World's dumbest criminal...

...or just athletically challenged. Either way, this will make you laugh. I laughed so hard I cried, and my stomach twisted into knots. And the second time I watched it, it got worse...I wept, and couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard. So here ya go. Don't say I never did anything for you. By the way, evidently this is real...my sister's boyfriend said he saw it on the evening news.

Some of my extended family...

Oh yes. In watching this video you will laugh, you will gasp, you will think "What a bunch of crackheads," you will hide your eyes from hideous dancing, you will giggle as some allow themselves to be free, this is white-bred dancing at its finest...this video is all of these things and more:

I present to you the Extended Fike Family dancing to "Left Unsaid" by Winter's Longing (our cousin Mark's band...too bad we cut it off before it got hard-core...that would've been INSANE!)



For a good time, watch the video on silent...it gets 359% funnier.

Sorting through the Haggard brouhaha...

The Ted Haggard story is shocking and sobering and gritty and sad. It reminds me of how broken I am; that just because my weaknesses are not specifically the same as Haggards', I am still broken nonetheless. I'm glad that that I moved quickly to a consideration of my own struggle first...a couple of years ago, this wouldn't have occurred. I've worked hard on hypocrisy, and still have a long ways to go. I've actually included some thoughts on the issue in two messages with my local church community. The first is here. The second is here.

In the last two weeks, as I've sorted through various people's thoughts on the fallout from the issue, I've seen a quote from Mark Driscoll (pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle) that many have absolutely ripped to shreds...He said:

"Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either."

And the lions attacked...I mean serious feeding frenzy. People all saying "How could you say this!" or "That's just simply not true," or "You're oversimplifying a complex issue," or whatever. And I must admit, seeing the comment by itself caused me to think the same things...mostly because Driscoll has a reputation for speaking his mind that often gets in the way of his calling as a Christian leader...

So I went to his Resurgence page to see it from the horse's mouth and give Driscoll a fair hearing. The first thing I find is that the quote most folks yanked out to rip into was a small part of a sizable chunk of thinking he put together for his blog post. Thus, when I read his quote in context, it makes a whole lot more sense, and is a whole lot more healthy. The second thing I find is that Driscoll handles the issue with care from beginning to end, isn't afraid to face the controversy, and gives some time-tested wisdom for pastors and others that is incredible to see. I highly recommend you reading his thoughts here.

And I'll say right off the bat that he should have balanced his "It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness" with the just-as-true "It is not uncommon to meet pastors (or male Christfollowers) who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their wife is a Christfollower, she is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness." What Mark said is true...it becomes skewed, however, when he doesn't apply the same thinking to the other side of the equation. And that, my friends, is why Driscoll carries the reputation he carries. He's a firebrand who speaks his mind; often without considering the twin concerns of how he might be heard and the need to balance his strong opinions with consistent logic.

I hope I stand up for what I think is true more and more, but I hope that in the standing up process I do not forget that

1)I am flawed and subjective as a person, and thus incomplete in my grasping at truth,
2)I should carefully watch my words, because once they exit my mouth, they can take on a completely different personality than I intended, and
3)I need to roll with the punches. Sometimes, like Driscoll, someone needs to acknowledge the elephant in the room that everyone else is pretending isn't there. It's true that once wives enter into a marital relationship, they often are tempted to let themselves go. But the same is true for men, and I think his thinking would've carried more impact if he had acknowledged that simple truth.

I mentioned a couple of months back in this post some great thinking David Fitch offered on obesity and pastors. It may be true that more pastors are obese than their wives...who knows?

Reality

I was messing around on some blogs today (trying to avoid my paper) and happened upon Aaron Monts' blog and a shocking, raw picture. Almost immediately I heard Derek Webb start up in my brain..."poverty is so hard to see when it's only on your tv and twenty miles across town. where we're all living so good, that we moved out of Jesus' neighborhood...where's he hungry and not feeling so good from going through our trash." (from "Rich Young Ruler")

"young homeless man beavis shooting up in the tenderloin.
he picks his scabs to find a good spot;
and tries a few locations before he gets a vein.
he has the "love" and "hate" tattos from "night of the hunter" on his fingers.
he's showing "love" with his right hand as he sticks the needle in." Rest of his story here.

