, his senses would finally register: 1) the bright flash; 2) the current running up his right leg; 3) the uncanny realization that he had been struck.

Mr. Birchfield was blessed to have not been the conductor for the main lightning channel. That was why he was able to continue unlabored in his breathing, consciousness and general well being. He did, however, complete a "circuit," albeit a rather weak one.

When Jason stepped up to the window, his flip-flopped right foot rested upon the metal grate on the air register. Unbeknownst to him and few thousand feet above him, vigorous winds and updrafts in the thunderstorm were stripping the water droplets of their proper valence, shearing the electrons from the atoms and falling to the bottom of the cloud in an electron avalanche, where the heavier negatively charged electrons gather and punch downward below the cloud. This channel, called a "stepped leader" is the beginning of the strike and is made possible by the leftover positively charged protons. It pushes downward at a rate of about 10,000 meters/second. As it gets closer to the ground, it attracts contact streamers which are basically positively charged streams flowing upward to meet the stepped leader. They basically flow up any object in the area where this is occurring. This woman and her friends was severely injured when lightning struck a few seconds after the photo. This is what it looks like for a human being to be in the process of becoming a contact streamer (the hair stands out on end as a result of the protons flowing out the strands). Had Jason been in the main channel area, he would have experienced the same sensation.

There was no telling how many contact streamers there were in the area for this lightning bolt. It was a blessing that the channel that made the connection was not the streamer that made it's way from the ground into our heat pump and through the duct work that Jason happpened to be standing on at that moment. The bolt was close enough however to fill the Birchfield streamer channel with a mild electric current and give his right leg a start while busting out our power and my weather station. Undoubtedly, the major current that did make it into the house was routed by the wiring.

Well, that's the science of it. And the theological significance? After this summer, I'd say his stint as a human lightning rod is apropos.

Here are some fun lightning facts since we're talking about it:

Average number of thunderstorms occurring worldwide at any given moment - 2000

Average number of lightning strikes worldwide every second - 100

Average number of lightning strikes worldwide per day - 8.6 Million

Average number of lightning strikes in the USA per year - 20 Million

VOLTS in a lightning flash - between 100 Million and 1 Billion

AMPS in a lighting flash - between 10,000 and 200,000

The average lightning flash would light a 100 watt light bulb for 3 months.

Sunday we did something that we've never done before. We said goodbye to one of our own- Libby Marks- who's moving to Colorado. We wanted to make the gathering special and kind of give it a Libby-flavor as a way of communally bidding our blessing. I wasn't sure how it would come out, being that this was a new thing for us in our young life as a church.

In honor of Libby's penchant for hats, we made it "Libby Day" and wore the craziest hats we could find throughout the whole gathering (Dave, your inquisitor's hood was massive!). Each person brought a card with a message that she was to open only AFTER her last gathering with us that night. After eating, we sang her favorite song and took turns telling her how she had blessed us. Then she shared how much of an impact the community had been for her. Next, we coerced her to get into the "Love Pit" (our prayer circle where we lay on hands and pray) and prayed for her and blessed and exhorted her. We capped the night off with an impromptu volleyball game in the dark. It was as much celebratory as it was tearful and far exceeded my expectations for a send-off.

This is life. Despite the transitions and changes, we are learning how to live and to love more perfectly. Ain't got it figger'd out yet, but it's just grand to make the relational investments and take the risks.

Got back from a brief trip to Tennessee to see some family and was glad I did. My Granny Ruth- with whom I lived through my high school and college years- seems to be dealing with some health issues and that is hard to take. She's always been the tough, "go-get-'em" type and is now displaying minor forgetfulness, some recurring malaise and is undergoing some scans and tests. I was amazed at how much weight she has lost. She just did not look like herself (have I been away this long)?

My Granny Ruth was the main person in my life at age 15 who was instrumental in leading me into a relationship with Christ. After my grandfather died and my divorced parents decided to move out and away, she brazenly took me and my sister into her home, which was too small and looked like a faded Easter egg. My bedroom was the food pantry/TV room/laundry room (amazing what you can do with a fold-away cot). It did not help my lone but devout grandmother to have two heathen pagans living with her, especially with our inclination to innebriate ourselves on the weekends. Besides, we were invincible and knew everything.

But she persisted as best as she knew how, dropping the invites to church and talking a lot about God. I figured her to be behind-the-times, relatively uninformed and irrelevant when it came to understanding the world as it was. After all, what did a fifty-something granny know about the Cold War and the inevitability of a devastating nuclear war? Hadn't she seen "The Day After?" Who was she to tell me I needn't worry about things and that God was in control as I loaded up her closet with milk jugs of water in preparation for the coming holocaust?

At that time in my young life, I was consumed by fear. Fear of not being loved, fear of not being accepted, fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of fear. I was driven not to repulsion of things I should have been taught to avoid, but fascination with the things that were beyond comprehension....especially with the spiritual realm, which I pursued with a vigor and without any bounds. So I naturally gravitated toward the supernatural, the paranormal and the occult.

But Granny Ruth was there. She gave me the book that contained the prayer I prayed to invite Christ in my life. She noticed that something in me was different even though I had told no one for two weeks after I had received Christ. She was the nurturing presence in the initial stages of my Christian journey. She took me in, took a chance in laying down an opportunity for life and became the vessel through which God would intersect my life and say, "Here I am.....what are you going to do with me?"

I just can't believe that was eighteen years ago already.

ANUTHA NITE ON HESTER

Tis very invigorating to do church with no major agendas and spiffed up programs to have to "pull off." How do we concoct such a spectacle? What would that recipe look like?

1) Say we just come together around a baptism in the backyard and 18 people huddled around a cattle feeding trough and an approaching thunderstorm looming on the horizon.

2) Add a dash of quizzical looks from the pre-Christian neighbors.

3) Toss in a ripe, 90 lb. German Shepherd alternately circling the baptismal trough like a buzzard and diving in snout-first while the baptismal candidate is sharing how and why he came to Christ.

4) Sing and celebrate the newness of life as a community what is about to happen.

5) Watch Veritas' first intern baptize his brother.

6) Gather around a meal, have someone spontaneously share some scriptures they were discussing and glean some life-giving truths about the Christian journey (spurred by Abram's call in Genesis) and Jesus' harsh sayings about family (Luke 14:26).

7) Pray.........pray more........but begin by telling God "thanks" for all that he is and does and do it BEFORE we come with our barrage of requests........then surround and lay hands upon the girl who is going to have medical tests tomorrow............pray for those who have travelled many hours to be at the house and who must travel.........listen as the church offers spontaneous words/phrases of encouragement to the new convert (this is always cool)

8) Hang out some more.........do Sasquatch imitations from the Patterson/Gimlin film made in 1967 (yes, you've seen the famous clip of the said best filmed walking away from the photographers and looking back at them before disappearing into the Northern California woods. We started competing to see who could do the Sasquatch walk better when we went camping..........now we do it just to laugh at Jason, whose Sasquatch more favors the gait of "J.J.", circa, "Good Times").........fetch Burt, who got off work early and was upset because he couldn't make house church........hang out some more.

I know it goes against the rules, but we don't have a real beginning and ending time for our gatherings. We typically go for 3-5 hours from the point in time the first person arrives until the last person leaves. It's just what winds up happening. There's no agenda.........no sermon to prep and drop. And that's what's so cool........tonight, the community was the sermon and there were about 18 points and, though there were no "poems," there were many poetic interludes throughout the evening as we partook in each other's lives. Mostly, we don't really know what might happen and I like that.

I don't know what we're doing to deserve this, but it sure feels right.

We have yet again descended 'pon our little abode, again with two-fourths of the Birchfield clan in for the weekend. What a spankin' good time we had camping and caving in Harrison-Crawford State Forest. Cathy and I were the only two experienced cavers in our bunch. However, the six other brave souls tackled Langdon's Cave with gusto and panache and I am much impressed with their dexterity and fortitude. We have some brand new cavers to add to the fold......... Dave, Erica, Jason, Spen, Chris, Susie- thanks for being part of a great weekend together. I look forward to many more similar life-experiences with you all....and with those of you who could not be there this time. There's always more caving to do!

Got to camp in the Element, which was pretty funky and amazingly comfortable as advertised. We brought our tent and stuff, but we just wanted to do it since we could. Nice to know if our bums ever get booted out on the street we'll at least have a place to sleep.

The cap for the weekend will see another baptism at the Hester house church. Jason will be baptizing his brother, Spen, in the Veritas Baptistry (read, cattle trough), also in the Veritas sanctuary (read, the Johnson backyard). Remind me to clean up the doggie doo, will you?

