Along that vein, here’s a quote that I resonated with:

There is an interesting reflection to be made on Kierkegaard’s definition of being a saint — someone who can will the one thing. Most of us are quite like Mother Teresa in that we want to will God and the poor. We do will them. The problem is we will everything else as well. Thus, we want to be a saint, but we also want to feel every sensation experienced by sinners; we want to be innocent and pure, but we also want to be experienced and taste all of life; we want to serve the poor and have a simple lifestyle, but we also want all the comforts of the rich; we want to have the depth afforded by solitude, but we also do not want to miss anything; we want to pray, but we also want to watch television, read, talk to friends, and go out. Small wonder life is often a trying enterprise and we are often tired and pathologically overextended.

Then, a couple of pages later:

We can see from all of this that spirituality is about what we do with our spirits, our souls. And can we see too from all of this that a healthy spirit or a healthy soul must do dual jobs: It has to give us energy and fire, so that we do not lose our vitality, and all sense of the beauty and joy of living. Thus, the opposite of a spiritual person is not a person who rejects the idea of God and lives as a pagan. The opposite of being spiritual is to have no energy, is to have lost all zest for living — lying on a couch, watching football or sit-coms, taking beer intravenously! Its other task, and a very vital one it is, is to keep us glued together, integrated, so that we do not fall apart and die. Under this aspect, the opposite of a spiritual person would be someone who has lost his or her identity, namely, the person who at a certain point does not know who he or she is anymore. A healthy soul keeps us both energized and glued together.

You can see my review at Goodreads here.

The bigger news is that I finally put some of the many Big Story’s resources out there, and compiled them to one page. Click on the previous link, or find it in the drop-down menu labeled “Resources” under “Big Story.” At that page, not only will you find the original videos, but you’ll also find some interesting versions of the Big Story done by others, like a snazzily-animated one done for a larger church, a simplified version used to train students, or ones done in other languages such as Spanish or Chinese.

At the bottom of the page, I’ve also collected links for books, training documents, and interviews to help you share or train others in the Big Story. It was encouraging for me to go through it all again and to see the many ways it’s been used to help people grasp the Christian message in a more relevant way. And yes, it still trips me out to know that people are even getting tattoos of the diagram.

Others that I didn’t include are versions I’ve seen done in Thai, Polish, and Haitian Creole, and even a version created for the American South. But let me know if you know of other versions or resources out there, and may God bless you as you continue to share the Big Story!

If you’re asking these kinds of questions, check out this short video that we — InterVarsity Multiethnic Ministries and our media arm, 2100 Productions — released at InterVarsity’s National Multiethnic Conference a month ago. It’s a seven-minute reflection on the biblical foundations for ethnicity. In this short amount of time, it can’t cover everything. But I hope it’s a helpful conversation starter.

For those of you who’ve seen it before, this is the final version. And if you have a Vimeo account (which you can get for free), then you’ll be able to download this as well. There’s also a discussion guide, and I’ll link it as soon as its final version is approved.

It was Jeremy Lin.

I just can’t get him out of my head. And perhaps it’s right for now. It is historic. The Asian American community has its Jackie Robinson.

There’s a lot to like. We love underdogs. That has appeal that goes beyond Asian American circles. No one recognized who he was. He’s like an Asian Harry Potter, stuck under some cupboard. He had suffered in obscurity, though he clearly had the talent and deeds done. He was probably overlooked — whether consciously or not — because of his ethnicity. No one gave him the time of day — or at least, time in the game.

But look at him now. Playing in the NBA. Not just on a team, but a marquee player. He’s outscoring some of the best in the league. And not because he’s super-freakishly tall, or has some other physical advantage. He’s 6′ 3″. A point guard with skills. A baller.

And like Harry when he found his wizarding skills, Lin has emerged from the shadows into the spotlight. Anne Rice and F. Scott Fitzgerald says there are really one two themes in storytelling: reinvention and redemption. Lin’s story is one of reinvention: from bench warmer to the star of New York basketball.

