a telephone conversation with my niece, taylor:

N: Hello?
T: Hello?
N: Hello?
T: Hello?
N: Hi.
T: Hi.
N: Who is this?
T: Taylor.
N: Oh, hey Taylor, what's up?
T: Oh nothing, I was just calling because I learned two new jokes today.
N: Oh yeah? Great! Let's hear 'em.
T: What?
N: Let's hear them.
T: Ok. Hold on. I have to go ask Mommom. ... Ok. What's purple and goes slam, slam, slam, slam?
N: Hmmmm.....I don't know....what?
T: A four-door grape.
N: I don't get it!
T: I know, neither do I.
N: What's the other one?
T: Ummm, ok, hold on, let me go ask Mommom. ... Ok. What's the best time to learn Judo?
N: Judo?
T: Yeah.
N: Hmmm...I don't know...when?
T: Um, hold on. ... Ok. Fall.
N: (laughter) Fall? These don't make any sense!
T: I know! They're so...(pause and a sigh)...I mean, it says at the top of the paper "favorite jokes," but they just don't make any sense. They're not funny.
N: Well, thanks for sharing them with me anyway.
T: You're welcome.

As promised, I just now completed my first ever newspaper crossword puzzle. It took me close to two hours to finish, and even that was with extensive help from Google, Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, and a new convenient discovery, Oneacross.com.

While this would have been a good summer hobby to pick up back in June, I don't know if I could afford sacrificing this much time every day.

How anyone could finish one of these under two minutes is beyond me. And if I can't handle The Morning Call, how will I ever face the New York Times?!?

Erica and I saw Wordplay tonight, and as is usually the case, we were by far the youngest ones in the 19th street theater. Erica's a good sport, sticking with me wherever I manage to drag her. I'm sure she often wonders how she brought herself to marry such a nerd. Why can't I like sports or something?

Wordplay didn't quite live up to the buzz. I thought it was "cute" and Erica thought it was "amusing." It's borderline intriguing, but mostly just amusing. It didn't have the cute kids of Spellbound nor the personality of Word Wars. Not a whole lot left to carry it, then.

Most of the time it felt like an inside joke that we weren't in on, seeing as how we aren't crossword fanatics. But it's a successful film in that you kind of really want to be on the inside, whether you want to admit it or not. It's definitely fun to hear everyone in the theater whispering the answers to their neighbors.

But we want to be on the inside, alright, so much so that we came home and played a game of Scrabble (Erica won 301 to 258), and I'm already planning to try the crossword in tomorrow's paper.

I'm sure it'll be just a phase. It won't last long. I don't have the patience.

What is it about a person that can make us recognize him after 12 years of separation, those 12 years filled with growth and maturity and entrance into manhood?

Last night we went to play some Chip-and-Putt (which is another nightmare of a story in itself...I don't think I've EVER had a good experience with the game of golf) and I immediately recognized the man handing out the golf clubs as my best friend from first to sixth grade. He moved away after 6th, and I hadn't seen him since the last day of school that year. He looked completely different, obviously. He was a man now, complete with a thick build, facial hair, and several tattoos. But I somehow immediately recognized him. As he took our money and gave us our scorecards, balls, and clubs, I noticed his mannerisms as being the same they were in that little boy's body in elementary school. It was him.

And I couldn't say a word. I was stunned, first of all, as he--my first "best friend"--is someone who has crossed my mind quite often over the years, and how bizarre to meet him here of all places. And what do you say to a best friend you haven't seen in 12 years? We're obviously very different people now. I guess I just didn't want to bother. The whole thing was rather surreal. I spent most of the game freaking out in disbelief that this former best friend I have often wondered about was right next to me. And I couldn't even say anything about it.

I spent most of the game wondering if he had immediately recognized me also, thinking it impossible that he could have, but knowing there is something about people that makes us recognizable, no matter how long it's been or how much we've changed.

Erica and I were recently given Madeleine L'Engle's book on marriage, and we've started to read it together. In the first chapter, she talks about her "inadequacy as a social butterfly." I identified with one line so much so that I wrote it on a pane of glass in the antique windows hanging in our hallway:

"I did not know how to make small talk,
and large talk was discouraged."

It turns out after that long post on the Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission, this past Sunday my dad just happened to start a two-week sermon series on exactly that. He says he's been planning on it for months, but I think we all know the truth.