The Hester house church will be off to southern Indiana in a lil' over twelve hours for a camping/caving combo trip. These caves were my regular haunts back in those halcyon days of seminary. Not only will immense fun be had by all, we'll also see that there's nothing like some adventure recreation to teach you about trust and dependency in community. And we get to do it underground, beholden to the Creator for his fancy handiworks upon which no one can improve.

Okay…..so I’ve been a blog-slacker (blogacker?) here in the last few days. I was not the first, and - I dare say- I will not be the last. Excuse? I’ve had to return our new computer but we’re up and running again now.

What a phenomenal two days at the Brownhouse! How refreshing it is to be able to gather with like-minded, sold-out Kingdom emissaries and not have to explain your requisite eccentricities and the general phreeky things you do for the sake of the Gospel. How revitalizing it is to experience belly-laughing hours after the saline streams streak your face. Where else can the level of church-planter-type buffoonery run wild as it did this weekend at the Brownhouse? Where else can one begin a weekend with unknown faces and leave as a family? And, where else can one- as the Fine, Most High Reverend Saint Allantious Creechosporous deftly pointed out- be alone in a crowd and still be “there” if you need to? And, for the Leonardo Di Sweetio minions- how’s that for a “double ring”- community and solitude all at once?

Where else can one discover the kind of hospitality such as we see at the B-house? I expect we shall all begin to see glimpses of it in our own communities to be sure…..we cannot but impart the same grace we have gleaned from the days and lives shared on those grounds and between those walls.

Everytime we all gather together from our planted locales and then disperse again , I liken it to the Church taking a deep breath in and breathing out again. This is the kind of organic/ecclesiastic respiration I think is pleasing to Jesus and much more closely reflects the purest intentions of His Church from the beginning. This kind of breathing is natural and unlabored. Let us press on with our Jesus generators as they pump out this rarified air that brings life. Let us relish this atmosphere while we can yet still thrive in it.

So we did it. We bought a new vehicular structure- a Honda Element. It is the first time Cathy and I have ever bought a "new" vehicle, replete with new car smell and such. We were long overdue in doing so and definitely needed a more functional and practical vehicle and this is it.

After: 1) our tranny going goofy in our Intrepid; 2) numerous other tidbits of nuisance things going wrong with the engine; 3) the whole Nashville Metro Police Dept. grounding their new fleet of Intrepids in April 2003 because 3 of them caught fire and Daimler-Chrysler had the nerve to pretty much deflect the blame; 4) finding a website solely devoted to disgruntled Intrepid owners documenting hundreds of complaints and finding my car's problems detailed therein.........we decided it was time to unload.

One tends to learn a lot about onesself in the process of researching, shopping for and negotiating for a new car, especially knowing that the moment you drive off the lot the thing depreciates 30-40%. I choose depreciation and a Honda to boot in place of a transmission going belly up on I-75 at 3:30 am in Tennessee.

Finally......recorded a 60 mph wind gust at my house on July 4th at 8:55 pm. In the three years that we have been here, that is the first time I have been present to witness severe weather at the Johnson digital weather station. This is only the second time we've had weather severe enough to report (the official criteria for a severe thunderstorm is wind gusts over 57 mph and/or hail 3/4 of an inch in diameter or greater). The first time we had golfball sized hailstones about 3 years ago that my wife got to see. Even though she is a spotter too, she did not call in the report as she was probably revelling in my dogs incessant munching up of the hailstones thinking they were ice cubes from heaven.

And in the three years that we've been SKYWARN severe weather spotters for the National Weather Service, I actually got to call in my report. The NWS relies on real time reports from trained spotters on the ground to verify what's going on so the public can be warned. And.....by jolly......I called in my first report! (...jump back and kiss my-seff...

PUBLIC BE WARNED!

Back from our vacation, but showing signs of wear for it........the tranny on our 99 Intrepid pooped on us, albeit 5 miles from Cathy's mother's house at 330 am on the way down. Seemed it preferred locking into 1st gear........quite an experience limping down the road at 30 mph and 4000 rpm's. So we scrambled on the day we were supposed to leave trying to find alternative transportation. We got Cathy's mom's truck, re-packed everything in plastic boxes, arranged for the car repair and left late that Monday night and finally arrived in Nantahala and set up camp at 12 midnight.

It rained every day but one but I had a good time. Cathy thought she saw a bobcat at at our camp. It looked like a fat housecat to me but I won't deprive her of the experience. I also managed to soak in rain all our clothes that I thought my double-wrapped suitcase would avoid. So our last day at camp was spent in the next town's laundry mat.

BUT..........we found over 150 carats of rubies/sapphires..........the largest I found was only 24 carats. Granted, most of the rubies I found are only of specimen quality but a few are going to cut down really nice it appears. So far, in the past three years, our total has topped 600 carats of rubies/sapphires found. My dad and stepmother came to the mine with us and within the first hour and one-half, my dad found a 40 carat ruby on his first day there and instantly became a member of the Sheffield Mine Honker Club (free bucket o' dirt for life) for the find.

Sheffield Mine is the last one of it's kind in that part of North Carolina. No other lode mine produces the native rubies and sapphires of such quality and abundance. Tiffany's actually owned the mine property there in the Cowee Valley for a while in the last century. Now it is privately owned and operated as a recreational mining venue. When I get my blog capable, I will post pikchers. It's a great spot to hang out for the family

Getting ready to go to the wondrous Nantahala ("land of the noonday sun") National Forest in North Carolina to camp and go prospecting for rubies and sapphires and spend some nifty time with the lil' lady. 'Twill be a splendid adventure as it always is. Maybe I'll come back with a 400 carat ruby. It's going to happen. I feel it......I can taste it. You just hide and watch.

Will we in Deconstructionist Christendom ever get it right? Or are things changing with such rapidity that we'd just better hang on for dang dear life? There is no cutting edge anymore in church planting circles as far as I'm concerned. It's more like a magnetic three dimensional throwing star for anyone with an axe/blade to grind. Once you think you've got a handle on it, you look down and you've got a bloody mess. But the ecclesio-scape is still roiling with change.

One thing is for sure: we're tired. We're tired of decaying hierarchical structures bent on self-preservation that have dogged churches/denominations/organizations for a good part of modernity. We're tired of the lifeless, maintenance-level Churchianity and its patron Churchians robbed of and robbing life. If you read that as a condemnation, thou shalt not be so presumptuous......I've been there. And for want of lesser, mundane things, there but for the grace of God go I.

We pine for refreshment. We long for the gentle yoke of a new paradigm that will free up this idealized Church from it's shackles like a greased piglet in a Tennessee Sausage Festival.

So as we continue to deconstruct, we simultaneously lay a foundation. We who pour in the ready-mix ogle and protectively cherish the bland appearance. The hawks circle, conspiring to swoop it up into grandeur and a nest of marketablility. Some have dared to whisper into its "virgin" ears and name it. Or call it a movement......as if it were something truly new under the sun. And wittingly or not, in the very act of naming it, they seek control over it.

Our nomenclatural efforts are steps toward finality. When I "name" you, you are marked as "this" and not "that." Our labelling compartmentalizes and minimizes. But one must also recognize the value of naming. Our ability to apprehend our cognitions and our reality depends on our sound, letter and word-forming capacity. Our knowing and being known relies on it.

But our language almost consistently and ultimately fails when we try to grip the mystery of our experience of being. Especially as "beings" who are the recipients of the loving attention of he who is Other- and more pointedly in reference to this ongoing story of the Christ seeking residence in broken human vessels. "Church" doesn't fully capture the essence of "ecclesia" in much the same way as "Word" loses its mystical impact when translated from "logos." If we call the house church phenomenon a movement, do we endanger it to the lot of past movements that have come and gone, ebbing and flowing- (such as- but not limited to- the apostolic, spiritual warfare, Charismatic, deliverance, healing and reconciliation movements)? When we see God doing something, how do we avoid hijacking it by naming it?

Consider the word fagot. Read this way, it means a bundle of sticks. Add yet one more letter "g" and you have something entirely different. In usage, the original denotation is forever lost to the culturally assigned connotation and we lose the original word meaning. Are the few who are apprehensive to "name" the simple church emergence in the West already recognizing this potential? Granted, many are calling it something (house church, home church, simple church) and those doing so express difficulty explaining what it is because of the limitations and finitude of human language and complex multiple meaning systems. We still have to have some way to talk about it though.

I admit it's arguable that by naming it we may not even imperil a real move of God. But heaven must know we don't need another model.

"Please come to my anti-nomial, anti-modal ecclesial communal structure that meets in my abode" doesn't wax inviting yet either.

an open letter to my Fight Club...

