Gone wild.

Excerpted from today's New York Times weekly newsroom critique, by by Philip B. Corbett, found here. I got a kick out of this.

Tacky Phrase Gone Wild!

Perhaps more surprising is the continuing popularity of headlines built on the tiresome “Girls Gone Wild” theme. In just the past year, all these people and things have gone wild in Times headlines:

Fish
Girls in Idaho
Grain
Governors
Salem Girls
Geezers
Banks
Guys
Water Parks

Especially given its low-rent origins, I think this one could be permanently banished from our pages.

A day of adventure

Hard to pick just one photo today, as I took a lot. I was off today, and had about the best day of playing and adventuring I've had all summer.

This afternoon, we loaded my car with three kayaks and drove across the street to kayak the usually impassible wetlands. Since it rained so much yesterday, we were able to kayak the wetlands with surprising ease, and they were incredibly beautiful. Tons of birds, tons of green and some fantastic weather with a great sunset, to boot.

Today was great. I'm off to play some late soccer before crashing into bed. You can find the rest of the photos from today's adventuring on my Facebook page.

Once more...

So much for getting back to blogging more frequently, huh? Since I last posted, nearly a month ago, life – work, specifically – has been a bit of a whirlwind, and I've hardly spent any time on the computer. Not that I'm complaining. Less time on the computer is always nice.

My time here has been well-spent, and there's nowhere that I'd rather be. After working 18 consecutive days from the end of May into June, averaging between 12 and 16 hours of work a day, things have finally calmed down a bit and I can step back and gain some perspective. It was hard work getting the camp ready for summer, especially with a brand new dining hall. There was lots of new ground that had to be covered, but now that we're running (we're into week three of summer camping) things are going much smoother.

I love this part of New York in the summer. The weather is fickle at best – in the course of a day it can change from rain to sun and back to rain several times. In June alone we've had swings from 45 degrees to 95 degrees; humid to dry; sunshine to hail. It keeps things interesting.

My focus now is to just use the rest of the summer to serve and to grow in my relationships with others and with the Lord. And to cram some fun activities into my free time when it comes along.

Here's my short list of what I still want to get done with my days off this summer:
- Trip to Cincinnati (forthcoming, for a family reunion) where I'll see all of my family, a Reds game, run a 5k and see Zimmer, who's been in Thailand.
- Go to NYC.
- Go to a Mets game.
- Go to a Red Bulls game (hopefully versus FC Barcelona).
- Go to Portland to visit my sister and her family.
- Go to Fenway.
- Make dentist and optometrist appointments (before I'm a poor grad student!)
- Spend a night out practicing wilderness survival with friends.
- Backpack into Pine Creek Canyon, the "Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania."

There's more I want to get done, too... we'll have to see what I have time for!

To summer.

Well, a lot's been happening in my life lately, and I've not blogged much about it. I'm sure I'm going to have lots of adventures this summer in New York I want to write about though, so I've decided to get right back on the blogging horse – so to speak.

I had a wonderful, busy last week in the Midwest before departing for New York. I went to three baseball games with wonderful people, all of which the home team won (the Indy Indians won two, the Reds won one. Oh, and Doug – I swear all baseball games aren't militant.) It always feels like summer hasn't really started until I've been to a baseball game – three in one week means the season can really start.


I also had the chance to finish up a freelance project shooting a bald eagle nest – it was really incredible how close I was able to get to such amazing birds. The chicks were a captive audience, but the mother was very wary of me, and any time I'd get close she'd fly off. Luckily I arrived one day while she was away, and when she returned she didn't spot me right away. I had about five minutes in which to capture some cool images, including this one. The full gallery can be found on my Flickr site here.


After packing up, cleaning, finding a place to live next year and finishing up everything I had to do in Bloomington, I was ready to drive to New York. After spending 12.5 quality hours in my car on Sunday, I finally arrived at Lake Champion. It was great arriving and seeing a place that I really do love, and more importantly, seeing people that I really care about. I was also greeted by a midnight soccer game in the gym, which I somewhat regretted participating in after spending so much time in the car.

