The Greasy Rag

Planning a trip to Nepal

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:01:06 -0700

We took our first trip to Nepal in early 2006 with a team from Pathways church. Megan and I led the trip which was inteded to explore an opportunity for short term trips in northern India. Because of a political situation in Nepal we were not able to travel out of the country for 3 days. When we could we decided not to go to India because of the extra expenses we had incurred from staying in Kathmandu and reports of violence from elections in northern India. As I prayed I felt a strong calling to work in Nepal instead of India.

The man who helped us while we were stuck in Nepal had recently started an orphanage. At that time,. there was a lot of guerrilla activity in the more remote parts of Nepal which was leaving a lot of kids without parents. They had 7 children at the time and we began to support them with financial assistance and making sure that the kids were getting what they needed health-wise and nutritionally. Now the orphanage has 17 kids and I’d like to get more people involved in supporting them. We have established a wonderful partnership and friendship with the couple who runs the orphanage, Udaya and Bakthi. We have been able to raise support for Udaya who has some medical problems that he has had to go to India for.

We have also formed a partnership with a church in Kathmandu called Ekta church (Ekta means unity in Nepali). We have brought them instruments for worship and held a conference at their church showing them other styles of learning (group discussions and other ways to internalize the things that they are learning) instead of the 50’s style preaching that they are used to. We have also been able to learn a lot from them about God’s healing process and about true worship.

Another ministry that we have worked with is a church association called the NCFN. NCFN is the largest association in Nepal with over 400 churches as of a year ago. They have been planting churches at the rate of 1 church per month! They are doing a great work but they are limited by finances and pastor training (some of the pastors have only been believers for a few months). I have been meeting with the head of this organization as well as regional leaders to try and determine a strategic way to help out their work.

On our last trip, we put on a women’s conference in a remote region of Nepal. This was groundbreaking because the prevailing attitude towards women is that they don’t need education or involvement outside the home. I have seen this carry over into the church’s attitude towards women. We were expecting around 100 women and over 200 showed up. Though they had been Christians for some time, they learned basic bible stories for the first time. We taught them to internalize the stories by considering what it mean for them and discussing it. I could see over the course of the conference them learning to appreciate their own ability to understand the scriptures. It was also a huge blessing for them to know that there were this many Christian women as they might be the only Christians in their village.

I am not a fan of western churches simply sending money to a ministry they are not involved in. I’m also trying to consider the resources that I have in terms of contacts here in the U.S. One of my goals is to bring people on trips to give them a vision for the work that is happening there so that they can get involved according to their skill set. Along with this goal is to develop a unique strategy that utilizes people for their specific gifts and skills. This is a more difficult task because it depends on networking and building a specific vision for an effective ministry in Nepal.

I am not interested in building projects or other types of short-term trips that are more common with closer destinations like Mexico. The main reason for this is that I feel that short-term trips are most effective when they serve to 1) Build up the local church in a significant way and 2) Build long-term relationships that can build-up local believers and turn into strategic opportunities for Americans to use their gifts. Nepal is about as far away as you can get from the U.S. and it’s too expensive to simply be giving people an intro to Missions.

The initial focus of this trip is to host a Men’s conference in a region where they don’t have a lot of churches. Their ability to have community is limited as there may be only 5-10 people in their village church. I will be speaking at the conference, but my main goal is to get them talking and thinking about how Jesus’ example is expressed in a predominantly Hindu culture. It has been a couple years since my last trip so I’m also looking to revamp relationships that I began on the last 3 trips and continue to form a vision for future ministry in Nepal. The trip will cost about $3,000 per person depending on the price of the flight which is the largest portion of the cost. I’m planning on paying for 1/3 of the trip out of pocket and raising the rest, mostly through letters to friends, family, and coworkers.

If you have a desire to support the trip, you can write a check to ServLife International. Please put Pete Larson Nepal Trip in the memo field. Checks can be mailed to me at: Pete Larson 1553 Meade St. Denver, CO 80204

A healing experience

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:36:55 -0700

There has been a lot of talk around me about healing. At Christ Church, we had a conference focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit of which healing was a part. Since then, people have been praying for healing. I have been a bit skeptical. I believe that God chooses to heal especially after seeing that it has been such an important part to many in Nepal coming to faith. I am worried, though, about people expecting and manufacturing emotional experiences that don’t materialize in reality. It’s easy to believe that something happens when it really doesn’t. I have really tried to be open, though, to what God might be wanting to teach me.

In that spirit, I have been regularly asking for prayer for my back which has been painful and debilitating ever since my seizure last November. Last night I spent some time with a friend who seems to have the gift of healing. He’s seen 40 cases of healing since he starting praying earnestly for healing in people 2 years ago. Before he left, I asked him to pray for my back. While he prayed, I felt nothing except my back tightening up even worse than usual.

