Max on Life, by Max Lucado

Not having read any of his 50 plus books, I'm probably not the best person to give a review on Max Lucado's latest book, Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions. But alas, I was given a copy of this book for free from Thomas Nelson publishers in exchange for an honest review, so here goes.

I know of Max Lucado only by the reputation I formulated from hearing his name repeatedly on Christian radio, occasionally on TV, seeing his books populating Christian bookstores and hearing others occasionally recommending one of his many books. He is one of America's most widely read Christian authors, and has been a pastor and author for quite a long time as I understand it.

With the territory of being such a highly respected teacher and leader comes the responsibility of receiving and replying to countless questions on tough life issues. I'm only a young minister and, I can vouch that when certain people see you as a minister they want to ask you for advice on all kinds of life issues. I can't imagine how many of these questions Mr. Lucado has received during his lifetime. This book is the result of those questions.

I was a little put off by the title, or really subtitle, of the book as it seemed a bit pretentious. One small book claiming to provide at least insights and at best answers to my most important questions. My guess is that Max himself is far more humble than this book's subtitle (probably a ploy by the publisher to boost sales).

The book is split up into seven chapters/sections alliterated (like a good southern preacher) all with the letter "H." The topics are: Hope, Hurt, Help, Him/Her, Home, Haves/Have-Nots, and Hereafter. These serve as broad categories into which the 171 different questions are sorted. Each page is headed by a question, presumably written to Max by a reader/parishioner/listener/fan/groupie, and the rest of the page is dedicated to his response. Most of the responses are finished within one page; however, about 10% spill over to the next.

The format makes the book very readable. I didn't read every single question, but my guess is the book is not intended for that. I browsed the chapters scanning for questions I'd be curious to ask, and then read those responses.

The questions themselves are not censored. Anything seems to be fair game in this book. Max addresses issues such as:

Why am I here? What's my purpose on earth? Where is God in doldrum days? Where is God in suffering? How do I respond to the death of a neighbor's child? Why do children die of cancer? How do I best handle conflict at work? Conflict with my spouse? Conflict with kids? Why should I go to church? What about sexual issues in marriage? What about sex outside of marriage? Teen sex? How do we heal a broken marriage? A broken heart? Is there any chance of a second chance? How should I handle my finances? What about different opinions on marriage finances? What about heaven? What about hell? Do people who've never heard of Christianity go to hell? Is there a hell for real? How do I handle my grief? Can get angry at God? Is God angry at me?

I found myself going back and fourth between screaming in disagreement and falling silent at his wise words that spoke right to me and my issues. From my perspective, on questions that typically dealt with intense grief, loss, shame or other deep emotional issues, I felt Max was not connecting with the asker's pain, and more often he seemed to be sticking a theological band-aid on their question sealed with a Bible verse. I also had some clear theological disagreements with him on topics of hell, salvation, God's judgement and homosexuality.

On issues that dealt with marriage, conflict, child rearing, family issues, spiritual formation, pride, reconciliation, God's love and self-critique, Max really shined. His years as a pastor and teacher serve him well on these questions as he's able to cut right to the heart of the matter, often pointing out less-than- obvious core problems, which later turn into symptoms or issues. One can easily tell that Max Lucado is a lover of people. He seems to write from a servant's heart and is convicted of what he believes.

I'd recommend this book to those who've read a lot of Max Lucado and wish to continue to follow him as an author. If you've been spiritually fed by him in the past and enjoy his words and insights, this book may be a fun one to read. The writing is clear and Max is chummy and anecdotal at times. Max on Life is a good addition to one's already healthy Lucado library.

Strokes of genius

I have visited with countless patients who have suffered a stroke. Some were completely immobilized, some seemed still completely normal and able, and many were in between having lost some sort of mobility or means of communication.

Strokes are pretty horrible, generally speaking. A blood clot forms and get lodged somewhere in the brain cutting blood flow to our body's super-computer. Very often, results of strokes are loss or lessened use of the left side of the body, arm, leg, face. As I've said, I've ministered to countless stroke patients, but never have really understood what it is like to be a stroke victim.

Recently, I had the opportunity to learn just a little bit more as a stroke patient recounted his experience just after the stroke happened, and it was scary. We'll call him, Bob, and he lives alone.

