partsofspeaking

  Years ago I purposed to write a book (and never did) called The Codependent Jesus . It was a  tongue-in-cheek response to a popular song of the ‘70s. “Time after time I went searching for peace in some void I was trying to blame   All my ills on this world I was in Surface relationships used me 'til I was done in And all of the while someone was begging To free me from sin He was there all the time He was there all the time Waiting patiently in line   He was there all the time Never again Will I look for a fake rainbow's end Now that I have the answer My life is just starting to rhyme Sharing each new day with Him Is a cup of fresh wine And oh what I missed, He's been waiting right there all the time.   Overlooking the bad poetry, the psychobabble, the false rhyme, and the reference to wine sung by Baptists, this song drove me batty. “He was there all the time, waiting patiently in line.” So God was essentially at the checkout line of you, a...

 Do we define mental illness or disability by how much it gets in the way of other people's convenience and agendas?  Case in point: Asperger's. Now you get diagnosed with it. Until twenty years ago, you just got to be yourself, somewhat awkward, socially inept, but probably very smart and good at what you do, your niche. Now it's a disability.  Bipolar disorder is horrible in many ways and needs treatment. But how many great artists were afflicted with it? To say nothing of Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon and probably Abraham Lincoln? Harrison Bergeron lives (thank you, Kurt Vonnegut). We say we celebrate difference but we really want to iron it all out and make everyone the same.  Don't get mad at me, here. I know whereof I speak. I could probably be diagnosed with something if someone took a notion to try.  And you probably could be, too.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4wYkS8Z3Io A catchy song with a good message.  But... Why do we answer "fine" when people ask us How we are? or How are we doing?  1. Timing. It's just in passing in the hallway at work on a busy day.No time and not a good time. 2. Our struggles are too complicated, deep, wounding, or shocking and the person is not equipped to handle them.  3. We might not be able to explain without trashing or hurting another person involved.  4. We are not ready to say. We can't. We haven't processed it. We haven't moved the experience from the amygdala to the verbal part of our brains.  Still, we need a better answer than the meaningless "fine." "Facing some challenges but God is good" might do.  

I prepared a presentation on resumes that I didn't get to give, so I'll blog it.  When you think about your resume, how do you think about it? Many people think of a resume as a work history document, but that’s not what it is. It’s really an advertisement and a paper representation of everything you bring to the table as a professional when you want a specific position. A resume doesn’t get you a job, it gets you an interview.   Think of it like this: a new restaurant is coming to town and advertising fresh, delicious food. The pictures entice you. You attend the restaurant. That’s what the resume does. Then you eat there—that’s the interview. You either have a good experience, or a not-so-great one that determines whether you return. That being the case, it’s vitally important what’s on it, what’s not on it, what order those items are in, and how it looks. I’ve studied and taught about resume for over ten years. There’s a lot I could say, but in this time...

"The Christian life, from one angle, is a long journey of letting our natural assumption about who God is over many decades, fall away, being slowly replaced with God's own insistence on who he is. This hard wok. It takes a lot of sermons and a lot of suffering to believe that God's deepest heart is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger." The fall in Genesis 3 not only sent us into condemnation and exile. The fall also entrenched in our minds dark thoughts of God, thoughts that are only dug out over multiple exposures to the gospel over many years. Perhaps Satan's greatest victory in your life is not the sin in which you regularly indulge, but the dark thoughts of God's hart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it." Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly, p. 151-2. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_cE8QiQfX0  A take on the rapture and space aliens? Definitely from the '70s.  

 https://babylonbee.com/news/woman-briefly-identifies-as-male-to-avoid-long-bathroom-line This is simply too close to reality, and there isn't a woman in America who hasn't been frustrated with the bathroom disparities. And pay disparities. And respect disparities. So, is this making fun of people with gender dysphoria? I don't think so. Humor is a Pandora's box, but instead of hope being the last "bug" let out*  the last item from the Humor box has to be kindness.  To quote one of my even more crude observations, I have often said that the only advantage I see to being a man is being able to pee standing up.  There is a 3/1 or 4/1 ratio of men to women in my family, so I know whereof I speak here.  However, when I look at my paycheck, I'm pretty sure I would prefer to get the same pay as my male counterparts. *(An old story book from my childhood portrayed the evils of Pandora's Box as insects, which is unfortunate because insects are not evil. This b...

 A student from last semester saw me yesterday (I won't get into specifics) and told me he had accepted Christ. Nothing else that could have happened yesterday was better than that (although some other good things did, but nothing like that).

 I confess. I binge watched this over two nights, something I never do. I got totally caught up in it due to the story and acting.  I can't say I recommend it, though. It's unrelentingly dark. Really dark. And the language (cursing) is pretty bad, and I imagine some of my readers would not like that. There is no God in this story, even though there are priests. Well, God and Jesus get mentioned a lot as cuss words.  And there a couple of plot holes, or maybe, things that kind of get dropped, perhaps because they weren't seen as central to the story arc. And as critics have pointed out, the men are almost all turds: either abusers, rapists, childish, ineffectual, or murderers. There are a couple of exceptions, maybe. But the women aren't a whole lot better even though they drive the plot. But it was very compelling, if one can watch it with all the caveats in mind. Excellent writing and sense of place very strong.

I've mentioned before that I am reading Dane Ortlund's Gentle and Lowly, which I recommend. But I was looking at the back of the book at the endorsements, the "blurbs." One of them is by Rosario Butterfield.  Now, I have to wonder what the deal is with Rosario, or any of the other people on the back of his book. I've read Rosario's book and liked it a lot, except for her defense of not using hymns because that is what her (very small) denomination does. She was a lesbian and atheist feminist college professor who came to Christ and gave up lesbianism. It's a compelling read and shows the power of friendship in evangelism.  But what makes her a celebrity, an expert, on why I should read the book?  Well, she wrote a relatively popular and controversial book. She was on a commission about sexual ethics. She has a compelling story. She is educated, a Ph.D. She is  pastor's wife. I have friends who have been on the mission field for decades preaching the g...