What would you do? 11:21 PM

If you are hurting for time - read the post below first. This one will make alot more sense.

Here's the situation:

You are sitting at a wedding reception dinner with approximately five people whom you do not know. You have made small talk with these people enough for them to know that you are a pastor and that they are Southern Baptists. Most of them have attended or are attending seminary. Your conversation is easy and pleasant but nothing altogether deep.

The reception is elegant to the extreme. Ice sculptures. Fancy food that you have never heard of and don't like the taste of. Open bar. Chair covers. Extremely nice and expensive hotel. And - the highest level of elegance offered to the common folk....salad forks.

During the dinner, your johnny-on-the-spot waiter is the paramount of polite. Two sips of your water results in a refill and a plate left alone for more than two minutes is gone. In short, he is the king of courtesy.

Immediately following the dinner, the waiter, without offering, fills a single champagne flute in front of one of the aforementioned members of your table. She frowns, looks at her friends sitting next to her, and harumphs, "I guess I just look like a drunkard or something." Cue giggles.

The waiter, who retreated after pouring the first glass returns and, this time, offers to fill the champagne glass of another one of your tablemates. She refuses.

He moves to the next female. She shakes her head no and puts her hand up.

Next. Boy. No. (waiter frowns)

Next. Girl. Nope.

Next. You.

You have signed a statement saying that you will not partake in alcoholic beverages.

What do you do?

Why don't Christians dance? 10:47 PM

Psychadelic tie. Check .

Quality paints. Check.

Book to read when wedding service get ho-hum. Check. (But then we had to sit in the front row because Dana was showing off the pipes....so no book.)

Seriously, Dana and I had the pleasure of attending the holy matrimonious service of Maryem Raissian (race-ee-on) and Nathan Smith. Dana and Maryem were super tight in college so my baby put the pipes on display during the ceremony. It was not only not pitchy at all (we got a hot one tonight, Randy-dog!), but Dana was by far the most beautiful lady in the room. It was cool to reconnect with some old friends and to celebrate Maryem and Nathan.

I discovered that folks of Iranian descent, namely Maryem's family, know how to have a ridiculously good time. I'm not sure if it was the open bar or their free-spiritedness, but whenever the DJ (who totally deserves his own entry because we was the DEFINITION of wedding DJ) would put away the American tunes and spin the synth-pop Iranian beats, the dance floor would FLOOD with people. Simple equation: Iranian synth-pop = dance floor full. American tunes = dance floor empty.

This is not to say that the American Christians that attended didn't get off their American butts and make the magic happen on the dance floor - but it does beg the question, do Christians know how to celebrate? I don't want to paint with too broad a stroke, because the frivolity of the Iranian folks may have been due, at least in part, to having all of the family there. But there was a marked difference between the celebration of the Iranians and the Americans. The difference? The Iranians seemed to be loving every minute of the celebration, soaking in the joy and frivolity of the event with a passion. Everyone else, namely the Christians, seemed to be going through the motions. Again, not to paint with too broad a stroke or indict anyone for their behavior, but it seemed that the Christians (VERY GENERALLY SPEAKING) were more concerned with maintaining their witness rather than celebrating and blessing the covenant made between these two people.

When does "maintaining your witness" serve to tear down community rather than build it up?

Yarn About a Yardsale 1:00 AM

This past weekend, I added another "first" to my ever-increasing resume. Dana and I sifted, sorted, packaged, and priced - and stocked our front lawn with high quality items priced to sell.

Here are the highlights:
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People buy some of the dumbest stuff. Dana collected a bucket of pens and hawked it for a buck. We basically sold our junk drawer for a buck.

Having a yard sale makes you feel kind of naked. When people come buy and looked, I almost wanted to explain why I had certain stuff.

People will buy anything if a) it is in the "Everything is a quarter" section b) they can talk you down from whatever price is on it. Go ahead - stick a 25 cent sign on a pile of poo - I guarantee someone will buy it. It's only a quarter!

Yard sales bring out some interesting characters. I was seriously intimidated by some of the professional yard-customers that our sale brought out. They had it almost down to a science - pull up in car, hop out, quickly rifle through stuff, if something found - signal to driver / if nothing found - run and hop back into car and drive to next sale.

I was expecting some haggling, but only a couple people did and they did it with Dana, who is an expert haggler. Everyone should marry someone who is an expert haggler.

The haggler-come on: "What is the least you would take for this?" Made me feel kind of cheap.

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Overall, it was a good day. We made some scratch, met some interesting folk, and lightened our load for the B(i)G move.