While I said in that post that the two need to be equal, I've realized over the past few days that the whole post is my way of getting out of evangelism. I say they need to be equal, but I'm only saying that to the people who are turning everything into an opportunity for evangelism. I'm not saying that to myself, who wants only to live my life without having to leave my shell and talk to people. We humans have some pretty tricky excuses for evading the things we'd rather not do.

There's a gem of a verse I recently found in Ecclesiastes, and I think it applies here. It applies just about everywhere, really, and I think I'm going to make it my "life verse" or something.

Ecc 7:18
"It is good to grasp the one
and not let go of the other.
The man who fears God will avoid all extremes"

I think my brain told me that tenacity and veracity were synonyms, but dictionary.com is telling me they're a little bit different. Whatever they mean, they're good words.

Quite a story developed last night. You see, on certain Wednesday nights of the summer, our church eats a meal at a park and then has a baptism in the nearby community pool. Then, after the baptism, everyone is free to swim for an hour or so. It's a nice big pool complete with a diving board and a new tube waterslide thinger. This makes you question why people really come, but we won't go there.

I know I'm getting a little too old to jump in with the rest of the church; I'm supposed to be cool, calm, and collected. But Wes and I have made it somewhat of a tradition to go and act loud and goofy (which for me consists of doing only one thing off the diving board: yelling at the top of my lungs "CAN OPENER!" and doing exactly that), and I'm not ready to give up a tradition as good as that one just yet.

So, after a few times off the diving board and a few times down the slide, Wes and I rounded up several of the strapping young twenty-something men to have a good old fashioned swimming race. To make a long story short, we had our intense race, and when I reached the other end, I noticed my finger felt a little funny.

I looked down, and my wedding ring was gone. Lost in the pool.

Of course, I only had to tell one or two people before it spread like wildfire, and shortly thereafter all 60-or-so people that were in the pool began the search. All the way from the three-year-olds to the dads supervising their children, everyone was walking very slowly back and forth with their heads down and eyes searching. All this for MY wedding ring. It was quite a scene.

Erica wasn't able to come for the evening, so she wasn't there for most of this. But she showed up halfway through, and she was as gracious as possible with all things considered. She wasn't exactly thrilled with the news, but she didn't slap me or run off on me, either.

Well, the search went on for about an hour with no luck. The lifeguards told us to wait until everyone was out and the water calmed down. There were a few faithful guys who stayed with the lifeguards and me after everyone left and they dove all around the deep end with goggles on. We were all pretty much ready to give up.

But just as we were throwing in the towel, one guy emerged from the deep end and said, "Is this what it looks like?"

He found it and there was much rejoicing and all order was restored and it feels good to have the ring back on my finger.

The End.

I'm at Panera again. There are two people at a table near me and an older but hip woman and a younger, hip, good-looking and successful man. They've been talking for a long time, so I finally decided to take off my headphones and eavesdrop. At first I head several buzzwords that made me think they were Christians, youth leaders perhaps, planning a big church event. But the longer I listened I've discovered they're talking about hypnosis, a topic the younger man wrote his master's thesis on. I'm intrigued, and a bit creeped out.

As much as I try to convince myself that I'm filling my summer full of things to keep me busy, lately I've been realizing I'm not doing much of anything. But that's not completely true. For example, I'm taking part in a book club of sorts. Remember the nice old man that sang at our wedding and prayed at our reception? We (meaning Wes and I) call him Saint Carl of Coopersburg, and he's invited me and a few other guys to read and discuss Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey with him. It's been a fun experience so far.

Any experience that puts you across the room with a wise man talking in his low, resonant wise voice is a privilege. One thing he said during our last meeting struck me quite a bit. I've been thinking about it since.

"Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Christians often preach and get really zealous about what we call The Great Commission, and for good reason. It's Christ's directive command to us and we should obviously take it very seriously. But we must realize it's not the ONLY commission we've been given. It's our "job" as Christians, but it's not our only job. When God created man in his image, he gave what has been called "The Cultural Mandate," which applies to us as well as we seek to live our lives in the original intention with which we were created.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.'"

Nancy Pearcy says "The first phrase, 'be fruitful and multiply,' means to develop the SOCIAL world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, 'subdue the earth,' means to harness the NATURAL world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music. This passage tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures, build civilizations--nothing less."