To what shall I compare with what I've found in you? To sit at your feet- gleaning your wisdom and being openly invited into the sacred ground of your struggles is but another treasure in this field sprawling before me. On the surface, this parcel of land sure doesn't look like much but it seems I've uncovered the Kingdom. You guys are reminding me that giving up all I have for this venture is the only way to go. I don't look back anymore, wondering why in the presence of the lingering protestations in my mind of those who question....those who should support me the most but only see my claim staked in what looks like a craggy, untenable thicket of brambles. But hanging out with you puts me in detector mode, scanning the crannies for more treasure. You- my new friends and constant spring of blog fodder- are the shiny gold coins in hand......a blessed spillage from the Kingdom Treasure Chest.

HOW TO KNOW GOD IS DOING STUFF IN YOUR HOUSE CHURCH

Here's how I know God is doing something in our midst. Our man, Burt, suddenly gets called in to work at his pizza joint during the time when we gather. Over a lunch a few days ago with Jason, our intern, Burt literally breaks down when he told him he was going to have to miss on Sunday.

So the Jaylord (a.k.a., Jason) takes it 'pon himself to ogernize an impromptu house church gathering before Burt went to work, replete with a meal and acquaintances of Burt who are not reg'lars at the Hester HC. So we had our first HC at Burt's ("Burtitas") and the first such one we know of in an area of town called the "Ghetto"......an area we are praying over.

That smells like Kingdom stuff to me..........

A REPOST FROM MARK PALMER'S BLOG ENTRY DATED 5-31-03

The Church Father Tertullian writes in his Apology about how the early Church gathered...

"The nature of our meal and it's purpose are explained by it's very name. It is called Agape, as the Greeks call love in it's purest form. However much it may cost, it is always gain to be extravagant in the name of fellowship...The participants do not go to the table unless they have first tasted of prayer to God. As much is eaten as is necessary to satisfy the hunger. When satisfying themselves they are aware that even during the night they should worship God. They converse as those who are aware that God is listening...After the hands are washed and the lights are lit, all are asked to stand forth to praise God as well as each is able, be it from the Holy Scriptures or from his own heart. In like manner the meal is closed with a prayer. After this we part from one another...pursuing the same self control and purity as befits those who have taken in a truth rather than a meal. This is the way the Christians meet."

Tonight, the Landing Place Community gathers for an Agape Meal. My prayer is that God will be present, and that we would leave haven eaten of truth, and not simply a meal. (Mark Palmer)

I continue to be blown away by such kingdom-mindedness in the midst of the Palmer's suffering. Blessing and cursing; pain and joy; strength and weakness.........co-existing anomalies imparting a fellowship of suffering that most can only glimpse from a distance and into which one may never fully enter.

For the Palmer's, Father, healing. For us, and in their honor, may we dine on the crumbs of truth from their table as we watch and pray.

Let us not underestimate the impact that our families of origin have on our undertaking to serve Christ in the establishing of His Church. Every time I am buffetted by the winds of change (or at least the impending prospects of such) or when I am confronted with difficult people with difficult needs, I immediately face my ineptitude. In the presence of my limitations I want to compensate and this out of my own efforts and attempts to self-heal. This is precisely where I operate out of my woundedness and pain. God can't use that.

I am learning that to let God do what he wants to do in his church, I must needs be freed up from my own hurts. And I am discovering that there has been much in the past and ongoing dissolution of my own family that the Lord is healing. The hurts have not necessarily come from what someone has DONE to me but from the lies that I have believed about myself and the misinterpretations I made along the way when it came to my identity formation. It is not that I harbor blame toward anyone. As I continue to learn about the perilous track my brother is choosing to take at present, (despite all counsel and wisdom), I just wonder will when the destruction in my family (and other families) end?

Just wanted to let you know that the Gentle Healer continues to bind up my hurts and replace it with His truth in the most remarkable ways and I got to see that last night about 330 am. I am learning to dance to His rhythm. And to think He promises me that my home and place is with Him.

I know there is some theological profundity in this somewhere............letting a stranger pull, poke, twist, lift, tilt, grip, tuck, tap, fold, spindle and mount- first one hip, then the other- with his full weight borne upon his knee while pulling on your limbs in ungodly directions.........so I'm thinking, "I ain't all here." But he did his internship in Tennessee, so he couldn't have been all bad.

Breathe in, hold it.......let it out.......(one pull, then), pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop (all at once). Adjustment # 1 under my belt. Can't wait till my reflection stops looking straight in the carnival mirror.

I was just remembering how I used to be..............I mean just mere months ago. I used to think that planting a church had to drip with such relevant coolness that our level of coolitude would fragrantly exude from us- drawing in cool-tuned folk with the irresistable attraction of a honeybee leg to pollen. And then, when they would see just how dang cool we/I and the Church could be, just WHO could resist? I got tired just thinking about how we could try to keep up with the Coolios. I had to make sure I had the right ticket so I could board the next Cool Train when it came sweeping in that I spent most of my energy just looking for the porter.

Well, he never punched that ticket. So into the blogosphere, I establish this hallmark of truth: I ain't cool. My mom used to tell me. My wife tells me. And they're cooler than I can hope to be. I rekkin' they're right. Now, I didn't say that I won't give up trying to be (insofar as I can impress m'lady). I just don't think I have to impose that on His Church. He doesn't need a cool Church. Just a real one where He is front, center and Lord. Tis all. I can't find it where it says, "If Coolio be lifted up, then I will draw all people unto Myself."

What a relief. Really! So what do we have to do to bring people in? Get out of the way and get my grimy paws off of stuff that only fits the healing hands of a rugged Carpenter Messiah. Oh, I get a mini tool belt, but I'm only assisting the Master Builder. And He has even better tools than that wood-wizard extraordinaire, Norm Abram, on The New Yankee Worshop(tell me what tool does that sucker NOT have?).

11 a.m.
On the morrow
Chiro-doc-dood poking, prodding, ascertaining
Spine rejoicing
12 p.m.

I've seen Matrix 2: Reloaded twice to date. I will probably see it at least two more times to sleuth out some more information in order to make a more in-depth evaluation of it. My tack regarding my future review will decidedly venture into an approach that is not as optimistic concerning the much aforementioned Christ-parallelism (especially that which surrounded the first installment, The Matrix......for a taste, go here). I do want to take different angle and pose some questions about this genre-nouveau that I feel not many are asking with much clarity.

I did like the film, just for the sheer spectacle of the accomplishment. As a sci-fi buff, I found myself laughing at times with glee at the technological marvel of the effects. In this, the film delivers. We are taken to realms of sight so stunning as to sit transfixed, beholden to our techno-gods with rapt attention. Is this inherently and potentially a dangerous place to be or is it just plain fun- to be attuned to a much anticipated satiation in the form of violence.......no matter how metaphorically/allegorically imbibed it appears?

I phreeked out my back last Thursday. In my consummate manliness while pumping iron (specifically, squatting), a certain portion of my musculature in my lower back decided NOT to maintain its stabilizing efforts on a certain area of my lumbar vertebrae and disengaged, pulling my lower back out of alignment. I have gone through this once a few years ago and a doc of chiropractic literally straightened me out, making me a believer in the practice in the process. Now my pelvis has been jerked inward toward my front side while at the same time, I have a noticeable tilt to the right. Too much information? You oughta see me in the mirror. My wife laughs at the sight of me. My dog ponders with quizzical looks. I can't get into my Dodge Intrepid right now. I can only sleep on my recliner. When I enter a room, people grimace in mild sypathetic pain. Even now, as I contemplate a cessation from my normally physically active life in the recuperation, I admit I am somewhat down in the dumps.

But hey, nothing like looking forward to having pix taken of yer innards and having some stranger push and poke on your back and hearing the refreshing "POP" of the vertebrae surrendering back into alignment.

Just saw Matrix 2: Reloaded last night. I'm still sifting through the massive images and layered storylines and cryptic innuendos unleashed on me as a result of this motion picture. As the messiah-figure in this story takes on greater depth and detail, so too, does the double, triple and even quadruple-mindedness of the storyline as it waxes inexorably more ethereal. We are bamboozled by not-yet-seen state-of-the-art (but soon to be outdated) sci-fi effects. What more does this modern-day parable of our own plight and destiny have to say about the shadow side of who is really in control of what (which is arguably what this picture and it's predecessor wrestle with as a key question to understanding the whole genre....especially in light of the sequel!) More later perhaps, if I can get the red pill unlodged from the back of my throat.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation.

-Nouwen, The Way of the Heart

Many are quite familiar with Nouwen's observation on solitude. Seems good to be able to relegate it to the realm of nifty comments as opposed to the halls of personal experience. But that doesn't produce inner regeneration and life change.

