*slurrrrp* Ahhhhh!

This is my coffee cup.

Ain't she a beauty?

As you can see - it's a Batman coffee cup.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

It lives on my desk at work, and helps me get through the hours by providing a more-than-average-amount of hot, black, sweet coffee a couple of times a day.

Sometimes I don't finish all my coffee, and I leave it sitting on the desk overnight with cold coffee inside of it.

Sometimes that leaves a ring of coffee around the bottom part of my cup, but I don't care.

I rinse it out with cold - yes COLD - water. I don't even use dish soap.

It's like how when you get a new cast-iron skillet, it's not really good for cooking until it's been seasoned - until it's gotten the crusted crud of a hundred meals burned into its bottom and sides.

It gives the coffee a flavor all its own.

A flavor that can't be reproduced in a stupid styrofoam cup. (PLEASE.)

I'm convinced that's why my grandmother's coffee tastes better than any coffee I've ever had.

It's not the coffee - it's the cup.

I've had this cup for quite a long time now.

Almost 10 years, I'd say.

If I remember correctly, Abby bought this cup for me after we had broken up the first time, and we were just friends.  I think she got it at Astroworld in Houston which doesn't exist anymore. 

This coffee cup is a freakin' one-of-a-kind unique collectors item, man!

In it's 10-year tour of duty with me, this coffee cup has seen some stuff, man.

If this coffee cup could talk.... well, I'd probably be a rich man, because hey- a talking coffee cup!

But seriously, it'd probably have some really great stories.

Sure, I've used other coffee cups from time to time.

At other people's houses, and at my own.

But no coffee cup has ever been so singularly mine as ol' Batman.

Since I'm clumsy and tend to knock stuff over and drop stuff - I rarely keep breakable things for very long.

Which is why I'm proud to extol the virtues of Batman - the miracle cup.

Here's to 10 more caffeinated years old chum!

Jonah - Parable, Myth, Allegory or Truth?

I'm not saying it couldn't happen.

I'm not saying it didn't happen.

Alls I'm saying is - there's no way to prove it happened or didn't happen.

And all things being equal - isn't the simplest explanation the best one? (Thank you, Mr. Occam)

It seems more likely that a man was NOT swallowed for 3 days by a big Mediterranean fish and subsequently vomited up onto dry land.

The only defense ever offered by my Seminary professors is that Jesus mentions Jonah - rather the Sign of Jonah - in Matthew 12:38-41.

Since Jesus mentions it, he says, it must have happened.

He says that if Jesus had compared his resurrection to a fable, or a fictional event, it could be argued that the resurrection itself was a fictional event.

(Surprise! This is what some people say anyway.)

Well, I'm not buying it.

Jesus could just have easily cited a fictional situation with which his audience was already familiar.

What if I say - "Man, seminary is tough for me! I feel like Sisyphus, who every day pushed the boulder up the steep hill, only to have it roll back down again every night. Every semester I do all this work and finally finish, only to have it start all over again the next semester."

If I say that seminary is like Sisyphus - who is clearly mythological, does that my work at seminary is mythological? Of course not. To say so would be ridiculous.

Jesus could just have easily have said, "I'm going to be like Rocky! I'm gonna take such a beating that you'll think it's all over - but you're not going to believe my comeback after that!"

Rocky is fictional. Does that mean that Jesus took fictional beating? Of course not.  To say so would be ridiculous.

Likewise, if Jesus compares himself to Rocky, it doesn't make Rocky an actual guy, or his story a true story.

It seems more likely that Jonah was an actual prophet, who likely prophesied to the people of Nineveh, possibly even leading to their repentance. But around the actual prophet Jonah - there sprung up a legend that through the oral tradition (that we KNOW existed) became bigger than the man himself.  Like Paul Revere. Or Johnny Appleseed. Or maybe like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.

Did it happen, or didn't it?

Does it really matter? Don't you kind of get the point either way?

From Jonah's perspective - Don't try and ignore what God's asking you to do. Also - go out of your way to love the people you ought to hate the most.

From Jesus' perspective - Things are going to go from bad to worse - and then your mind will be absolutely blown. Also - go out of your way to love the people you ought to hate the most.