I had been in bed for about 10 mins and halfway asleep when I feel my back begin to get really hot. I thought to myself, “is this the healing process beginning?”

I waited and the feeling got stronger. Soon it began to feel like someone was lifting me up. My body felt like it would lift off the bed any second. That feeling slowly moved up my back, into my neck and then into my brain. For a long time it centered in my brain. It’s hard to describe but it felt like someone had their hands in there. I also felt somone pressing down on the bridge of my nose with considerable force. I was completely awake while this was happening and I was describing each progression to Megan as it happened. Soon this feeling moved into my left hand and centered on my two fingers that were cut off when I was a child. I don’t know if it was my imagination but I almost felt as if my crooked finger (which had been sewn back on by the doctors) was straightening out and as if the finger which is missing the last knuckle and finger tip was growing out. At some point during the whole experience, the back muscles on the right side of my back started moving around as if they were a rubberband untwisting.

It’s hard to say exactly, but it felt like the whole experience lasted for about 10-15 mins. I slept a very deep sleep and woke up expecting every creak and pain and imperfection in my body to be restored. I looked down at my fingers and they looked as mangled as ever. When I got out of my bed, my back was sore. It was the kind of soreness you would experience if you had, had a deep tissue massage the day before. I really wanted everything to feel better so I was concentrating on any improvement in my back. I didn’t initially feel much difference. I never want to assume that something is better when it really isn’t. But I knew that what I experienced was real. I was fully awake and sober and it lasted long enough to know that it wasn’t just some normal tingle that you might feel during the night.

On my way to work I was praying about the whole experience wondering why I didn’t instantly feel healed and jump about like Tiny Tim shouting “God Bless us Everyone!”. As I prayed my back began to feel very tight as it had every time it had been prayed for. I prayed with confidence that this back was to be healed 100% of the time. Then I began speaking to my back directly saying, “you are not to be tense or tight any more. God wills for you to be healed.” When I arrived at work my torso felt lighter than the rest of my body. Walking down the hallway, my legs and arms feel weighed down in relation to my torso. It’s as if I had been carrying a 20 pound weight on my back for a long time and suddenly it has been taken off.

It was an amazing experience and one that I won’t forget. I’m not one to say things are better than they are so I’m waiting to see the effects of this healing. In the past, the pain came about after standing for any length of time or strenuous activity. If it’s not 100% I am going to continue to pray with confidence.

I still am not sure if it’s God’s will to heal pain, sickness, or disease 100% of the time but I know, now, that it is God’s will to heal my back and I will pray with confidence until it is completely restored.

I found it interesting that at least half of the time during that experience, the feeling was in my head and brain. The most pressure I felt the whole time was on the bridge of my nose. It wasn’t in my back and I’m curious if that was part of the healing process of my back or if God was doing another work. My epilepsy has only been diagnosed by symptoms. Nothing has ever shown up on the MRI. If it had, I would ask for another MRI to see if there has been any change. I am on anti-seizure medication and I’m not going to stop the medication. I still have slight symptoms from time to time, though, and it will be interesting to see if those stop.

I retell this story as a skeptic who’s had an experience that’s too real and significant to not retell.

What does it mean to be "born again"?

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:49:55 -0700

The phrase “born again” is, at best, an overused and meaningless cliche. At worst, it’s dirty word that represents a kind of Christianity that beats it’s message on the heads of those who don’t believe in it. The phrase comes from an encounter that Jesus had with a religious leader of his day. Jesus always spoke somewhat cryptically and he is surprisingly straightforward in his conversation with Nicodemus. My guess is that this was because Nicodemus knew the old testament backwards and forwards and Jesus wanted to point out that, despite his knowledge of the scriptures, he really knew nothing of what it meant. Jesus spoke on a few different topics and it’s here that we find the two most referenced phrases in Christianity: “born again” and John 3:16. Because “born again” is such a loaded term, I like to use the phrase “born all over again”. It’s really a very strange thing to say: “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Nicodemus, who was used to applying scripture very literally, replied “How can this be? How can someone enter the womb a second time?” Jesus then explained that there are two kinds of births that need to happen: one of water, and the other of the spirit. Jesus then moves on and references an event in Jewish history recounted in the Jewish scriptures. God was extremely upset with their disobedience and struck them with a plague. He asked Moses to put a snake on top of a pole. He said that everyone who looked up at the pole would be saved (incidentally, this is where the medical symbol with the snake on the pole comes from). Jesus uses it to introduce John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him would have eternal life.” Salvation, Jesus explained, is simply “looking up” at Jesus for salvation. Nicodemus doesn’t show signs of understanding what Jesus was talking about during that conversation and it really frustrated Jesus since he was supposed to be a religious teacher. I imagine, though, that he went away and was plagued by these words. “What does it mean to be ‘born of the spirit’ and how do I do it?” “What does it mean to ‘look up; at Jesus?” I’ll bet he scoured references in the scriptures to these concepts. He would have found plenty of references to Jesus, himself, in the writings of the prophet, Isaiah. He would have found an important reference to “the spirit” in the writings of the prophet, Joel, when he says that a time would come when people wouldn’t worship God in Jerusalem, but in “spirit”. I wonder the same things myself. What the heck does it all really mean? “Born again” has been used to simply describe people who go to church or who call themselves “Christian”. The true message, though, is quite profound and incredulous. God would actually give you some piece of himself in the form of his spirit. Somehow Jesus made this possible. In my experience it’s such a crazy idea that you could only believe it by experiencing it. You have to throw off preconceived notions or bad experiences with the church and take Jesus at his word. I wish I had a better understanding of all of this.