So now I've had a few days to get settled here. I've been thrust immediately into a really busy work situation, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love the people I'm working with and I love the cause I'm working for. I really could make a life out of this property staff thing.

The highlight of yesterday was seeing the rather large bat pictured below. It was the biggest bat I've ever seen not in a zoo, and after some Internet research, I'm pretty sure it was the Hoary Bat – which has an average wingspan of 15.7 inches (thanks, Wikipedia). I thought it was pretty cool to see.

Peyton Manning & United Way

An enjoyable SNL video I've never seen until today:

"O" my!

So my co-worker Jessica and I just went to the Women's Little 500, and as we were walking in, Barack Obama's motorcade pulled up. No one was sure if Obama was going to make an appearance, but it was widely rumored that he'd show. The rumors were right.

Jess and I had perfect timing to get a spot along the railing near the bus and wait for Obama to emerge from his bus. After 10 or 15 minutes of waiting, he emerged to cheers and walked along the crowd shaking hands, and yes, even kissing babies (see below).


Luckily he walked in my direction, and I was able to shake his hand! It was pretty cool. I'm still not sure if I'm going to vote for him, but I can certainly understand the power of personal appearance after today. It makes sense that politicians tour around doing these things – it really does get people excited about them.

Anyway, Obama hung around inside the track before the race began, shaking the hands of the women's riders before getting back on his bus to head for (presumably) Terre Haute.

The women's race was fun, too, and the weather was fantastic. What a great start to the weekend.


Right after shaking my hand.

Plans!

Well, after a long, long season of prayer and waiting, I'm excited to say that I have... plans! Of course, plans can always change, but I'm excited to have an idea of what I'll be doing with this next period in my life.

In a crazy week right before Spring Break, things started to come together in an amazing way. It's one of those times in your life where you can't possibly deny a higher power working to bring things together – God really knocked down some obstacles and plowed a road for me. I am incredibly blessed.

May 14 will be my last day of work at the School of Journalism. I'll put my stuff into storage for the summer, run the half-marathon on the 17th in Indianapolis, then head to Lake Champion for the summer – where I used to work.

I'm incredibly excited at the prospect of returning to work for a Young Life camp for the summer. Being around the people there, sharing in rich Christian fellowship and serving the Lord, will be a real blessing. Additionally, I get to spend all my time outside – and that makes me happy.

Just last night I was looking forward to living in the middle of nowhere again and falling asleep to an amazing chorus of frogs and locusts.

I'll stay at Lake Champion until late August, at which point I'll return to Bloomington to become a full-time student in SPEA (the School of Public and Environmental Affairs). I'm planning on pursuing my Masters in Public Administration, focusing on non-profit and public management. While Emergency Management isn't a concentration choice at SPEA, I am going to customize my experience as much as possible to gain experience in that area.

So – a summer away, then another two years in Bloomington. I'm excited to stay here with the people I've gotten to know and enjoy this Indiana life for a while longer.

Awareness

Haven't blogged much lately... life's been a bit busy to find time to sit down and write. But check out this amazing British advertisement...

More pictures... from France!

Another little update since it's been a couple of days.

Tuesday we traveled from London to Caen in an exhausting all-day excursion. It was bus to Dover, then ferry to Calais, then bus to Caen. It took us about 12 hours total to get to our destination – partially because of problems with the ferry (bad weather combined with a strike of French ferry workers). Anyway, we arrived in Caen last night.

These pictures are mostly from today, apart from the first one from the back of the ferry (the coast of France is just visible on the left).

1. On the ferry.
2. Omaha Beach.
3. The American Cemetery near Omaha Beach.
4. German gun emplacements near Longues Sur Mer.
5. The town of Aromanches, where the allies built their artificial harbor on D-Day +2. An engineering marvel of the time, most of the parts of the artificial harbor can still be seen just 2km off the coast.
6. In Bayeux, in front of the Bayeux Cathedral with several of the students on the trip. We ducked inside (it was beautiful) and then went to see the Bayeux Tapestry, a famous 11th-century depiction of the battle between the Normans and Saxons (involving "William the Bastard," later known as "William the Conquerer."