It's things like this that drive me crazy. It's insisting on sticking to a literal interpretation of stories like this that make us look ridiculous to perfectly intelligent people, and encourage them not to engage with Christ-followers.

Thirsty

I hate water. Drinking it, I mean. I would rather drink coffee, or Dr. Pepper, or Drano.  If I absolutely HAVE to drink water, I'll mix it with some of that powder flavoring or something, so that it's like drinking water without actually drinking it.  Recently, for Lent, I gave up drinking anything but water for 40 days.

I hated it.  

Rather than bring me closer to God, or cause me to contemplate my lack, or give me a sense of sacrifice, or that I was identifying with Christ in his sufferings, it mostly just pissed me off every time I sat down to a meal.  After 40 days of fasting (and on those blessed 6 celebration days during Lent), I immediately went back to drinking other stuff.  Much to my surprise, in the days following Lent, I have often had cravings for water.  Serious ones.  So bad that I've actually had entire glasses or bottles of plain water (the HORROR!) to drink.

They (whoever THEY are) say that most people walk around functionally dehydrated.

None of us is drinking enough water.  Sure, we get some in our coffee and our juices and stuff like that, but there's no substitute for clean, clear, pure water.  And sometimes we don't know how thirsty we have been until we start to drink.

-------

I hate the Bible. Reading it, I mean.  I would rather read websites, magazines or shampoo bottles.  If I absolutely HAVE to read the Bible, sometimes I'll read what Max Lucado, Rob Bell, or Donald Miller wrote about it, so that it's like reading the Bible without actually reading it.

Most of us walk around functionally deprived of this, too.  Oh, we might get a little bit of it in church or small group or something on TV, but there's no substitute for sitting and reading the wild, raw, naked words of God.

So yesterday I committed myself to a new system for reading the Bible through.

It calls for me to read 10 chapters a day by reading 1 chapter from a series of 10 "lists"

List 1 is the gospels. List 2 is the Torah. List 3 Romans, the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Hebrews. List 4 is the Thessalonians,the Timothys, Titus, Philemon, James, the Peters, the Johns, Jude and Revelation. List 5 is Job, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. List 6 is Psalms. List 7 is Proverbs. List 8 is Joshua - Esther. List 9 is the rest of the prophets. List 10 is Acts.

When I reach the end of a list (Acts, for example, only has 28 chapters), I just start it over, because I'll still be reading through the others (List 9, the Prophets will take 250 days).

In the end, I'll read through all the gospels 4 times, the Torah twice, Paul's letters 4-5 times each, the OT Wisdom Literature 6 times, the Psalms at least twice, the Proverbs and Acts a dozen times, and all the way through the OT Historical and Prophetic books about 1 1/2 times.

10 chapters might sound like a lot, but it never takes me more than about 30 or 45 minutes. When reading about the Creation story, Job's trials, Christ's birth, the Day of Pentecost, and Paul's introduction to Romans all at the same time, you start to really get a holistic sense of scripture.  Scripture commenting on and interpreting itself.  I used to marvel at guys I knew who taught from the Lectionary.  A schedule that assigns to each Sunday a series of Scriptures that often seem completely unrelated?  An OT reading. A Psalm. A Gospel reading. An Epistle.  I thought, "How do they write one homily or sermon on 4 unrelated texts?" But in just two days I can see harmonies developing between one or two or three or more of these lists that are just beautiful.

I didn't know how thirsty I was until I started to drink again.

Free Comic Book Day!

Today is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!

Get on down to your local comic shop for a free issue of a comic you would never read otherwise!

Seriously, though - it's always fun, and sometimes my comic shop will give away free movie passes to upcoming movies. I gotta think Bedrock City Comics in Houston is going to have some tickets from Iron Man Screenings locally.

Today we're going to the Post Office to get Abby's passport.

Could be tough - she still hasn't gotten her name changed on her Driver's License. It's only been 3 and a half years. I gotta go and vouch for her. Maybe knock some heads or something.

If she can't get her passport pretty soon, there's no way she's going to be able to get her Brazilian Visa in time for our trip at the end of June.

As I write this, I'm watching Star Wars Episode I: the Phantom Menace on SpikeTV.