You see, I belong to a Fight Club of sorts. We had been talking about the spiritual disciplines a week ago, mainly lamenting how undisciplined we tend to be (or maybe it was just me). We acceded to the fact that such disciplined spiritual pursuits contribute to the spritual giantism in our forefathers/mothers who have paved the way. But for me, I effectively wane toward spiritual mongoloidism. I get stuck inside, stymied by my half-hearted attempts to shed the mantle of self on my own terms. Besides, the glossy-smooth, "everything's okay" church planter, got-it-all-together, hand-shaking, ear-ticklin'-butt-likkin' veneer is quite a suit to don and doesn't peel off easily.

Well, we say, "why don't we skip meeting next week and spend that time in solitude?" Ain't no thang. We agree to it and depart. Turns out, the day (yesterday) we chose to mount our spyerchul dissaplen horsey on our solitude saddle was ALSO the day of fasting and prayer for the Palmers, which I found out this past weekend. Somehow I had conveniently displaced from my consciousness the plans for solitude in recognition of the call to fast, which I was all too eager to do. But come Wednesday, I was not to be left off the hook. Two disciplines in one day to see what I'm really made of.

Through the fast and the solitude, I did not stand to gain anything. I was not supposed to. I got to see glimpses of myself as my mind would be bombarded by my mini-idols and vagabond thoughts demanding allegiance to their crowns. It was about Mark, Jennifer and Micah and the Christ. In His amazing stillness immovable, I saw my quirkiness and vacillation and was bewildered at such fluid instability. I don't deserve to stand in the stead of a brother and sister in need nor do I deserve to bask in the solitude of the presence of the Almighty. But He gives more grace I'm told somewhere. Why do I spill that cup like a tin-can of marbles on a slanted floor?

So we try to make sense of this house church-home church-simple church thing..........whatever it is we want to call it. The vast amount of wisdom to be gleaned from those far more experienced and sharpened than I exudes like honey from our veritable slew of blogs on the subject. And believe me, I lap it up. Practicalities, how-to's, personal philosophies on the form and function of community building within the house church/monastic centers (whichever applies to you) permeate our posts as we scope out the horizon ahead of us and fine-tune our vision as church planters extraordinaire. But there's something of which I don't see a whole lot.

There's something that Jesus told Peter (Matt. 16:18,19) that applies to us by proxy, if for nothing but the sheer nature of the fact that we as church planters join Peter in his confession/recognition that Jesus the Christ stands front and center in this effort.......that He is the Master Architect and foundation. Jesus even volunteers information about that other kindgom diametrically opposed to the Kingdom of Light emerging.

When Jesus tells Peter that the "gates of Hades will not overcome" his church built on the Rock, there is a locational presupposition here that is often overlooked. This presupposition is based on the existential reality of church planting.....namely that two opposing kingdoms are in spiritual conflict and the church plant CAN (but is not a guarantee to) become a repository for the "walking wounded" to find healing.

To say that the gates of Hades will not overcome His church presupposes just where He chooses to plant it. The implication is that Jesus seems content to establish His church right where the yawning, gaping throat of hell lies- not in the rural, pastoral fringes away from the strife and contention. In fact, the gates of these two kingdoms clang in proximity to one another because Jesus calls us to go to where the ravages of chaos, deception and demonic rage abound. In a time long past, these forces glided along, seemingly unchecked in their apparent upper hand. And even in light of the Christ event, we still reckon these forces of deceptive darkness as something to be reckoned with, as an enemy on equal footing in power. But why aren't we talking about storming the enemy's camp, proclaiming the victory, sidling up to the blind captives and dangling the keys of victory in the bewildered faces of a declawed, defanged enemy? Because I think we still assume it's a battle.

Doesn't Hebrews 2:14 say the devil is defeated/destroyed.......rendered powerless? How much power does a powerless enemy have? Are we not more than conquerers in Him (Romans 8:37)? Why do we still battle a defeated opponent? It is true many believers are still in an experiential battle with these dark forces but that doesn't make it theologically sound. Why do we often agree that Satan is defeated but buy into being instructed on how to battle a defeated foe? Is Christ's victory on the cross more notable than complete? If the enemy is vanquished from his prior position of power, why do we progress trying to conquer enemy territory, especially as if he were able to somehow take it back? Why does the church seem to "functionally" believe that until the Lord returns in "final victory" we will still be engaged in an ongoing battle against the enemy?

These beliefs SEEM reasonable and profoundly impact how we view church planting (that is, if we recognize the imperative to "proclaim release to the captives, sight to the blind," etc., ALL of which point to not only the prophetic element of Jesus' work and identity, but ours as well). There is no New Testament mandate to seek out and fight the devil. There is, however, a great deal sad about rescuing the "blind, poor and emotionally and spiritually downtrodden" (Luke 4:18-19).

Church planting has brought me to realize experientially what true victory in Christ is as we allow Him to be Who He is, to do what He says He can do as He displaces the father of lies person by person, memory by memory and time after time. There was once a time when I thought that we could/should be the "coolest" church thingy around. I was gearing up to try to be able to do that. Thank God I know better now because there's nothing about our "hip-ness" that Jesus says will actually bring freedom and healing to those he seems pleased to bring in our midst.

We are a haven, a "cabin in the woods" (thanks Chris Marshall) for these walking wounded. This "restoration discipleship" is the best kind, because when a young adult who was sexually abused as a child hears from Jesus that she's not dirty- she is better able to choose her relationships based on how Jesus sees her and ditches a dead-end relational cycle. Because when the Man of Sorrows shows that He took upon Himself my nakedness, shame and sense of abandonment, I find I don't have to be doomed to a life of relational isolationism in perpetuity. I am not really alone. I heard those words and a I knew those words, but I needed the Word of Life to speak in the midst of my darkness. There's nothing like being "freed-up" that allows discipleship to blossom.

Therefore, I expect the calls at 3:30 am like I got last week from a demonized guy who's seeking freedom. I expect to see scores more of those "diagnosed" with various and sundry ailments of spirit and mind come into our fray. As I think on it, there's not any less than 80% of us Veritasians who do not have some sort of "issue" that we bring to the table. And it's not that we are any different from any other church, newly-planted or long-established.....God's making us pay attention to these wounded masses in our generation and he wants to do something about it. Furthermore, we've all been given the equipment to handle it. No demon-hunts, territorial reclamations for Jesus.......just doing the Kingdom work and deal with what we have to deal with in His name. The Kingdom and His righteousness suffices to cause the enemy to be displaced.

I see His church a lot differently now in light of seeing what Jesus has done and stands ready to do. I hope it's not all about doing things in a new way.

My man, Jason,(a.k.a., Jaylord, Lord of All Jays, Jasunke), has formally jumped onto this church plantin' ship with us at Veritas. We will be working together this summer in an intensive church planting pastoral internship, which is going to be really cool.

Jaylawd will be setting up shop here in the Johnson household on May 18th. God is up to some neat stuff in this guy's life and we are grateful to be a part of that.

Did I say this was going to be really cool?

O Great Provider, nothing escapes your attention when the needs of your children come to the fore. Quell the intrepid thoughts pertaining to monetary resources and from whence they will come- only fill us with the knowledge of Your Presence as we journey and bask in the warmth of Your shadow and feast at the coming table of your bounty. Absolve us from the sin of flitting to and fro, oblivious to the simple intricacies of the inner workings of Your Spirit in each day. May You alone be our mainstay and may we rejoice as you supply our every need. Amen.

A prayer that the will of God may be fulfilled-

O merciful Jesus, grant to me Thy grace, that it may be with me, and labor with me, and persevere with me even to the end. Grant me always to desire and to will that which is to Thee most acceptable. Let Thy will be mine and let my will ever follow Thine and agree perfectly with it. Let my will be one with Thine and let me not be able to will or not to will anything else, but what Thou willest or willest not. Grant that I may die to all things that are in the world and for Thy sake love to be condemned and not known in this generation. Grant to me above all things that can be desired, to rest in Thee, and in Thee to have my heart at peace. Thou art the true peace of the heart; Thou its only rest; out of Thee all things are hard and restless. In this peace, in this selfsame thing, that is, in Thee, the chiefest eternal good, I will sleep and rest (Psalm 4:8). Amen

-Thomas a Kempis

I have come to the conclusion that Church is not just awe-inspiring........it is ODD-INSPIRING. Jesus draws to Him a veritably quirky and odd lot. The assortment in the church on Hester is quite a hand. Yay God! Sameness sux.