This stuff is real, and most of us (including myself) live in our insulated reality where we don't expose ourselves to this...or, if we see it on the news, we either look away quickly or flip the channel. Too uncomfortable. Might make our whining about money or cynicism pale in comparison to this man's situation.

So click away quickly. Wouldn't want to upset your world (or mine).

Or stare and absorb. Reality isn't easy, and demands a response.

So what'll it be? Naive insulated existence (aka ignorance of reality)?
Or do we let the gospel drive us to weep on our knees for this man...and compel us to action in our world in the name of Jesus?

Thanks for the dose of reality, Aaron.

Real life American History X, and thoughts on redemption...

'Evil' teen jailed for savage party beating

POSTED: 8:08 a.m. EST, November 18, 2006

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A teenager described as a white supremacist was sentenced Friday to life in prison for savagely beating and sodomizing a Hispanic boy at a drug-fueled party...

...Defense attorney Chuck Hinton appealed to the jury's religious faith, saying that Jesus would show Tuck mercy.

"I know that justice has to be done. I know a terrible thing happened. Justice needs to be done, but with mercy," Hinton said.

He also said Tuck had an abusive, absent father and was raised by a single working mother. His only role model, Hinton said, was his older brother, a skinhead who is in jail.

Read the rest here.

What do I think this situation says?
1)Hatred has consequences, and our thoughts and actions have an effect on others...this boy's brother dropped the ball. When I was in high school and my sister saw me living two lives: one image I gave my parents and church folks, and the other image I gave to my peers...I dropped the ball too. I regret that. This boy's brother should too...his decisions almost killed someone by proxy.

2)This boy is not inherently evil or any different than you or me. He's a kid caught in the web of the system...evil has twisted him, but he is NOT beyond redemption. Somewhere deep inside this boy is the spark God placed in him at creation...who in this town of Houston will choose to love him and invest their life in him?

3) That defense attorney has no shame...using Jesus as a emotional ploy for this kid's defense. Shameless and dead wrong. I try to avoid stereotypes, but this proves to me ever more that a "successful" defense attorney cannot be a follower of Jesus. You simply cannot. You will either defend those along the way you know are guilty and will numb your conscience, or you will refuse to defend those who are not guilty and will never get a case because firms can't depend on you to be a "company man or woman" when it comes to getting things done.



Looking beyond the face of this evil, I read a Donald Miller quote today that is simply amazing.

I was raised to believe that the quality of a man’s life would greatly increase, not with the gain of status or success, not by his heart’s knowing romance or by prosperity in industry or schooling, but by his nearness to God. It confuses me that Christian living is not simpler. The gospel...is simple, but this is the gate, the trailhead. Ironing out faithless creases is toilsome labor.

God bestows three blessings on man: to feed him like birds, dress him like flowers, and befriend him as a confidant. Too many take the first two and neglect the last. Sooner or later we figure out, if we’re seeking, that life is constructed specifically and brilliantly to squeeze us into association with the Owner of Heaven. It is a struggle, with labor pains and thorny landscape, bloody hands and a sweaty brow, our head in our hands, moments of severe loneliness and questioning, moments of ache and desire. All this should lead us to God.

Life is a dance toward God, I begin to think. And the dance is not so graceful as we might want. While we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a difficult dance to learn, because its steps are foreign...the first few lessons leave us feeling clunky and awkward, but soon they give way to a kind of graceful sway…

- Donald Miller “Through Painted Deserts: 90-91

Implied in that quote from Don (beyond the scattered metaphors at times here) is the necessary truth that in order to dance the way we have created to dance, we must display a constant commitment to dancing in midst of joyous times (when the dance seems to flow in perfect rhythm) and when we think we will never get it...or the practice required is too hard andthe dance too foreign. We cannot justify our self-centered approach by claiming we know better than God. We commit to dance His way because we were created to. We find that God's screwed upway of dancing is really right-side up...we realize we're the ones looking like a white country boy dancing at a hip-hop bar...so to speak. :)

You heard it here first (or hundredth); who am I to claim I'm alone in this?

I don't think the Red Sox are going to sign Daisuke Matzuzuka. And the reason why I say this is because their posting bid for him was so obscenely above that of anyone else's that bid on this fellow that it simply looks like they were running interference on the Yanks.