I just watched the part where Qui Gonn asks Anakin's mom who his father was.

"There was no father." she says.

"I carried him. I gave birth. I raised him. I can't explain what happened."

That's a part of the mythos that I remember made me think, "Say whaaa!"

I guess he was conceived by midichlorians? A child of the force?

I wonder if Lucas ever wrote Shmi Skywalker's Magnificat?

Anyway - I did a google search and found a bunch of people who think Anakin was "conceived" by Darth Plagueis, who, according to Palpatine's testimony to Anakin in Episode III was the only Sith who was powerful enough to "create life".

This may be the geekiest post I've ever written.

Either way - Soccer!

A few weeks ago, I was planning a Mission Trip to the eastern coast of Brazil with a group from Copperfield Church - the same trip I went on last year.

To be honest, I wasn't all that excited about going to Brazil again. From the looks of it, hardly anybody else was, either. Only about a dozen people signed up, and even fewer were coming to the prep meetings.

Then, out of the blue, 2 weeks ago our church was invited to bring a group of college students to serve 2 weeks in Haiti as part of the relief efforts going on there through IMBstudents and Mission-Serve. Abby and I would lead, with possibly another adult. Now THAT was something I could get excited about. I scrambled around trying to gauge interest among our college students locally, and those who'd be coming back to town this summer. There was some real energy behind a trip like this. Everyone involved was really inspired. Students were committing right and left to spend 2 weeks sleeping in a tent in the heart of Port-Au-Prince in 90-degree weather and 100% humidity. This mattered.

Two nights ago I got an e-mail from the Project Coordinator for the Haiti trip saying that they had suspended all their operations there, and canceled all the scheduled trips, including ours. Bummer. Apparently, it's really sexy to go to Haiti right now, (which is probably why we were so excited to go) and the place is saturated with volunteers. Not that there's no needs there or anything. There's just no infrastructure for short-term-ers. Which I understand. Security and lodging were issues, as well. I hated having to let everybody down who had been so excited. I wondered if they would think it was my fault for not making it happen. It seems like a disproportional amount of things I try to plan around here end up not making it. Add this one to the list.

So now I'm back on the Brazil-train. Literally, training our students and adults to minister to the students and adults in Maracanau. The Haiti thing was disappointing, but just what I needed to remind me why we were going to Brazil in the first place. We have relationships there. We have boots on the ground already. And having been before, I can help shape the experiences of those who haven't. That should be pretty cool. Oh - also, the church is going to send my wife with me. So that's going to be awesome.

Now, if they would just send my dogs...

New blog rule #1

All blog posts must be 500 words or fewer.

That last one was 1 word short of 800 words.

If you can't read it without scrolling, I shouldn't be posting it.

Or you should get a bigger monitor.

One or the other.

For example, this one's only 49 words.

2009 - Like Kissing Your Sister

We probably should have stayed at home. But we didn't.
Instead, Abz and I just got back from a late afternoon trip to Wal-Mart, and WOW - that place was packed. The lines were so long you'd think they were rolling back prices EVERY DAY.

Didn't take me long to figure it out- people were stocking up for parties tonight.
I've never seen crowds of people like that getting ready for New Years Eve, and with the economy the way it's been, I didn't expect the Wal-Mart crowd to have much to celebrate - or much to celebrate with! Then it hit me - that's exactly WHY they're celebrating. In fact, it's a little bit of the reason I'm celebrating, too.
In a whole lot of ways, 2009 kind of sucked.
People are throwing a huge going away party for this year that can't be over soon enough.
Goodbye and good riddance 2009.

But as I pushed my heavier-by-the-minute buggy around the store, I started to think about it.
2009 was probably just like every other year. A little bit up. A little bit down. The problem is, only the really crappy parts stick out in our memories. And I'm not sure that's fair. Yes, some really really crappy things happened. But some really great things also happened.

Early this year, a pregnancy we had been really excited about failed after about 7 weeks.
We were absolutely grief-stricken.
But about 9 months later 4 couples who are absolutely dear to us had little ones of their own, and we got to be there with them all in the hospital!
We were overcome with joy!

