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I just realized that I live within a quarter mile of the place I was born.

I'm a homing pigeon.

How appropriate.

Although, I must admit, I'm totally okay with this.

Russia

Went to Russia for about 10 days in May. Hit London on the way back. It was a grand time.

I Come to the Garden Alone

The following is a excerpt from an article Michael Horton (Putting Amazing back into Grace, The Whitehorse Inn weekly radio show) wrote titled "I Come to the Garden Alone".

Citing examples from TV, pop music, and best-selling books, an article in Entertainment Weekly noted that pop-culture's going gaga for spirituality. However, the writer tells us, "Seekers of the day are apt to peel away the tough theological stuff and pluck out the most dulcet elements of faith, coming up with a soothing sampler of Judeo-Christian imagery, Eastern mediation, self-help lingo, a vaguely conservative craving for virtue, and a loopy new-age pursuit of peace. This happy free-for-all appealing to Baptists and star-gazers alike comes off more like Forrest Gump's ubiquitous box of chocolates than like any real system of belief, 'You never know what you're gonna get.'"

The search for the sacred has becoming a recurring cover-story for national news magazines for a lot of time now. Not only historians and sociologists but novelists are writing about the Gnostic character of the "soup" we call Christianity in the United States today. In an article in Harpers, "Hot Air Gods", very recently, in fact, December 2007, Curtis White describes our situation pretty well. "When we assert this is my belief," says White "we're invoking our right to have our own private conviction no matter how ridiculous, not only tolerated politically, but respected by others. It says 'I've invested a lot of emotional energy in this belief and in a way I stake the credibility of my life on it. So If you ridicule it you can expect a fight.' In this kind of culture," says White "Yahweh and Baal, my God and yours, stroll arm-in-arm as if to do so were the model of virtue itself." He goes on to say, "what we require of belief is not that it makes sense, but that it be sincere. This is so even for our more secular convictions. Clearly this is not the spirituality of a centralized orthodoxy, but it's sort of a workshop spirituality that you can get with a cereal box-top and five dollars. And yet in our culture to suggest that such belief isn't deserving of respect makes people anxious, an anxiety that expresses itself in a desperate sincerity with which we deliver life's little lessons. There is an obvious problem with this form of spirituality, it takes place in isolation. Each of us sits at our computer terminal tapping out our convictions. Consequently it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that our truest belief is the credo of heresy itself. It is heresy without an orthodoxy, it is heresy as orthodoxy.

When the political freedom of religion has been broadened to the dogma that everyone is free to believe whatever she likes," says White "there is no real shared conviction at all and hence no church, certainly no community. Strangely our freedom to believe has achieved the condition that Nietzsche called 'nihilism', but by a root he never imagined. While European Nihilists just denied God, American Nihilism is something different. Our Nihilism is our capacity to believe in everything and anything all at once. It's all good." White poignantly concludes his essay, "we would prefer to be left alone. Warmed by our beliefs that make no sense, whether they are the quotidian platitudes of ordinary Americans, the magical thinking of Evangelicals, the mystical thinking of New-Age Gnostics, the teary-eyed patriotism of Conservatives, or the perfervid loyalty of the rich to their free-market mammon. We are thus the congregation of the church of the infinitely fractured, splendidly alone together. And apparently that 's how we like it. Our pluralism of belief says both to ourselves and to other s 'keep your distance.' And isn't this all strangely familiar? Aren't these all the false gods that Isaiah and Jeremiah confronted - the cults of the 'hot air gods?' The gods that couldn't scare birds from a cucumber patch? Belief of every kind and cult, self-indulgent, and self-aggrandizement of every degree, all flourish here. And yet God is abandoned."

That comes from a non-Christian and the magazine Harpers. So the search for the sacred is really another round of American heresy as orthodoxy. The flight of the lonely Gnostic soul from nowhere to nowhere. We are prisoners of our own subjectivity confined to the lonely cell of our limited experiences expectations, and felt needs.

Pat

According to my watch...ole' Pat Robertson's got about 11 hours and 39 minutes to save his career. Actually, I'll give him until pacific time, so he has about 14 hours left.

http://christianpost.com/article/20070103/24746.htm

To summarize...in January of this year, Pat prophesized that a terrorist attack greater than 9/11 will befall a city in the U.S. before 2007 comes to an end. He said God told him that at a prayer retreat.