Just received another casualty report from the war at home.......or rather, the War On The Home. My mother called to inform me that my eighteen year-old brother has just gotten married at the courthouse yesterday to a girl he's dated only two months. Against all surrounding wisdom and godly influence on every corner of his life, this act was preceded by a decline toward experimentation with alcohol and smoking, surging mood swings and a generalized vacuous and unresponsive look in his eyes when those around him tried to reason with him. Inserted along the way into the drama was his retort to my mom that he did not believe in God anymore.

He also chose to ice the fiasco with dropping out of school just two months before graduation. His 17 year old wife has also been released from her home due to her rebellion as well. So last night they spent their first night as husband and wife God knows where, with no car, no job, no education and nowhere to stay. Just the intoxication of one another to sustain them.

His school is in no better shape as well. The sexual exploits of it's members are well known, possibly due to it's smallness. Kids caught in cars going at it. Lurid letters found in lockers connecting girls to 21 year-old men. Drugs. Rampant disrespect toward faculty with resulting resignations.

Did I mention this was a Christian school?

Seems that my brother's new wife/child's best friend is the ring leader. Around her- apparently- orbits the crowd of disrepute who have aided and abetted my bro. Her expellment from school just days ago seems to also have precipitated the chain of events that led to the hasty matrimony. I am sure that as far removed as I am from the situation, there is much more underneath the surface- more that I don't see.

But I do see division, strife, discord, disharmony, disunity and destruction. I do see families being ripped apart. I do see the fingerprints of the mastermind of rage, chaos and wanton rebellion. I see him hiding somewhere, in the shadowy hollows he's carved out under the power of invitation, drunk on the fuel of human pride. I see his barbed tendrils noosed around my brother's neck squeezing out not just sensibility, but life-blood from his veins. I see the accuser of the brethren laying siege on family histories and resurrecting the still rotting corpses of mistakes gone by. Blade-like fingernails prick open the puss-filled wounds of those yesterdays like a blade through butter. I see the history of the hurts/disillusionments of my family of origin laid bare before me again.

(And I know God, you are sovereign over even my hidden woundedness you still pine to heal. God, how you've touched, but how I haven't even noticed that your healing hand is still outstretched toward my emotional nakedness).

I see you, Old Scratch, you serpent of old, our enemy and opposer and diabolos at play. Your enemy, Jehovah, sees you too. His eyes sear with vengeful fire. Battle's over. I won't fight a loser. I relegate you to the Christus Victor. 'Nuff said.

"FEELING be damned"

-Faith

There seems to be something deftly sinister underlying the machinations of war (whether present or past)......something intangible, amorphous and hiding in the shadows.......something with a feeler web in the past and a finger on the pulse of the present......something neither pro-American nor pro-Iraqi........something that doesn't appropriate our un-critical, un-discerning and un-holy matrimony of God+Body Politic, but feeds off it......something that can be seen riding an apocalyptic horsey with the fringe-waves of Chaos and Hades cresting behind it.

Biblical history is replete with examples of God taking nation-states and sovereignly using them to exact his will, often with war as the vehicle. Should such nations on the winning side associate divine favor as well? Is 227 years of domination sufficient prerequisite to establish such a position? Is it a guaranteed status? Is God bound to those nations he incites to war as part of his divine activity in the world even as they tumble progressively down a slope of immorality? And what do we mean by nations/countries, etc.? Perhaps we should not confuse the general populace with the political entities that often don't ultimately serve the people they are supposed to represent, especially when they claim to be something they are not. With the growing social/spiritual/economic polarization and disparity, can we expect our best interests are going to be kept on the forefront by the establishment when the carrott of their own greater prosperity is dangled before them? I ask these questions of myself and my own motivations.

If we only knew what we didn't know. In the meantime, I am working on an ameliorating position somewhere between an unhealthy theo-nationalism and a "heavenly-mindedness" that waxes toward practical absent-mindedness. Methinks we may not be able to fathom what we would find if we dug deep enough.

Why is it that the only viable work God has for us to do is somewhere else? When we think about being on mission with God, why do we inevitably think of somewhere other than our "hereness?" Why are we drawn to fields of mission that invariably come across as more exotic than our present station? Is mission work always "out there", somewhere away from "here?"

How come campus ministries don't take the energetic funding and resourcing that often go into spring break-type mission trips and strategically and practically invest them into their own communities of which they live and breathe and have their being? If they do, how come we don't hear about that? Is it that there are no mission needs surrounding us that require the same amount of investment? Does Mexico only have the hungry? Does south central Appalachia only have the impoverished? Does New York City only have the spiritually hurting and wounded?

Why is it we are always on the move, ready to get out of the "joint" at the first sign of opportunity? Is there nothing here? Why are we not called to remain in one place for very long? Why is it that God "calls" us back to our cities/homes of origin? What about our inflated piety and false pride that has us sold on the illusion that we can fix our families of origin? Has functional familiarity replaced the fellowship of suffering in Christ? Shall we bow to the gods of convenience while leaving a trail of dust in the God-forsaken wastelands of the mission fields of which we are presently a part? What about the outrageous fallacy that we have lived a life of faith when we have never ventured far into the realms of the deep unknown that truly require faith?

Who will be the faithful remnant for our God-forsaken little place?

Gadzooks! My squeeze and compadre Jaylord be bloggin'. He's the phreek in the church in my house in whom God is doing some neat stuff.

Socrates said that the most important thing in life was to know thyself.

When I look at my dogged existence, I say the man was only half right. Such wisdom leaves me hanging.

I say thou canst only know thyself when thou art known. I think I know myself only too well. It's just that I sometimes deem what I know about myself to be too detrimental for the common knowledge of those closest to me. What if they knew what I'm really like? That I am notoriously unpredictable? That I can falsify my outward emotional/spiritual states of being to service my reclusivity? That my cycles of being "on" spiritually seem to be overshadowed by my waywardness?

What can I really know about myself that is not validated and affirmed by another......or the Other? How much of what I perceive about myself is folly? What is gradiosity and what is cold reality?

Oh, I don't know where all this cacophony is leading to. Maybe just bending my ear to the emerging discordant harmonies of my life I suppose.

As my man Burt continues to revolutionize and appropriate most of what I read about church planting, I am becoming closely acquainted with the God of Intinerant Schedule-Busting.

Although I am hastening to render our infant house church to the dividing line of pre-Burtendom and post-Burtendom, I do mark his entry into our lives.....or, at least mine...........as another installment into my experiential knowledge of the self-revelation of God.

You see, my Southern Baptist lineage has allowed me voluminous opportunities for programmitized training regarding planting a church. A tenet of admonishment that I came across more than once from established planters now looms behind me as a curious oddity. There was a tendency to avoid the overly "needy people," lest they steal your energy and focus away from establishing the plant. The "clear" implication was to center on building the church around "healthy" people- those who seemingly have "it" all together. In principle, I bought into this and in some ways still do.

But what if you have a church full of people who don't really have much of anything together? What if God is bringing in reject after reject from the collective human waste pile adorning the fringes of society? Am I to think that God would surround us and establish us with n'er-do-well's who either don't know the Christ or at least have no stable concept of Christian community? Even paltry or absentee tithers? Heaven forbid! This goes against all the correct models I read and hear about.

Most of those who come to us have not connected elsewhere and it's not always the other community of faith's problem either. Veritasians have some big baggage that they lug into our midst. But we, in our push to be open and inviting, welcome them in. And we have been hurt before in doing so. But I, by proxy, find myself in welcome concurrence with the Neil Cole's of the disciple-making world in that we have missed the whole point of the Church if we only attend to the "healthy" people. He says bad people make good soil. It's a good thing there are some vegetable species that subsist and bear fruit even on rocky surfaces (seasons of death and regeneration will eventually provide the soil, God willing). Should God establish this level of vulnerability as a birthmark upon our countenance, then so be it. I'll take a church full of lichens.

Our community of faith is presently ultra high-maintenance. This is just what I was being warned to avoid. Our spiritual/emotional/physical energy reserves are often on the edge of depletion. But that's not unexpected. Incorportating into my experiential reality the cycles of emptying-refilling, pouring-out and pouring-in has been a surprising divine intervention that I presently know too little of. We often get the Jesus sucked out of us. Psycho-spiritual vampires (sometime unwitting to their disposition) prowl the staked-out enclaves of the new church plant. And sometimes my cup won't runneth over until it's upended.

I got a little in my cup Sunday. Nothing major, just got to see Burt literally horse-laugh at one of my playful analogies. I likened my 85-pound GSDog (who lives indoors with us) to our "child." I shared, as I had before, that we didn't need one of those because we wouldn't be able to tell our five-year-old to go out in the backyard and poop and come back in when she was ready. Upon hearing that, I heard Burt laugh from his belly like I had scarcely heard from anyone in a long time (let alone from him). While everyone turned to watch him laugh it up in his own world, I wondered when the last time was he had laughed that well. And had he ever done so in church? And ain't it sweet to be able to say "poop" in church without consternation?