Two of my oldest friends got separated and then divorced from their wives this year. Guys I have not been good friends to since I moved away.
However - my only little sister got married this year. A Renaissance wedding.
And I got to write and perform the ceremony - in costume! What an honor.
In fact - I did at least 4 weddings this year (that I know of)!

I didn't get to be with my family for Christmas, but we were there for quite a while at Thanksgiving!

Around March the Batmobile finally died for good. It was the first car I bought by myself, and completely paid off myself.
Wouldn't you know, though - I got a new car! A better car. For a good price.

We bought a house this year! A HOUSE! In THIS economy! And we love it.

Over Spring Break I took some older kids to Dallas, stayed at a great hotel, went to Six Flags, ate at Medieval Times, and really enjoyed learning from each other.
We traveled to Disney World with Andrew and Raine Neilson (and in-utero Big Ben) in May.
We went to North Carolina with the students this Summer.
I got my first passport and spent a week in Brazil teaching, preaching, washing dishes, and being very humbled. My first trip out of the country besides Mexico! Certainly my longest airplane ride.

We dressed as Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler for Fall Festival at Halloween
We dressed as a wizard and a fairy and went to the Renaissance Festival.
We dressed in Victorian garb and ventured down to Dickens on the Strand.

We went to the Baylor game vs. UConn at Floyd Casey Stadium, and they lost.
We went to the LSU game vs. Arkansas at Tiger Stadium - and they won! In overtime!

Michael Jackson died, which actually was kind of jarring to me. He was a formative influence on my life as a kid.
But I also saw Derek Webb, Rob Bell, Muse, and OH HOLY CRAP - U2 in concert. Seriously bucket-list kind of stuff there.

I did NOT get an iPhone or my own copy of Settlers of Catan.

But I'm still alive.
Still married to the greatest girlfriend I've ever had. (We made 3 whole years last week!)
Cash and Pixy are the two greatest, cutest, smartest, snuggliest dogs on the planet.
I still have a job.
My parents are still around. My wife's parents are still around.
I'm relatively healthy - I'm even down a couple of pounds!

God is still better to me than I deserve, and even if he wasn't, could I complain?
Certainly not. I have taken so much good from him, I would gladly take the bad as well.
"The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away - Blessed be the name of the Lord." - Job

I hope your 2009 was epic.
I hope your 2010 is better.

May YHWH bless you and keep you.
May YHWH lift his face upon you.
May YHWH turn his countenance toward you
And give you shalom...

Grace + Peace,
J.T.

Ira Glass-es

The World Used To Be Flat

From Indexed yesterday.

You are *bleep* the father!

On no other show is the targeted advertising so blatant (or more confusing) than the Maury show.

It's kind of hilarious, and a little heartbreaking, actually.

Apparently, they assume that the people who watch Maury are the same kind of people who are ON Maury.

They need education - ANY education - fast, in the fields of court reporting, nursing/medical assistance, air conditioning repair, and criminal justice.

They also need lawyers - BAD. They need lawyers for their Social Security benefits, their outstanding IRS liability, and their injuries in motor vehicle accidents.

Lastly - they are diabetics. REALLY OLD ones.

They are age 65-and-over unemployed high-school dropouts who owe the IRS money (for taxes on income they didn't make), who have recently been hurt in an accident, and can't afford their diabetic testing supplies.

NAILED IT!

Also - and if you can believe it, this is actually more ridiculous than the other thing -

I'm pretty sure the producers of the Maury show actually ADD bleeps where none are necessary, in order to make the show seem more scandalous.

For the life of me, I cannot figure out what the *bleep* is being censored on that show most of the time.

Two thumbs "meh"

So, yeah - just got back from seeing District 9.

When I first saw the trailer a while back I was like, "Meh"...

And then when it came out all the reviews were like, "Whoaa, sweet!"

And then everybody I knew saw it and they were all, "Duuuude!"

So I've been dying to go.

And then tonight on my way to pick up Abz for the movie, I talked to my Dad, and he was like, "Worst. Movie. Ever."

Which really surprised me, so I was really intrigued.

I didn't know what to think.

And now that I've seen it, I'm just like, "Hm. Ok."

After seeing it, one of my friends said that it was an "important movie".