Royalty in our midst

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:30:32 -0700

A British newspaper recently called the Obama’s “America’s Royalty” which may be more a harbinger than a compliment. 232 years ago we fought a war to rid ourselves of a king who was going to put an undue tax burden on this country without giving us a say in it. We may have been a little too hasty trying to throw out King George. After all, everyone loves a king and we could all use some love right now. When our national debt tops 2 trillion and our economy is tanking, we should remember that the cost of love is expensive.

Michelle O is the new Jackie-O and we should be happy about that. While the rest of us are sitting at our kitchen table in our bathrobes combing through the want-ads, our first-lady-queen will be putting on a good face. Our president will be on the hottest talk-show selling us on green energy jobs. “Well look,”, he’ll say, to give us all confidence that despite the fact that it makes no sense to the rest of us, he must know something that we don’t. His years of economic experience will warm our hopes as we warm ourselves with our homemade costco brand coffee.

You don’t have to understand the macro or micro-economics of how wind energy will get you a new job. Just flip the page over to the “energy want-ads” section and start looking. You’ll see companies like Americas Wind Energy (located in Ontario, Canada), DeWind (Germany), Fuhrlaender (Germany), Gamesa Eólica (Spain), Mitsubishi, or Norwin (Denmark). If you’re not into Europe or Japan, then try GE. They are providing jobs in wind-energy right here at home. In fact, they currently have 8 job openings right now in the U.S. so buck-up Americans and put your trust in America’s Royalty.

Why Lent?

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:31:13 -0700

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” was what the priest said as he smeared ashes on my forehead in the shape of a cross. It’s a strange ritual that, in the past, I would have been creeped out by. I did not grow up in a tradition that observed Lent or Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday kicks off the season of Lent which is the 40 days leading up to Easter. It has become one of the most important times of the year for me. Lent is a time to mourn our sin, our humanity. Christianity is a message of grace and mercy but it’s difficult to understand mercy if you aren’t cognisant of what mercy is being given for. We need to remember that we are selfish, undisciplined, hurtful people before we can be grateful for the grace which God extends to us. That is what Lent is about.

Lent has another aspect to it: the temptation of Christ. Jesus was lead out into the desert to be tempted for 40 days. It’s anyone’s guess why this was necessary, but he resisted temptation and fasted for 40 days during which he resisted the devils entreaties to break his fast and test God. When I give up something for lent, I identify with the tempation that Jesus went through. I understand how difficult it is to resist temptation when you’re all alone and hungry.

It is important to consider one’s own mortality. Our understanding that life is short should guide our decisions; not to live a wild life, but to not waste our days in the short time that we’re on this earth. We need to understand that we are not our own little gods who run our lives. God is sovereign which means that he alone guides happenings on earth. When we consider our mortality and humanity, we put ourselves in our proper place before God.

You can't franchise it all

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:11:53 -0700

I’m watching Globe Trekker which means that I’m up way too late… again (it’s my achille’s heel). I used to love this show when it was Lonely Planet hosted by Ian Wright. Two things made that show: Ian and the camera work. Ian has such a huge personality that he could make a tour of a tortilla-plant exciting.

At some point after it switched over to Globe Trekker, they decided that this is a show that they could franchise. They did a casting for other “exciting” hosts and rounded up some more cameramen. I’ve never seen a good episode since.

You could argue this same point about so many companies, restaurants, and organizations. When you have something good, how do you make it grow without losing the heart of what makes it good?

It starts with a cigarette

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:25:19 -0700

4 years ago I was waiting for a friend in Visuvio’s, a famous San Francisco bar where the beat nicks used to hang out. I was writing in my journal when I noticed a pair of legs in fishnet stockings standing at my table waiting for my attention. I looked up to see a woman selling cigarettes. I’m not usually a cigarette smoker but, all things considered, it seemed right at the time. After she walked away, I struck a match when my smoke was rudely interrupted with a loud voice yapping at me, “You can’t smoke here!” It was the waitress. “But I just bought this from the other waitress.” “She doesn’t work here and you can’t smoke here.” “Jack Kerouac is rolling over in his grave. What kind of place is this?” “It’s California.”

