So I just finished watching the latest episode of South Park and I couldn’t help but think, wow, thats me. Its an episode about cynicism. Stan starts to see everything as “shit,”  literally. Comedic value of the episode aside it brings to light a reality that I face everyday, the older you get the easier cynicism is to come by.

I am a romantic idealist, often imagining the possibilities that could improve a situation. But as the years have gone on my idealism, while stronger than ever, manifests itself in a deeply jaded cynicism. Take tonight for example, I stumble across a website for a church and less than a minute later I catch myself ranting. Over what you ask? Coffee. Yea thats right, coffee. This church put on its website that they have two locations, one a little more traditional one and the other a little more contemporary.  As the descriptions of each followed the latter included a quip about enjoying a cup of coffee. The first thing that popped into my head was, “why is it that so often being relevant is so closely associated with drinking a cup of coffee?” I then proceeded to soap box about how being relevant doesn’t mean you need to have coffee.

Being the idealist that I am I cannot stand it when I see or hear such an asinine statement. It is tough for me to walk the path of someone who highly values perspective especially when I see what I would call stupid  informing or forming a bad decision. Or when I listen to a sermon, its like hearing nails on a chalkboard. There is a hint of arrogance to my cynicism. A hint of superiority and not one of humility.

I dont know why cynicism is my knee jerk reaction. I also dont know if cynicism  really is as bad as I or other make it out to be. I feel like there needs to be  a line. One that recognizes those who have gone before and then looks toward what one day might come. A line that has a lot of room for simple and complex answers, for open and closed ways of doing things. Perhaps if there were such a line I wouldnt be as cynical.

Probably not. I have a feeling that I will always carry with me the cynicism. It has been there since before college and will more than likely be there in the life to come. The question is though, how will I direct my cynicism. Should I silence it? Offer my services to the highest bidder? Be an equal opportunity cynic? Somehow I think I won’t have to choose because there will always be plenty of cynicism to go around.

In the summer of 1991 I was but a lad of 5 going on 6 when my mom took me to see Backdraft. I will never forget the images I saw at the now demolished DuPage Theater. Romanticized images of heroism took hold of me and seized my imagination for the weeks, months, and years to come. Although I am sure I did not understand the movie as a kid I was moved by the music and what little I could really gather from the story line. Looking back, one thing that strikes me about my love and experience with that movie is that (*SPOILER ALERT*) even though Scott Glenn is revealed to be the arsonist, I never saw and still do not see him as the bad guy.

Swayzak, now theres the real enemy. He’s the guy closing firehouses for money and getting firemen killed. Him and his deceased brethren are the ones to dislike, the ones to abhor, not Adcox. Axe as he is called, he is someone who is using the only thing he knows, fire. The irony of killing those who kill firemen with fire is not lost on me, and there is something to be said for burning things. For taking them down. Exposing something for what it is and melting it to its core. That is how I perceive Axe. He is a man burning things down, but not without purpose, he has a goal. Put another way, he has a love he is trying to defend and fire is his only recourse. He is much different than the character of Ronald who just wants to burn it all. Who wants to ignite fires with no remorse or purpose. Ronald wants to burn the world, but not Axe. Axe has purpose.

Perhaps unknowingly, the juxtaposition of the two characters has shaped my perspective on life. Allow me to explain. Tonight I found myself, as I tend to do from time to time, watching videos or perusing websites of people and organizations I do not like or have some objection to. Tonight though my travels took me back to the place that sparked the darkest days of my life, the place that I would never wish to go back to, the place that still puts my stomach in knots. My old fieldwork church. Now I could spend time rehashing all of the old hurts. All of the old struggles and challenges. All of the old feelings. But I fear that would serve little than to be therapeutic to my soul at the expense of others who actually do have a love and affection for that place.

Regardless of how others view it, experience it, and participate in it, my old fieldwork church hurt me. It played a part in breaking me, just as the fieldwork church of my best friend had a role in breaking him. And so when confronted with this reality I want to, in a more philosophical or theological way, burn it down. I want to defend myself, my best friend, and others from this enemy that seeks to look out for its own interests the only way I know how. But it isnt just my old fieldwork church I want to burn down, its the sem, the synod, the theology and policy. It is all of those things which took a turn at beating me and others into a broken mess. And it is when I see myself going to this extreme that I realize my burning would have no purpose or remorse. In Backdraft terms I would be Ronald, not Axe, and I have to take a step back.