Really?

Can movies be important?

Isn't that really stretching the meaning of the word "important"?

I guess ideas can be important.

Ideas like equality, human (or nonhuman) rights, diplomacy.

Ideas like government, transparency, and State secrets.

But not movies.

And probably not this movie.

Hot Bath vs. Cold Compress

Lock-in? Over.

Lower back? Seriously injured.

Career path? Very much in question.

Ouch.

5:01 p.m.

If you ever find me at Panera, or the coffee shop, or in the office past 5p.m. - it's a pretty safe bet what I'm up to:

That's right - Settlers of Catan.

Part of me (and every part of Abz) wishes that Andrew Neilson had never exposed me to the wonders of Catan - but now my innocence has been stolen. There's no going back.

Have you ever played this game?

It's so stinkin' addictive. And I have such a hard time getting people together to play that I started playing online. Thank goodness it's free, or I would either be broke or divorced.

Your assignment: Go download the client right now, feed your own Catan addiction, and play with me. No kidding.

It's not the years, it's the mileage....

I've got one of those crazy Youth Ministry overnight events tonight.

We're joining with a couple of other churches (Hi, Cory!) to play Broomball at a local ice rink until 1:15, then coming back to our church to play an especially violent version of Dodgeball in the sanctuary.

Will anyone sleep? Who knows.

Will they get pranked if they do? Uh - that's kind of the rule for lock-ins.

What I DO know is that I'm probably too dang old for crap like this.

I mean, sure, it was my idea to do it, and I'm really looking forward to it - but what I'm NOT looking forward to is how I'm going to feel when I have to stumble home at 8:00 in the morning.

I'm currently taking bets on how many days it'll take me to get back to normal afterwards.

My money's on "all of them".

Ah, who am I kidding. There's no such thing as enough sleep.

Abby is having an overnight retreat with some chicks from church, so our poor puppies will be home alone all night.

Wow. As I was writing this, I got really sleepy all of a sudden.

I'm headed home to take a nap...

Hunting high and low... mostly low...

We're looking to buy a house.

We have visited SO MANY houses recently, and looked at SO MANY MORE listings online that they are all starting to run together.

Like so many things, house-hunting, to me, is a really fun idea to talk about and play around with...

But a really, really, horrible, existential, soul-reaving process in which your very notions of priority, maturity, budgeting and self-esteem are blown to pieces, baked in a pie, and served back to you in relentless perpetuity.

It's also very complicated for first-timers. No wonder so many people screw it up, get foreclosed on, and ruin the world's economy.

But hey - you know - NO PRESSURE.

I say all that to say:

We actually found a house we like. It's a little farther out from work than I'd like (it's in Katy, TX), but it's very cool, within our price range, a good size, and in a great neighborhood.

We're meeting with the Realtor tonight to work out the details of an offer.

I'm scared to death. I don't understand why everybody else is NOT scared to death of committing to something for 30 years. Renting feels very, very safe to me right now.

Nevertheless! -we are pressing forward. And yes, I'm actually a little excited. There are a lot of pieces to consider, and a lot of hoops to jump through. Plenty can go wrong.

Now I can die in peace...

Reading back over the last few posts, I noticed a couple of things I had mentioned off hand that I wanted to follow up on.

Namely -

I HAVE GENERAL ADMISSION FLOOR TICKETS TO
U2 @ RELIANT STADIUM ON OCTOBER 14, 2009!!
(Muse is opening)

Patrick Gilgour bought them for me as a "birthday present". As promised, he is hereby exempt from all future birthday, Christmas, and anniversary presents (You're still on the hook for baby showers, though, suckachump!).

Now I can die in peace.

Secondly, Abz and I leave early tomorrow morning with our friends Raine and Andrew Neilson for The World's Best Vacation of 2009 (so far)!! Codename: Project Rodent. We're going to Disney World (again)!!! We're staying at the plush Sheraton Vistana Villages in Orlando, and spending 5+ days park hopping, relaxing, and playing LOTS of Settlers of Catan. Wish you were there butnotreally!! Comment with your address, and I'll send you a picture e-mail from EPCOT!!

Lastly - My summer reading list.