My brother and I started pipe smoking club in Denver. When we were starting, we knew that the key would be to find a good place to meet. In the first few days, the only place in Denver we had found that allowed smoking was the Diamond Cabaret. Luckily, we found that the Celtic Tavern has a terrific smoking room and the club has been a big success. Were it not for the Celtic, there would be no place to enjoy a nice smoke in Denver. You probably don’t think the smoking ban is a big deal unless you smoke cigarettes, cigars, or a pipe. Have you ever thought of what it would be like if one of your hobbies was banned?

Each law passed may seem good to the voters who are not looking at the whole. The government is beginning to favor certain types of wage earners over others. The proposed tax breaks are telling us that we should work for other people (not ourselves) and be careful not to earn over $150,000 between us and a spouse. The government is telling us that we can’t smoke. Alcohol taxes and gasoline taxes discourage us from enjoying a glass of beer or driving to the mountains. There is a “yacht tax” for high-priced luxury items. Some cities are passing laws that tax large retailers (i.e. Walmart) more than other businesses. Some states have extra tax breaks for people who drive “energy efficient” vehicles. Schools ban prayer on campuses even if they are purely student led.

These laws exist because legislators convince Americans that they benefit society as a whole. But what happens if the trend continues? The whole of society would have to have the same hobbies, the same lifestyle, the same jobs, the same cars, and the same religion (or lack thereof). So the next time you see someone huddling in the cold outside taking a few desperate drags on a cigarette think to yourself, “that could be me.”

Music These Days

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:38:36 -0700

Josh at My Can of Worms posted a list of his top albums of 2008. Frankly I haven’t been very impressed with 2008. The same goes for 2007, 2006, 2005… 2000. What is wrong with music these days? All we get is sappy bands who can’t rock like Cold Play (sorry Josh but that album sucked) or rewind bands who are livin’ in the past. Speaking of the past, there was so much creativity back then. Is there a band today that can boast a revolution in music like The Clash produced? Is there creativity like the Fine Young Cannibals? Is there just flat out great songwriting like Tom Petty?

We had a brief moment of freshness with Trip-Hop. Radiohead, Portishead, Mazzy Star may be a bit depressing for you, but it was something new and fresh. The 90’s had grunge and though mostly devoid of anything intelligent at least it had originality and emotion.

Take a look at the names of the top 10 songs on the charts right now: Just Dance, Single Ladies, Heartless, Live Your Life, Love Story
What does that say about the depth of our culture when “artists” like T.I. can rip out songs from a recipe book, add some drum beats that could have come out of a Yamaha 99 keyboard in demo mode?

I don’t mean to look backwards. I want to look forwards but the popular music scene is so dead right now. There are some gems out there, though. Here is a dashed off list of recent albums that I think are worth listening to: Sky Blue Sky - Wilco Jaku - DJ Krush Love is Hell - Ryan Adams A Toast to Bad Taste - Far Less Thing of the Past - Vetiver Bavarian Fruit Bread - Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions I Am The Portuguese Blues - Starflyer 59 Illinois - Sufjan Stevens Lost In the Sound of Separation - Underoath Saturdays = Youth - M83 The Story - Brandi Carlile The Cosmic Game - Thievery Corporation

An ode for a coronation

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:13:15 -0700

What shall I bring as a gift for a king?
How shall I show my loyalty to the savior of my country?
When all hope seemed lost, we have put our hope in one man.
He giveth and he taketh away
His favor rests on those who have given to him
And I have selfishly withheld my talents to pursue my own gain

What shall I bring as a gift for a king?
He will do what no man before has done.
He shall create happiness and joy
He shall open up the treasuries and distribute as he pleases.
Who can stand in his way?
He enjoys the favor of all his subjects.

What shall I bring as a gift for a king?
If I were to look down upon his ceremonies, his parties, his extravagance in times when his people are suffering, I should be shortsighted.
If I were to say “why has he spent so much money honoring himself when so many are losing their retirement savings and their jobs?” I would be foolish
For what we need is hope. We need a king. We need a savior.
He deserves glory and honor and praise.
Many are his works even before he has been crowned. He has done… um… many many things and said many many words to deserve our unquestioned loyalty.

What shall I bring as a gift for a king?

A Strange Dream

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:05:04 -0700

I once had a woman in a class come up to me and tell me that she had, had a dream about me. She said that she wasn’t a big believer in dreams but she thought she would share it. Her dream was simple: I was with my wife doing missions work in India. At the time I was not married so it was reassuring to think that I would find someone to share my life with. Years later, Megan and I were on our way to India when we got stuck in Nepal and never made it. Maybe she saw Nepal and assumed it was India. Maybe we’ll go to India later in life.

