Summer Reading and Some Help

I am ashamed of myself. I call myself a writer, and yet I have allowed 7.5 months to go by before updating my blog. But I have a pretty good excuse: I delivered another freelance project for the non-profit I’ve been involved with for the past two years. My writing mojo had been netted by a topical study of the Life of Peter. And if that pass doesn’t work, there’s always the good ol’ alibi of: parent.

And my role as parent is actually going to serve as the theme for today’s blog. So, to begin, what good parent doesn’t intentionally allow themselves to be shackled every now and then to a book or two every summer? I mean, some of my happiest childhood memories are of seeing both parents’ noses in books as I snuck past their bedroom door at night…and through the living room…and into the garage…and to a lot of places. Books are good. And a good book means your parents are actually “checked out” for a few moments while you retrieve that household object that works so well against your neighborhood enemy, such as granddad’s Winchester.

Here’s what I digested this summer, on the beach, on the patio, in the a/c, everywhere:

Heaven is For Real (Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent) – a magnificent little book that many by now have read. Sitting on the beach at Port Aransas in early June, a passerby remarked on reading it, and as I joyfully spilled out its contents to the kids at dinner that evening, a nearby patron also joined in on the conversation, pointing out details I hadn’t thought about.

This book contains no less than the hard presence of Jesus. I felt as though I had actually been given a vision of the Lord – quite unexpectedly for this summer and certainly undeservedly. Of course, you have to believe in him first – not just that he existed/exists – but that he actually died for you. My Aunt Donna gave me this book this year, and she is two for two on absolute gems for summer (Her previous winner from 2009 was Dinner with a Perfect Stranger by David Gregory).

Day of War (Cliff Graham) – A fellow author from Tate Publishing recommended this awesome retelling of 1 Samuel 28-31 from the point of view of one of David’s Mighty Men. Graham, a retired military chaplain, spent extensive time in Israel studying the ancient land’s topography as well as hours upon hours immersed in Jewish histories to recreate the as yet unclaimed Promised Land during the kingdom of Saul. But what makes the book as compelling as it is illuminating is Graham’s knowledge of personal combat and its impact on the body. My joints ached after reading the story.

Through his fiction, Pastor Graham also presents a fascinating idea about how the Holy Spirit may impact the physical body while God’s will is being executed with it. Most important, Day of War presents David as never before: a truly charismatic leader who was as ruthless as he was tender. As with Heaven is for Real, the reader is in for some vivid experiences if his/her heart is open while reading.

Only Angels are Bulletproof (Emily Ann Benedict) - I was interested in this crime novel sent in L.A. because its author wanted to create genre characters with faith dimensions. Imagine if any of the main characters on CSI or NCIS found themselves having to consider seriously the divine as the result of one of their cases.

Benedict puts some interesting people on the page and does an excellent job of taking her main character through a dynamic faith change. The story slows a bit when it should keep moving, but it is otherwise a great first novel. I have been there. I still am.

The Help (Dreamworks)- this is the one “book” I only read through the screen this summer. My parents couldn’t put down the book form. I couldn’t stop my tears during the movie version.

To read the critics on this movie is to know once-and-for-all that race in America is a sensitive subject only when elites want it to be. I think that is why this book/movie has experienced wild popularity: the people have willed that they want to know what they knew, not merely from the civil rights era, but from their own homes! For a large chunk of upper middle class Americans, especially in the South, Texas and lower Midwest, there was no “civil rights era”; they called it “childhood.”

My sister (two years younger) and I are quite possibly the very last Americans to have experienced the everyday presence of a black woman in our home who was not just responsible for our daily lives, but who executed the role of maternal nurturer very much like Aibileen Clark. Our mother’s housekeeper was named Frances Wesley. Frances’ single greatest contribution to me was an uncanny, serene blend of trust and self-reliance in the face of a hostile world. Frances experienced raw discrimination at the hands of one of Dallas’ leading hospitals, only to trust God and use a gifted intelligence to persist in bettering herself in Jim Crow Texas. She built her own home in spite of an alcoholic husband who died young, refusing to be bitter (at least the years I knew her). She never had children of her own; she told my sister and I that we were her children, even though she was 60 before knowing us. It’s only my opinion, but a male child’s best model for trust comes from the mother, not the father. This is because in a natural sense, the child first depends on his mother for survival, who must then trust in whatever her resources are for the pair’s survival, preferably a good husband. If the mother can trust, that is successfully modeled for the son. If she can’t, the anxiety instead is translated.

