A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

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…)

Technology is everywhere these days.  We don’t leave home without it.

Surely you’ve seen couples together at restaurants, busy with their own cell phones or laptops.  And at a musical in San Francisco, I saw friends sitting side-by-side in their theater seats, gaming on their own Nintendo DS’s.

Are we really present with anyone, anymore?

Even if we make personal choices to leave technology at home, it’s blasted at us from all sides.  I was most disappointed when the gas station I frequent chose to install TV screens at every pump.  Talk about a captive audience!

Technology’s inexorable encroachment on every part of our lives seems inevitable.  And yet…

One day I went to the gas station, and the TVs were gone.  No one seemed to miss them.

And in my heart there is still much rejoicing every time I go to fill up my car and see the absence of gas pump TV.

If people can find it in themselves to turn back the tide of technology, even in a small way, perhaps people will find it in themselves to repent of greater things.

As the song from Godspell says, “Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways.”

What gives you hope?

Nowadays, simplicity is a hot topic of exploration. In the USA, our conspicuous consumption has gotten the better of us, and people are interested in downsizing. My own wake-up call came when I told my children’s playmates they weren’t allowed in the garage: “It’s not safe out there!” Too much stuff stacked floor to ceiling and scattered densely along the narrow aisle-ways made for dangerous navigation.

Christians who wish to simplify often turn to Richard Foster’s excellent book, Freedom of Simplicity. One of his most provocative recommendations is this: If you need something, ask God to supply this “daily bread” without your having to buy it. If it comes during a week’s time, thank him. If not, reevaluate, and if you still need it, buy it. This ends impulse buying and reminds us that God is our provider.

When my daughter needed some fabric to complete a requirement for her Girl Scout Silver Award, I took the opportunity to clean out some of my excessive collections of craft supplies that were cluttering our garage. I consolidated several boxes, and ended up with three piles: trash, materials for my daughter, and cross-stitching supplies. Cross-stitching is a structured kind of embroidery I used to enjoy, but no longer find compelling. However, I knew that my husband’s coworker loves the craft, so I asked Keith to deliver the boxful of charts and other items to her. Terry’s reaction astonished us.

In the weeks before I got the bug to clean my garage, Terry had felt God was trying to teach her two things: “to come to Him first for every thing, not just the big things but every single thing as a matter of habit, every time” as well as “to see material possessions the way He does.” One evening while surfing the Internet, Terry  found a cross-stitch chart she really, really liked. But this time she just stopped and prayed, “Lord, I have enough. You have given me everything I need.  I do not need or want any thing more. You are all I need and all I want.  If You want me to have that chart, then I will eventually have it, but I am not going to buy it.”  She was serious about that decision, mentally placing the chart at His feet and going on about her business.

It was several weeks later when Terry received my box and took it home to look through. She says, “My husband and my son must have thought I had completely lost it over in my chair that night, when I turned a chart over and recognized it was the one. I could not stop the tears of joy. How real He is, and how loved can one person be? No one on the planet knew I wanted that chart.”

Death Valley, CA

Misery loves company. We usually interpret this maxim to mean that people in pain* want those around them to be miserable, too. Some probably wish for that, but, more commonly, people who suffer often want only simple companionship as they endure a journey through the valley.

The other night, one friend, normally a bubbly sort, was sharing the fact that he had become depressed. So many aspects of his life that had been a source of joy and provision had suddenly fallen apart. Disappointment with a friend, loss of a job, radical changes to his responsibilities, and so on, were bringing him down emotionally and financially.

A group of his friends took him to task. They tried to get him to see the error in his thinking. They challenged him not to exaggerate. They dismissed the severity of his issues. They asked him to “count his blessings,” and then started a list for him. As if that weren’t enough, they (more…)

WARNING - This post is about golf…sorta…and doing the wrong thing…mostly…and paying for it in the end.

How does a sinner’s mind work? I don’t know about yours, but I reluctantly share here how my mind works.

I was hanging out at the Samsung LPGA World Championships in Half Moon Bay hoping secretly that the preacher was eating his heart out because I can smooze with Lorena Ochoa, the world’s #1 and Annika Sorenstam #2, and…okay, the world’s top 20golfin’ girls.

Feeling pretty good about myself because I can do what others cannot is the first step a sinner takes. Call it pride, I suppose.