So be it. To hell with the detractors in my mind. This is God's Church and he can do with it what he wants.

I was relishing the near-70 degree respite from winter yesterday. My haven of rest was tirelessly cleaning and piddling with my car in an effort to rid it of the corrosive elements of a winter's worth of road salt treatments. And I had to take off a rear wheel and reprove the dandy job the Sears technicians did on their last rotation and balance.....they couldn't even put the little valve stem through the little hole in the little wheel cover. COME ON GUYS! PAY ATTENTION! And even before I could do that, I broke the retaining cap holding the trunk panel down in the access area to the jack and spare tire and lug wrench. *PFFFBPHBPHT!* It was going to be good to get the church cleaned tonight and finally get some dinner.

Then my wife emerged from the house.

"We're going to take Burt some dinner tonight. Will you be done in an hour?"

I was tense now. Burt has our number. Literally.

"He said he was feeling sad and was going to eat potato chips for dinner."

Last Thursday, during a good accountability meeting with two other guys in my house church, the phone rang. We all looked at each other when we heard my wife say Burt's name. We dropped what we were doing and prayed for Burt, which wasn't something we had intended on doing that night. Forty-five minutes later, the phone found it's way to Jason, Burt's bestest buddy. And when Burt calls, it ain't just for a minute either. Another thirty minutes later, the phone convo ended and Jason wondered aloud-

"You think we could go over and pray with Burt? He's started bawling on me." Over to the one room apartment we go, banging on the door several times, smelling the cigarette smoke seeping through the door cracks. I wonder if he's passed out. Or worse.

We remain until 1:30 in the a.m., and depart with a circle prayer with Burt weeping, seemingly and hopefully connecting the twinge of loneliness with the presence of newfound friends.

Now my wife is whupping up chicken and vegetables for Burt and I am adjusting to the itinerary changes of God.

Driving over to Burt's, I am conscientious of the sensory overload about to ensue. The dozens of empty Milwaukee Light beer cans......the 3-4 sodas and pizza boxes jammed into the refrigerator..........the smoky haze constricting my air passages.............the TV that probably hasn't been off in 4 days..............the outpouring of grief from Burt's hurting heart. I can tell this is a high maintenance situation. God enable us!

I just hope he did not forget his dinner on the counter because we sat for an hour listening to him circle his wagons around the same issue of hurt. We tell him he has to eat and that we must go. I pray for him. Then he surprises us.

"I got a prayer for you" Burt offers.

Burt thanks God for us and prayed in Jesus' name that we wouldn't worry about him.

I pray in Jesus' name that God uses us to bring Burt up from the pit.

The Burtitization of our church continued with flair Sunday night. He walks in, reeking even more of tobacco-ey likker-breath- and thrusts one of the tightest grips on my right hand that I can remember since I used to get in gripping contests with my high school buds. He seemed happy to be there.

He whips out his wallet, garbles something about the "envelopes".........(I knew what he was getting ready to do. He wanted to give an offering and I was feeling uncomfortable because I wanted him to know he wasn't obligated to give- he was our guest. I knew that he worked at a pizza place and that money is an issue for him, especially since he whipped out a twenty. I glanced into his wallet in that instant and saw no other bills in there........did he realize what he had just done? Okay..........way too much analysis, then and now. I chose not to impugn his dignity in his gift and received it with joy on behalf of Veritas.)

I tell him I am glad to see him (and I was). I wondered how he would react with twice as many people as last week? He still ate at the table with Jason. We started a verse-by-verse study of Revelation. I would soon find out his response to that as well.

Later, my wife calls me to inform me about her conversation with Burt of which I only heard a snippet to the effect of, "can I be honest with you?" His honesty concerned the book of Revelation, to which he opined, "I don't believe in that sh-t."

Cathy also said she smelled smoke in the bathroom and found an ash on the floor. That was pretty awesome. You know there's some trust built up when you can sneak a smoke in a near-total stranger's bathroom.

Who said church done this way wasn't messy?

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

There's a guy in the church that meets in our house who has a nifty knack to reach out to people who are down and out. He has a way of making friends with those who are kind of out there on the fringe. What's more, is that he brings them to our gathering.

"Jason is bringing his friend, Burt, tonight" my wife noted at some point on Sunday.

I wonder what he's studying in school?

"He's gone to go pick up Burt" my bride of 10 years remarked as I stared quizzically at Jason's guitar case now laying in the floor.

I bet he's a freshman or a sophomore, since he has no car.

"Glenn, this is Burt."

I was now beholding a 44 year-old man, staggering into our living room, brazenly attempting his slurred introduction through snaggled and missing teeth. His teetering reminded me that perhaps he was struck with palsy. Or maybe years of alcohol. He appearance betrayed his age by ten years easy.

We fellowshiped with this stranger sitting contentedly at our table. So Jason and I went into the kitchen with Burt. Our church never eats at the table. We are happy to circle up on the floor or couch and spill tea and watch my German Shepherd snatch up morsels from the carpet with lightning-fast precision. "Respectable people don't do that" Burt admonished us.

Over our pizza Burt pokes fun at Jason and we all laugh. I recognize a connection between a lonesome 44 year-old drunk and a disciple of Christ cleverly disguised as a college student. I watched with fascination and entertainment as Burt told of how Jason always came to pick him up and take him to work (when in actuality Jason's only done this once). But by now we've been told by Burt of how his family's all passed away and Jason is a good friend.

Burt quietly made his way into my recliner as we moved into our teaching time. We were looking at Matthew 5 where Jesus tells us we are the light of the world. Our discussion goes on for 20 minutes and finally Burt interjects with a voice louder than necessary for a room with people only feet away from each other.

"You know- you all don't know me from Adam. I hope you don't mind if I speak right now. I could be a robber and could come back and rob you all. But you let me into your home and let me eat with you. And Jason's been a friend." Burt cracks on Jason again and we all laugh- again.

Then Burt calls me a knothead. You see, thanks to my wife, even total strangers are told of how I pegged my nugget on the corner of the entertainment center when trying to get my TVator to work with my laptop. I guess the pump-knot was unmistakable. So I sit on the floor and take my medicine while more laughter erupts.

Then Burt asks me a question that I shall never forget as long as I live.

Through a face squinched with incredulity came: "Why did you let me come in with you and eat? Answer that for me teacher-man" (or something to that effect).

Was this a set up?

But I looked at his eyes and his mouth agape......he was wanting an answer. I knew what this was about now. I swallowed hard as I gathered an answer. The air was rife with fertile reality of the Kingdom of God.

This was no teachable moment for Burt. He had already gone through the Spirit's lesson that night. Ironically, what God wanted us to know came in the form of a question from a drunk. Sure, I gave an answer about this was what Jesus' people are really all about......accepting, inviting, regardless of who we are or where we've been......but I think mostly to see if I believed it or not.

Jesus taught from my recliner Sunday night. The rest of the night I just plucked blackberries.

SIGNS

a mini-theological review

"There are answers to almost every question."

Postmodern filmakers today, without hesitation, dabble freely with esoteric and peripheral issues of spirituality- often going into the annals of other cultures and their religious traditions to explain/validate/bless their experience of being human. In doing so, they seem to hope to speak to something common to us all while tapping into the mystery of the "Other".......that whisper, that perception of a reality/person beyond our existence that instills meaning into the rubric of life.

Consequently, what often results is an amalgam of mushy neo-paganism sometimes cleverly masquerading under faint echoes of authentic biblical Christianity. Should a film find its voice from within the Christian worldview (and it truly rarely does), then the foray therein leaves us wanting more, wiping our lips clean from the bitter taste of superficiality.

Every now and then, a motion picture emerges with something very godly to say, and strikingly on target theologically. M. Night Shyamalan's Signs is just one of those films (released August, 2001 and in current release on DVD).

Anyone familiar with Shyamalan's work thus far probably camps in either the "love him" or "hate him" settlements. Widely acclaimed as the next "great" storyteller of his generation, Shyamalan tackles the "alien movie" genre with a flamboyant respect for not insulting our intelligence with cheap thrills, often relying on the anticipation of the unknown to weave the story.

Since I'll reveal things about the movie that might spoil the plot for those who haven't seen it, I do so to make a case for a Theology of Signs, MunkeBites-style. (If you haven't seen it, read no further.........watch it and come back).