Sure, Viola Davis’ Aibileen is surrounded by “stereotypical” Hollywood blacks in the movie, but to sling this at The Help is simply cheap copy by reporters trying to brown-nose their liberal buddies. I mean, come on, it’s the movies. What found me weeping at various moments in the film was not the tenuous struggle for dignity that many black Americans faced during this time (though that story gets some good play here), but the yearning that The Help’s children, young and old, had for maternal care – for that desire to trust and to know who to trust.

Think about parenting today. God bless every mother who takes a minute in the morning to tell their child they is kind, smart and important. But anyone who is providing Aibileen-style care to today’s two-year-old is certainly the exception. Why? Because it isn’t the American way to parent. American parenting is centered on one thing: raising successful children. Not even successful adults, but successful children.

Our society stands on the ledge today because of a crisis of proper parenting. The gradual urbanization of the past 100 years has allowed one generation’s selfishness and narcissism to enslave them to wealth, status and convenience such that they haven’t been able to properly nurture their children. Not just in Jackson, Mississippi, but everywhere American parents have expected someone else to do their job, many of who in turn had to abandon their role as parent to their own children. If those kids, then, were from a bad neighborhood, parenting was left to the local gang.

So the nerve, I think, that this movie hits is a uniquely American sense of the hits and misses we have as parents today. I saw The Help amidst a mass of North Dallas humanity this weekend at Northpark. Even though the theater was dark, I could tell that many of the movie watchers at the 1pm matinee hadn’t been to the movies in a long time. I’m guessing that many of them were like me. I’m sure many of them had someone in their home who was a blessed nurturer, and they wondered why life and/or their fellow man had been unfair to them. My hope is that most of them left the movie as I did, grateful for who has cared for me, but daunted at how pitifully inadequate I am to care for my own children. Gonna need some help.

The 00s: A Retrospective

One of my nostalgic indulgences are those “year in review” segments that the network news assembles and broadcasts every December 31. I think it’s my inner history nerd. But I can remember sitting in front of Frank Reynolds as early as 1981, watching pre-digital video sequences and thinking, “Wow, it’s neat to see everything that happened last year in one stop.” I think I felt a sense of power in simply being able to re-experience everything in a short manner.

This year, the retrospectives have seemed less hyped, if slightly mottled. This is due in part to the 24 hour news channels and their constant review of the year over the course of the day (and preceding week), which then gives the evening news versions less punch. In response, the evening news producers feel the need to add a twist to the reporting of the year-in-review segment, which tends to obscure a sense of time.

But the real reason for 2010’s lackluster retrospectives, I think, has been the fact that our society has been a bit confused on the decade that has passed. Not only were many of us unsure when it started (the official, historian date is Jan. 1, 2001; most of us began it after partying like it was 1999) and ended, but the 00s’ events have been a disjointed experience leaving many of us bewildered.

Think about the decade we just had: we began with an impeached President who was as popular as ever, endured the nausea of chad soup in Florida only to have a court pick our leader, shuddered through 9/11 with a side of anthrax, invaded a country and didn‘t quite win, watched the culture wars continue over Mel Gibson and Terri Schiavo, witnessed a major city flood and black Americans drown en masse, got easy credit, got a female Speaker of the House, lost easy credit, watched the culture wars continue over Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, then finished it all by rooting for the Texas Rangers in the World Series while the devil repossessed the Cowboys.

And if the news wasn’t enough, we had no shortage of Fear Factor stunts in our personal lives. For this blogger, it was: marriage four days before January 1, 2000, children - a lot of them, joining the Baptist church, a $14,000 raise based solely on the dialect I spoke, exiting a high stress job and hanging out my own shingle, being on cable TV, crossing the Mississippi with almost $250,000 from a home sale, spending it, divorce, the bottom and sobriety, ministry, joblessness and the kindness of others, becoming a single parent, getting a book published. And also, etc.