All in all, very cool stuff. I'm exhausted and hoping to catch up on some sleep tonight. I'll certainly post full sets of photos later on Flickr or something... so far I think I've taken 487 photos on the days we've been here. Yipes.

I love London.

A few images from my day in London today. The internet isn't so good, so I'll have to post my full set later. In order:

1. At the new home of football. I watched an Arsenal game at the "Gunners Pub" in Islington then went and saw Highbury and Emirates. Happy day.
2. Phone booths on Fleet Street.
3. Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross!
4. Random bikes.
5. At the Arsenal tube stop.
6. At the newly-remodeled and refurbished St. Pancras train station.
7. There are flowers here. It's green. It's (sort of) warm.

In short, I LOVE it here. I could live here.

Land me safe on Canaan's side

I wanted to post the words to a hymn that has really struck a chord with me over the past few months, and has come to be a great source of insight and encouragement in my life.

The hymn is "Guide me O, Thou Great Jehovah," penned by the Welshman William Williams (what a name) in 1745. Here are the lyrics:

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.
Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield;
Be Thou still my Strength and Shield.
When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of deaths, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to Thee;
I will ever give to Thee.

Gosh, I love this hymn. "Lord... guide me through this desert with your powerful hand... through streams and fires, anywhere on my journey, be my strength and shield. I will not fear, though I face death, for you will guide me, and I will ever sing you songs of praises."

The whole point is that we don't know what's ahead, but we walk in faith anyway, trusting that even if God leads us into fire – yes, he'll do that - he'll deliver us through it.

Though we may have the desire to know what's next, that's not something God is typically going to just come out and reveal to us. Instead, perhaps God will talk to us as Aslan does to Lucy in C.S. Lewis' "Prince Caspian." ((I just finished re-reading it not long ago, so it's fresh in my mind )).

"Please, Aslan!" said Lucy, "am I not to know?"

"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No, nobody is ever told that."

"Oh dear," said Lucy.

"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan. "If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me—what will happen? There is only one way of finding out…"

"But they won’t believe me!" said Lucy.

"It doesn't matter," said Aslan.

"Oh dear, oh dear," said Lucy. "And I was so pleased at finding you again. And I thought you’d come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away—like last time. And now everything is going to be horrid."

"It is hard for you, little one," said Aslan. "But things never happen the same way twice. It has been hard for us all in Narnia before now."

"Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up.

"I’m sorry, Aslan," she said. "I’m ready now."

I love the way Aslan talks to Lucy: The only way you will find out what can happen is by doing. And there is great encouragement to be found in the Lord in facing this task, as well, for he promises us ((just studied this in small group, too)):

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.
- Isaiah 43:2

Anyway, just a few thoughts as I face a time of uncertainty in exactly "what's next" – though I trust God that if I make a step of faith, he will be with me, guiding me through whatever flames and floods may come.

Happiness is...

Happiness is a warm nap in the sun.

Another fantastic day yesterday. More work - I ended up taking a lot of photos of people golfing – but then more play, too. We went down to the beach near San Diego and had a great time. We saw a bunch of seals up on one of the beaches, too, which was cool.

All the photos here.

Joshua Tree

Well, if you didn't know, I'm in San Diego on business. My friend Mark got a gig covering a biotech company's annual sales conference and needed a hand, so he and I are out here doing audio/video coverage of the conference. It's not a terrible amount of work – in fact we have quite a good amount of free time.

Today we had the most amount of free time we'll have all week, so we rented a car from the hotel and drove to Joshua Tree National Park – a place I've wanted to visit for a long time. Mark and I had a U2 moment in front of one of the Joshua Trees (also, the middle picture is Mark's, you can find more of his here) and really enjoyed the awesome views. The weather was great, too – not too hot or cold.

The only downer today was finding out Arsenal lost to Manchester United 4-0. Blech. That's okay, though... we'll beat 'em in the league!

My full set of pictures can be found on Flickr here.

'San Diego'

The view from my hotel room in San Diego as of 5 minutes ago. :) I'll have to write more about what's going on a bit later... off to dinner right now.

I love storms.

I can't believe we're having a thunderstorm like this in February. But I love it. I just spent a couple hours sitting on the back porch trying to take photos of the lightning. I think I took 192 photos. These two were the winners.