I had a strange dream a few nights ago. In this dream I was Indiana Jones’n it in some jungle. I fell and got a gash in my left shoulder (the one that was dislocated during the seizure). For some reason I took my finger and started mashing it all around in the gash. As I moved my finger around, I realized that a foreign object was in there and so I kept working it until it popped out. What came out was a small cross made out of pine twigs. As soon as I pulled it out, all the pain that I’ve been dealing with since the dislocation, fracture, and torn-labrum was gone. I had full range of motion in my shoulder and the gash was even gone. I woke up right after that.

I tried out the shoulder and it hurt as bad as ever. For a few minutes I wondered if that dream was supposed to mean anything for me. I had planned on writing this blog entry and ask everyone to submit comments with ideas of what it might mean.

An unexpected snowstorm had moved in and put several inches of snow on the ground. I bundled up and went out to shovel the snow. I probably shouldn’t have with my bum shoulder but I’m tired of holding back because of that stupid thing. Since we’re on the corner, there’s a lot of sidewalk to shovel. I usually shovel the elderly neighbor’s sidewalk so I started on her porch and shoveled her walkway. At this time, my shoulder started hurting worse than ever. I just kept shoveling. Suddenly, I thought of my dream. Did the cross represent the pain that we are to endure/suffer for doing the work of God? Maybe the cross meant sacrifice. Yes, I think that’s it. Out of sacrifice we are healed.

We spend so much time and effort trying to avoid pain that when we read that Jesus spoke of us sharing in his suffering, we are uncomfortable. There are so many words for the process of redemption that Jesus is offering: salvation, redemption, transformation, born-again, etc. Recently I have been thinking about healing. The lucky few will have God just reign down some kind of crazy healing experience showing us that God has power to physically heal us. But true healing is not that easy. When Jesus went to the cross, he said that we were to follow. We are to sacrifice for others even until the point of death. It is through this sacrifice that God will heal us. Each time that I shovel Mrs. V’s sidewalk or mow her lawn there is a part of me that is restored. What a beautiful thought.

Healing

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:57:24 -0700

I want to preface this entry by saying that I am a fairly skeptical person by nature. I don’t see an angel sitting on every branch and a demon behind every rock. I have had a lot of healing physically and spiritually over the past few weeks that I’d like to share.

As you will know from reading my last post, I have been recovering from injuries (mainly to my shoulder and back) related to a couple seizures that I had on Nov 20. They were the first grand mal seizures I’ve ever had. The most difficult time for me is the early morning. I usually wake up in bed groaning in pain from my spine and my shoulder being stiff and sending sharp pains throughout my body. One morning I got up and moved to a chair in the living room that my dad loaned me which is designed for people with back troubles. I decided to pray through the pieces of my body that needed healing. I asked God for redemption of each bone, each muscle, each sinew, each disc in my spine. I told God that I trusted him completely but that I wanted to see some real physical healing in my body.

Later during the day, I experienced extreme, shooting pains through my upper back. It’s an area that I haven’t had any pain in yet. I didn’t know why I was experiencing even more new pain. When the first wave of pain was over, I immediately felt different. I realized that my left shoulder was no longer in the constant pain that it had been in since my seizure. I also found that I had a much greater range of motion than I had just a few minutes before. My left arm had been basically immobile and now I could move it pretty well and much of the pain was gone.

About a week later I was getting an MRI on my shoulder to see the extent of the damage. I had seen the X-Ray which showed the top of the humorous cracked inward and I had a thought that it would be great if I got the MRI which showed a perfectly shaped humorous. I prayed that in the week leading up to the MRI. During the MRI, the tech asked me if I wanted to listen to music so I asked him to play some KBCO. About half way through the MRI I realized that this would have been a good 45 mins to pray about my shoulder and I wished that I hadn’t asked for music. At the very second that I had that thought, the headphones went quiet. I started to pray again that the bone would be perfectly shaped and that I would continue to experience healing in my shoulder. I’m not sure what it meant, but as I prayed I felt a fluttering in my shoulder at the spot where I felt the most pain.

A couple days later I got a message from my orthopedic surgeon saying the bone looked “fine”. I was praising God. I really want to see the MRI myself because I want to see if “fine” means that there is no fracture or if “fine” means that it’s not anything that I need to worry about. Either way, I know that God has done some powerful work in my shoulder and in that way, has assured me that he is in control of the situation.

Wouldn’t it have been a great story for me to say that all at once all the pain was gone and my body was restored to it’s state on Nov 19th? I thought so. I certainly don’t complain about the healing that I experienced, but I wonder if God is going to heal then why not do it in the most amazing way possible so that I have an incredible story to tell and x-rays and MRI’s to prove it?