Hole number four is a long one - 481 yards par 5. The neat thing, I think, is that to the left there is a long stretch of overgrowth. I usually notice these things because when I play my golf balls are quite apt at finding such places.

(more…)

Matthew 25.31-45 is a powerful and challenging section of scripture. A question asked there is, “When did we see you a stanger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?”And Jesus’ reply is this: “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.”

Here’s how you can do exactly that. (more…)

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 think a lot about thinking. Or at least I think I do, although in thinking about that I know that my perspective may be just a little bit skewed. Part of the reason I think about thinking is that God has blessed me with a good mind, and on the journey of life I have discovered that having a good mind can overcome many other weaknesses — with which I have also been blessed.

I suppose that most any strength can do the same, so I don’t mean to elevate one gift over another, but I do want to share some things about thinking that may surprise you.

Many of us have heard stories of people with cancer, or some other potentially terminal illness, who “thought themselves well.” While such instances are rare, they have been documented. The “thinking healing” that always amazed me, though, was not life threatening at all — it was a cavity. The professional volleyball player who had the cavity was so shocked that she told her dentist he must be wrong. He responded by showing her the X-ray. She came back a week later to have the cavity repaired, but it was already gone. A new X-ray showed no signs of decay.

Athletes, actors, extraordinary business leaders, great wives (great husbands, too), and the very best Christians I know all practice the principles of positive thinking.

Conversely, the very reason many people don’t succeed in Christianity, in marriage, in sports, in business, and in life in general is that they think primarily in negative terms — what could go wrong?, who could be hurt?, how could I fail?, I’ll never be that good.

This is not some psycho-babble or pop-psychology, it is how we are made. The Bible says (Proverbs 23.7, KJV) “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” That is true for individuals, and it is also true for a church.

I’m positive.

P.S. The Bible also says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12.2). Imagine all of us doing that together!

 1. One of the preachers on your team returns home having been beaten.

2. Someone asks if they can borrow a room in your home to have a Bible study.

3. A village nearby doesn’t have any water and there is a breakout of severe diarrhea among the children.

4. You get word that another village has sold 20 of their children to a couple of men who say they can give the kids a better life.

5. You have a committee meeting to decide on the order of worship.

6. A baby gets dropped off at your doorstep.

7. A small group of ‘rookie’ preachers asks you to help them prepare for an upcoming sermon.

8. You have a lunch appointment to encourage a friend who is having trouble deciding what to do with his business.

9. You hear of a village where the children are going blind for lack of Vitamin A.

10. The church needs new carpet.

Which one will you do first? Why? Seriously…give it a try. I’ll tell you my answer if you tell me yours.

I’ve been to some amazing places on this earth, some of them highly populated and some of them extraordinarily devoid of population. Some of those places have been startlingly beautiful, some of them have contained great works of art, and some of them have been sculpted into great works of art. I consider it a blessing to both see and appreciate all of that.

But the greatest joys of life — at least for me — involve people. So I was just a little sad this afternoon as I said goodbye (temporarily, but for a while) to Sterling Stuckey and his amazing wife, Harriette, who, in passing through the Bay Area for a season, came into my life and the life of PACC and made us all better for it.

Sterling is, in some circles, kind of a famous fellow, I suppose. He might say, with a wry smile, “Oh, I don’t know about that.” But he had stopped by the church today to give me a copy of the manuscript for his latest book, African Culture and Melville’s Art, a work that will be published this year by Oxford University Press, and anyone who can get a book like that published by a major house, let alone write it, has got something going for him.

The book’s subtitle is The Creative Process in “Benito Cereno” and “Moby-Dick.” Probably not what one would call “light reading,” but I’m looking very much forward to it.

Why? Not because the title itself interests me, although it does interest me very much, but because of Sterling.

By many of the world’s standards, one might not think that Sterling and I would have much in common. But he showed up one day at PACC, and in fairly short order we learned we had three important things in common: we love creativity and the artists who created; we love to think; and we love God.

As time went on we found out that we disagreed on a few things, too, and that enriched our friendship as much as our agreements. (See “love to think,” above.) But my point is this: my life is richer because Sterling and Harriette passed this way. I hope and expect to see them again, and look forward to it.

In the meantime, my goal is simply this: to enrich the lives of those I meet, even in places where I’m just passing through.