This doesnt mean I am not going to light theological or philosophical fires but the ones I do light have to serve a purpose. Its finding the balance. I cannot sit idly by on the sidelines, silent. I need to find the voice I once had before I was broken. But I know I cannot just deconstruct things for the sake of deconstructing them, there has to be a purpose.

Sometimes the only recourse you are left with is lighting that match. I know I am going light it. That fire will burn. But will I burn it all or only a part? I dont know. I just dont know.

It is amazing what can happen in a few years. I apologize for being vague but stick with me. No, this isn’t some happy nostalgic post, I’m actually at a loss for words. I am just not sure how something can go from epic to nonexistent. But I guess that’s the way of things when they are based off of people rather than ideas. But ideas can be just as empty and problematic so I just don’t know what to say or do.

But despite how things have been, tonight was good. It felt like old times and for a minute it was like I was in college again and this was just one out of many weeks. It didn’t matter that a conclusion wasn’t reached, in fact, I think that was a strength. Its a reminder that things are always in flux. Sure it may not be what it once was, but that does not mean it can’t become something new.

And isn’t that the beauty of life? Isn’t that the beauty of the event?

John Caputo once wrote,

“The divinity that shows through Jesus consists not in a demonstration of might but in a complete reversal of our expectations culminating in the most stunning reversal of all.”

That reversal is not simply bringing metaphoric life out of death. It isn’t some ideological resurrection. It flips your world upside down. I don’t think it’s hope that I need tonight. It’s doubt. Right now that’s the reversal. If I don’t embrace something for what it is I’ll never be moved to do something about it. Not because I have some idealized depiction of how it could turn out but because I doubt anything will exist.

I guess what I am saying is that not knowing the ending has a profound effect on how you live. I wonder if the same would be true of Christianity. What if we didn’t “know” about the resurrection? Would it change the way you or I acted if we didn’t know the ending?

One of my favorite stories ends like this…

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don’t get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won’t solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we’re called home.

This is but a piece of the story of how To Write Love On Her Arms came to be. It is such a well crafted yet simple enough assertion. We were made to love, not to solve the mysteries, but help the vulnerable ones. What I appreciate about this quote is that it calls people to suffer with one another. But I wonder how far people are willing to go.

I know the church is good at claiming it is the hands and feet. I have experienced the love and care of so many people who lived out exactly what this quote is attempting to elicit but I still wonder just how far people are willing to go.

This past spring I spent time considering what our class called an incarnational ethic. It is this notion that a community is what forms and informs the decisions of individuals based upon the story of that community. For example, abortion is not wrong because it violates some abstract principle concerning the sanctity of life but because our story asserts that life is a gift and we are willing to help you in any way we can. We are willing to suffer with you. While I can appreciate the approach I am turned off by the notion that the story dictates how a person should act. What if that person who is part of your community does not want to listen? What if they hear your story and still want to pursue a different course of action? To go along with the example, what if they heard your story about life and still want to proceed with an abortion?

What do you do?

How far are you willing to go?

Are you willing to put away your story and drive them to the clinic?

Are you willing to enter with them into the fray?

I was sitting in class yesterday and the focus of the discussion was on the self care of clergy. Now, this is an important issues in several congregations across America because of the reliance placed upon the professional church worker. But even though I recognize the need the speak about such an issue I wonder if those strategies and/or structures that one can employ are really just putting a bandaid on a broken leg. What I mean is this, what if the problem is not one that stems from the over reliance of individuals on the professional church worker but one that stems from the existence of the church worker him/herself? Put another way, the issue is not how people engage with that professional church worker but that there is a professional church worker…

It has been months since I last took the time to sit down and write for this blog. So much has happened to me personally since that cold November day when I made my last post that I no longer feel that I can call this blog musings of a drop out anymore because, I’m no longer a drop out.