Peace and grease. I'm out like a pro yard-saler at a crappy yard sale.

Back to the land of the living 12:32 PM

One marathon all-nighter later (with a couple of YouTube binges with a quality brodie in-between) and the J-Train has wrapped up his 3rd year at THE Asbury Theological Seminary. You may ask yourself, did he just refer to himself in the third person, with a nickname? Yes, he did. This lame-o reference brought to you by not enough sleep this week. I'm going to be generous and call it fifteen hours in the past three days. So, before I head off to the fortress of solitude in preparation for a quality-filled evening (re: Heroscape, The Office, Delicious food with my baby), let me hit the reflective gear.

What a crrrrrrrazy semester.
In this order: resigned one job, took 13 hours, discovered pregnancy, accepted new job, started new job (which requires mo' better travel), got new place, cavi messed up (story later), fixed cavi, wrote 462 papers (10 pages each) and here I am.

Here's some craziness left on the horizon: move out, move in.

I want to tell you something else too. I am TREMENDOUSLY blessed. I could count all day - and I will one day - but not today.

Here's a brief sample

1) I have the most beautiful, amazing, moxie-filled wife in the history of western civilaztion. You don't believe me? Check the stats,yo. Yep, that's the mother of my child. Yep, I get to kiss her every day.

2) I have ridiculous friends. I think of my friends and then I'm like...really? Special props for the Awesome Lawsons - who let me watch the Jazz close-out the Warriors. Special props for the Quality Kickerts for letting me sleep, eat, bathe, and live at their place. Above and way beyond.

3) Last - I get to hang out with some absolute GIANTS. These folks deserve their own entry.

4) I am going to be a father. I am ri-donk-ulous excited. My family is excited. Dana's family is excited. Um...can I think of another word than excited...not on no sleep.

May you be blessed abundantly. I'm off to sleep.

Peace out, Seacrest.

I have a new hero... 1:54 PM

When I started this blog, I promised I would limit the amount of Utah Jazz action on it - lest I look like a complete whacko. But what happened last night absolutely cannot be poo-pooed. Derek Fisher, a backup point guard and sometimes starting shooting guard who missed game one of the semifinal series because of an undisclosed personal problem, returns to the lineup and saves the Jazz. Fisher's daughter, who is less than a year old, underwent a combination of surgery and chemotherapy in New York yesterday morning for retinal blastoma, a rare form of cancer with a high mortality rate. After the early morning surgery and five hours of recovery, Fisher flies back to Utah, arrives at the arena late in the 3rd quarter, immediately changes into his uniform and literally goes from the locker room into the game. The reaction of the players and the fans is overwhelming BEFORE Fisher causes an important turnover and then drains a big three point shot in overtime to push the Jazz past the Warriors.

After the game, choking back tears, Fisher reveals his daughter's illness and gives the rest of us words to live by: "This is unbelievable. God is so good....Loyalty is always with my family and my faith first."

The reality is Fisher's greatness was already established long before he became the difference maker in this game -when Fisher decided to sit game one out and miss most of game two to be with his family. It takes a special man to, in the midst of pressure to perform and produce, quietly and firmly choose to embrace ones primary role of husband and father over starter for the in-the-thick-of-the-playoffs Utah Jazz.

Mr. Fisher, you are the man. Not because of your forced turnover or your three, or even the way your presence rallied the team, but because of the choice you made to put your family and your faith first. Here's to hoping I learn from you.

I am not a Mormon. I am not from Utah. 7:26 PM

When the actual question comes varies. Sometimes it's when people see me sporting the shorts (home whites and away blues! - thanks Ebay!) or when they spot the action figures. Since I don't take my action figures to class (most of the time), the question comes when people see my laptop wallpaper.

Regardless of when it comes, it always comes the same way. People sort of scrunch up their face and cock their head and say something to the effect of "the Utah Jazz?! Why the Jazz?"

Let me put some things to rest before we delve into the greatness of the Utah Jazz. I am neither a Mormon, nor am I from Utah. (though I have been there with my super awesome wife who got me INCREDIBLE tickets for Christmas! - yay Jesus!)

I'm not sure exactly when it was - sometime in middle school - but I remember flipping on the TV and watching the beauty of the Jazz. I was instantly hooked, with alot of credit going to the man-made moxie that motored the team.

The Jazz offense is artwork in motion. It is five guys committed to a common cause - each moving with precision and vigor to either get themselves or a teammate open. The Jazz offense is constant cutting and ball movement, with screens and backscreens designed to open up the floor for a layup or an open jumper. DO take your eye off the ball - you'll miss out on how that shooter got so beautifully wide open before draining that pretty j. There are no egos here - everyone is active whether they're pulling the trigger or not.