Anyone? Anyone?

Ben Stein is a modern renaissance man. Seriously, what hasn't the guy done? He's been an activist. A writer. A commentator. A lawyer. A speech writer for two presidents. He's been on TV (Win Ben Stein's Money, The Wonder Years), he's been in commercials (Musine Dry Eyes), and of course, has had roles in movies ("Reagan called this what? BLANK economics ... Voo Doo Economics").

Stein has previously been honored for his pro-life activism, and now he is taking on Darwinism in a new movie/documentary that will debut this spring called "Expelled."

In the trailer, Stein shares his belief in intelligent design, and seems to shine the spotlight most brilliantly on scientists who are shunned for questioning Darwinism, or for their belief in the possibility of intelligent design.

There's an extended trailer on the Web site that is worth checking out. Between small group and Young Life, creationism has been a hot topic amongst friends lately – I thought many of you would be interested in knowing about this.

Stein wraps up the extended trailer with the following challenge to the viewers, and ends with a nice homage to his Ferris Bueller days:

"So I'm going to begin by warning you: feel free to watch this film if you must, and I hope that you do – but you've got to know that doing so could land you in a heap of trouble. Some of you are going to lose your friends from watching this film. Some of you may even lose your jobs. In fact, if you're a scientist with any hope of a future, I suggest you leave right now. College or high school students, especially teachers, legislators, journalists – anyone else with a stake in this debate should probably leave right now as well. But if you do leave, will anyone be left to fight this battle? ... Anyone? ....... Anyone?"

Standards of Evangelism, Part I

As most of you know, Young Life, the youth evangelism organization started by Jim Rayburn in 1941, has been a huge part of my life for the last ten years. After my sophomore year of high school I went to Lake Saranac, a Young Life camp in the Adirondacks, where I heard the Gospel presented to me clearly for the first time. It changed my life, and I wouldn't be who I am today without Young Life. Granted, God could have chosen to work in my life in some other way – but the fact remains that it was because of Young Life that I came to accept the Gospel and begin my relationship with Christ.

Over the years, I've become very familiar with the ministry, both from serving as a volunteer leader in Bloomington and from working on full-time staff at Lake Champion for more than two years. But for the past few weeks there has been a great cloud of controversy surrounding the ministry – a cloud that has turned into a bit of an internet firestorm in the last week or two.


The background

Nine members of Young Life staff in Durham, North Carolina, were terminated or resigned at the end of November after they declined to abide by a new set of “non-negotiable” guidelines for proclaiming the Gospel set forth by Young Life. From my understanding – gathered from news articles I've read and from accounts from friends still on staff, the "non-negotiables" were set forth late in 2007 as a response to a series of Gospel presentations at summer camps and a paper written by Jeff McSwain, the director of Young Life in the Durham areae. Here's the synopsis from an article in Christianity Today:

The Non-Negotiables statement came out after a paper circulated last summer by Jeff McSwain. The former YL area director for Raleigh and Chapel Hill, McSwain was the highest-ranking staff member fired. In his paper, McSwain criticized YL’s traditional approach to evangelism, which he said emphasizes kids’ separation from God. His paper, “Jesus Is the Gospel,” said such gospel presentations can be more Unitarian than Trinitarian, because they draw a sharp contrast between the holy God and the incarnated Son who “actually became sin.”

“I can go into the realm of the most lost, furthest-out kids, knowing something that is true about them before they do,” he wrote in the paper. “They are lost children of God; people can’t be lost unless they have a home!”

YL’s eight-page Non-Negotiables statement requires a sequence for gospel presentations that closely resembles Campus Crusade for Christ’s Four Spiritual Laws. Talks must begin with the person of Jesus Christ, “the overarching theme of all our talks.” From there, evangelists should explain the reality and consequences of sin before presenting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his resurrection. Talks end with an invitation to believe and become a disciple of Jesus.

The Christianity Today article is an interesting read, but I disagree with their assumption that the non-negotiables require a certain sequence of Gospel presentation. More about that later. There's also an interesting article about the situation from Christian Century.