And yes, we all love that storyline. Deep down, each one of us wants to be reinvented. Each one of us wants to be something more. And for Asian Americans, that yearning goes very, very deep.

But he also carries his faith well. He’s a believer. An InterVarsity alum from the ministry department I currently lead.

And his character seems to shine through. Just plays. Loves to serve his teammates. He’s the kind of kid that’s inspiring, because he’s not only an incredible athlete, but someone we can look up to. And though he talks openly about Jesus, he doesn’t seem to be such a dividing personality. It’s great that he has skills, but it’s even greater that his faith shines through with a healthy dose of humility.

So when everyone tells him he’s the shining star of New York, he might do a hand-slapping, page-turning, glasses-pocketing nerdy handshake, but he’ll end it by pointing up to heaven.

He’ll humbly give glory to God.

And since I don’t have a basketball team in my hometown anymore, I guess I’ll start rooting for the Knicks.

Add to that my list of what needs to get done normally, to what needs to get done around the holidays, to what I want to get done, to what my wife wants me to get done — and it seems that my time is taken. “Timeless” can feel literal — that I can constantly feel that “time-less.”

It makes Advent all the more necessary.

Holiday comes from two words: holy + day. Holidays are supposed to be days that are literally “set apart” for reflection and connection with God and others. It’s been good to catch up with old friends over the past two weekends, and I hope to celebrate more holy days with others as Christmas arrives. But more than that, Advent reminds me to yearn for a deeper connection with God as well. It’s a rhythm that reminds me that life is more than what I can just touch or see. So somewhere in between the grind and hustle, I hope to be more present to the reality of God around us — and let his love sink into my bones. For on Christmas, unto us a child is born, to us a son is given.

May our days, as we approach Christmas and a start to a new year, be holy.

But after I read the print edition, I realized that I had made a mistake. So I want to extent an apology and a correction. In answer to the second question, “Why can college be such an instrumental and life-changing time in the life of a Christian?” I had cut-and-pasted an answer from a document I use to explain my own ministry with InterVarsity. It’s a mix of copy passed down from staff worker to staff worker and some of my edits — and I forgot to source it. I feel badly for the careless mistake.

As for my correction, I actually don’t know where the text originated. So here is what I’d change: Add “As it is written in my InterVarsity ministry brochure:” at the beginning of my answer.

Otherwise, I hope the interview was helpful!

American preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps, than those faced by us under South Africa’s apartheid, or Christians under Communism. We had obvious evils to engage; you have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white and blue myth. You have to expose, and confront, the great disconnection between the kindness, compassion and caring of most American people, and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth. You have to help good people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them. This is not easy among people who really believe that their country does nothing but good, but it is necessary, not only for their future, but for us all.

And the essays don’t disappoint (though I’m only two in).

So here’s another quote, on religion, that was too long for Twitter, coming from Berry’s book. And yes, this was all part of one paragraph.

I am uneasy with the term [religious], for such religion as has been openly practiced in this part of the world has promoted and fed upon a destructive schism between body and soul, Heaven and earth. It has encouraged people to believe that the world is of no importance, and that their only obligation in it is to submit to certain churchly formulas in order to get to Heaven. And so the people who might have been expected to care most selflessly for the world have had their minds turned elsewhere — to a pursuit of “salvation” that was really only another form of gluttony and self-love, the desire to perpetuate their lives beyond the life of the world. The Heaven-bent have abused the earth thoughtlessly, by inattention, and their negligence has permitted and encouraged others to abuse it deliberately. Once the creator was removed from the creation, divinity became only a remote abstraction, a social weapon in the hands of the religious institutions. This split in public values produced or was accompanied by, as it was bound to be, an equally artificial and ugly division in people’s lives, so that a man, while pursuing Heaven with the sublime appetite he thought of as a soul, could turn his heart against his neighbors and his hands against the world.

You can also find other recommendations at my account on Goodreads.