A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

Last night my husband and I were blessed to see the Billy Joel/Elton John Face 2 Face concert in San Jose.  It was awesome being in the same space as those two rock and roll legends sharing the same stage (and dueling pianos, no less!).

There’s a reason people aspire to be rock stars.  Who else gets the adoration they do?

But all that rock star worship is but a pale reflection of what heaven will be like.  God of course, being Who He is, is worthy of some serious worship.

So why aren’t our church services as worshipful as rock concerts?  I think not being face to face has something to do with it.

“Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known (1 Cor 13:12).”

Imagine being in the same space, “face to face with my Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who loves me so.”

What do you think about being face to face with Jesus?

Power of One

Why do 97% of the customers reviewing To Save a Life on movietickets.com give the film a four to five out of five-star rating? While not a perfect film, its rich content makes it easy to forgive minor flaws. I found it so compelling that even after a second viewing, my entire body ached from the white-knuckle dramatic tension.

For starters, this low-budget indie film isn’t an embarrassment of sentimental dreck, as many “Christian” films are. In the words of one reviewer, “The production values are the best and least cheesy since The Passion and the music is great.” Moreover, instead of the usual one-dimensional, perfect Christians, we see characters in a range of commitment levels, including agnostic, seeker, holier-than-thou, and in-name-only, although a few but growing number are genuinely transformed by Jesus. Such sophistication was summarized by a reviewer, who said, “Everyone needed to be rescued from something, not just the loners.”

For me at least, and I suspect for many of us, the core issue of the film resonates: (more…)

I’ve enjoyed the Twilight vampire saga by Stephenie Meyer. The content is so rich with yummy angst that there’s plenty to talk about: desire, temptation, friendship, manipulation, suicide…. But the topic that keeps spinning in my head is the movie’s tagline: When you can live forever, what do you live for?

The promise of eternal life is something many Christians long for and sing about. But in looking forward to a new tomorrow, they often overlook the power they possess to deal with a very ugly today.

The Twilight story roots characters in the present world while illustrating the difficulties of living forever. The Cullen vampires are incredibly healthy (immortal), wealthy (years playing the stock market), wise (endless school and travel), and gorgeous. They are billed as heroes because unlike most vampires, they have chosen to eschew human blood. They hunt less tasty animals instead. Clearly, it’s a noble struggle on behalf of humanity, but is restraint enough of a cause? When you can live forever, what do you live for?

Only one of the Cullen family answers to a higher calling. Carlisle is a doctor who derives great satisfaction from treating humans although it took a lot of passion to sustain a career that constantly appeals to his appetite. The rest of the Cullens, however, could rightly be called “bloodsuckers,” since they live in society but don’t give back to it.

With their talents, they could do so much good in the world, or even in their own school. Instead, we find them cloistered together around a small cafeteria table, talking only to each other, wasting their resources on the frivolous pursuits of fast cars and perfect clothes. Utterly bored to death, but unable to die.

Followers of Jesus are called to so much more than living for tomorrow. What do Christians live for today? What did Jesus live for?

Red, fleece gloves. Stylishly perfect for keeping my hands warm, except that they weren’t doing such a hot job on a snowy winter’s day in Yosemite National Park. After playing outdoor tourists one post-Christmas afternoon, my family and I piled into my dad’s sizeable Buick, and I tossed my gloves on the dash — the better to heat my icy digits in front of the air vent.

We drove through a tunnel on our way out of the park, chatting and laughing about the day’s joy. I happened to glance at my gloves and discovered that they had changed color. No longer red, they were now completely black. The sodium vapor lighting had dampened the color from my matching scarf and red-trimmed coat as well.

There was nothing I could do to make those gloves red again. Looking at them more closely did not bring back the color, nor did turning them inside out or shaking them. Color was restored only when we exited the tunnel into full-spectrum sunshine. Beautiful color flooded our car the instant we emerged from the strange yellow lighting.