Between all of this, I’d like to think I’ve maxed out my stress points for the next decade as well.

So I think that when we reflect on the 00s - in many ways a short portent of the information culture that is upon our world - we might get a little tired. There have been good reasons to be tired but satisfied; there have been negative experiences that have exhausted us.

But being tired is actually right where God wants us to be. It is the first stop on the train of dependence. Isaiah 40 says it best, “To him who lacks might He increases power.” We can’t get the might until we are out of our own. We are not done with own might until we’ve seen that god-as-us is no good.

The 00s for me are really just that: zeroes. And for this, I am extremely grateful. Happy ‘11

The Christian Technique

My most recent freelance project was for a ministry that organizes lay-led Bible studies in high schools across the country for coaches, called, appropriately Coaches Outreach. For the coming school year, I wrote a study guide entitled "The Christian Technique: How God Prepares his Players" which draws upon the letters of James, 1-2-3 John, and Jude.

This Washington Post op-ed written by Mark Driscoll up in Seattle is a perfect example of what "The Christian Technique" is all about. Like many other thirtysomething evangelicals, my faith began with an altar-call-style profession back in 1980, led by a boisterous but devoted Irishman. Almost immediately, the "discipleship" I was led to pursue by my parents and the Chrsitian School I attended from K-12 was one of information Christianity, and I became Encycolpedia Bahm, or God's nerd. I was reading Swindoll at age 11, Lewis' big-kid books at 13, MacArthur at 15, and Charnock at 18. And since it was the Eighties, the wild, heart-pounding hypotheses of the End Times became the dessert during this time of fact-feasting.

Through college at Wheaton I became dissastified with this "thread" of Christianity. Through some concurrent personal experiences I became downright resentful. I didn't quite rebel, however; instead I became bored. Soviet Russia collapsed - before I could get over there and convert them! In the wilderness, I traversed the entire evangelical landscape, through both churches, groups and books: the ritual-Charisma combo of resurgent Episcopalians, the faith-healing teachings of LeAnne Payne, the Megachurch prototype of Bill Hybells, a quick re-sojurn with the younger Reformed movement (in which Driscoll has his roots), finally laying hold of the communitarian, Amish-like approaches of Wendell Berry and Douglas Frank.

Today, after yet more information, experiences (I am still a faithful, if jaded, GOPer) and even greater personal trials, I see how this model of knowing God is essentially unchanged. I find myself reading books from the watery, troubled Word of Faith movement - ideas and testimonies that are compelling yet no less rooted in a more or less selfish, personal desire to know God.

By God's grace, and praise him for it, I am learning the hard way what Anne Rice seems to be in too much pain to learn - something I sympathize with, believe me - that I don't really know or experience God unless I am loving fellow Christians - to my hurt. This is part of what the "The Christian Technique" of the New Testament letters means. The good news is that God effects the technique himself, through his own power.

Going to take a break from writing for a while - probably. :)

Christian Conservatives and American Politics: The Next Twenty Years

CHARACTER POSITION NUMBER FIVE: Don’t be ruled by fear.

My mentor’s mentor in politics was a man named Ken Towery. Before he won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing corruption in the General Land Office during the Fifties, and before he became Senator Tower’s closest confidant, Mr. Towery was a survivor of rural Texas poverty during the Depression. He joined the army only to nearly starve to death and get captured on Corregidor while his commander escaped. He faced and survived unbelievable horrors in Japanese prison camps all over Asia. He used to tell us that in politics people are motivated by two things: hope and fear.

After Mr. Towery told us that during a staff retreat, I kept wondering what he meant by hope, given the horrible things he had experienced. I figured he would have a unique understanding of hope based on his experiences. So, I read his memoir. In it, Mr. Towery talks about a running battle he and his campmates had with lice. There were other incredible stories of how the prisoners survived - and how many died, too - but this story seemed to capture his understanding of hope - and it was a very, very simple one.

He said the lice bit and tormented the soldiers constantly. He said if the guy in the bunk next to you died, the lice immediately swarmed out from under his cooling body toward you! He said they were constantly confined to their bunks because they were so sick and malnourished. The Japanese issued everyone wool-type prison clothing, which only served as lice apartments.