Bob was sitting in his favorite chair one evening, resting before bed. Not unusually, he fell asleep. Eventually, Bob woke up and felt strange. Like he could see, but couldn't see right. He looked around the room, and though it was familiar, something was funny, off, different.

Not knowing really what was going on or what had happened, he thought it best to go to bed and sleep it off. He tried to get out of his chair, and all his body did was tremble a bit. He moved, but didn't move. Something was definitely wrong. Trying some more he discovered that he couldn't use his left arm or leg, and his right side was weak. He needed help.

But, how could he get it? No one could hear if he yelled. He thought of how else to get help. A phone! He looked around and spotted his cordless house phone in it's usual spot on the reciever atop the refrigerator. "Only a few steps away," he said to me, "It might as well have been miles away. I've never felt so lonely in my life."

What is normally a simple task of standing up, taking a few steps and picking up the phone whenever it rings was now a monumental, seemingly impossible task. He told me about sitting in isolation, trying, struggling, tearing at himself for what to do, "I must have sat there near an hour trying to figure this out." That may well have been the longest our of his life.

Finally, some determination welled up in him. He used his "good" arm (the weakened right one) and strained as hard as he could, "It's never been so hard to get out of a chair. It was like having to move dead weight, except you are the dead weight." Prying himself from his favorite chair, Bob tumbled onto the floor. Military style, as if with a wounded arm, he painstaking slow pulled himself with his right arm across the smooth luckily linoleum floor toward the refrigerator.

But how would he possibly get up high enough to get that phone. He recounted, "I probably laid there in the floor ten minutes before it hit me." Reaching his arm into the crack between the refrigerator and wall he grabbed and pulled on the cord to the receiver, and the phone came falling to the floor -- plumb out of reach, bouncing over underneath the dining table.

It's a wonder the phone didn't bust into pieces falling from that high, but luckily this one was made sturdy. Bob told me that he didn't have anymore energy to pull himself over the phone. He was able to roll himself to where he could grab a nearby chair leg. And using that chair leg like he was fishing, he tried to bump and knock the phone toward him with the chair leg diagonal from the one he was grasping. Like trying to play golf using the wrong end of the golf club, he was able to nudge that phone of salvation within reach of his exhausted, weakened but usable hand.

This story is like fighting on the battlefield, only the field is your own home. I'm terrified to think of ever having to be in a position like that. Especially, when I heard from Bob's own mouth just how alone he felt when he realized he couldn't move, and no one knew he needed help.

Though he'd had a stroke, I think is was quite a stroke of genius the way he was able to retrieve the phone. Pulling on the cord, using a chair like a fishing pole, the courage it took to drag himself out of his chair an over the floor is something I hope I have inside me if ever presented with such a simple yet daunting task as getting the phone.

A Generous Orthodoxy, by Brian McLaren

It was a bit of a dense read, but I finally finished Brian McLaren's 2004 book, a confession of sorts, or perhaps a manifesto of McLarenian theology, titled, A Generous Orthodoxy. Actually, I finished the book almost 3 weeks ago, so I should rather say, I finally got around to blogging about it.

His fastest selling book, the subtitle to the book is so long it deserves its own sentence, indeed its own paragraph. The subtitle is: WHY I AM A missional, evangelical, post/protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/calvanisti, anabaptist/anglican, methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopefull, emergent, unfinished Christian.

Overall, this is one of McLaren's many books in an attempt to nudge, or maybe shove, American Christendom into a new, more hopeful, more accepting direction. In the first chapter McLaren states that, "this book is an attempt to correct what I perceive to be some bad doctrine, including bad doctrine about doctrine." Instead of explaining why he is one thing and not another, instead of drawing further lines of distinction and divide like our numerous Christian denominations tend to do, McLaren is trying to draw lines of acceptance around the many camps and explain why he identifies in part with most or all of them.

In the introduction McLaren warns readers of the dangers in adopting this Generous Orthodoxy. He plainly states that this is not a position held by any recognized body of believers. In fact, it is only a position held by one, himself. And so, taking on anything he's writing is to be a dissenter in many ways. He also discusses the problems with his suggested title:

Many will agree: the choice of the word orthodoxy in the title is a terrible mistake. For most people, orthodoxy means right thinking or right opinions, or in other words, 'what we think.' In contrast, orthodoxy in this book may mean something more like 'what God knows, some of which we believe a little, some of which they believe a little, and about which we all have a whole lot to learn...Most people are too serious, knowledgeable, and busy for such an unorthodox definition of orthodoxy.