Why do I say this? Scott Boras suggested Matzuzuka deserved big money not only because of the talent he'd bring to the table, but also because he'd be a marketing cash cow. And even though this is probably more a ploy to gain leverage than anything else, it's true. But last time I checked, there's another pitcher out there on the open market who would do the same thing for the Sox for less cash. Take a wild guess who.







I say the Red Sox run the negotiations with Boras all the way up to the midnight deadline of the 30 day time period, then throw up their hands and say, "We just couldn't get it done..." In the meantime, the Yanks have been denied a legit #1 starter, and the Sox'll get a chance in the Matzuzuka derby next year when everyone's in the mix...plus they don't have to cut the check for the aforementioned obscene posting fee. Most people disagree with me, Deadspin and writers from SI among them. I'm willing to go out on a limb, though. I don't think it'll happen.

Boras will push for too much, the Red Sox will low ball, and nothing will get done. In the meantime, the Sox will pick up Clemens for a year at close to 20 mil, start to rake in the marketing dough, deal Manny, and maybe make a serious push for some outfield help (Soriano?).

The impact of Half Nelson on my life...

I saw the movie "Half Nelson" on Friday evening, Oct 27th, at Court Square Theater in Harrisonburg (which by the way is a sweet place), and I walked out of the theater with strong emotions. I've been trying to get a handle on those emotions since then, and in the process found two things:

1)It's not often (in this age of relatively shallow Hollywood movies that have resulted from our relatively shallow culture and our willingness to chuck out large amounts of cash over a long period of time to find something (anything!) to take our minds off reality) that I walk out of a movie feeling intense emotions, and
2)I often don't pay attention to tracing the emotions to their root, or at the very least spend some time thinking about why I was so affected, and thus walk right back into my life as if the movie and the time spent in it never existed. Given time and other priorities, the movie is often reduced to "good" or "bad" or "mediocre." And so I place it in the unofficial movie pecking order of my life and move on.

As a result of this awareness, I am going to try to slog through what I thought I saw in this movie, how it moved me, what it exposed in me (honestly!), and how I'll respond with my life. If there's one thing I'm tired of in my life, it's mediocrity and simply occupying a place in the long line of humans who have lived and died on this earth...sucking in my oxygen, exhaling my contribution to global warming, and living a life centered on Nate.

So what did Half Nelson have to say to me?

It's the story of a middle school history teacher who carries an ideal that he wants to affect at least one person in his life for the better. That's his goal, and in that mix he carries an unorthodox teaching style where he seeks to have his kids look deeper than just memorizing and regurgitating fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice answers that don't help his students comprehend and make sense out of reality.

The trouble is, Teacher Dan (Gosling) doesn't know how to make sense of reality himself. His life is full of mountains and valleys, and he copes with this unpredictable reality with cocaine, crack, and some quick booty without relational attachments. His drug problem exacerbates rather than evens out his bumpy life, and he makes the mistake of smoking crack in a spot where one of his seventh grade basketball players finds him. Instead of ratting him out, though, this girl becomes a positive influence in his life. Maybe she can be the one he impacts for the better? She seems engaged in his class, eager to learn...but in taking her home several times, he sees the lure of the drug trade and urban decay threatening to suck her in.

He tries to be the hero, and fails...continuing to exhibit a hopelessly broken life. But this girl, instead of packing it in and giving up, continues to care about and for him (maybe that's because she's got a teacher crush on him...very possible given the nature of emotional attraction for ignoring reality...or maybe she just genuinely cares and wants to be an influence for good in his life). In the mix of things, Dan spends some time at home, where his parents, once Vietnam agitators who had a compelling vision for their lives, have fallen into middle-class numb existence, thinking they're living out their ideals (while their ideals carry no practical reality) and ignoring reality by medicating themselves with perpetual drunkenness.

This has to be a commentary on the sad state of the American left; pretending to care about problems like poverty and social inequity in general while doing little to nothing about it other than punching a ballot, intellectually claiming to believe that liberalism is the answer for the world's problems, with no life-altering commitment to either. (this is where I insert my belief that the opposite extreme of conservatism is just as insidious and incompetent and elitist and sad as its polar opposite).

The movie didn't resolve. No, "I've been waiting for you," or "I'm drug-free and happy for life," or some heart-warming basketball championship for the girl and the teacher that enables both of them to exorcize their personal demons. And I'm glad.

