I, The Challenge

It's not news to me that I present a challenge to people. I've been a challenge to my parents since the day I was born and I fully believe that's one of the reasons why I still live at home: there is still more yet for them to learn.

My mom grimaced when she saw my first earring. She winced and said she still loved me when she saw my first tattoo. And she has argued with me until the wee hours of the morning over issues regarding politics and religion. And yet she is still able to recognize me as her son. Despite her lack of agreement, she's come to the place of understanding.

The Pharisees were the bane of Jesus' existence while he was here on earth. He couldn't do a single thing right by them. But for every law that the Pharisees perceived Jesus to break, whether it was healing on the Sabbath or forgiving sins, his reply over and over was, "YOU GUYS ARE MISSING THE POINT ENTIRELY!" Jesus was a challenge to the Pharisees. But there are two sides to challenges: the Pharisees were challenged by Jesus' very existence; the disciples were challenged because they knew Jesus. One man. Two types of people. Opposite sides of the challenge.

It didn't matter what day of the week Jesus healed people on. The point is that he did. I could remove my earrings. I can cover my tattoos. I can even entertain differing political opinions. But that's not the point. The point is trying to understand that which is deeper than what you see. Take those things away from me and it doesn't change who I am. They are peripheral, not essential. They help to understand, but they are not understanding in and of themselves. I'm more than my earrings, tattoos, and political views.

And yes, I am aware that that rhymed.

That's My Boss...

Today we replaced the electrical panel in a house in West Ghent. This was an exchange I had with my boss.

"So, is somebody moving out or did someone just buy this place?" I asked.
My boss replied, "A couple of gay guys just bought it."
"Ah...that would explain the clothes hanging in the closet then, " I speculated.
"What, do they have a bunch of costumes or something?"

The imagination can only assume what my boss was referring to with that question. I guess he has some weird association with gays and costumes.

"No, I just meant they have some really nice clothes hanging up. That, and a bunch of shoes."

Money, Fashion, and Reality

The other day I was at a customer's house trying to figure out how their security camera system worked. We installed it, along with the rest of the electrical devices in the house, as they underwent a multi-million dollar renovation lasting over a year. The lady got agitated when she found out I wasn't an expert at explaining security camera systems. This got me thinking about the other electronics in the house: flat panel TV's, a surround sound system integrated throughout the house, a separate security system....the list goes on. She had all of this stuff in her house and not only does she not understand how it works, she barely knows how to turn on the TV! Why on earth would anybody shell out that much money for something they will never realize the full benefit of?

And then it hit me: it's fashionable. It's fashionable to to appear as though you're in the position to throw around money. It's fashionable to say, "I'm not sure how this thing works, I don't even know what it does! But I still spent twenty grand on it anyways.." And everyone who sees it will marvel.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was sitting in my truck eating lunch and listening to the Jefferson Hour on NPR. Jefferson's idea for the New World was for it to be a largely agrarian society. Self-sufficient farming, for Jefferson, was the essence of all that is real. The commentator explained it this way: You must remove yourself from the world of monetary economics to see your worth and what is real. Reality is tending your garden. Reality is watching a sunset on the beach. Reality is connecting to that which is greater than yourself, whether that be art, music, or God. And it has very little, if anything, to do with fashion.

As it turns out, I'm only an expert at reading the User's Manual for security camera systems and figuring it out from there.

The Luckiest

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns — the stumbles and the falls
Brought me here
And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face
Now I see it everyday
And I know that I am the luckiest
~ben folds

My Two Cents

My girlfriend has been discussing the issue of homosexuality on her blog as of late. I figured I would throw my two cents into the pot.

The issue really comes down to love and how we as humans, as Christians, define it...and where we draw the boundaries of that love. So often, especially when addressing homosexuality, people take on the attitude of loving the sinner, hating the sin. But is that really possible? This equates to saying "I love you, but..." If there is a "but" immediately following "love," is there really any love there to begin with?

The Church seems to treat homosexuality as the illegitimate child of the fallen world. It's an attitude of "it's been dropped in our laps, how will we respond to it?" Unfortunately, the Church feels it necessary to take a hard, dividing line of intolerance. This isn't totally surprising. The church is still divided between hymns and praise choruses: tradition versus change. Perhaps people gather together in a building every week to worship the tradition, and not the dynamic Object of that tradition.

But, I digress. The issue is love with no "ifs", "ands", or "buts." We cannot let homosexuality overshadow how we see people just like we can't let the color of someone's skin dictate how they are treated. Christ taught us how to love and how to see people as human beings, not how to categorize and set up boundaries that we won't allow love to transcend. Christ saw our humanity and was filled with compassion. This is what we should strive for, this should be our goal; not using faith to separate and elevate ourselves above humanity so that we can look down on the world of sinners. The Pharisees already tried that strategy and it didn't win them any points.

Roadblocks

I got off work today with a vision and a determination to be productive: laundry. Job applications. Alphabetize my CDs. More laundry. Instead, I came home to my parents, who enjoy holding about eight different conversations with me simultaneously. My resolve for the evening was thwarted from the get-go. That was the first roadblock. I ate dinner, hoping to regroup and refocus. I decided to start with job applications. Software needed to be loaded first. Installation disks needed to be located before that. Roadblock #2. After it was all said and done, the application I had started would need to be re-done in a new format. Frustrated, I tried to move in a new direction: laundry! Nothing can stand in the way of clean clothes, right? WRONG! It's hard to determine which clothes piled on the floor are clean and which ones are dirty when the decade old remote mechanism for the ceiling fan refuses to illuminate the room with its one-touch button feature. Roadblock #3. I tried a new battery. I soaked the terminal connections in vinegar. No dice. It's hard enough to find clean socks on the floor in the daytime; it's near impossible to find dirty socks in the dark. I managed to persevere. But by this time, I was ready to cut my losses on the evening and take a nap. The end result was a computer with Office XP loaded, and one load of laundry done. I guess my CDs will have to wait their turn to be alphabetized.