The answer to that question came to me as I started to think about what life would be like when I went back to work and got back into the routine I was in before. I became afraid that my perspective would go back to what it used to be: self-motivated, fearful, disregarding my body and my family, living for my work projects… I became grateful for this experience which has been a quick slap in the face or a cold shower to sober me up. I see life and people more through God’s eyes and I don’t want to lose it. I know myself and I know that if I didn’t have the pain to work through then I would forget it all. I’d be pumped for a week or so but as soon as the work projects heated up, I’d be into the same habits and thinking patterns as before. I realized that total physical healing would negate the spiritual healing that I so desperately need. Spiritual healing rarely comes in one flash. There may be moments of clarity, but the real healing and growth comes from a daily meditation and pursuit of God. I am weak and just deciding to get up early in the morning and spend time doing these things isn’t enough for me. For now, waking up at 3 or 4 or 6 in the morning is what I need to get me out of bed and praying. The pain throughout the day is what I need to remind me not to get too wrapped up in the worries of this life and to remember that people (whom God loves) are what’s important.

A shock to the system

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:01:19 -0700

Megan was feeling sick on Wednesday so I was making her and Cora a dinner of rice, cinnamon, and sugar. I had been working very hard and hadn’t slept the night before. All day long my coworkers were laughing at me because I would be talking and I would check out for a second or two. It’s a state I’ve been in a few times before when I haven’t slept much or I’m very stressed out. One minute I remember feeding Cora, the next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital with an IV in my arm and tubes in my nose. “You’re fine, but you had a few seizures and you’re in the hospital recovering.” “I had a seizure? where? when?” “You were in the house when you fell down and had a seizure. You had another one in the ambulance on the way to the hospital,” Megan explained. Apparently I had been conscious and talking but I hadn’t remembered anything of the last 18 hours. My speech had been slurred for the first several hours and Megan wasn’t sure that I would ever return back to normal. The CT scan and the MRI had shown no tumors, which is what was feared most about my condition. Since returning home, I have been recovering from my shoulder injury and from intense pain and stiffness in my back and chest. My good friend, Tom, is an orthopedic surgeon and is helping me with the shoulder.

The recovery period is going to take time and is filled with questions, mainly surrounding if I’m going to deal with seizures on an ongoing basis or if I just need to be careful of overtaxing myself. I think there is a lesson for all of us to try to keep life in perspective and be careful how we treat our bodies and our minds. Going through an experience like this makes life seem a little strange. Suddenly, the day-to-day stresses don’t seem like such a big deal. I feel like I live outside of life a little bit because I know that no one or no situation can take away who I truly am but my life rests in God’s hands. When he wants to give life, he will give it and when He sees fit to take it away, He will do so. We can be upset about that fact and decide that we don’t like a God like that, but it doesn’t change the reality that God is in control. I feel grateful that he has given me another day of life and I don’t want to waste it worrying about things that I can’t control.

A note to Republicans

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:18:05 -0700

Now is not the time to be cynical or petty. Tonight is a time to be glad that America gets to determine it’s leaders and to be happy that we elected our first black president. I’ve never been a fan of those who sit around and take pot-shots at leaders that they don’t disagree with.

It’s also a time to regroup and learn how to better articulate the principals that we believe in. Many Americans believe that socialist policies are the “change” that we need. As the opposition, we need to hope for the best in this country. We also need to learn how to better articulate our belief that the free market, while not perfect, is a better way to choose how to distribute wealth than the government. We need to better communicate that it is more important to give of your own money freely to those in need than to have the government force you to give to those whom they deem is in need. We need to reaffirm our belief that America is not strong without a strong national defense. We need to protect those living souls who cannot speak for themselves.

Obama has connected with many people because he offers solutions to problems that Republicans have not offered quality solutions to. While we may believe that those solutions are not the right way, we need to recognize that issues that Republicans have ignored are important and we need to offer the conservative’s solution to those problems. The next 4 years are a time for us to participate, regroup, and learn.

What is the basis of faith?

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:20:30 -0700

I’ve had a number of conversations and experiences recently that have caused me to wonder, “what is my faith based on?” If you’ve read any of my recent posts on faith, science, and systematic theology, you’ll know that I’ve become frustrated with systems of theology that have cropped up since the reformation. I’ve questioned whether belief in a system of belief is truly faith. I’ve observed how people build up walls around themselves with their beliefs and close themselves off to considering new ideas or new ways of thinking.

I began to think about my own journey of faith and the points along the way that form the bedrock of the faith I have today…

I was born in Guatemala as a missionary kid in the primitive Mam indian tribe. My first real memories, though, were in the San Diego area where my dad was a pastor for 20 years. You could say I was born into faith since I accepted that God exists and the message of Christianity since I can remember. I never really went through a period of rebellion from that belief. That’s because of a miracle that I experienced. When I was 14 I began to struggle with serious depression. Not many people knew that I suffered silently and deeply with thoughts that I was completely worthless and should consider ending my own life. About two years later, I was in the mountains and I could bare it no longer. I went for a hike and I ran to the top of the highest ridge around screaming at God. Finally I sat down on some rocks on a hillside and I gave up my anger and softly asked God, “if you can do anything with me, do it, I give up.”