As McLaren moves through each chapter considering the many different topics and branches of Christianity, he describes his take on it and reason for espousing such a belief. For example, in his chapter Why I am Liberal/Conservative he writes this, "The best of liberal and conservative Christians were, then, truly heroic, but in different ways. Liberals were heroic for tackling tough issues often several decades before the conservatives...Conservatives have been heroic in other ways, especially related to individual conversion and basic discipleship. Millions of people are dedicated Christians at the beginning of the twenty-first century who wouldn't be if it weren't for the conservative missionary advances of the 19th and 20th centuries."

The three chapters on Why I am 1) Mysticism/Poeticism; 2) Biblical; and 3) Emergent are especially good. It is likely I will come back to this book just to read those chapters. In each of the many topics he covers I picked up a strong amount of energy from McLaren for each topic. This was energizing to me, but also exhausting in a way. How can I possibly feel strongly about so many different issues.

As a whole, this book is a confession from McLaren's deepest heart. And as one who has done some writing from the heart and knows how vulnerable it can be, I deeply respect his courage. No doubt he has received some staunch criticism on this book (regrettably mostly from conservatives), but I believe what he is saying needs to be said more and by more.  

The writing is typical McLaren: smooth, educated and readable. Though he uses a lot of them, he rarely wastes words. He's less anecdotal than in his other books I've read. Of the five Brian McLaren books I've now read, I would say that if you were only going to read one of his books, this is the one.

His vision for a generous orthodoxy is not traditionally orthodox, but is very generous. And, as one just beginning to make my way into ministry in our post-modern world, I pray that many more will adopt a more generous orthodoxy.

By what are you saved?

A colleague introduced me to this short poem by Lynn Unger, a Unitarian Universalist minister. And though I am not a member of the UU church myself, I believe we can all benefit from the resources of other faith traditions. I hope you enjoy, as I do, how Unger paints a simple and elegant picture of God's gently radical salvation.

Enjoy.

By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burneing building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part--the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?


Do you believe me when I say
you are neigher salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender.
Haven't you seen the way the snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything, makes everything
beautiful without exception.

Rev. Lynn Unger

Universal Grief

I sat with an Alaska Native woman, whose common law husband was brought into the ER in critical condition. Since she was uncomfortable being right outside the patient room, we wound up sitting together in the waiting area, while she ate and drank with shaky hands, wondering if the staff would allow her the same rights as a legal spouse.

She eventually began telling me about life growing up in the village she lived in and later moving to Anchorage. She then shifted the conversation toward me and commented on the difficulty of being a chaplain. She thanked me for being a calm presence, and then she began to ‘read’ me, as a shaman might, telling me of my gifts, struggles, fears and motivations. Only, she wasn't looking at my palm, she was staring me straight in the eyes. Some of her statements were spot on, others were less accurate. But enough of what she was saying hit close enough to home to make me uncomfortable. She told me that one of her functions in the village was as a healer. She wasn’t the physical kind of healer, but another kind, a healer of the insides. She told me I have the same gift: to be a healer of the insides.

Despite my level of discomfort during this part of the conversation, I felt honored afterward feeling as if she put herself in a vulnerable place by sharing that part of her culture with me. I also felt a little bit humbled, as my usual response to such things is to relegate them to the category of tribal hocus-pocus. However, given this experience, my assumptions are now being re-ordered. One thing was certain, we came from very different cultural backgrounds.

After this ‘reading,’ I was able to redirect the conversation back toward her and the present situation with her live-in partner. And, in the following discussion she seemed to feel much safer, sharing with me her worries, grief and flowing tears. When she cried harder, she spoke a few words in a language I didn’t recognize, presumably the language of her native village. I was blessed to simply sit with her.

This snippet is one of many opportunities I’ve had this unit to minister to and be with people from a culture or cultures either mostly or completely unrepresented in the south. One of the lessons this visit, and others like it, taught me is that grief is universal. While expressions of grief vary between cultures, indeed they vary person to person; the pain of loss seems to remain a constant across humanity.

One social justice issue present in this visit was whether or not the medical staff would treat this woman with all the rights and privileges of a legal spouse or keep her at arms length, because she lacked a piece of paper from the court house with their names on it. In the end, aside from one comment by a nurse, she was treated as the spouse and spokes person for the patient who died soon after in the ER.