Also, here are the six key points from Young Life's "non-negotiables." The full, eight-page text can be found here.

1) We proclaim the Person of Jesus Christ in every message.

2) We proclaim the reality of sin and its consequences — that apart from divine grace, we are estranged from God by our disobedience and incapable of a right relationship with God.

3) We proclaim the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as the ultimate proof of God’s love and the only solution to our problem of sin.

4) We proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

5) We proclaim the risen Christ’s offer of salvation by inviting our middle school, high school and college friends to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.

6) We proclaim God’s call to discipleship by encouraging all who respond to grow in their faith.

There has obviously been a lot of fallout from the dismissal of the 10 staff members in the Durham area. I hate that this situation has come to that, yet it seems that in our sinful nature, theological disagreements – and sometimes splits, become inevitable, if not unavoidable.

On December 11, Young Life posted a statement about the incident on its Web site, saying that its method of presenting the Gospel "has been widely applauded within the mission" and that only "a small fraction of staff" have disagreed.

"We start with love in our proclamation of the gospel," the statement reads. "Young Life reaches out to adolescents in friendship, loving them where they are and as they are. It is in this context of grace that we talk about the truth of sin that separates us from relationship with our Creator."


The debate

Let me get this out of the way – I'm no theologian. My knowledge is severely limited, but I like to think about and investigate these things as they pertain to our faith in Jesus Christ. So, I'm not going to go so far as to make a judgment on this topic. For now, I simply want to figure out the question.

It's important to remember that while hundreds of people are abuzz about these "non-negotiables" and the debate surrounding them, hundreds – no, thousands – of high school kids are attending Young Life camps and hearing the Gospel. Thousands of kids are coming to know Christ because of Young Life leaders and staff members all over the country and all around the world. That is important work, and we should all rejoice because of it. In Philippians 1:18, Paul says:

"What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice."

The great point being that we're debating about details. Whenever and wherever the Gospel is proclaimed, we should rejoice.

I also think it's important to note that when I accepted Christ at Saranac in June 1998, the camp speaker that presented the Gospel was – you guessed it – Jeff McSwain. I obviously have a tremendous amount of respect for the man and have no desire to belittle his efforts for the sake of the Gospel.

I'd love to read McSwain's paper to better understand what he is standing up for and what exactly he believes – but unfortunately the paper is not public, so I'll have to go off what is reported. Below is pretty much the full list of all the sources I'm using. If you Google "Young Life non-negotiables" you'll come up with a lot more results. The Tony Jones blog is interesting, and much of it I pointedly disagree with, but you should read it anyway.

News articles:
Christianity Today: Gospel Talk
The Christian Century: Young Life draws fire over new ministry guidelines
The Jesus Manifesto: The Gospel according to Young Life

Tony Jones blog:
Something is wrong at Young Life
More on what's wrong at Young Life
Closing the loop on Young Life

It seems that this debate from the 10 staff in Durham is creating quite a stir (considering there are 30,000 Young Life volunteers/leaders/committee) and it's become popular to attack Young Life for it. However, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect an organization like Young Life to create a policy for all of its staff to follow. I don't think it makes them overly controlling or dictatorial. I would expect a worldwide ministry to have something like that in place.

There are a lot of things that frustrate me about Young Life, and I could go on for a day with critiques about things I think they could do better. Young Life is a great high school ministry, but tends to "lose" kids after they've made the initial commitment to Christ, failing to plug them into a church or helping them grow and become rooted in their faith. But that's not the point here.

This debate is centered on the order of things – specifically, the order of repentance and salvation. You can label it as a Calvinistic debate about soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). Here's what Tony Jones says:

It seems that YL President Denny Rydberg and others in the organization are worried about the influence of neo-orthodox theology, and they are thus battening down the hatches on a certain type of conservative, Reformed orthodoxy. For instance, staffers are told in the statement that they must not introduce the concept of Jesus and his grace until the students have been sufficiently convinced of their own depravity and been allowed to wallow stew in that depravity (preferably overnight).

...

