Sometimes I am disappointed by how organized Christianity has to necessarily take on a certain style, image, and worldview. For instance, I just finished perusing a couple of blogs by an artist friend of mine in Alabama. She is a brilliantly gifted photographer, painter, and sculptor. She is deeply spiritual and a bit dark in her creations. Her thoughts are deep and her language constantly searches to find the significance of meaning in subtle images. Some might write her off as emo, but I know her as someone overwhelmed by the artistic statements that can be made in life. Her work is dark and serious. But very deeply spiritual and appreciative of relationship and beauty. I knew her as one of the few people in my life that has a true "spiritual sense" - she can detect the presence of spiritual entities. Ask me about this if you want to know more.

Anyway, I was emersing myself in her work, then popped back over to a website I have been creating for a church in California. The juxtaposition was startling as I suddenly saw this bright, all-smiles, podcasting, upper middle-class, slick marketing thing in front of me that supposedly represents the presence of God in the world. Suddenly I had a stark reminder that the way we present the kingdom of God is not exactly always in line with or related to the place in which many people exist in life. And the thing about it is that it would be impossible to "create" an "image" that would do this. We have got to get out from behind our forms and styles and really see the presence of the spirit and how that can become relevant to all. I, as a person, am not going to be relevant to a whole lot of people. I can surround myself with a lot of people that are like me and really feel like I am manufacturing some kind of importance (which is a huge thing that many ministers do), but the reality is that that is simply the creation of a insulation against things that are different and uncomfortable. The truth is that I like to dig through things like my artist friend's work because it makes me deal with the reality that I am a preppy, clean-cut, well-behaved, reasonably intelligent, white, Christian guy, which is well and good until it comes to the fact that I have absolutely nothing to say or do of any value to a majority of the world's population. So, you have to get over yourself and start realizing that it is God who works the spirit into people and places and styles and lives that I have no connection to otherwise. When you get over yourself, God can start revealing your true relevance. So, yay for preppy, clean cut, well-behaved, reasonably intelligent, white Christian people - you certainly have your place in the world and God is using you. Let's just not fool ourselves into subtley thinking that that is God's image. The world is much bigger that we are and somehow the Spirit is finding his way into people and lives that are tremendously different from us.

I sit here, in my old room of the house I grew up in, knowing that I have been surrounded by people that have loved me and cared for me unconditionally my whole life. Fourteen people sat around our table at Christmas, some of whom are new to an extended family through the marriage of my younger brother. All of these people are wonderful people who would do anything for each other.

But I sit here in this old room, connected at the moment with others who do not have such a life. The words of a friend who has just watched her alcoholic father return home drunk, once again, and the hurt and pain of a life she has missed carry their sadness on the screen in front of me:

Me: and it hurts in a way that only you know
Her: it does
Her: i just...
Her: i know if he were to get caught he would drop down in his program
Her: spend the night ( at least ) in jail
Her: and i am just so tired of being the grownup
Her: cant someone just take care of me
Her: i rush to save my family to often
Her: i am the baby
Her: cant i jsut be the baby

For many, returning home from college for the break is not a time of cheerfully hanging out with family and eating homemade meals made by loving parents. It is a return to the loneliness and betrayal of brokenness. It is a return to a reality that they have been able to escape from for at least the few months that make up the semester. We must remember this and know that some of the greatest need among some students is not in their world away from home, it is in the atrocity that supposedly is their homes.

Hope everybody has a great Festivus today and that no one is hurt during the Feats of Strength.

Next year get your Festivus Pole here.

Today I was waiting to get my latest terrible haircut from Family Cuts (I don't know why I keep going there), and was thumbing through Entrepreneur magazine. There was a one page feature on Mark Zuckerberg, who is the creator of Facebook. Zuckerberg was a sophomore at Harvard when he created Facebook. It became a sensation so he dropped out to pursue it as a business. Today it is huge and is literally changing how people communicate on a daily basis. All of this I had learned before for various things I have done regarding Facebook, but this story contained a quote from Zuckerberg comparing his school life and business life that I found insightful:

"In the academic world, it was this 'question everything' mentality - never commit to anything that you can't rigorously prove [is] correct. In the business world, you have to believe in what you're doing and stick to that. That's been an interesting change."