He said that hope came one day when a new commandant arrived at their prison in Manchuria. For some reason, this commandant was amenable to the soldiers’ requests, and Mr. Towery asked him if they could have some extra fire fuel so that the Americans could boil their clothes. The commandant did so, and after a few weeks of strict laundry duty led by Mr. Towery, the lice situation began to “look up” for the soldiers, ultimately getting eradicated.

“Look up.” I’ve never forgotten those simple words of Mr. Towery. Its this simple hope that I try to keep in mind when I get discouraged about my circumstances or our country. The Japanese commandant’s arrival was completely beyond Mr. Towery’s control - and it was awful until he got there - yet Mr. Towery was ready when the right opportunity presented itself.

This is the kind of hope that bolsters my faith and gives me courage to stay in the public squre, because the longer I try to follow God the harder it is for me to allow fear even an inch. Not because I’m super-Christian, but because the fear blocks me off from God’s Spirit, and it’s that much harder for me to make it through the day.

Christian Conservatives and American Politics: The Next Twenty Years

CHARACTER POSITION NUMBER FOUR: Don't be afraid to speak out when sin is evident on another issue

The toughest arrow that Republicans have had the hardest time deflecting in all of American history is that we’re the party of big business, of bankers and greed. But we blew it two years ago during bailout mania.

Conservative Christians don’t need to be afraid to defend policies which support family wealth and financial independence; but we must apply even more zeal in speaking out against things like greed. By doing so, we have opportunities to explain what greed really is, as opposed to letting Marxists define it and whip up the populace.

We have to be more articulate on our defense policies, too. The whole reason David Petraeus is where he is is because he is a leader in military-based nation building. The nation and we as Christians got all confused on this after the messy experience in Somalia. We have struggled to better understand what our perspective on foreign policy should be since the athiestic Soviets were defeated, Muslim extremism notwithstanding. I love our troops, but I like clear, winnable military objectives that keep our country safe even better.

Christians have got to expand their repertoire on the issues - we have all the answers to anything life can throw at us in God’s word. It is unwise to rely on others in the party to think and lead in this area, to acquiesce to someone else’s perspective which may lack similar faith values.

Christian Conservatives and American Politics: The Next Twenty Years

Here is CHARACTER POSITION NUMBER THREE: Abandon the idea that holding a position is most important.

One of my favorite old pastors once said, “If you have been called to be a missionary, do not stoop to be a king.” Now of course, serving a community or in government is a job unto itself, but I think if you’re a conservative Christian, we are obligated to have the same attitude. We have to ask ourselves, which comes first: our citizenship in heaven or our citizenship on earth?

This position dovetails with a policy area that has long been abandoned, that of term limits. We have to let go of what it is we think we need to be effective, instead of simply deciding to be involved in the public square. This includes holding the office, whether it be precinct chair or President.

There was a movie several years back called Presumed Innocent. In it, the corrupt and disheveled big city DA, late for a campaign event, wearily remarks, “When you first run, you’re trying to save the world; when you run again, you’re just trying to save the job.” I am afraid that a lot of Christians in various Party positions have this same mentality.

What makes the American system great is that by simply showing up to help, any citizen can have influence. I think everyone in this room knows what I mean. In many ways, that volunteer has more sway than the egotistical soul who can’t yield his position.

Christian Conservatives and American Politics: The Next Twenty Years

Here is Character Position Number Two: Rid ourselves of the "oppo" mentality.

“Oppo” is shorthand for opposition research. It’s what consultants do in preparation for a campaign. It used to mean honest, basic information about a candidate’s record, like their voting history. But over time, it included every sordid detail about their lives. For some, it includes coming up with ways to spread innuendo and exaggerations about a person’s life.

When I was on the Hill, I witnessed how some of the RNC’s toughest operatives did this against a private citizen, Michael Schiavo, the estranged husband in the sad case of Terri Schiavo. Since there was no Democrat on the other side of that issue, my fellow Republicans went after him! To do this was second nature to them.

I have been troubled by a little too much eagerness on behalf of my fellow Christians, from Dallas to Washington, to launch into smear-type tactics on fellow Republicans. Of course, this has always been a part of politics, but why are so many of us who are motivated by faith participating in it?