What’s amazing to me is that (more…)

I just received a link to a video that I have to share with you. It is based on  Colossians 1:27, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

We often sing a song that says, “Words are not enough to tell you of our love, so listen to our hearts.” I wonder if we actually take the time to listen to our own hearts, though, and if we did, what we would hear. Would it be the music of the heavens? I pray that it would! (more…)

In the sense of foretelling the future, I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. Eli Stone can’t say that, but I can.

There have been times, though, when I have — and I know this sounds very strange — “known” what was going to happen in the future. Call it insight, call it deductive reasoning, call it a hallucination, or call it a lucky guess, but I have known. You might even call what I have known “prophecy,” but I stick with my earlier statement about neither nor the son of.

Was Minister Louis Farrakhan acting as a prophet when he called Barack Obama “the Messiah?” To be fair, his statement might have meant that Jesus (the Messiah) was speaking through Obama. The proof he offered for his outrageous statement, in either case, was that young people were listening to Obama. Young people also listen to rap music, Shrek, and Big Bird, but I digress.

My point is that I foretold Obama’s ascendancy to the Oval Office years and years ago, probably during the 1996 DNC. (I used to live in Illinois, and the boy made a splash when Carol Moseley Braun was the first African-American woman to win a senate seat and he was credited with helping her do so.) Had I been a betting man, I would have known to call Ladbroke’s and get down 10 quid on Obama to win. Then on January 21, 2009, I could have retired. Instead, I’ll be continuing to work and pay taxes, only now I’ll probably pay more of them.

Obama himself is prophecying a “changed” future. That’s pretty easy — there is a new sheriff in town, so change seems likely — but what is tough is figuring out where the change will occur. One place that might happen is within Obama himself.

In fact I’d predict that, except that I am not a prophet.

Keith loves his shirts, especially the ratty, comfy ones. I’ve given up suggesting he throw them out or convert them to rags because he just says no, or, when pushed, “I prefer not.” I can’t fire his speaking coaches, Nancy Reagan and Bartleby the Scrivener. And I can’t just throw his stuff away without permission; I have my own integrity to maintain. What to do? I’m hoping a new strategy, admittedly passive aggressive, works: I leave the shirts hanging in the garage, where they stay in perpetuity, and he doesn’t see them because they are not in his closet. (Not gone, just “missing.”)

So today I put my plan in action. I went through our laundry limbo, the place where shirts are hung up upon their removal from the dryer. Instead of grabbing the whole lot to put away, I inspected each specimen for ragged collars and cuffs to leave behind. Mwoohahaha: I am woman, hear me roar.

Two men’s shirts stood out from the others. One, with a collar so frayed that only an outer layer of fabric remained attached, had been a $35 LL B–n catalog purchase for Keith’s birthday. It had shown significant signs of wear within a few months of acquisition (though two other Oxford shirts of exactly the same model and vintage still look great after a couple years’ wear). The other shirt, a Ralph Lauren Polo long-sleeved button-up, had been given to me 25 years ago, by my friend Patti Strawn, who scored it working an on-campus special sale; it still looks pristine.

I would have guessed that both of these shirts were high quality, but I would have been wrong. The costlier one was a complete waste of money (well, except that Keith really, really, really liked it), and the freebie would have been well worth the high retail value.

If you don’t have experience with fill-in-the-blank, it can be hard to judge what is treasure and what is trash. You’ll see what I mean at any garage sale. Sometimes you just have to hang out with something for a while before it becomes apparent what is what. But when you figure it out, for heaven’s sake — no, for your own sake — take out the trash!

Jesus had his own way of figuring out what had worth. As he put it,

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (NIV)

As an adult, I’ve learned to extract a lot more fun out of life than I ever did as a (boring) child. At almost every minute of the day, there is entertainment to be had, no matter whether a person is working, eating, talking, walking, or whatever. Don’t you agree?

One potentially amusing activity people naturally do with folks they like is called “mirroring.” As a way of establishing rapport, we imitate each other or respond in kind to a given statement or action. When I say, “Well, hello, Mr. B!” Bill, if he feels like playing along, will respond, “Well, hi, Mrs. M!” (We don’t imitate each other too exactly because that looks and feels like mockery, an expression of disdain.)