Ehhh...who am I kidding, whether there's an attack tonight or not...there will always be people following this guy. We just need to pray that mountains like this will be cast into the sea, and money-changers like this guy will be exposed and driven out of the temple (both in Mark 11)...so that those with weak faith will stop being preyed upon by guys the like of Pat Robertson, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, the Whites, etc, etc, etc. Basically the board of regents at ORU. Whoops.

Confession

"He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everyone must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the rightous. So we remain alone in our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners.

But it is the Grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great desperate sinner; now come, come as the sinner that you are, come to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone! "My son, give me thine heart" (Prv 23:26) God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth. You can hide nothing from God. The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and to your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that. He loves the sinner."

-Bonhoeffer

Wed Pics 5 (the bride)

Wed Pics 4

Wed Pics 3 (the bubbly)

Wed Pics 2

Wed pics

Time for an Update

Many events have taken place in the last year of my life...some of which I've briefly touched on in previous posts. It's about time for a quick note on some aforementioned "events":

1) I was married to my bride, Natalie. See previous post. All other events are an after-thought, to say the least.

2) I went to the US Open (tennis) last fall in NY and saw the semi-final and final matches for the men and women's side. Andy lost to "Rog" (pronounced: Roj) again in the final. After the match I got bored and didn't want to deal with subway crowds getting out of Queens so I snuck into the VIP area. I actually just followed Elizabeth Shue and her entourage into the red carpet area...wasn't stopped by security at all. Whilst I was there, I was on the phone with my then girlfriend and overhead a familiar voice directly behind me. I turned around and there was Jimmy Fallon. So I stuck my hand up like a "high 5" and said, "Hey, Jimmy...great to see you again". He said, "Great to see you again too" and gave me a half "you're my bro" hug. So we stood there and talked for a few minutes. Whilst we were talking, Christie Brinkley walked by and gave us both hugs and walked on. Then Star Jones stopped by to say hey...followed by Tiger Woods and his wife. Followed by John Lovitz (Subway...Eat Fresh) guy. He was actually so drunk he stumbled off the curb right into my side. I had to help him up to his limo. Next came Conan O'Brian (I actually was in the studio audience of his show the next day and was on tv for approximately 7 seconds). Lastly, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCartney walked by and said "hey...whats-up". Then I said goodbye to Jimmy and that was that. True story.

3) Went to the PGA Championship 3 of the 4 days at Southern Hills in Tulsa. It was as hot as the fires of Hel...ena, Montana during an August heat wave.

4) Met Oprah. Big deal. See previous post and picture.

5) Changed my political affiliation. Don't worry pachydermy (R) people, I'm just an "I", not quite a donkey (D)...yet.

6) My dear mother turned...the square root of 2500...last month. My family surprised her with a trip to NY for her b-day. My brother took my dad to a NASCAR race for his 50th (they also enjoy other activities such as noodling, roadtripping to Foghat and Dubie Brothers concerts, wearing orange and camo matching outfits, and taking loud old pickup trucks to mudpits...just kidding), so I'm taking my mom to NY. Should be a fun time.

7) My sister-in-law is about to have a baby girl any day now. I wanted them to name the child Zuzu Creighton Memphis Zellner...but my sis-in-law calmly smiled and said no.

8) Went to a Counting Crows concert in Tulsa last month. Duritz had just broken up with his girlfriend so he was in a weird mood and spoke all the lyrics to the songs instead of singing them. Kind of a bummer. Collective Soul opened for them. Kind of reminds me of my middle school days...the good ole days of 6th grade football. I weighed in at 78 pounds of pure, Little Debbie enriched biceps, weak flabby abs, and broken dreams. My 6th grade year was marked by joint and muscle pain.

9) Was introduced to Blockbuster "All Access". Have since watched some incredible, incredible films such as: The Lives of Others (German foreign film), Joyeux Noel (French foreign film), Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, Pulp Fiction (for the first time). Also some great documentaries such as: Maxed Out, Who Killed the Electric Car?, Uncovered: The War on Iraq, The High Cost of Low Prices, etc.

10) Skied up in Utah last winter. My dad shattered his wrist on the first day but wrapped it up in duct tape the next 3 mornings and skied anyway. This is also a few months after he broke his shoulder dirt biking with me. He also ran a half marathon earlier that month and passed out and broke a bone in his neck from the fall. He spends a lot of time in the E.R....that guy. I think he just likes the attention.

11) That's about it. Over and out.