Can one "do" theology without intention? Can an undertaking with the sole purpose of storytelling/storyselling (film making) end up painting a picture that helps us understand the nature of human suffering and the character of God? More to the point, does God reveal himself even through decidedly non-Christian agents? If so, what does "Signs" have to say?

Even if the title itself is a double-entendre playing into the message of the movie, it makes a bold statement regarding the doctrine of providence. Notwithstanding the fascinating storyline and atmosphere of the movie, what ultimately emerges is somewhat of a theological gut-check- posing questions our piety had previously been loathe to express- but nonetheless "sensed" behind the veil of our perception of free-will, God's power and the reality of a depth of suffering almost foreign to most.

The word providence comes from the Latin, providere, which is a combination of two words- pro "before" and videre"sees." This double meaning.... fore-seeing, seeing before, making provision for what is foreseen- is the umbrella under which all theology or doctrine is done and can be, arguably, therefore understood. The doctrine of providence basically asks, "how does God care for his creation?" Everything else conceptually falls underneath that basic epistemological question. It is the story of the compassion of God that intersects the scorched and hallowed ground that is human tragedy. It is the core construct behind the words of the song that muses, "he's got the whole world in his hands" and begs the question, "and just HOW does God hold this world?" Providence is more than mere theological academic exercise and reflection.........we take out our hearts and examine it while it functions outside its normal place and explore it. This is intensely personal and painful.

This is what Mel Gibson's character, Graham, does- only his heart drops, shatters and he is left rummaging for replacement parts. We pick him up, having lost any semblance of faith in a benevolent "father" who seems blind, and somewhat impotent. Through his own intention, he has abandoned his place as a Catholic priest. The honest anger he has toward God is balanced begrudgingly on his shoulder and it takes an alien invasion to knock it off. But not before he has lost his wife in a freak accident.

The pain Graham experiences borders on the blasphemous. Thoughts and words emanate from his heart that we would dare not entertain. In one scene, as he is holding the limp body of his slowly dying son, he spews forth a vitriolic harangue toward God and caps it off with an "I hate you!" At that point in the movie, my piety lurched forward, defiantly wanting to remind him "God didn't do these things to you." At the same time, I just wanted to be beside him, speechless, motionless and answerless.....just "there."

As a chaplain at the University of Louisville Hospital (a Level I Trauma Unit), I found there are no answers for the father of 19 year-old college student who wonders where God is in the process of his son lying brain dead whereas- 3 hours prior- the boy had just left to celebrate a birthday on his first weekend home from school. There are no answers for the daughter gripping the jaundiced and emaciated 85-pound body of her father as to why he had to trade in his liver for a life of alcohol. It was the first time in my life where I faced that kind of suffering. It was the first time I confronted such forces of human chaos and became closely acquainted with the experience of God-forsakenness. It was the dividing line in my seminary career because God ripped out my heart and put it back together again. If he hadn't have done so, I felt I would have crumpled.

There is indeed a suffering so deep, so incomprehensible that warrants the experience of God-forsakenness, such as what Graham wades through. When the rage of hell impinges upon human frailty and existence, we sense the rampage of chaos that lurks on the fringes of creation. And despite all the attending demonic fury (as personified by the alien invaders), we sense something in the divine Personage that won't let us go. In all of the mundane rituals of life, we can't escape the faint whisper that promises ordo ab chaos. How is it that the God who is absent is still the God who is "there?" How can it be that God indeed mediates his presence in his perceived absence? What is the form of this providential activity of God? I contend that the denouement of Signs poignantly illustrates the providence of God in the face of incalculable human suffering in a strikingly accurate fashion.

History is replete with the rising and falling of evil regimes that incur monstrous tolls upon human suffering (Nazi Germany, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, September 11th). Consider Elie Wiesel, survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, who was forced to view a child being hung at the camp:

For more than half and hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking, "Where is God now?"

I heard a voice within me answer him:

"Where is he? Here he is.....he is hanging here on this gallows......."

That night, the soup tasted of corpses (Night, p. 62).

Sometimes it is only in the midst of (or after) the fire that we can ascertain the ways in which God was providing. The glasses of water left behind, the failed baseball career memorialized in the bat hanging on the wall, the cryptic words of Graham's dying wife once relegated to the neural misfirings of a dying brain.........were all puzzle pieces- seemingly small and insignificant at the time- that divinely came together and became the deliverance of God. But none of it made sense until it had to. These all factored into their victory over the alien threat because God was standing on the frontside of their unfolding human stories and wove together with purpose and creativity a beautiful tapestry of ongoing human history. God works with all the factors that are available to him in any given moment.......no matter how miniscule. And the materials God uses? Human agents. In thus doing the work of providence, God interacts with free-willed human beings in the freedom of their decision making. The way God provided for their survival was defined within their own specific historically defined context. All the glasses of water left behind by the little girl was poison ammunition against the alien being. The non-sensical utterance, "swing away" was the command (and release) for Graham's brother to really knock one out of the park (and beat the alien marauder senseless so they could escape). Only through the contingencies of all these interconnected relationships did the pattern of God's providential activity come to light. Graham found faith, his brother found purpose, his son found life- all within the context of family.

We may never enter the garden of suffering of a Father Graham or an Elie Wiesel. But should we embark upon the suffering of God-forsakenness, we do so in light of the Christ event, Who hanging on a gallows of sorts also experienced God-forsakenness (Mark 15:34). There are no answers here, only a coming alongside of a Lord Who knows the fullest extent of what it means to be abandoned unto death. While we cry out for answers, we discover the presence of the Lord standing in our midst, already having been beaten and accused. Sometimes He comes in His power, crumpled with us in the corner. And He knows us.....He even knows our lot. Even while those closest to us can only muster the strength to snooze at the gate, no one but Jesus can fully enter that garden of suffering we may be called to enter.

Been feeling a bit lonely lately. Been looking at what my life has looked like since jumping off of the "traditional church" ship back in '99 and there has been a common theme.....this twinge of loneliness. I was told it would be like this. I was told to hold on while this roller coaster slammed me through the good/bad, the successes/failures and that the movement between the two extremes would be jarring. Sometimes it just seems that between the two, the turbulence seems the same and who knows what is success and what isn't? I know I'm not the only one daring to do something for God in times like these. Sometimes I'd just like to know that I've connected to others in the same ministerial boat, but for two and one-half years, I still don't feel like I have. I seem to get close the water's edge, but my arm floaties don't measure up to everyone's inflatable dinghies. I've trudged my way through thus far in search of a mentor/friend who could guide me on this journey. However, there are possibilities on the horizon and new friends.

Most of the people in my denomination who are available to me either don't know about us or are skeptical about the kind of animal we are grooming here, so the attention is patronizing or absent altogether. I was supposed to find my own mentor when I landed on field, according to my denominational superiors. How do you do that when: 1) you know next to no one; 2) 80% of the churches in your association either have no idea you are here or are diametrically opposed to your mere presence and are plateaued or declining. From within and around our association, I've tried and seen the formation of groups of somewhat like-minded church planters and seen them fall down. I've entertained the conversations that point to nothing more than lofty, yet empty aspirations to create relational accountability. Then, poof........

I intuitively sense what the problem is and it's no one's fault. Everyone is just relationally maxed out. Everyone already has their inner circle and can only maintain so many relationships at one time. How hard it is for a stranger to infiltrate an established accountability network of good buddies. That's just the reality of being an unknown, yet forging ahead in relative obscurity does get wearisome. Have I missed something/someone along the way? Why does it seem like the very ones I could learn from the most- those who have been down this road a lot longer than I- can't slow down to pick up a vagabond? I know it's not their intention but it still feels lonely. Why is it no one has taught me how to reach out?

Perhaps I am a bit presumptuous. Mentorships and mutually accountable friendships and discipling networks don't happen spontaneously. I know what I see and sometimes envy in others is the product of much relational time and investment. Am I even willing to scrutinize my own woundedness here? What is it about church planting that taps into the fountains of loneliness so easily? Why do I need to be needed? Sometimes all it seems to be about is giving. There are some things I need to receive too but there just isn't a whole lot out there right now. I just don't want to be like the Voyager Probe of Church Planters, drifting further away while still beaming out fainter and fainter signals.

For you, my 5 faithful MunkeBites readers...........a glimspe into the foolishness of church planting from my vantage point.

Now I can safely say that I have been "broken in" by a contingency of the Saturday night Metro bus riding regulars who frolic to and fro from party to party. Last Saturday was to be my first 8-3am shift on a route here in Oxford. I had heard stories about the shift, but they smelled more like the stuff of hyperbole and legend. Now I know better.