Exhausted, I laid down. Using my Bible that I had pulled from my pocket as a pillow, I fell asleep. When I awoke, I opened my Bible to a random spot and I read the first words on the page:

I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and delivered himself up for me. (Gal 2:20)

I’m sure I had read the verse dozens of times and even memorized it with a song. I understood it in a new way, though. That day, God was speaking to me telling me, “yes, you are right. In the eyes of humanity, you are not worth much. You are weak, small, poorly spoken, unathletic, and unattractive. But I have made you for other purposes and when you have died to yourself, you will live for me.” I received the same call that Peter received when he was on the shore with his boat and his nets — “follow me”, and I answered.

My depression was gone. I was to struggle with it from time to time in the next few years, but it never had a hold in me as it had before that day. Of course, I would love to say that I have been a saint since then, but it has been a cycle of following God and periods of disinterest in God. There have been long stretches of my life when I have largely ignored God. I have had a few experiences, though, since then that have deepened my faith.

The summer before I started college, I spent 6 weeks teaching English in Uzbekistan. While I was there, I was meeting students and building relationships with those who might have a deeper interest in God. After the soviet era, atheism is the norm there and freedom of religion is a foreign concept. Churches have to register with the state and get routinely shut down as soon as they grow to a hundred members or so. Our phones were tapped and KGB plants were students in our classes. We were even hauled in to the police station for questioning on one occasion. It was a very difficult time and I wondered if there was any point in my being there. Near the end of my time, a student pulled me aside and told me so much of her life story that it made me uncomfortable. She had been molested by a teacher when she was young and it drove her into a pattern of sleeping with older men. She was consumed by it and though she felt bad and had wanted to escape, she couldn’t. She told me that after seeing my faith, she completely gave up and asked God to rescue her. She told me that this had happened near the beginning of my time there and she had been freed from her self-loathing and addiction to sex. She has since focused her life on reaching out to atheistic students in a country that severely persecutes any form of proselytism.

A few years later I spent 4 months in France as an art student. I had been studying french for 8 years and it was a delight to finally learn to speak French in-context. I hadn’t anticipated how difficult it would be to live with the other students there, though. Everyone was there for different reasons, but most were escaping a life back home and were jaded and angry. Few of my classmates ever wanted to leave our building which had a restaurant inside. It was party-time for them. I was not going to waste the opportunity to dive into the art, culture, and language so I found myself largely alone most days. In my distress, I learned to pray in a way that I hadn’t before. I began to pray for 1/2 hour, one hour, sometimes two hours at a time. I began to converse with God — sharing my thoughts and struggles and then listening for His response.

One night after about 2 hours in prayer, I began to pray for the other students. There was one in particular that I avoided. I remember meeting her at orientation and sensing deep anger. I remember saying to myself that I wouldn’t be spending much time with her. As I prayed for practically every student but her, I heard God speak to me so clearly that it may as well have been an audible voice: “Talk to Amy about me.”

“No,” I said, “she’s too angry, she’ll never listen.”

“Talk to her”

“What am I supposed to say? I never talk to her?”

“Talk to her”

I got frustrated, said my “amen” and walked down to the cafe for some food. When I came back up to my room I couldn’t believe my eyes. Amy was sitting on the ground with her back leaning against my door smoking a cigarette. Of course I remembered my earlier conversation but I still had no idea what to do or say. What could I do? She was leaning against my door.

“How’s it going Amy?”

“You’re a christian right?”

“yyyeah.”

“What do you think happens to people when they die that never have a chance to hear anything about Jesus?”

We spoke for over an hour as Amy shared with me that she had gone to church when she was younger but was treated very badly by her parents. She told me that she had so much anger in her heart and she didn’t know what to do. I simply shared with her some of my story that I’m sharing in this post. Our conversation ended with her in tears thanking me for being open with her. A few days later, she told me that she had prayed for the first time in a long time and asked God to take her anger away and had felt rejuvenated.

The most significant faith-building experiences in the last several years have come during my trips to Nepal. My wife and I got involved there in early 2006 when we were headed to India, via Kathmandu. The government collapsed while we were there and the phones, internet, newspapers, television, and air-travel were shut down by the king who put all of the senators in prison. It was an opportunity to shift our attention to the plight of Nepal and we felt God asking us to stay there and come back there. Spending time with Christians there, I realized that the Christianity in America is lightweight. When we read about Jesus promising persecution, we take it to mean that our bank account might run a little thin at times or we may get some sneers at work if people find out we go to church. In Nepal, persecution means prison or death. Udaya, a man with whom I have become close friends, was imprisoned for his faith. I also found that, for some reason, God seems to work startling miracles there on a regular basis. I’ve met many Christians and only a few did not come to Christian faith by way of a miracle.