I am missing a leg...

...and Lola is missing some fur.

Isn't this picture pitiful? Yesterday, we took the dogs to an off-leash dog park in town. It's at beautiful University Lake (which is more like a large pond). There is a large open space just for running, playing, romping, frisbee and of course Lola's favorite, fetch. For those of you who've seen Lola play fetch, you can vouch that, never has another dog bested her at getting to the ball first. There's also a great walking trail all the way around the lake.

So, there we are, playing fetch, meeting other dogs, chasing tails and sniffing butts (well, Heather didn't sniff any butts). After some hard running fetch we noticed a small bit of blood in the snow (yes we still have snow in April here; in fact, it snowed a little today!). Lola had a few paws bleeding. This is not good, but it's not new either. She runs so hard, giving 110%, that she sometimes tears up her little hound feet. We stopped fetching.

I rubbered on her for a moment and noticed blood on my hand when I pulled it away. She had a wound on her side, too! It isn't uncommon for small short-lived scuffles to happen at dog parks. One dog overwhelms another who then growls, barks or snaps briefly, and it's over. Lola was even involved in one just after arriving (our problem child).

But, there was this one dog, Basil. And, he kept antagonizing Lola, barking at her from close behind whenever she was waiting for me to throw the ball. She would get aggrivated, and then correct him by barking back and growling back in his direction. She even chased him away a time or two, but he persistently came back. It is more aggrivating in hind sight than it was at the time.

Upon, finding a puncture wound on her side, we called it quits and left. We decided to take her to the Vet ER only a block from out apartment. And, because it was a beautiful and warm day yesterday (in the low 40s), the ER was quite busy. So, we waited (and watched half of Wall-E in the waiting room) and waited more. The doc finally got to Lola, heard our story and hardly checked her over, "I'll have to shave and clean the wounded area before we can tell what we're dealing with, but I'll give her a little pain medicine in the mean time."

Because Lola wasn't an emergency, she got put down a ways in the pecking barking order. We reluctantly left her in their able care and with Dakota still in the truck went home, one family member short. They called an hour or so later after the doc had had a closer look.The bleeding feet were no big deal, just some rough play resulting in some minor cuts. A little ointment and a few days to heal. Her side wound, according to the doctor, was clearly from a bite. More than just a puncture, she said Lola had been bitten and the skin pulled away, separating it from the underlayer. She needed to cut the skin a little more in order to properly clean it and then suture it back up. We were warned that it would be expensive.

They had to keep her overnight, mostly because the minor surgery wouldn't be happening for a few hours. So, we went to bed, again one member short. It felt wierd at home last night without our little fountain of energy plunking around the apartment behind me.

We called in the morning, and the doc said Lola did great. Before both going to work, we went and picked her up. For payment, oddly enough, they didn't want any money. They said they'd be fine if I just cut off my leg and handed it over to them. I thought that was a deal, so I went for it. (What? You don't want an arm too?) The leg I've been walking around all day is actually a prosthetic one, made of metal from the space ship, like Lt. Dan.

Here's a little ethical(?) question. Before leaving her at the Vet, we had to sign a paper stating whether or not we would want them to do CPR on Lola should something happen. Honestly, there was no easy answer for us. The form said that it can cost $500 just to start CPR. This made me ponder how much a dog is worth. Now, don't get me wrong. If you know me, you know how much I love my dogs. And my other thought was, if we get to the point where CPR is required, let's just let nature take its course. In the end, we signed that yes they should do CPR, but mostly because there was virtually no chance of them needing to.

At work I go over Living Wills/Advance Directives with people on a regular basis. I'd never thought of needing one for my dog.

Anyway, Lola is back home, she's a little mopey, but she's got her own little pills of doggy pain killers. Maybe I could sell them to my father-in-law! Just kidding. (But really, Randy, we'll talk later!) So, send your good vibes Lola-ward, we're going to be leaving her later this week with a house sitter for a few days as we travel back to NC. Hopefully, as her fur grows in, my leg will grow back.

If Moses had Google

Hey all, here's an entertaining video a friend showed me the other day. It answers the question, "What if Moses had had google?" 

Enjoy.

(You may want to make if full screen if you can. Some of the writing is small.) 