I should have taken the clue when the conversation over the radio amongst other drivers was about how we needed to turn off the rear heaters so the partiers wouldn't throw up. I wondered if someone was going to heave, how was I going to prevent it and keep my attention on driving at the same time?

One group of 15 decided to momentarily bring to my bus their party celebrating a girl's 21st birthday. I got patted on the head like a puppy dog and amidst chants of "new bus driver!!" some drunk chick decided to flash me not once, but twice. To top it off an hour later, another drunk girl up-chucked on my bus. This all made the foot races the drunk guys would have with the bus up the streets pale in comparison. And I was on the slow route.

I kept thinking, "....now, what about the state of drunken stupor is fun?" You get to swim in your own vomitus; you get to imperil your life and the lives of others by showing how you can outrun a 36,000 pound diesel behemoth; you get to reveal your privates before total strangers. What's sadder is that for some of these, the deepest experience of human community and friendship they will have is that someone held their head up so they could puke in the toilet. Now isn't that a true friend?

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whoever is deceived thereby is not wise." Proverbs 20:1

Some of you reading this may already know that I had applied for the position of police officer at Miami University. I had to take the entry test from which they generate an eligible list of candidates. Out of close to 200 test takers, one had to score in the top 20 to be eligible to pass to the first round of oral interviews. I wound up ranking 9th highest and I just emerged from my first interview with the department.

Although I had never expected to even get to the interviews, this first interview with a sergeant and a couple of patrolmen was fascinating, yet subtly tricky. Obviously, I had to present myself in such a favorable and authentic light as one would in any other interview. There were various scenarios presented to me to ascertain my judgment and decision-making ability in a variety of situations in which an officer might find himself/herself . Your on the beat with your Field Training Officer in response to a burglary call at a closed supermarket and your FTO takes two sodas, gives one to you and starts drinking the other without paying. What do you do? (Report him to your supervisor). Say an old high school buddy runs a stop sign.......do you ticket him or warn? (Ticket). Then, your mother runs the stop sign.....what do you do? (Hey, she's my mom......she raised me). But your high school bud watches you and asks why you ticketed him (he's responsible for his own behavior and I do not have to justify my decision with regard to him). Your sergeant runs the stop sign.....etc. "So, you are willing to let your mother off with a warning and end the career of a fellow officer for a 55 cent soda?" Yikes. That's the gist of it.

But I feel like I did fairly well and I covered my bases where I felt cornered. We'll see. I've always had a respect for and fascination with police officers and their work. Whether or not I go any further is a matter of God opening up the doors further.

So I'm off to make a few basketball coaches mad and then get to pick up my new drum set. Protect the women and children and plug the canalways harboring your tympanic membranes.

What a sweet night it was on Hester Road. Our whole house teemed with twenty-four people gathered to celebrate a baptism, the first I had ever been a part of in a home, much less a house church. There in our garage- in the official Veritas baptistry that was originally destined for the watering duties of some livestock somewhere- we baptized a Miami freshman (who's a part of our house church) and she even brought her unchurched roomie. We ate, sang, reflected on the baptism/temptation narratives in Matthew, prayed for one another and saw God show up in some fantastic ways. And we get to call this church!

Back from vacation and got the yak. Came back and refereed a basketball game and as soon as we got back in the locker room after the game, my partner hurls. He said it was the first time he upchucked in 10 years. I offered him assistance, gave him some water, got dressed, offered more assistance and condolences as I was leaving. He refused and shook my hand.

I was torn between my sympathy and the dreaded portent of shaking a man's hand who had just emerged from a toilet hug with an intesitnal bug. Hanging out with friends over the holidays whose kiddos had the chicken pox loomed over my head as well, though them chickens got me when I was a tot.

Now as I hack up my lungs and toss and turn at night and stare at the ceiling through sinus-pressure-induced tears, I can't imagine any better way to kick off the new year. Now, all of a sudden, my dog has a bum leg and I don't know how she did it. And they just called today to tell us we can't use our usual monthly location for our corporate gathering this Sunday because they are installing carpet. And someone's already punched a hole in our brand new siding at our gallery.

Yet I rejoice. It could be worse. I won't flame my circumstances.......I'll just try to creatively roll with them.

But blessed is the man who for Thy sake, O Lord, grants leave to depart unto all creatures, who does violence to his nature, and through fervor of the Spirit, crucifies the lust of the flesh; that with a serene conscience he may offer a pure prayer unto Thee, and all earthly things both outwardly and inwardly being excluded, he may be admitted into the heavenly choirs.

-Thomas A Kempis

I'm having trouble just getting to the audition.

From paper boy to bus boy.........

I got my temporary CDL today and felt like I had stumped Deep Blue. Especially after flunking the air brakes and passenger part of the written exam yesterday (to which my old lady and dog-child found humorous).

So, I cried "do over!" and came back today and yakked up a 100 on the air-brakes test, much to the amazement of the test facilitator who asked me if I was a mechanic. (You see, I am told, "no one really makes that good on the air brakes test.") Responding in the negative, I warmed with a sheepish and inward pride as I mused on the past 12 years in professional ministry, the Master of Divinity degree (yak, yak, yak)- all hallmarks of a career that couldn't be further away from the mechanical.

The ministry couldn't be better.

Now with all this talk about simple church, home church, movements and what not.......I'd like to pose a query.

Here we are in Oxford with our two little house churches just over two months old as of this posting. We aren't experts in this realm but we know/sense the "rightness" or "oughtness" of doing church this way. And we're not even sure what this "way" is......whether it should be THAT way or THIS way or the OTHER way. That we aren't in the forefront making waves, drawing all the crowd, stirring the buzz amongst the big-name competitors.....the hip, the cutting edge-- poised to ride the next new wave.......is confirmation enough. (Granted, we could be oblivious, sluggardly bums).

Some miss the adrenaline rush of having to pump up the next big "show" (a la the Sunday-to-Sunday big event). I don't. A decentralized, flattened leadership structure and slim overhead is way out of control and methinks I like it. It isn't as if this is something we did because some of the coolest people I know are doing it (and they are.....they are cool for divine reasons). Through a curious string and a network of interpersonal relationships God has placed in our lives, he has shown us a stepping stone in our direction for creating community, making disiciples, etc. We spent a year-and-a-half simply seeking (okay....alternately seeking and watching) just HOW we were going to do community and WHAT it would look like. We abandoned some preconceived agendas and "puttered" around to see what God had been doing here. Over this time period, the waiting and watching was fruitful and everywhere we looked, our vision was funnelled through this sieve of simplicity.

We are passionate for young adults. That is why we are in Oxford. God has given us ample opportunity to spiritually "father" and "mother" several of these whom God has placed in our lives and hearts, many of them having shared our house for months at a time (and some still lined up to come live with us). We have taken in spiritual children because they have been brought to us. They come in because we invite and I know we are not the only ones, but this is new to us and we (my wife and I) are growing into this. I know it has something to do with what God wants to do here and in this emerging generation.

I don't know if this is a prototype of something better to come....probably it is. But what I see now is SO foreign, compared to my expectations upon entering this field. This is the way God is doing discipleship....only now, the classroom is our house and the text book is our open lives. We have been priveleged to even disciple pagans in this kind of live-in set-up. I think God might want us to take this even further. More on that later.

Is there much evidence pointing toward a simple church movement among strategic age-ranges or even with attention to sub-cultures contained within the emergent post-modern generations lurking the globe now? Is a simple church movement possible within a highly transitional community within a university setting? Can there be strategy that avoids the peril of programmatica? Can there be a true, grass roots "house" church movement among students that doesn't have to masquerade as a "campus ministry" or a "para-church" thingy or be qualified as "student ministry".......(all terms which I find quite limiting)?

Maybe I am myopic. Maybe my young-puppishness betrays what reality is. I know I haven't seen it all yet. I know we are not breaking new ground in God's grand tapestry. But I like what I see so far and can't our little thread be something special and unique for this place?

"We don't need another he....."

Just teazin-

I know I ain't been blogging. Even my wife has gotten on my tail about it. Sorry bout that dudes.

It's not that I don't have anything to say right now because I have too much to say about a whole lot of non-sensical things ranging from the esoteric to the blatantly mundane. And maybe just for a wee bit o' time I was lamenting, wondering, "when am I going to do something about my abysmal-looking blog?" So I punished my blog and went anti-postal.

I am "tweening" right now.....somewhere in the valley on the way to gainful employment. Fortunately, I flew from the paper job before all three sphincter locations on my bod eternally locked in revolt. (There are only three sphincter muscles that homo sapiens harbor.....can you tell me where the other two are located?). I could become a PO-liceman at the university (long shot). I could become a bus driver for the university students (closer shot). I have made my applications for both.

(HINT: two are external).