YL has embraced the very “gospel of sin management” that Christian leaders like Dallas Willard and Brian McLaren have criticized. It is unhistorical, and, arguably, unorthodox. Even Augustine, Calvin’s predecessor in all things Reformed, came to faith and then was convinced of and convicted of his sin. Remember, Augustine wrote his Confessions a couple decades after his conversion, so all of his talk of his own sinfulness was realized by him after he came to faith in Christ.

This is simply unfair. I have heard hundreds of Young Life talks and their process is simple and effective. There is not a desire to make kids "wallow" in their sin before they hear that there is an answer (in my experience – there are always exceptions). They do, however, lay out first that we are condemned because we are sinners, and then explain that Christ is the answer for that problem. But every time I've seen one of these "sin talks," it is overwhelmingly done with a spirit of love, and hinges on the fact that there is hope for us in Jesus Christ.

The text of "non-negotiable" point two supports this:

We maintain that sin’s consequences include a broken relationship with God, so relational words such as estrangement, alienation, lostness and purposelessness do represent our condition. We also maintain that words such as guilty, rebellious, separated and condemned are descriptions that characterize sinful humanity and necessitate God’s ultimate rescue in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Great care must be taken to keep Jesus present in this message about sin. Gospel narratives, including the paralytic brought to Jesus by his friends, the woman at the well, the rich young ruler, the woman caught in adultery, Peter’s characterization of himself as a “sinful man” and other passages all may be used to communicate this message.

The frequent criticism of "sin talks" (see Tony Jones' comments above) is refuted by this text: Great care must be taken to keep Jesus present in this message about sin.


The theology

Going back to the soteriology debate, the Young Life Gospel presentation includes 1) the person recognizing that they are in a sinful, broken state and 2) the person repenting and accepting Christ (gaining faith). It suggests that our salvation is not complete until we make a decision to have faith and accept Christ. This seems to me to be a fairly Calvinistic approach – see Calvin's doctrine of "evangelical repentance."

For since pardon and forgiveness are offered by the preaching of the Gospel, in order that the sinner, delivered from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of iniquity, may pass into the kingdom of God, it is certain that no man can embrace the grace of the Gospel without retaking himself from the errors of his former life into the right path, and making it his whole study to practice repentance. Those who think that repentance precedes faith instead of flowing from, or being produced by it, as the fruit by the tree, have never understood its nature, and are moved to adopt that view on very insufficient grounds.

First is pardon and forgiveness – which go along with the recognition of being in a broken and sinful state. Then, faith and repentance come hand-in-hand, one flowing out of the other. I don't believe Young Life is stating that we must repent before we have salvation. However, they are saying we must make a decision to have faith before salvation is complete.

McSwain's theological views are clearly a bit different than Young Life's – hence the dismissal – but I'm not entirely clear on how. It is my understanding that McSwain is arguing that the work of salvation is already complete before we gain faith – citing Romans 5:8: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

McSwain is also quoted in the Christianity Today article as saying: “They are lost children of God; people can’t be lost unless they have a home!” This is totally correct. But I'd add this: We are all broken Children of God, but if you don't realize you're broken, why would you ever look to become whole?

Christ died on the cross, but not everyone is going to heaven. Why? Because we have to make that conscious choice to have faith, to accept Christ and follow him – thus completing salvation.

“From what are people being saved? Not from visible warfare or barbarians but something far greater: from their own sins, a work that had never been possible to anyone before.”

-John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, 4

((A side note: most of the articles seem to suggest McSwain is more in line with theologian Karl Barth, who I don't know much about. This largely deals with the principles of liberalism and neo-orthodoxy, and if anyone has anything to add on these subjects (ahem: Dan) I'd love to hear it!))


The question

OK, I've written a novel and hardly scratched the surface of this subject – this will have to suffice for now. The point of writing this wasn't to stick my own opinion out there (though writing this has helped me realize where I stand), but to raise awareness of this situation, and ask you, my friends, what you think. I put a Part I on here – maybe there will be a Part II. Maybe not, though.

I think what gets me the most worked up is the harsh criticism and vitriol towards Young Life in some of the articles written. It's too bad. Young Life is far from perfect as an organization, as is the case with each and every church and para-church organization. None of these folks or churches or organizations has it "right", but I believe YL, just like all the others out there, is trying to do the best job they can while staying true to their beliefs.