Running with my idea of the status quo in our society mentioned above, I wasn't surprised in walking out of the movie theater to see all the endorsing blurbs on the movie poster having nothing to do with the substance of the movie...I don't know if they'll be big enough for you to read in the above picture, but the blurbs say, "Ryan Gosling gives an astonishing performance!" and "Powerful. Gosling is among the most exciting actors of his generation!" and "A near-perfect film. The acting is flat-out amazing. Epps is a major find." Are you kidding me? A movie like this, and all you can talk about is the careers (realized or potential) of the individuals? For my money, I don't go see a movie because you tell me the actor or actress has an "astonishing performance." Maybe I'm supposed to; that way I can maintain some degree of separation from the raw reality that this individual movie portrayed, and deny the fact that I see strong parallels in the weaknesses of humanity I share with the teacher. If I maintain that separation, I can walk out of the theater, plunge right back into my life, and forget that I ever felt uncomfortable at certain points as the story got close to MY struggles.

My thought upon seeing the movie poster was, "Finally, a solid movie that doesn't buy into the movie peer pressure to resolve a big problem with a neat little bow in an hour-and-a-half or less, and I gotta come out of the theater to this?"

And maybe my next thought illustrates how much my ADD mind flits around from idea to idea and situation to situation, but I immediately thought about how this applies to the church. How often, on average, would you say a pastor hears one of two things from the congregation?

1) That sermon was good. Well-delivered.
2) Thank you for what you said. Hearing it that way made me think about (this or that aspect of my life...or this or that weakness...or this or that calling)

I'd guess the average pastor hears the first 97% of the time. Because you and I are enculturated to be surface people...because we're enculturated to be consumers...and because we're enculturated not to pay attention to the cries of our hearts; just hop around from entertaining thing to entertaining thing; rate each thing on the 1 to 10 scale of the excitement it offered for you, and refuse to go deeper.

If there's anything I bring away from Half Nelson, it's two awarenesses:
1) The system is broken. We are broken. Irretrievably.
2) We need to admit we are powerless to effect any long-term change in the system by ourselves. (because the change will be short-term, and our problems cyclical)

In response to what I consider to be two truth statements, I need to be willing to ask myself and others some questions...deep, searching questions...about how that raw awareness impacts my life. Do I need to alter my life in response to this movie? What did it uncover in my heart? Will I seek to separate myself from the teacher but pointing a finger at his drug habit without pointing a finger at my weaknesses that are crippling me? Does it jog me out of the semi-numb state I exist in much of the time to be deeply invested in something?

The prevailing message screams at me daily, "Stay busy. Forget about the layers. Don't think about or listen to your heart. Just perpetuate the status quo." And more often than not, because I'm weak, I give in. I let myself be mediocre. But because God entered the picture, turned my life upside-down, and called me to follow Him, I don't want to be mediocre any more; I'm tired of being an object for others to manipulate and extract resources from; I want my life to matter.

The question that remains now is if my want will turn into a physical reality. My life will give the answer.

Tony Jones and electoral decision-making...

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Tony Jones: Why I Didn't Waste My Vote

"For the third election in a row, I voted for the Independence Party candidate in the Minnesota gubernatorial election. (Yes, if you're counting backward, that means that I voted for Jesse "The Body" Ventura - and proudly so!) This year's candidate, Peter Hutchinson, garnered only 6% of the popular vote, but that means that the Independence Party will continue to qualify for public funding in statewide elections. And, more importantly, it means that there will be three candidates on stage again in four years..."

Read the rest of the article here.

I was especially struck by Tony's comment at the end of his article that read "I find that the rhetoric and mean-spirited politics of the Republicans and Democrats so rarely represents my own politics that I'd just as soon vote my conscience - even if it means that my candidate finishes a distant third."

That assertion is helpful to me as I continue to consider and reconsider how political involvement intersects with my identity as a follower of Jesus. Do I accept the status quo of a two-party system where I often find myself disgusted by both "legitimate" opponents? Or if a third (or fourth or fifth) candidate is running that I find myself much more comfortable with, is it "wasting my vote" to invest my vote in the ideology and approach of someone who has no chance of winning?