I could, in this space, deliver to you the playbooks of about 25 of the NBA's 30 teams. Here's a sample:
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Cleveland: Give the ball to LeBron.

Houston: Give the ball to Tracy McGrady. If Tracy covered, pass to Yao Ming. If double team comes, kick ball to open shooter. Rinse. Repeat as necessary.

Orlando (for Jeremiah): Throw up akward shot. Trust Dwight Howard will rebound and slam home.

Washington (for Dana): Give the ball to Gilbert Arenas. Get out of way.
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I have way too many papers to write to delve into the theological and life lessons held in the intricacies the Jazz offense. But if you get a chance to put down whatever you're doing tonight, you should definitely set aside some time to appreciate art tonight at 9:00 against the Golden State Warriors on TNT. If you can't do that, check out some quality video capturing and commentary here.



Other stuff: Saw this coming; how ridiculous is this?; this is pretty cool I guess. This band makes me want to be from California.

Worth your ten minutes... 7:23 PM

I had the pleasure of taking a class with Dr. Ben Witherington III at Asbury Theological Seminary. Here's an excellent discussion of poverty and liberation theology. Definitely worth your time.

www.benwitherington.blogspot.com

Spider Man 3 is not the best movie ever...but it's still pretty darn good 7:38 PM

The opening of the first Spider Man movie was like a trip to middle-school heaven. I religiously read, collected, and re-read Spider Man comics books until about my freshman year in high school. You remember those specialty pictures you could get? The ones where you could bring your own props and they would snap your photo.?My friends and I brought our favorite comic books and forever provided evidence for how nerdy we truly were. (In my case, my middle-school mustache had already secured that status....yeah....I was that guy.) So when the original Spider Man came out, I immediately reverted back to about 5th grade standing in Kroger's (a grocery store) reading as many comics as I could before my mom came and told me it was time to go home. Needless to say, every following Spider Man movie has been pee-in-the-pants-go-on-the-first-day-status.

With that said, Spider Man 3 was not pee-in-the-pants good. That's not to say I didn't almost pee my pants a couple times. The fight sequences are ridiculous and Sandman looks incredibly real (even if his "origin" was a bit rushed). Venom looks amazing and the last four-way fight scene is UNBELIEVABLE.

But in the words of a the wise man I went to see it with (Billy Lawson if you're keeping score), the movie was kind of like Golden Corral: way too much stuff piled together so you really can't enjoy anyindividual thing and, when you leave, you're wishing you had more of a little of everything, but you only have so much room in your stomach.

This movie is about three movies rolled into one. Sandman, who pops up and then is left hanging until the end of the film, deserves his own movie. Topher Grace's Eddie Brock / Venom, who steals every scene he is in, deserves his own movie. I would have particularly been interested in the way Eddie is developed as a "dark mirror" of Peter. An amazing film could have been done on the whole dynamic between Peter / Eddie and Spidey / Venom. Finally, Harry and Peter, and there on-again-off-again relationship, would have been extremely high quality. How often is a heroes' identity known by their archrival? While I appreciate the well-roundedness of each of the characters, all of the backstory leaves just enough room to squeeze in only a few fights - though they are RIDICULOUSLY amazing.

The movie also get preachy more than a few times. While I have enjoyed the messages of the previous Spider Man films, this one tends to get heavy handed at times and generally assumes a lack of intelligence on the average audience. (In the midst of one fight scene, the movie cuts to a news reporter breathlessly telling us "this may be the end of Spider Man"...uh...really?)

This is one of those films that you should definitely see in the theaters - pay the extra bucks to get the full effect of the audio and visual feast. It is not a bad movie - just one that seems to suffer from "threequel" syndrome and too many quality plotlines that ultimately leave no room for any of them to be properly fleshed out.

All the cool kids are doing it... 7:45 PM

Starts are awkward.

I've never been a big fan of the first day of school because you have to stand up, say your name, where your from, and something "revealing" about yourself like your most embarrassing moment (the time I got my pants pulled down in the fifth grade - who says that's too late to be wearing ninja turtle underwear?), your most exciting moment (Utah Jazz vs. Memphis Grizzlies in Utah - though hearing my baby's heartbeat is a close 1A), or something unique or weird about yourself (I'm color blind).

So here's my awkward start, my tepid try at the blogosphere.

I hope this becomes a sort of shared sabbath; an interruption of the daily that is equal parts sacred and hilarious. God is the creator of belly laughs, after all.

I'm looking forward to sharing life with you...