If you had trouble viewing it here, click here to watch on YouTube.

Adios!

Was Jesus Gay?

Well, was he?

The Bible holds no record that Jesus was married. And, in the the book of John, one of the disciples (some think it was the author of the book, but this most like isn't the case) was always referred to as the one whom Jesus loved (for an example see John 13:23). Jesus also predominantly hung out with a group of dudes. So, the question: was Jesus gay?

Before some of you balk too drastically at the absurdity of this question (presumably you're angrily reacting: of course he was not gay!!!!), know that the title to this blog is more for the purpose of grabbing your attention. I personally don't think Jesus was gay, but in all historical honestly we must admit together: we'll never know.

I did run across a provocative quote recently (forgive me for forgetting the author and being too lazy to go find it) that says, "Why do so many Christians worry about gays but not poverty?" And, I thought this was a good question. The Christians who believe being gay is a sin and will send you to hell too often forget or neglect those people who are impoverished and are already going through hell on the streets each night.

A number of Biblical scholars have made concerted attempts to exegete the Bible to show/prove that the Bible doesn't address modern homosexuality (see John Shelby Spong's Living in Sin: The Bible and Homosexuality). And, there is something to this proposition. While men having sex with men (and the same for women) did happen in antiquity, the modern notion of two men or women having a long-term monogomous relationship was simply outside of the cultural realm of possibility. In that way, the Bible doesn't address modern homosexuality.

There's also something to the fact that Leviticus directly condemns man-on-man sex, as well Paul, in Romans, lists sex between two men as sinful (right before he tells his readers that they're just as sinful!). So, it's worth while to consider that at least some of the biblical authors likely thought homosexuality (or some form thereof) was bad, not preferred, sinful, not useful for procreation (this last one was probably their biggest concern).

When considering Paul's stance (since so many Christians seem to listen to Paul more than Jesus) on this issue, I would like to pose this question, "Is is possible that Paul was just wrong?" I mean, he was wrong when he wrote that Jesus would be returing in the flesh very soon. It's been 2,000 years and no Jesus. I think we've exhausted the extent of the word, soon.

200 years ago, virtually everyone in the United States thought that slavery was moral and that God looked favorably upon slavery as "the way things ought to be.' The Bible was often cited as one of the cheif proponents of slavery. Then around the middle of the 19th century, when the country was split on the issue, the Bible was used to defend both sides of the argument. But now, in 2011, virtually all of us agree that slavery is, in fact, bad, wrong, sinful, not preferred. And, we use the Bible to support this thought.

I think we are in the middle of a similar kind of progression. Not too long ago, the vast majority of Americans (especially Christians) held that homosexuality was wrong. Currently, there's a strong divide on the issue and the Bible is being cited to defend both sides. I personally look forward to the day when gay-bashing is a thing of the past at which we hang our shameful heads.  And, I hope to live to see that day. I can't think of a worse way to spread "God's love" by telling someone he's going to hell (as some of my gay friends have been told).

I recently read an article/blog about this kind of cultural shift from shaming a thing to accepting it. It was very enlightening and spoke to this subject. Click here to read it.

Where do I stand on the issue? Though I grew up being told that it was wrong and sinful by family, culture and the Southern Baptist Convention, I personally feel very welcoming and affirming of people with non-hetersexual preference. I also don't think it's my business to know if or if not another person is gay/lesbian. Asking someone if she's gay is as invasive as me asking you what your favorite sexual position is (also something I don't want to know). If you are ever asked if someone else is gay, I recommend responding, "I don't know that person that well." (For the yaars.)

When I imagine Jesus encountering a modern gay person, I think back to all of the Bible stories of Jesus meeting other ostracized, marginalized and outcast members of society. And, how did Jesus respond? By welcoming them, hugging leppers, speaking to and respecting women, mingling with the poor and inviting children in. I can't imagine Jesus responding any differently to a modern person who happens to be homosexual. So, how could I, how could we, think of responding any differently?

I also realize that this is still a heated issue for many people. (If you're somone with lots of energy on this topic, know that your energy is coming from fear and not from theological righteousness.) And, this will liely be a heated issue for a while. Hence, I choose to respect your position on this issue if it is different than mine. In return I ask for the same respect, and I'm happy to dialogue on the issue with anyone interested. Comments are welcome, please keep them civil.