So before we get too caught up in taking the world by storm in an evangelistic crusade or turning every possible encounter into an opportunity for salvation, let us not forget that God wants us simply to go about our lives and create culture and be purposeful in the world simply for the sake of doing so, because that's how and why he created us; that was his original intention. He wants us to thoughtfully live, and excellently so, creating beauty and goodness and truth and purpose and meaning in our everyday interactions.

When we place our faith in Jesus Christ we are a new creation, the old is gone the new has come. And that new creation isn't just someone who goes out and works on getting people saved. Rather, that new creation is someone who lives life with a new sense of meaning and purpose, doing ALL things for the glory of God. (Yes, the glory of God can be displayed in things other than explicitly preaching the gospel!)

You see, life doesn't have to be a one-track mission to get people saved. And after all, salvation is God's work anyway. While we're often used as tools in that work, we don't have to take the burden on ourselves to get the job done.

Is one commission greater or more important than the other? I don't think so. Instead, they work hand-in-hand. Without the Cultural Mandate, the Great Commission is meaningless and lacks appeal. Who wants to live a life void of beauty and excellence in order to become a disciple of Christ? Without the Great Commission, the Cultural Mandate is impossible and ultimately meaningless. How can we live to fulfill the image of God if we do not know him and never will?

(I do think, however, that the Cultural Mandate must come first. While the two work hand-in-hand, we need to be living this way before we start evangelizing. Furthermore, the first is often a means for the second, that is to say, what greater witness is there than living a life of beauty, excellence, and meaning?)

The two are equal and must be balanced. The beauty of art or the excellence in an occupational field, for example, are not second-rate to the salvation message. Rather, they fulfill each other and continually give each other meaning and a stronger sense of purpose. And that's not to say we turn the beauty of art into propaganda to spread the gospel, nor do we turn our occupation into a devious plan to "infiltrate" and "conquer" a sinful work setting. By doing that, we are putting too much emphasis on the Great Commission and the two are no longer balanced. Simply by living beautifully and excellently, we are fulfilling a mandate from God.

The Great Commission, then, I think should be more of an effort to convince people to fulfill the Cultural Mandate, showing them to live fully as people made in the image of God. It should NOT be an effort to get more people "on our side" to help us in carrying out the Great Commission.

And maybe it's important to relearn what the Great Commission really is. If we treat it as a war, US vs. THEM, we're not going to get very far. That's where we need to remember Christ's mandate of love.

And now that I think about it, when Christ tells us the two greatest commandments, it's very possible he was giving us these two directives in a different form. To love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength is to love him with our whole selves, to incorporate him into every part of our lives. To love our neighbors as ourselves is to serve them, showing them the truth of the gospel lovingly and gracefully.

So, what do you think?

dan schmidt once asked me to articulate what i like about sufjan stevens. while i came up with a pretty long list of things--his soft voice, his instrumentation and arrangements, his melodies and harmonies, his lyrics, his creativity, his humility, and on we go--it still didn't quite express how i really feel.

a sufjan album--even an album full of supposedly second-rate music, b-sides and leftovers--fills me with incredible joy that makes me want to shout and cry and laugh and dance all at the same time. i want to drive around the neighborhoods with it blasting out of my windows so everyone can hear it. i want to put it on my parents' stereo as we eat dinner so they can hear it. i want to give it to all my friends and make sure everyone buys it, just so they all can hear it and feel the same way i do.

but my wife told me on the way home while it was playing in the car that few people would feel the same way i do. (she thinks he's a little overrated. and i can understand where she's coming from. overhyped? probably. but overrated, i'm not so sure.)

so, on my days off this week, you can find me curled up in the living room, listening by myself. i'll probably have my eyes closed and there will probably be a smile on my face.

Thanks for reminding me, Errol.

Erica and I are helping with Vacation Bible School at our church this week. We’re working with kids that are about 9 or 10.

I’m not sure why, but it really bothers me when kids know too much for their age.

Last night was our first night, and one boy walked into the room and looked at the castle I made. (Our theme is a world-traveling-exploration-type-theme and these are the castles of Poland I created.) He checked it out, gave a puzzled look, and I heard him mutter, “Where are the buttresses?!”

During the Bible story about Ruth, the teacher asked, “What do you think a widow could do for money if her husband was no longer living to provide for her?” A know-it-all raised her hand and said, “Gleaning!” Is that really a part of a 10-year-old’s bank of knowledge?!?