As soon as I finish High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, I'll be reading:

Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostriecher

The Reason For God by Tim Keller

A Christianity Worth Believing by Doug Pagitt

and just for fun,

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

And hopefully LOTS and LOTS of comic books, namely the Batman: Battle for the Cowl, and Green Lantern: Blackest Night series.

What are you reading?

Also - do YOU have U2 tickets?

Marriage

Sometimes... when my wife and I are getting dressed in the morning... independently of each other... we end up wearing almost exactly the same outfit. It's weird because she usually picks her clothes out first, and I don't see her until she is almost all put together.

I guess what I'm saying is that - in a really uncanny way, I think I can sub-consciously sense my wife's color and pattern vibes and misread them as original thoughts on what I'M supposed to wear that day.

This morning we both wore jeans and a green t-shirt. Sometimes she gets mad when it happens, as if I were doing it on purpose. I actually think it's sweet, and kind of hilarious. Sometimes I even change my clothes when I notice.

Let me make one thing clear: I would NEVER intentionally dress just like my wife, unless we were going as chaperones to the Parkview Baptist School Homecoming dance in 1994.
If you live with someone for a while, you start to become like them in little ways. Have you ever heard about how if women live in the same house for a long time, their menstrual cycles can start to synchronize? Two thoughts.
A) Whew! NO THANKS!
and
B) This is kind of how I think about the whole dressing-alike thing. I don't have a menstrual cycle, so maybe this is the next closest thing.
And that, friends, is what marriage means to me.

Spinning (Seder) Plates...

Baruch HaShem!
Happy Passover, go brain, go! followers!

A lot going on right now. I'm not really the kind of guy who gets stressed out - but if I was going to pick a time, it would probably be now.
In fact, all of 2009 so far has been in such a hurry. I don't like it. I don't think it's good to live life at such a pace.

Here's what's coming up:
- Abby and I leave tomorrow morning for a weekend in Baton Rouge. My sister is getting married and has asked me to perform the ceremony. What an honor! The catch? It's a Renaissance wedding. At a castle (in Louisiana? Yes.) With costumes. And the ceremony, I guess, is going to be in King James English. I should probably know that - I'm writing it. Anyway, there's something about our family that we enjoy getting married right around major holidays. Abz and I were married 2 days before Christmas. Casey and her husband are getting married 2 days before Easter. That's right - Good Friday. Frankly, I don't know how she pulled it off. Much of the celebration of Easter (these days) revolves around children. She is a Children's Minister at a church. She's going to be gone Easter weekend on her honeymoon. She's either brilliant or crazy.

- Sunday morning is Easter, of course, and our youth ministry is holding a Passover Seder that morning at 9:30 and 11:00. It's become kind of a tradition in our group (2 years in a row!) that is very cool. It does, however require a monumental amount of preparation, that I'm not sure I have time for (and yet here I am blogging). It's a beautiful experience that connects us with the history of our faith, our roots in Judaism, and reminds us of what it means to be in covenant relationship with each other and with God. If I wasn't so exhausted thinking about all I still have to do before I leave in the morning, I would say that I'm really looking forward to it. Maybe I can get some help from some students during our Journey Group meeting tonight.

- Easter Sunday afternoon my Young Couples small group is having a crawfish boil (OH YEAAH!) to celebrate the resurrection. I'm not sure how 5 pounds of bugs per person celebrates the resurrection - but I'm willing to go with it. Also - are crawfish Kosher? Who cares.
- The weekend after Easter? Disciple Now.

- Then a short break to write 3 papers, prepare for and take 2 finals (early) before our trip to WALT DISNEY WORLD in Florida May 8-15, 2009.

WHEW!
*sweat drops - sweat drops*
*worry lines - worry lines*

Left arm for sale - hardly used....

New Rob Bell tour - Drops Like Stars - is coming to Austin in November.

U2 is supposedly coming to Houston in Sept./Oct.

Time to start saving-up-slash-get-a-second-job.

You better be sure!!

Benji extols my back-in-the-day basketball virtues.
A lesson on how the universe fundamentally works.
A demonstration of my skillz.
All in under 10 minutes.
Enjoy!

I used this for part of my teaching on February 8, 2009.