It was at a temple in Kathmandu that I saw a demon-possessed boy. I doubt I could even describe it well, but it was so clear that demons speaking through this boy. He was following a group of us around the temple, as we walked away from him. He was screaming the most agonizing, angry screams I have ever heard. Mid-scream he would switch to raucous laughter that made him double over and grab his stomach. Then, with no transition, he would switch back to angry screaming. I’ve never been someone who thinks much of any world but the physical world. I’m not someone who sees a demon behind every rock. That day, though, I knew that there was a spiritual realm apart from the physical realm.

On this trip, we had planned to help out an orphanage by planting a lawn in the front yard. I’ve put down sod before so I figured it would be a few hours and we would be on our way. I didn’t know that the soil is the most hard, clumpy, clay soil and the sod was really 1 ft x 1 ft tiles of grass. In order to make any kind of a decent lawn that these kids could play on, we were going to have to level and pulverize this field with no power tools. The Nepalis have a strange system of dual-shoveling where one person wields the shovel while the other pulls it down with a rope attached to the handle. A guy came to help that seemed to be in his early 20’s. I don’t speak the language so I didn’t really know what he was doing there, but I didn’t refuse the help. We tried to communicate through hand motions and smiles, but we gave that up after a while and worked for several hours in silence.

A year and a half later, on my third trip to Nepal, I met that young man again. He had, had a difficult life and knew Udaya, who runs the orphanage. Udaya was attempting to convince him to leave Hinduism and try Christianity. The man told me that after spending those few hours working with me and seeing the way that the other Christians and I treated each other, he decided to become a Christian. He had just taken his medical exams and was awaiting confirmation that he was a medical doctor. The prospects for doctors is pretty bad in Nepal and almost all doctors with training go to India or other countries to establish their practice. He, however, was going to go to the poorest tribes in Nepal to help with the squalid conditions. What had I done to influence this man but dig with a shovel?

I could share more stories from my life and I’m sure many others could add comments to this post (and I hope you do) with other stories of faith. My point is that faith is not built on head knowledge of Christianity or theology or some tract. Faith is built on experience with God.

I’ve also learned that God does what he wants. There is no recipe for finding him and no common path that all must walk. Our only path to God is walking the path of humanity and attempting to seek God out. When God chooses, he will reveal Himself to us.

When I begin to doubt things I believe or question the evils of the world, I have experience with God to fall back on. I have the faith of others who share their stories. I have the faith of my wife and the innocence of my Children to remind me that God is there. I don’t understand what he’s doing and I wrestle with injustices in the world but I believe in a merciful God who is mysterious and too complex to comprehend.

The skeptic or the over-thinking mind can call me foolish or tell me things to dissuade me from believing in God. I try to consider everything that is presented to me with an open mind. But I can’t imagine a fact or a theory so convincing that it would cause me to abandon the powerful experiences that I have had with God over my 32 years of life.

We've lost the ability to debate

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:22:06 -0700

I had a good conversation with my brother tonight over a pipe on the topic of true debate. We agreed that we’ve lost the ability, I fear, to argue in this country. The worst example is the political discourse in this election season. We’ve reduced talking about key principles like socialism, foreign policy, environmentalism to bumper stickers and facebook status updates. We vilify the candidates and his/her supporters and dismiss them with a flippant and cruel remark.

My brother, Dan, brought up Ben Franklin. Now here was an amazing debater. He had a policy of not disagreeing with anyone and, yet, he was somehow extremely adept at convincing people. He drove his friends crazy because sometimes he would even argue and convince someone of a point that he didn’t even agree with. Franklin established a club called Junto who’s aim was to debate questions of morals, politics, ethics, and other issues that would better the collective members. Eventually, Franklin banned any affirmation or disagreement with a point made.

My point is not that I need to be better at convincing people, but that everyone should be better at discourse. People jump to angry and foolish remarks when they don’t have a deeper grasp of the issues they’re talking about. We should not be expected to economists, scientists, theologians, and diplomats all at the same time, but we should humbly recognize where our knowledge falls short.

Debate and discourse takes practice and most of us don’t have a forum to practice. But all of us have circles of influence where we can have real conversations about issues. If you want to be better at discourse, I suggest the following:

learn some humility. Consider the fact that you might not be correct. Consider that even if you are convinced that you are right, you need to learn about the opposing argument and why someone might have come to that conclusion.

drop the labels

don’t use hyperbole. It’s okay to show the consequences of the opposing view, but be careful of taking it to the extreme.

learn before you speak. Subscribe to at least one publication on a subject that you’d like to be able to talk about. I subscribe to The Atlantic Monthly. Despite the fact that I am right-leaning and it is left-leaning, it is one of the few places where you can still find investigative reporting. I also listen to a wonderful podcast called EconTalk that brings an economic conversation to relevant topics.

practice. Try to find someone or a group of people with whom you can have intelligent conversation. This should be a group that can listen and be listened to without passing judgment or getting upset.

Do you agree with me? I’d love to see comments on this post.