Another question was, “What does it mean to be loyal?” A boy raised his hand and said, “To be trustworthy." A good answer, I guess, but for some (most?) kids, trustworthy is no less of a vocabulary word than loyal.

Later, at the conclusion of our lesson on Ruth, a girl raised her hand and proudly informed all of us that Ruth preceded Christ by exactly 21 generations.

WHAT?!? Are you kidding me?!

I was just glad none of them took the time to pull me aside and explain to me the importance of a kinsmen-redeemer. Then I really would have been worried.

I know that high levels of intelligence in kids really shouldn’t irk me as much as it does. After all, I am a teacher, and high levels of intelligence should be my goal, but I can't seem to help it. Get outside and play! You’re too smart for your own good! Go throw a ball without analyzing the physics of it! Go catch some bugs without analyzing the necessary elements of their ecosystem! Go watch the clouds without worrying whether they’re cumulus or nimbus! Live! Relax! Imagine!

Ignorance is bliss!

My brother, being the often cynical sarcastic pastor’s kids that we are, asked me if I walked anyone down the Romans Road last night. I said no, but give me til Friday. But after recounting these stories to him, I realized these kids will most likely be walking ME down Romans Road by Friday.

as is par for the course, camp combovers hit some roadblocks on wednesday with some computer programs not doing what we wanted them to do and we gave up rather quickly. we were depressed, but this morning i ventured into the world of garageband on my laptop and my spirits were very quickly lifted. this program is so easy and amazing and perfect and things are sounding good. thank you, bethlehem, for giving your teachers powerbooks that they are even allowed to keep over the summer.

thursday consisted first of breakfast at the cracker barrel. could one ask for anything more? three large pancakes smothered in strawberries and whipped cream, two over-easy eggs, three slices of bacon, hash browns, orange juice, and coffee. the only thing that was missing was the toast. next time i am asked "what is the first meal you would eat after getting out of jail?" remind me that my answer is breakfast. and the next time the big one finds me, remind me that they don't serve breakfast in hell.

things continued in the evening with dinner at tortilla flat. (*gasp* eating out twice in one day?!? i know, i know.) i got the same thing as always, beef burrito, beef chalupa, and a chicken enchilada. perfect.

we continued with the mexican theme by seeing nacho libre. i liked it.

and then i watched low in europe, which was short and not extremely insightful, but enjoyable nonetheless.

and i got the new regina spektor cd. her melodies melt my heart.

taylor gave me a homemade birthday card and inside, scrawled in big 6-year-old handwriting, it says, "YOU TWO ARE PARTY ANIMALS!" it makes me smile.

and yesterday i sat under the tree at rockland park, and was able to cross that off my list of goals for the summer, although it will be a goal that will be repeated several more times before the summer's out because it's simply wonderful.

and that's been my past few days.

happy independence day to all. i was under the impression that this was a holiday filled with watermelon and hamburgers and parties and freedom, but earlier today my wife left me for a shopping expedition with abby, and i've been left alone in this house for several hours doing nothing but cleaning up. hmmm.

last night consisted of the best amateur firework display i've ever seen. i'm not sure how legal it was, but steve and mike put on an impressive show. it was filled with me sarcastically yelling every patriotic slogan i could think of: "these colors don't run!" "god bless america!" "the power of pride!" "get 'r done!" and so on and so forth.

we got dsl yesterday, so you might be seeing more of me here. the bad news is, after spending hours on end trying to download and install certain accompanying software, i finally talked with a tech support guy that actually knew what he was doing, and he informed me i don't have enough memory on my computer. yes, i'm still using my flinstone computer that is run by hamsters on hamster wheels and little monkeys using punch cards. so, either i keep risking DSL with no firewall or antivirus software or whathaveyou, or i cave and buy a new computer. and i think this is part of the reason we put off the internet for a year. it's made me hate computers, or at least my lack of tech-saviiness, even more than i already did.

i finished jonathan safran foer's "extremely loud and incredibly close" at the beach the other day. it took much too long to finish. i think i liked it, but i hate feeling impatient to finish a book, which happens often, and it makes me think i don't like it even though i think i did. know what i mean? anyway, i think that is (sadly) the first book i've finished this summer. i'm moving a little too slow.

tomorrow kyle and i are hoping to get together to begin the process of finally finishing the combovers CD. get ready for it. my goal is to convince kyle that the CD needs the musical saw somewhere.

that's all.

it has since been shaved, but this was my beard at its pinnacle, two and a half weeks in the making.