I don't think they're a fundamentalist dictatorial monster taking evangelism to hell in a handbasket. I don't necessarly think there is a great evangelical "schism" forthcoming (see Tony Jones again).

Anyway, we should approach this with an open spirit of love and concern, not with a spirit of criticism and condemnation. I hope I've not put any words into Young Life's of Jeff McSwain's mouths in this article. I know that Young Life is a wonderful, Christ-seeking ministry and that McSwain is a fine, Christ-seeking man – who presented the Gospel to me, and I believed.

Amen.

The Enneagram...

I'm a Type Seven – an Enthusiast. The Seven is a person who wants to constantly have new experiences, who wants to be constantly exploring and finding joy in new and simple things in life. The Enneagram Web site has this to say about the Type 7:

Basic Fear: Of being deprived and in pain
Basic Desire: To be satisfied and content—to have their needs fulfilled
Key Motivations: Want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.

It goes on to describe Enthusiasts at their healthy levels and at their unhealthy levels. I'll just post a bit and highlight what I feel like describes me best:

Level 1 (At Their Best): Assimilate experiences in depth, making them deeply grateful and appreciative for what they have. Become awed by the simple wonders of life: joyous and ecstatic. Intimations of spiritual reality, of the boundless goodness of life.

Level 2: Highly responsive, excitable, enthusiastic about sensation and experience. Most extroverted type: stimuli bring immediate responses—they find everything invigorating. Lively, vivacious, eager, spontaneous, resilient, cheerful.

Level 3: Easily become accomplished achievers, generalists who do many different things well: multi-talented. Practical, productive, usually prolific, cross-fertilizing areas of interest.

Level 4: As restlessness increases, want to have more options and choices available to them. Become adventurous and "worldly wise," but less focused, constantly seeking new things and experiences: the sophisticate, connoisseur, and consumer. Money, variety, keeping up with the latest trends important.

Level 5: Unable to discriminate what they really need, become hyperactive, unable to say "no" to themselves, throwing self into constant activity. Uninhibited, doing and saying whatever comes to mind: storytelling, flamboyant exaggerations, witty wise-cracking, performing. Fear being bored: in perpetual motion, but do too many things—many ideas but little follow through.

I admit I can see both my strengths and weaknesses in that description. I didn't post any of the "really unhealthy" levels (7, 8, 9), but I don't see much of myself in those anyway. In the Type 7 description by Richard Rohr, he says, "The Seven is the 'eternal child.' Peter Pan could be their patron saint, or Mercury, the messenger of the gods wearing his winged shoes, with which he disappears into a wonderful world of fantasy... Sevens are curious. It's as if what they already know or have is never enough. They need change, stimulation, new experiences... Sevens are not specialists, but 'generalists.' They always have several irons in the fire, because they always want to leave all their options open and unconsciously want to avoid committing themselves too deeply to a thing or a person... because if you totally devote yourself, your own limits might become visible – and that would be too painful. Thus many Sevens master the art of bluffing; they are all-around diletantes and evoke the impression of being many-faceted in their gifts, of knowing all about everything. A handful of facts, cleverly combined, sometimes suffice to create a comprehensive image. They often have a hard time tying themselves down to one career."

Wow. Has Richard Rohr been spying on me? I really can't add anything in my own words that's better than the description above. I love new experiences and find joy in them - but it can be taken to a fault, too, to where I'm bored if I don't have constant new stimulation and I'm afraid to commit to any one thing that might limit my experiences.

Season Four...

Happy New Year!

I just spent an hour getting excited for the new season of L O S T. ABC just started advertising for the season premiere the other day, and I have to say – it looks awesome. I'm a little concerned about how the writer's strike will affect the season (does anyone know?)

Anyway, a few years ago, during the summer, the makers of L O S T presented "The Lost Experience," an interactive online game that gave clues to the upcoming season of L O S T.

Good news... it's BACK!

Go to www.flyoceanicair.com to start the experience.

It will take you to www.find815.com.

I won't reveal anything else, but go to it and do it... it's worth it!