Sometimes people don’t want to engage in this verbal and behavioral play. Maybe they don’t like us, don’t get it, or can’t be bothered. When I visited Paris, France, several years ago, I would get radically different responses from waiters and shop clerks depending on whether I first engaged in light pleasantries (”Ca va?” “Ca va bien.” “Bien.”), or cut to the chase in my efficient American way (”Two baguettes, please.”) In the former scenario, whoever I dealt with would be warm and friendly for the rest of the interaction. In the latter, they would turn cold and taciturn, even brusque and rude.

God engages in this kind of play with us, where the initial kickoff occurred “in the beginning” when he created us “in his image.” He placed us in the best arena ever conceived, and explained the one rule of the game: “don’t eat from that tree.” It wasn’t long, though, before the beautiful symmetry was broken. By chapter 3 of the story, we had eaten from it, felt fear, sewn clothes, and hidden. Most of the rest of Scripture is devoted to showing how God tries over and over again to reestablish that early relationship of naked trust and delight. His all-hands-in appeal is made when he joins us in the physical form of Jesus, a form we recognize and relate to.

It’s a long, slow dance from where he started in making us like him to the incarnation when he made himself like us. But it’s all mirroring and all for the purpose of drawing us to him for life, for play, for fun and joy.

The question is do we have the will, wit, stamina, and spiritual discipline to respond in kind? How can we deliberately mirror God?

I’m having one of those rare weekends alone. My daughter is making new friends at a camp for happy teenagers, while my husband and son are scout camping at a black sand beach in Northern California. I enjoy these moments almost too much, burrowing into my home and tuning out the world with loud music and escapist fiction.

Email is one channel that breaks through my isolation. After following the stories on Sarah Palin, John McCain’s VP candidate, I was intrigued by a forwarded email: “25 things you might not know about McCain.” Written by the Associated Press, it was published in multiple news outlets August 28ff, 2008. Most of the insights are silly trivia, but one line grabbed me: “10. He talks to fellow prisoners of war, those with whom he shared a cell in Vietnam, almost daily.”

I like to stay in touch with friends and family, but the number of people I deliberately interact with daily is quite small. What would make a man chat with his cellmates at this frequency, so many years after they were all released? I found some clues in McCain’s 1973 description of the POW years and in this interview of McCain’s cellmate, George “Bud” Day. (more…)

It is entirely possible to build a house on a foundation that seems solid, that will hold in most circumstances, and in fact may hold the house for decades. Likewise, it is possible to build a life on a foundation that has some good properties, but isn’t sufficient for the trials of life. Jesus knew both of those truths, and he combined them in one of the most famous illustrations of all time: building a house on rock, or building a house on sand.

That story is found in both Matthew 7 and Luke 6. The Bible in Basic English translates the Matthew passage this way:

Everyone, then, to whom my words come and who does them, will be like a wise man who made his house on a rock; and the rain came down and there was a rush of waters and the winds were driving against that house, but it was not moved; because it was based on the rock. And everyone to whom my words come and who does them not, will be like a foolish man who made his house on sand; and the rain came down and there was a rush of waters and the winds were driving against that house; and it came down and great was its fall.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

What does a life built on sand look like? In the world, it looks like relying on natural talent without adding hard work. As a former tennis professional, and even as someone who has a bit of natural talent, I know something about that. Natural talent — some people might call it a gift — is great fun at first. People praise you, you win quickly, and the sky seems to be the limit. But the missing link, the failure to work, keeps many naturals on the ground.

The corollary in Christianity is the one who has been in the church for a long time, for whom Christianity is “natural,” but who fails to work at following the teachings of Christ. As a minister — and a long time Christian myself — I know something about that, too. Jesus can be part of your life, you can be a declared Christian, and you may be able to quote a lot of the Bible. But the missing link is that you don’t consciously work at applying the teachings of Jesus in your daily life, because your “natural” Christianity already makes you better than most, and that is good enough for you.

If that sound like you, here’s the good news: the link doesn’t have to stay missing. Find it and you can be part of a modern day miracle — the miracle of turning sand into rock.

Praying that you do…