Tony's also a member of the group that goes by the name of Red-Letter Christians. Check out their site...interesting reading and thinking. I don't invest as much in politics as...say...a Jim Wallis or a James Dobson...and I think I have legitimate reason for that. But I think folks like Jim Wallis have an important counterpoint to the agenda of the Christian Right that seems to suggest if you're not a card-carrying Republican, you're about to be consigned to the seventh circle of hell. If nothing else, we need the voice of the Wallises and the Red-Letter Christians of the world to push us to think further and deeper than we tend to think...

Disgusting...

ht on image: Josh

Israel Says Not Morally Responsible For Gaza Tragedy

November 9, 2006 6:51 a.m. EST

Ryan R. Jones - All Headline News Middle East Correspondent

Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - While Israeli shells were the likely culprit behind Wednesday's killing of 18 Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza, moral responsibility for the tragedy lies solely with the terrorists who continue to use the area as a base for aggression against the Jewish state, said a senior defense official.

Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that Israel had left Gaza in the summer of 2005 in order to give the Palestinians living there an opportunity to eschew violence and build a better life for themselves.

Read the rest of the article here.

I have a one-word response to this in immediate reaction. BULL.

How screwed up is our world and how unaccountable our governments that they can rub out any number of civilians (whether it's the 18 of Gaza or the over 200,000 killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and pass the buck of responsibility by blaming the results of their actions on the "enemy?" I seem to remember Allied outrage over the initial Japanese tactic to bomb cities in China pre-WWII, then outrage over the Nazis doing the same..."It's morally reprehensible!" the Allies cried out...then firebombed Dresden, then dropped atomic bombs on cities. That's right, CITIES.

Will we continue to remain silent and through that silence (and subsequent justifications) allow governmental elites to do such a thing?

I really really really really really really hope the IDF DOES take responsibility fully for their shelling at some point. Asymmetrical threats like terrorists are ultimately not responsible to anyone but their leadership; and they depend on the fear response to their activities to accomplish their organizational goals; as well as knee-jerk responses by governments that end up sucking the system spiraling into increasing violence (which ends up feeding the numbers of terrorists!). Governments are responsible and accountable for their actions, and MUST, MUST (it seems to me) go out of their way to avoid descending to the levels of "terrorists" and take responsibility when they screw up.

In other words, if Hamas and Islamic Jihad are morally responsible for rocket attacks from within the borders of Gaza, then Israel is responsible for treating the Gaza Strip as a ghetto for years, and treating Palestinians as second-class citizens, and Palestinians are responsible for linking up with the Arab attacks on the influx of Jews into Palestine...it's so cyclical, and SOMEONE needs to step in and break the cycle!

I often think of situations that have advanced to this level as a giant snowball, raging and bouncing and gaining speed and size as it moves down the hill. It started off small, but a series of small and giant decisions caused it to be what it is today. Do we just accept that and call it reality...we can't change the circumstances, so we simply respond in kind? Or will we recognize that the snowball wasn't ALWAYS this large and menacing and destructive, and choose to stand in front of it, knowing that in this sacrificial act some of those who act will be crushed? This DEMANDS losing a self-centered, self-preserving approach to life. Yitzhak Rabin did this, and was assassinated, and several other PMs of Israel did the same on a lesser scale (others reacted to this and chose to perpetuate and amplify the problem through violent means). Anwar Sadat did the same as Egyptian President on a lesser scale (he was probably more of the problem, but chose on some level to operate in opposition to the status quo). But Rabin and Sadat's examples are quickly fading in the mothballs of history because men and women of integrity are not rising to take their place...

And whether governmental leaders step up to the plate or not, I as a follower of Jesus am COMMANDED to do so...to subvert the system of spiraling violence and passing-of-the-buck by simply choosing to daily follow Jesus, be accountable for my actions (including, and maybe especially, failure), and refuse to hide the light of Jesus shining in my life under a bowl or behind a wall. And if I decide to make the faithful decision to step in front of the snowball, I (and my family and friends and enemies) should be fully aware of the reality that I may be crushed...and that that potential reality will not define whether I step out or not. I am called to be faithful. Justice is not being served in the halls of Israeli government OR the upper reaches of organizations such as Islamic Jihad or Hamas.

Who will stand up?

i love it!

I'm sure some of my closer friends know the immense respect I have for John Piper as well as the discomfort I carry regarding his rigid Reformed approach to this business of following Jesus. All things being equal, he often lances into my heart with his messages and life witness...and thus I present you with this link for giggles.

:) Don't say I don't love you.

John Piper is bad.

ht: the D10s