I am currently back in school, albeit a different seminary, to finish what I started nearly three years ago. I don’t know how it all came to pass but my wife and I are back in the city we love and I’m back in the thick of things. But, I’m not where I started and to be honest this place has it’s own issues. The difference is now it’s ok for me to disagree, which is a nice change of pace. But I still feel like I don’t belong. Like I am an exile in a foreign land.

I suppose that is a good way to think about it because I followed in the footsteps of some other people who called themselves that very title. While the struggle they fought was different I always respected their courage to walk out of the seminary, that same seminary I walked out of. And now, as I seek to finish my degree elsewhere I feel a strange connection to those brave seminex men and women. I am no longer home in the bosom of Lutheranism but I am interacting with different people steeped in different traditions and it’s wonderful.

Maybe I will always be an exile. Maybe I will never fully fit in somewhere or find my ideal setting. But that’s ok. Belonging to a community doesn’t mean we all have to agree. It means that we all have our place among others. That we recognize that we all belong to each other whether we are part of a specific group or not. It doesn’t matter if im a Lutheran among baptists or a terrorist among my victims. We all belong to one another.

As John Donne once said…

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee

Today I came across a sermon which focused on Christ the King as it was Christ the King Sunday in the revised common lectionary this past week. I was never one to go gaga for the pericopal system but today I found it particularly apropos. You can read the full text of the sermon here but I want to focus in on one quote…


“On the cross we don’t see a legal transaction where Jesus pays our debt.  We see God. The Word made flesh hangs from the cross. And let there be no mistake – this is Christ the King.”


What a reminder. So often when I think about the crucifixion I focus on the result of the act. Sins paid for. Wrath poured out. The typical ideas and realities that are the result of that moment. But that is jumping the gun. It’s moving past the reality of the situation. Hanging on that cross wasn’t just a sacrifice that brought forgiveness it was God. Christ the king on his throne.


As we move into Advent it’s so easy to jump the gun. We like Jesus as a baby but in the back of our minds we know where the story is going and it is so easy to miss the reality of the moment. That’s why this Sunday’s pericope and that sermon were so apropos to me, they made me focus on the situation, not the result.

It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only a week away. I never seem to know where the time actually goes, but the days have ticked away and now we stand on the precipice of the holiday season. Families will come together, meals will be shared, and the inevitable trips to the mall in an effort to find that perfect gift will commence. And without fail, advertisements will saturate the airwaves, television screens, and the internet, all in an effort to help us pick out this year’s hottest gift. 

Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance.” 

“The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church. The church before Constantine. The church before Platonic philosophy. The church before Paul. The church before… For these moves fail to bring us back far enough. Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance.” – Peter Rollins


Thoughts? More to come…

Last night my wife and I watched V for Vendetta. A superb film, one of my favorites, I was amazed at how much I still loved this movie not having seen it in a while. (Just in case someone hasn’t seen it who might be reading this I wont give away the plot). There is one scene, that although is serious in the film, makes me burst out laughing. Its the scene when “Eve” is on the roof and it is raining. I know it is emotionally moving but for me, it brings back a different memory. 


A while back when I was still in college my friend and I were facilitating a college-age small group get together at Starbucks. There never were more than a handful but I really enjoyed those little meetings. One night it was a little rainy as we were about to finish up. During the prayer, my best friend blurted out, “And as we learned from V for Vendetta, you are in the rain.” 


I will always laugh at this because it was one of those usual occurrences of my friend saying something stupid and at the time, we all poked fun at him for it. But last night, as I watched that scene and remembered that moment I thought to myself that maybe he wasn’t all that far off. Not in his assertion that God somehow inhabits the rain, but in that he found a truth concerning the omnipresence of his creator in a source outside the biblical narrative.


Paul spoke to something similar to this in Romans when he said, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Now, I know that this passage is usually taken to mean the natural aspects God’s creation, the physical earth and all its creatures, but I wonder if its more than that. If God left marks of jimself upon the ground he created, as Paul is claiming, why couldn’t he leave marks of himself in other things like books, movies, or other technology? Is it possible for this verse to mean that God left marks of himself throughout the whole of his creation, even in what we create? Im not sure, but I’m curious.